Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Fairfax proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

This Government's risky and expensive plan to rely wholly on renewables to meet Australia's energy needs

I call upon those honourable members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There was some encouraging news last night coming out of COP29. I'm not sure if everybody read the media release from the UK government, but it talks about a new deal being signed to speed up advanced nuclear technologies. That sounds pretty good. In the media release, it talks about the importance of nuclear energy to speed up the deployment of cutting-edge technology to decarbonise industry and boost energy security. And here's the best thing of the lot, the last paragraph. For those who haven't read it, it said:

The new agreement will come into force from 1 March 2025.

It is expected to also be signed by Canada, France, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Republic of South Africa, China, Euratom, Switzerland and—I'm not sure if I can do a drum roll; can I, Mr Speaker?—Australia! How good is that? Congratulations to the Albanese Labor government for committing to sign a deal for nuclear energy with our allies in AUKUS and a string of other nations. Isn't that fantastic?

I think the Albanese have come to the realisation that, when it comes to a decarbonised electricity grid, history shows that five of the 10 fastest decarbonisations come from nuclear energy. I think the Albanese government have realised that, with the exception of Australia, all advanced economies in the G20 either use nuclear energy today or are moving towards it. I think they have come to realise that all the major banks in the world are now out there seeking deals to back in, to finance, nuclear energy plants. I think maybe they found out that the biggest tech companies, whether it be Google, Amazon, Microsoft, are looking at nuclear energy to power their futures. So I got excited because I thought we would be signing a deal to join the rest of the world when it comes to nuclear energy.

But then I felt a bit sad. I felt sad because the government seems to have changed its mind. The government has put out a set of comments in response to the Guardian. The Guardian asked the government to 'please explain', and the government said, 'No, Australia is not signing this agreement, as we do not have a nuclear energy industry.' It goes on to say, 'We will not be signing up to this agreement.'

This is extraordinary. You would think that, when we're talking about pulling out of a deal that has just been announced by the UK government in one of their press releases, the Prime Minister, the foreign minister or, at the very least, the climate change and energy minister would make a statement. But, true to form, true to the cowardly, weak performance of the Albanese government, guess who made this announcement on behalf of the Albanese government. A spokesperson. A spokesperson made it.

When something tough from the Albanese government has to be said, out comes that mystery person—the spokesperson. Seriously!

Here's the second most concerning piece of information that came from the Albanese government—the first, of course, being that they are now pulling out of this agreement. When they talk about Australia's engagement, through ANSTO, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, with the Gen IV International Forum, which is an international forum that looks at advanced nuclear technologies, they refer to Australia now having observer status. Where this is important is that Australia has not been an observer. In this international forum, Australia has had full membership. We find out from the mystery spokesperson that Australia's role in this international forum—since 2017, by the way—has now been demoted. What country demotes its own status in an international forum? The Albanese government does—from membership status to observer status.

I thought I'd better check out what this is about, and I did. I went to the Gen IV International Forum's annual report of 2023. It's very clear in here, because it says Australia is a member. It makes it very clear. The first paragraph of appendix 1 says:

Australia continues to be a committed and cooperative member of the Generation IV International Forum …

Do you know what else it says about the Australian government's view on nuclear energy, no less? It says that the Australian government continues to recognise that nuclear energy is a mature technology, delivers reliable electricity, has zero greenhouse gas emissions, has low life-cycle emissions and has the highest standards of safeguards, safety and security.

Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sounds terribly expensive.

Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Aha! I'll take the interjection from the Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy. You can always sniff a rat when the Socialist Left of Labor start sounding like economic rationalists. Now the argument from Labor is: 'Oh, yes, nuclear energy—tick, tick, tick. But the economics don't stack up.' You can just imagine, of course, that when the Prime Minister was over there meeting with President Biden he was explaining that the economics don't stack up with the US's plan to sign this agreement. I'm sure he said the same to Chinese President Xi Jinping. I'm sure he said the same to Prime Minister Starmer from the UK, showing him those intelligent memes from the Labor Party to demonstrate that the economics do not stack up for nuclear energy.

The Minister for Climate Change and Energy has been on record many a time suggesting that the real cost of Labor's plan to deliver a net zero electricity grid is $122 billion. When you're looking at the pathway to a net zero electricity grid, you have to compare one pathway to another, and we will be showing all the economics before this next election.

