Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Isn't it amazing? Everyone's on board. Well, of the 22 nations that signed the pledge, 18 have a nuclear energy industry already. The four countries without nuclear power that signed were Moldova, Morocco, Poland and Mongolia. There were 14 countries with nuclear industries that did not sign the pledge. Germany did not sign the pledge. They decommissioned their last nuclear power plant this year. We saw that nuclear may have a role in countries such as France, where they have an existing nuclear energy industry. Let's look at the consequences for the rest of us, in this country. One of the things those on the opposite side don't tell you is where those nuclear plants can be situated. Are they going to be situated in Jervis Bay? They won't be situated in the eastern suburbs of Sydney; that won't happen. But will they be situated in every other place? We turn around and try to make sure we have a proper industry, a safe and secure industry, but it is an industry that our communities don't want—and for very good reasons. They trump up the benefits of non-commercial small modular reactor technology without owning the costs of that technology; they won't own that cost. Who's going to pay for development at those costs?

The Leader of the Nationals recently said, 'We don't expect nuclear energy in the next decade or so, but we've got till 2050.' This is the essence. They actually don't want to do anything. This whole argument about nuclear power is so they can sit on their hands and pretend they're doing something, rather than supporting investment in renewables, which is what we need to be doing, in line with the commitments this government has made. They don't actually want the effects of a more viable, more efficient and cheaper electricity system. If they did, they would have voted for electricity bill relief. The average family would be $230 worse off this year without Labor's energy price relief plan, which the coalition voted against.

If you do the maths, the analysis of the cost of nuclear power shows that Australians would be lumped with a $387 billion cost burden if nuclear power were to replace the retiring coal-fired power station fleet. This represents a whopping $25,000 cost impost on each Australian taxpayer. Peter Dutton and the opposition need to explain why Australians will be slugged with a $387 billion cost burden for a nuclear energy plan that flies in the face of economics and reason. After nine years of no energy policy and absolute chaos, and rather than finally embracing a clean, cheap, safe and secure transition to a renewable energy future, all the coalition can promise is a multibillion dollar nuclear flavoured energy policy. It's the one thing that unites them. They're thinking: 'It must be a good idea because it unites us! We can slow up clean energy investment. We can slow up a strategy that actually reduces prices. We can keep fooling ourselves we're a party that has policies.'

In fact, they have had policies. They had the first one, the second one, the third one, the fourth one, the fifth one, the sixth one—I'm going to run out of fingers and toes trying to count them all up. In 10 years they kept on adopting and rejecting their own policies because they couldn't get them right. But they decided, because nuclear is not viable in this country, 'We can all agree, because we're not actually going to do it.' That's because who in their right mind would say they were going to spend $387 billion and put a $25,000 cost impost on each Australian taxpayer unless either they had no intention of really doing it or someone else was going to have to bear the price and responsibility down the track?

I did see with a great deal of enjoyment that Barnaby Joyce said he'd be happy to have one in his backyard. He said, 'I would absolutely welcome a nuclear facility, whether it be in my electorate or any electorate around the country.' Well, Deputy President, start asking people in your electorate and every electorate around the country, because they have a very different view about nuclear power. That's not just because of the intrinsic concerns about nuclear power that people have but because it's a waste of money. It's a burden on taxpayers. It's a dead-end policy. Rather than going with clean energy and transitioning to that proposal, those opposite want to do something that is farcical, inappropriate and unable to be achieved.