Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

As a servant to the many amazing people who make up our wonderful Queensland community, I know that nuclear is the answer to humanity's energy needs. The only question is whether we embrace nuclear technology now and set Australians up for a prosperous future or we keep promoting unreliable expensive wind and solar that will end as landfill every 12 to 15 years. Australia can never achieve a sustainable energy grid if every new wind and solar power unit we build dies so quickly. The energy required to break down a solar panel dwarfs its profit. Even the ABC admits that solar panel waste will outstrip all other e-waste by 2035.

Nuclear energy is a single-build project with a small ongoing fuel supply whose waste output is tiny, completely contained and capable of being used as fuel for our reactors—in other words, truly renewable and with zero output of carbon dioxide. Not that carbon dioxide is a problem; it is plant food. It is a proudly Australian-centric energy system that does not require dependence on supply lines from communist China. Nuclear will keep the lights on in Australia independent of the weather.

The European Union has embraced nuclear as the gold standard in green technology. They tried solar panels. They tried wind turbines; they don't work. So why are parties in this place insisting on subjecting everyday Australians to electricity cost and reliability nightmares? Why are you ignoring the science? A one-gigawatt nuclear plant is equivalent to 430 wind turbines or three million solar panels demolished and replaced six times in the life of one new-generation nuclear plant with a life of 100 years. This is why the United Nations and the World Economic Forum's crooks and disciples are trying to make nuclear a dirty word, because they know they can't compete on any environmental or economic argument. Nuclear energy is freedom. Nuclear energy is national security. Nuclear energy is the answer to maintaining everyday Australians' living standards. I thank Senator Babet for the motion. (Time expired)