Before the member leaves after having a giggle, he should listen to this one. The team from Frontier Economics, an independent body, costed Labor's plan. Did it cost $122 billion? I give it to you once, twice—are you going to interject? No, he doesn't. Guess how much it really cost? It cost $642 billion. Now guess how many times more expensive that is than what the minister told us. It is five times more expensive—that's how much. Before you leave the chamber, member for Solomon: it is five times more expensive than what your minister told you and the rest of Australia, which is not true.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry. I want to stop [inaudible].

Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Are we able to stop the clock?

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The clock is still going, and you're wasting your own side's time.

Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Are we able to stop the clock?

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You've got 35 seconds left. Go for it.

Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me, in my 35 seconds, point out some of the reasons it's five times more expensive. Firstly, there's the hidden cost for transmission lines—$62 billion. The current asset base is $26 billion. They're going to add another $62 billion and they haven't told the Australian people. They have a shadow carbon price. It's worth $70 now. Gillard introduced it at $24. It's going to be over $400 by 2050. This is the secret cost of their plan, and this is why it's going to be a complete disaster under this Albanese government. Tell the truth— (Time expired)

Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today's matter of public importance debate is brought to you by the outfit that can't be bothered to have a national energy policy. They couldn't be bothered to have a national energy policy for the 10 years they were in government. They don't have a national energy policy now. The shadow minister for energy was challenging me to 'tell the truth'. When are we going to learn the details of their nuclear scam? He just said, 'Before the next election.' It's previously been said to be before the end of the year. The clock is ticking. There's never been an opposition that's been given as much licence as they have in relation to this ridiculous policy. He's just had 10 minutes, and we still don't know when the reactors are going to be delivered, who's going to build them, how much they'll cost to be built and how much they'll cost to operate. We don't know anything about the one single idea. There is no policy; there is just a fantasy.

Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You clearly haven't read the policy.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Fairfax, no more interjections please.

Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The outfit that never bothered to have a national energy policy in their entire 10 years of government and doesn't have a national energy policy now has never seen a dodgy scare campaign that it doesn't want to grab with both hands. This is an outfit that loves nothing more than a cocked-up, made-to-order independent report from its mates at Frontier Economics. Does it ever listen to expert advice and analysis? No. Does it ever give respect to organisations like the Australian Energy Market Operator? No. But Frontier Economics—the same crew that developed Tony Abbott's direct action plan?—yes please; come in, spinner. And how did that go? We inherited high and rising prices from those opposite, including energy prices, and we've done two things: we've taken action to provide relief, and we've taken action to set Australia up for a better future. We've taken action to deliver a cheaper and cleaner energy system in the long term.

What has the coalition done? They've obstructed every single piece of cost relief that has been designed to help Australian households that are doing it tough, and they've obstructed every bit of reform that we have pursued in trying to clean up their awful mess. They obstructed the gas price caps at the end of 2022. They've obstructed energy price relief on every occasion that we've tried to deliver that to Australian households and, of course, every single bit of reform that we've come along with after a decade of neglect, after a decade of no national energy plan—a decade in which energy generation in Australia went backwards by one gigawatt. And the only thing that the former minister for energy was prepared to do in the face of high and rising prices and in the face of decreasing energy supply was to come along at the last moment and try to hide from the Australian people the fact that energy prices were rising in the shadow of an election.

We will continue to focus on supporting Australian households and supporting Australian businesses, and we will focus on creating a cheaper, cleaner and more secure and self-sufficient Australian energy system. That will have direct benefits to households. That will have direct benefits to businesses. But of course it has other benefits, too, because the world is going through a clean energy transformation, and there are opportunities for us, with our comparative advantages when it comes to wind, solar, storage and other forms of green technology. We have to get these for the benefit of businesses in this country, for the benefit of export and for the benefit of Australian workers.

What we have done has seen electricity prices fall.

Indeed, they've fallen 12.3 per cent since June 2023. Without the direct energy bill relief that we've supplied, they would be 15.4 per cent higher now. That is relief to Australian households that those opposite opposed. Every time people get their bills and see the relief that we've delivered, they should know how much worse it would be if those opposite had their way.

We know that building a cleaner and cheaper energy future requires more renewables and storage because it's the cheapest form of new energy generation, and, frankly, Australians know that, because one in three Australians have home solar PV. It delivers cheaper energy to them. Last week, for the first time, we crossed four million households in Australia, out of 11½ million households, with solar PV. We have the highest penetration of solar PV in the world because it allows people to have access to cheaper energy. That technology has become more efficient over time—a lot of it with Australian innovation built into it—and it's become cheaper. In fact, solar PV for households has become 85 per cent cheaper over the last 10 years.

