Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I'm sure it won't be a surprise to Senator Bernardi or the chamber that I don't have an estimate for a hypothetical question of what $60 billion could buy in nuclear generation capacity. I would note that there have been various studies—by academia, parts of industry and parts of government—over a number of years about the economics of nuclear generation in Australia. Generally, those studies have found that nuclear generation has not proven to be something that is commercially attractive to potential investors.

Senator Bernardi interjecting—

Senator Bernardi, I hear your interjection that, if we were to subsidise it, perhaps it would be attractive. What things like the Renewable Energy Target have sought to do is to incentivise the development of new capabilities, and they have had some success in that regard. But we have seen policies that have taken that too far, and that is what we are trying to correct at present. (Time expired)