Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's not going away. That is absolutely correct, Senator Canavan. We've had inquiries into this where it's not just each of us providing our opinions in this chamber; it is about bringing together experts. Some experts differ from each other. They have different perspectives. They're looking at things from different angles.

In the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee inquiry earlier this year, which I don't believe Senator Babet turned up for, what we came to was not a unanimous decision but a majority decision that said no. Point 1 that was put forward on the basis of the evidence put to the committee was that nuclear energy is expensive. Over a period of many, many years, it becomes cheaper, but the initial investment to start up a nuclear energy industry in Australia from scratch is extraordinarily expensive, and we know that the evidence from other areas that are going towards nuclear is exactly the same. There's significant expenditure over and above what was planned. This is the evidence that was provided to the committee.

The second point was that next-generation nuclear technology is currently unproven in the sense that there are no SMRs, small modular reactors, in commercial operation. There are plenty planned and there are various ideas out there, but there isn't actually one commercially viable one. That is the evidence the committee was given by the experts.

Point 3 is that if it were commercially viable at this point in time to bring nuclear energy into Australia, which it currently isn't, then the amount of time it would take us to develop an industry is so long as to not be worth it, given that we are already on a pathway to significant renewable energy which is very cheap. So there is unnecessary cost in moving to nuclear. If we wanted to go to nuclear, we should have done it decades ago. That brings me to another point: those opposite weren't able to get the coalition government to commit to nuclear in the nine years that they were in power, so your own people don't support it.

Point 4 is that it's fairly inflexible. The energy output of nuclear power lacks the flexibility to adjust in a market. Point 5 is the safety and environmental concerns linked to the production of nuclear energy. There are safety concerns. There are issues with how the health and safety piece is dealt with in reality and in terms of people's approach and perception of it, because we all know there is no social licence in this country for nuclear power and nuclear in general. We've seen that time and time again.

The seventh point is water scarcity. Nuclear power plants require significant volumes of water, and we are a drought-prone country, so that's a huge disincentive for us. There are also national security risks—and point 8 was the social licence. These things are such that there is no sense into moving towards nuclear—none whatsoever.