We are now working to extend those benefits to more Australians, particularly to those who face the most disadvantage. We have the Social Housing Energy Performance Initiative, which is delivering the benefits of solar and batteries to social housing tenants around Australia. I was glad to be in South Australia when we announced that program earlier, and I've seen a couple of community batteries that have been opened in South Australia, where, in each case, 300 social housing tenants are getting the benefit of virtual power plants to bring down their energy prices, on average, by $550 a year. That's the kind of work that we are focused on. That's the kind of better future we are trying to build for Australians.

The shadow minister was part of a do-nothing government that gave Australia high energy prices, energy insecurity and a reduction in energy generation. Now those opposite, after having done nothing for 10 years, are only in the game of fearmongering and obstruction and dodgy made-to-order reports. While those opposite try to deceive and scare Australians with the daft renewable energy slogan that we hear so often, the Australian community know that they're looking at what is in effect an obstruction-only coalition, a fearmongering-only coalition and, unfortunately, a nuclear-only coalition.

The shadow minister was talking before about some of the things that are true about nuclear technology. It's mature. It's been around for 70 years; it's not a new technology. It has never been able to address its biggest flaw, which is its unbelievable, eye-watering cost. I just talked about solar energy getting cheaper—85 per cent cheaper in the last 10 years. Nuclear energy has got more and more expensive over time. The capital costs have become more expensive. The operating costs have become more expensive. We know that, if those opposite got the chance to inflict nuclear energy on the Australian community, it would take 15 to 20 years, it would cost $600 billion and it would cost every Australian household $1,200 or more per annum. That is the reality of nuclear energy. It is slow to deliver. It is inflexible, uncommercial, uninvestable and uninsurable, not to mention dangerous and risky.

And it is in decline worldwide. The shadow minister tries to tell a story that suggests that actually nuclear is going big elsewhere. It is not. Nuclear energy peaked as a proportion of global energy in 1996. Twenty-eight years ago, nuclear energy peaked as a proportion of global energy, and it has been falling since then. The number of reactors worldwide peaked in 2002. Twenty-two years ago, the number of reactors peaked. There are fewer now. Last year, globally, the world added 440 gigawatts of new non-hydro renewables, and nuclear energy generation went backwards by one gigawatt—plus 440 gigawatts of new renewables and minus one gigawatt of new nuclear.

If you look at the United States, which is currently the largest generator of nuclear energy, they added 39 gigawatts of new renewables last year and no new nuclear. That is the reality. China added 217 gigawatts of new renewables and only one gigawatt of new nuclear. That is the reality of nuclear worldwide. It is in decline. It is not growing. As a proportion of energy it is lower than it was 28 years ago, and in countries like France and the US it's at a 25-year low.

One of the things that they have promised is that there will be small modular reactors for some communities in Australia, including Collie in Western Australia. There is no such thing as a small modular reactor. They don't exist. The poster child of the modular reactor world was the NuScale modular reactor, which the shadow minister himself was deeply in love with. It began by claiming in 2019 that it would deliver in 2024—that it would be operative this year—720 megawatts for $8 billion. In 2023 the revised projection was going to deliver one-third less power for $14 billion in 2029. It revised its initial estimates by saying it would deliver one-third less power for 75 per cent more cost and a five-year delay. And then—tick, tick, tick, boom—it disappeared altogether. It crashed and burned and it took $900 million of US taxpayers' money with it. That is the kind of nutty project that those opposite would like to inflict on the Australian community.

Melissa McIntosh (Lindsay, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Energy Affordability) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is extraordinary to know that our representative at COP29, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, has turned his back on our closest allies, possibly after confusing them when the UK put out that media release, as the member for Fairfax highlighted. I will just read some quotes from the Australian, where it says that the UK and the US expected Australia to sign the agreement, as well as 'willing parties, including Canada, France, Japan, Republic of Korea, Republic of South Africa, China and Switzerland', but, through a statement from his office, Mr Bowen totally rejected the invitation. I was wondering what he was doing at that time that was so much more important than responding to our closest allies' invitation. 'Australia is not signing this agreement as we do not have a nuclear energy industry.' 'Nuclear power is outlawed in Australia. We will continue to work closely with our international partners to reach net zero.' I think we declined that invitation to work closely with our international partners. 'Our international partners understand that Australia's abundance of renewable energy resources makes nuclear power'—he goes on and on and on, but he declined the invitation. But here he argues that 'Australia is much sunnier than the UK'. What a great reason to say no to our closest allies, the United Kingdom and the United States, some of the world's leaders in civil nuclear energy. They know nuclear is a future for defence, for industry, to power homes and to lower emissions. The minister is refusing to engage with our allies, and it's quite an embarrassing approach for our nation.

Every day in parliament since the Albanese Labor government was elected, we've fought back against this silly renewables-only approach because it is harming Australians, who believed in that $275 promise—and now where are we on that? Not a peep, not a word—just a broken promise. It's a pity that the minister isn't here today to take part in the battle of ideas on our nation 's future to have lower energy prices. He is at COP, but he's not responding to invitations, so we don't really know what he's doing, because he's sending out his spokesperson to do his work for him. We need a consistent, reliable and cheap energy system. Unfortunately, as we've just said, he is missing in action.

I also want to talk about gas, because this is the form of energy that every single manufacturer across Western Sydney is desperately crying out for when I go speak to them. They were confused as well by this government and the minister on the approach to gas. The market operator has noted that more gas is needed to ensure that lights don't go out, but Labor is constantly chipping at the knees of our gas companies. Gas is needed to heat our homes, to cook our food and, as I said, to heat our heavy industry. Without gas, our sovereign capability will fade away. In the face of growing tensions in our region, we need to ensure that we can rely on energy sources that keep the lights on and power our businesses.

The Leader of the Opposition and I attended a brickworks at Austral recently, and they needed gas desperately to produce bricks that are needed to build the homes that will get us out of this housing crisis. Mascot Steel, in Emu Plains, needs gas to fabricate steel to ensure that we do have sovereign capability in this country. Pandrol, in Blacktown, needs gas to make parts for our railways, again ensuring that we have sovereign manufacturing in Australia.

Our railways are the lifeline for many state transport networks when parts are needed. These are just a few examples of where gas is needed in Western Sydney alone. This is why we're backing gas, along with nuclear energy, along with so many other countries around the world. In fact, as we've just heard, we've been invited to join them.

Households in Western Sydney are paying $1,000 more on their energy bills. As the member who spoke previously stated, people are actually paying more, and they're lining up at those foodbanks and are struggling like never before. Ideology over practicality on energy is failing Australia. In fact, this government is failing Australia every step of the way when it comes to energy affordability.

Dan Repacholi (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yet again I have to stand in this place and speak on a motion moved by those opposite that just doesn't make sense. But it's a pleasure to rise today to speak on this matter of public importance, because renewable energy is an issue of vital importance to Australia's future energy security. I must admit, I'm baffled by the opposition—their renewables policies and their obsession with nuclear power. It's as though they've been watching too much sci-fi, imagining a future powered by reactors that, let's be honest, will take decades to come online and will cost taxpayers an absolute fortune.

I've had the joy of spending time with the shadow minister recently, and I'd be the first to say that he's not a terrible bloke. But let's call it for what it is: he doesn't give a stuff about facts; he doesn't give a stuff about regional Australia. Here's the difference between you and me, champ: this isn't a political game to me. I'm a former coalminer who lives in one of these regions. I actually care about the future energy needs and the future of our region, because they're my mates and they're my family. I actually think people in the regions deserve facts on this nuclear dream of his. It's a costly nightmare for the regions and for the taxpayers.

But let's look at the facts, because someone in this chamber has to. Building a nuclear power plant in Australia will take at least 20 years, even if everything goes smoothly. Meanwhile, coal-fired power stations like Callide and Tarong are closing as soon as 2028. That's a gap we just can't afford in terms of jobs and energy security. Electrical Trades Union Secretary Michael Wright told a committee: 'No worker engaged in a coal-fired generator anywhere in the Hunter or more broadly in Australia will be able to transition straight into a nuclear generator. It is simply not conceivable.' The committee has heard from experts telling us it will take eight to 10 years just to get a regulatory framework in place for nuclear energy in Australia. The shadow minister's own US based experts let slip this week that it will take at least 12 years to build a single nuclear reactor. That's 20 years lead time before we see a watt of electricity for their nuclear fantasy.

I notice he's just left the place; he didn't want to hear this. So, that's mid-2040s. And what's the price tag for this? The best estimate is tens of billions per reactor—and that's before we account for cost overruns, delays and the massive subsidies required to make it remotely viable. We trust the experts. We have crunched the numbers. Replacing a fraction of Australia's retiring coal-fired generation with nuclear will cost $600 billion. This is money we simply don't have. The experts of the Smart Energy Council predict that Dutton's seven nuclear reactors will provide only 3.7 per cent of Australia's energy mix in 2050.

Instead of spending billions on nuclear power that won't come online until the 2040s or 2050s, we could invest in renewables and storage solutions, firmed up by gas, that are cheaper, faster and ready to deliver now. But here's the kicker: the opposition hasn't provided a single detail of their nuclear plan—sorry: policy, or so-called policy. All they have provided is a list of sites. They haven't told us how many generators they will be putting into each site, just that it will be a multiple. Where's their plan for waste disposal? Where's their funding model?

The shadow minister can't even answer these questions, because he hasn't done the work. And do you know why? It's because he doesn't give a stuff about regional communities, who will be left holding the bag when the costs blow out.

The opposition's lack of detail is, frankly, insulting to Australians, who just want answers. It's easy to throw around buzzwords like 'clean' and 'reliable', but when you dig beneath the surface, their nuclear plan is little more than wishful thinking.

Australians deserve better. They deserve leadership that prioritises solutions, not delays. They deserve policies based on facts, not fantasies. Most of all, they deserve an energy strategy that delivers affordability, sustainability and jobs, not a nuclear black hole that will leave us all poorer.

We care about creating jobs now, not decades down the track, so those opposite should stop drinking the nuclear Kool-Aid and get on with the job of powering Australia's future. Ignoring facts does nothing to provide cheap and reliable energy to Australians. Those opposite misled the Australian people on energy prices, and now they're misleading them about our energy policies. Peter Dutton can't be trusted on energy, or on anything else for that matter. Have a good, hard look at yourself, Mr Dutton.

Simon Kennedy (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Hunter talks about being misleading on energy. I'd just like to remind the member that this is from a government that promised $275 off power bills. There are people in my electorate who are paying a thousand dollars more after that promise, so they've already been misled.

The member for Hunter also talked about affordable and sustainable energy. Labor is failing Australia on both of those measures. Labor has failed to bring down energy prices. Since Labor were elected and took government, prices are more than 20 per cent higher. Labor is failing to adequately decarbonise the grid, when no expert believes we're on track to reach 2030, 2035 or 2050 carbonisation targets.

Labor's plan means higher prices and risks rolling blackouts, and Australians know this. They know it because they feel it. Every time they look at their bill and every time they struggle with the cost of living, they know this plan is not delivering what it promised. And why are prices going up? Why are we on track to miss our targets? It's because there isn't a real plan there. They don't know what it will cost. AEMO and the nuclear inquiry admitted that they didn't know what it would cost. They admitted their plan doesn't cost the actual Labor plan. What they can cost is narrowly prescribed.

For the first time we've had someone research the entire cost. Frontier Economics, an independent organisation, has modelled it to be $640 billion. That's more than $25,000 for each Australian. This is because Frontier has looked at it and has said:

Most of these costs—

many of which are yet to be incurred—

are treated by AEMO and NEM governments as "sunk", even though the majority of these projects are yet to be developed.

They went on to say:

Customers and taxpayers will, of course, pay for these projects irrespective of how AEMO classify them.

They also said:

This is likely to be an underestimate of the costs given the propensity for project costs, and particularly transmission projects, to blowout …

Australia is now being left behind the rest of the world. Of the G20 countries, there are only three nations with no plans to build nuclear reactors, and of these three nations—the other two being Germany and Spain—we are the only market that does not import nuclear energy. Microsoft, Amazon and Google are now investing billions of dollars. Figures given to me by the Parliamentary Library show that Canada, the US and Korea—all countries with nuclear power as part of their mix—have much lower prices compared to Australia. In Canada it's US$127, in the US it's US$137, and in Korea it's US$151, whereas in Australia it's US$212.

The US Department of Energy recently released a report that modelled the Californian grid. California is a state on the Pacific Ocean. It has lots of wind and lots of inland land with lots of sun. They looked at what it would cost the Californian grid to be on solar and wind. Then they looked at what it would cost for the Californian grid to be on solar, wind and nuclear. What did the US Department of Energy find about introducing nuclear into a solar and wind grid? It found prices would go down by 37 per cent.

With all this new information, and understanding that we have an energy plan that pre-dates the advent and the take-off of AI, which has seen some of the most environmentally conscious companies in the world—Microsoft, Google, Amazon—invest billions of dollars in nuclear, what have we done? We've actually reneged on and exited from an agreement with our closest allies, the US and the UK.

On this agreement, we were talking about where nuclear is at in the world. Well, last year at COP-28, 31 countries signed up to triple nuclear energy—a 300 per cent increase—by 2050. Then they followed that up this year, announcing that we along with France, Korea, Japan, Canada and Switzerland would be joining a collaborative research group to share research and intelligence on nuclear energy. What is the downside for the Australian people in being a part of that? But no sooner had the US and the UK announced this than, embarrassingly, Australia reneged on this—reneged from this information, reneged from having facts and reneged from having a mature debate.

I'm also part of the Select Committee on Nuclear Energy, and we've heard a lot of testimony, most recently from a Green, Tyrone D'Lisle, who challenged Peter Dutton in 2013—and I quote him from last week in the area where he's from in Queensland—who said:

"I came to look at the scale of the climate challenge and what would be required to genuinely address it … we just won't be able to achieve it unless we include technologies like nuclear energy"—

(Time expired)

Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'Risky and expensive' sounds like a good working definition of the coalition's half-baked nuclear plans to meet Australia's energy needs. You can add to that 'useless', unless you plan on going to sleep like some sort of Rip Van Winkle for the next 20 years or more—20 years of paying a fortune to build nuclear power stations. And who will pay? Taxpayers are expected to pay for this coalition's plan.

The member for Fairfax is not a good listener. He certainly didn't listen to his own leader, Peter Dutton, when last year, on 2 March, in a sit-down interview, he said: 'I don't support the establishment of big nuclear facilities. I'm opposed to it.' The member for Fairfax certainly did not listen to the advice from the CSIRO about the terrible costs of nuclear energy, which have put out that for a single large-scale reactor in Australia, at around $16 billion and 20 years to build, multiplied by the number of reactors required—according to the coalition's only piece of detail provided—would be about $600 billion that taxpayers would have to pay.

The member for Fairfax isn't listening to people like the executive director of the International Energy Agency, who was unimpressed and advised Australia to prioritise our untapped potential in solar and wind power. He's certainly not listening to the coalmine operators, because if he did, he would hear that generators will be decommissioned by the early 2030s. In fact, in WA the coal-fired power plant at Collie is expected to reach its end of life by 2027. So any nuclear power in Australia—assuming that the legislation that has banned its use is revoked by the Liberals, assuming that we could find experienced, skilled nuclear physicists and engineers needed to be able to commission such a facility, and assuming that we've got all the regulations in place, the planning and the community support—would, at the earliest, happen by the mid-2040s. So the economics are junk and the reality of the policy—or the plan, because it's really not a policy, is it?—is junk, because you've got this massive gap between the end of life of our existing coal facilities and their supposed solution instead.

I have a thought for the member for Fairfax: if he thought that his party room was united around this, surely he has to think again. He only needs to look to his left and he'll see the coalition's National members, who would dearly like to have this nuclear bomb go away, especially in their electorates, with an election coming. The member for Fairfax could then look to his right, and he'll see an LNP member who additionally knows that the Liberals and the Nationals have only ever talked about nuclear energy in opposition, never while they were in government. They did nothing on this policy while there were in government, and they've certainly done nothing on this policy today. It's a policy in name only. The member for Fairfax could look behind him, and he should. He should start looking behind him more often, and there he will find more than one LNP member who understands that our energy future is a renewable energy future and that they really just wish that their party would get onboard with this transition and bring this debate to where it needs to be: in the future and not stuck in the past.

The LNP simply hasn't thought it through together yet, and the coalition isn't fond of thinking things through. They literally love just the talk. They lump renewables together as if they were all the same thing. With a casual use of that word, they dismiss the possibilities of wind, solar, hydro and geothermal power. Australia has all these energy sources to work with, to work out and to balance. It will take work, and work has already begun and is bearing fruit with the installed renewable capacity generating power for some 3½ million homes. We've approved 60 renewable energy projects which will power a further seven million homes.

The only risk with regard to renewable energy is not taking action. By building nuclear power stations, apparently all the other problems along the way will eventually go away and everything will be fixed. What do we do in the meantime, in the 20 years it will take one to get up and running? We keep them out of government and focus on our renewable pathway the whole way.

Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's always good for members, particularly first-term members, to go back to their maiden speech and have a look at the values and principles and ideas that they came to this place with. I did that in relation to a number of issues like this one. I said at the time:

Climate change is a complex challenge for our country … we as a planet need to reduce our emissions.

The need to act is not in question. How we do it, without causing huge economic damage to our nation and its people, is the question. It is the how, not the if. Done in a reckless manner, with unrealistic time lines out of step with our global competitors, we could face a situation where industry moves emissions overseas. Australia's economic strength would be reduced but global emissions would not. It's a reality we need to face.

I also said that I think we need to keep our mind open to the range of technologies that can get us there, and:

… just transition means that the justice, human rights and dignity of those most affected by any change need to be protected, and often these are people in regional areas.

As far as their renewables-only energy policy goes, Labor has been saying for years that the price tag for their plan to achieve a net zero electricity market is $122 billion; that is applying their approach. That's now been exposed as wrong by a report done by Frontier Economics, who estimate that it will now cost not $122 billion but at least $642 billion. We've got to have a serious conversation about that in this place. Not only that; the system will have real instability as a result of having too much intermittent power generation.

The questions that have been asked about the renewables-only plan, at the top of my mind, have not been sufficiently answered: How is renewable energy going to be firmed? What happens to renewable energy facilities at end of life—and end of life for a lot of these projects is estimated to be between 25 and 35 or 40 years? How much does the decommissioning cost? How much does the rebuild cost? How does that impact the system cost? What happens to the components that cannot be recycled?

The stakes are really high in this debate. Writing in the Australian yesterday, respected columnist Robert Gottliebsen said:

… nothing in the nation's history matches the looming renewable energy conversion financial disaster.

He points out, as many others have, that, due to the lifespan of renewables, after 2050 we might have to scrap everything and start again.

The minister is fond of saying that the sun and the wind might not send a bill. I advise the minister that, whilst the sun and the wind might not send a bill, the panel installers, the turbine manufacturers and the decommissioning operators all will send bills—big bills—and they will potentially send them every 30 years. I'm amazed that we have an ideological and not a pragmatic approach to the best way to get to net zero. Nuclear is acknowledged the world over as the only existing technology—with the exception of hydro, but that's geography specific—that can deliver net zero emissions energy 24/7.

Why, when almost every other developed economy is increasing nuclear, are we being too pig-headed to embrace it? It can't be on safety grounds because the government has agreed to AUKUS—so we'll have nuclear reactors moored in Australian harbours, metres away from Australian naval personnel. Now they are starting to argue that it's on cost.

Well, if the cost is so prohibitive, why are our economic competitors embracing it? Now that we have a real comparison with the true cost of Labor's renewable plan we can have a more honest discussion about which is the best way to go. And the real cost for the renewables-only plan is well over $600 billion. The 'mere' dispatchability of the power 24/7 needs to be considered as well. Renewables can't do that, but nuclear can.

This was just reported today:

The Albanese government has rebuffed an invitation from allies the United Kingdom and the United States—

amongst other countries, and a generous invitation, I might add—

to join a global movement to speed up the spread of civilian nuclear energy …

Talk about being out of touch with the world! The blinkers are on, and their heads are in the sand.

But that's the high-level energy debate. What about the poor Australian who was promised their household electricity bills would be reduced by $275? That's not going to happen in the next six weeks, so we're not going to get there in 2025. Their bills have soared, and not only have their energy costs increased; the renewables-only policy of Labor threatens to move their places of employment and omissions offshore. That's bad for Australia's economy and bad for global emissions.

Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This MPI talks about risk. I'd call it Risky Businessactually, and it's like a scene from the movie because today the member for Fairfax slid into the chamber in his socks, his air guitar firmly in hand, to live out his great nuclear fantasy—to let go of reality and to let his feelings, not facts, take control. He is definitely playing that old time rock'n'roll, trying to sell a policy drag kicking and screaming from decades ago which will take decades more to actually work because it hasn't been thought through.

Just to clarify, I'm not saying the member for Fairfax is anything like Tom Cruise. He and his colleagues are more like Tom and Jerry, beating science over the head with an oversized mallet because it doesn't match their policy, making statements to say Australia is wholly reliant on renewables when there is no evidence anywhere to suggest that and playing a cat-and-mouse game with the Australian people, which I'm happy to lay out in front of you today.

I note the member for Fairfax liked to do a bit of reading when he walked into the chamber at the start of the MPI. It was so important that he actually left the chamber during the member for Hunter's rebuttal speech—absolutely amazing!

I want to start with the opposition's famous nuclear policy, 'Our plan for zero-emissions nuclear as part of a cheaper, cleaner and consistent energy future'. That's their policy; it's six pages of nothing. It was announced on 19 June 2024. Yes, that's a bit over six months ago. Like the people that I met in Nanango last week for a committee inquiry hearing in Queensland, I am feeling a little bit miffed that they didn't get the opportunity to get a bit more detail, given that it's been six months since the announcement of this policy.

I want to go to a couple of points in this policy. It's got a little bit of information in it, albeit not a lot. It says, 'A balanced energy mix'. We're being told that we've got a renewables-only policy plan, but this is directly from the Liberal and National parties' policy:

This means our energy mix today of renewables + gas + coal will shift to a future energy mix of renewables + gas + nuclear.

That's really interesting. Where will they be built? Well, those opposite have identified seven locations, saying:

These are the only locations in scope and the Coalition has ruled out all other locations.

That's part of their policy. Can you believe that? They haven't done any geoscience whatsoever. They haven't been out there and done site surveys, but all other locations are ruled out. That ponders the question: what happens if one of these sites gets ruled out after a geological site survey because it's not stable? Mmm. Then we'll go from seven locations down to six or five. And we're only talking about four per cent of the energy mix required by 2050 possibly being supplied under this policy. It just beggars belief!

I'm going to go to another part in this. It's interesting reading this. I encourage, if you can find this—it is really difficult to find this policy. This is the first announcement policy paper that was delivered back on 19 June 2024. It took my staff quite some time to be able to dig up the original policy because it had gone missing on their website. I'm not sure why you would hide something that you are so proud of, but anyway.

The timeline for establishing a civil nuclear program in Australia, including building two establishment projects, is 10 to 12 years from the government making a decision to zero-emissions nuclear electricity first entering the grid. Why is that important? First of all, the experts that we've heard from have clearly told us that, in the best case scenario, it is 10 to 15 years for the construction phase. When you look across the globe, that is clearly what the timelines are showing—that 10 to 15 years, closer to 15, is actually the more reliable. But we heard from another expert, Clare Savage, who has extensive— (Time expired)

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As much as I like the member for Spence, as per many of the other contributions from those opposite in this debate, there was little substance in his response to this debate. Let's have a look at what we're actually talking about. We're talking about the Frontier Economics report and their assessment that Labor's energy plan will cost in the order of $652 billion and will be a disaster in the making. It would cost five times more than what the government has previously admitted to. That is an enormous cost to the Australian economy, but it got me thinking.

I remember reading a piece of research done not so long ago on an economy in Europe that has decided to follow the path that those opposite in government wish to pursue, so I thought I'd dig that little piece of research out. This was a piece of research done by a professor of civil engineering from Norway's NTNU, and it was an assessment of the consequences of Germany's switch away from nuclear power, in this case, as their affordable and reliable source of base-load power, to their ambitious green renewable energy target, under their energy turnaround policies. It was interesting to read that the analysis by this professor suggests that somewhere in the order of $330 billion of costs to the German economy have resulted from this switch away from nuclear power to their so-called green energy revolution. That is an enormous cost. If those opposite—actually, I will correct the record. It's some 600 billion euros that it's cost them, and that doesn't cover all the costs. But that covers things like construction costs, expensive grid upgrades, subsidies et cetera, and what has the German economy got to show for it? Some of the highest energy prices in the world. This is the path that those opposite want to take us down.

Here's a real-world example of your policies in full action, and I would estimate that the cost will be far greater than the $642 billion that Frontier Economics outlined in their report. We had this government come to the last election saying they were going to lower electricity prices. Well, that has not happened. When I talk to my businesses across my electorate, particularly those that use gas—I was speaking to one the other day—their gas bill has gone from $125,000 to $350,000, a 180 per cent increase. They're talking about closing their doors as a consequence.

When you look at that $642 billion figure, I'd say that's just the bottom end of the range when we take in the broad economic costs of higher electricity prices, higher gas prices and our inability to then compete in a global marketplace and manufacture the goods that we need in this country to have a degree of sovereign capability and sovereign reliability. The interesting thing in the real-life example of Germany, as I've outlined, is they still need nuclear power via the umbilical cord from France. We don't have that luxury. We're a standalone economy. (Time expired)

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's right.

Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You weren't even here. You don't know.

Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You're an expert!

Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The discussion has concluded.