James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Deputy President, you're killing me. I thought I had five minutes to expand on the benefits of nuclear energy. In fact, I could do it for hours and hours. What Australians want and need is for their electricity to be reliable and affordable. Quite frankly, most Australians don't care where their electricity comes from. When they stick the cord in the power point or they turn the lights on, they don't care whether it comes from coal, sun, wind, hamsters in a wheel or whatever it is. They want their electricity to be affordable and reliable.

On this side of the chamber, we're really pragmatic about it, because we're with you, middle Australia. That's why we support having a conversation about nuclear energy. Australia has a third of the world's uranium. We are geologically stable.

Notwithstanding the current mouth-breathers who sit around the cabinet table, we are politically stable. This is a country that should have affordable and reliable electricity, and we should be able to have a conversation about nuclear power. But what is disappointing is that the Labor Party don't want to have that conversation because they want to run a scare campaign about nuclear energy. That is shameful and it is wrong, because it is selling out middle Australia. It is selling out those people who are in a cost-of-living crisis at the moment because of the aforementioned people who sit around the cabinet table, who do not understand the battles that people are taking on to pay their bills.

We on this side of the chamber want to have a long-term view of where our energy should come from, whether that should be windmills or wind turbines—and where I live on the Darling Downs, there is a massive wind farm being built out at Karara—or whether it is solar, coal or nuclear. Let's have that conversation about what is in Australia's best interest rather than what is in the best interests of the Greens-Labor Party duopoly that is running Australia into the ground, running our businesses into the ground and running our families into the ground. If you want to get to net zero, the only way you're going to get there is by using nuclear energy as part of your mix. Nuclear energy is the only net zero emissions generation that helps deliver base-load energy. That is so important for Australia to achieve our international targets. If the Greens, Labor and all those other wonderful leftie people want to have net zero by the years they've chosen, then nuclear energy certainly must be part of that conversation, and let the market decide. We should lift the moratorium. If businesses want to invest in nuclear energy, they will do so. I guarantee that business will do so because they understand the benefits it will have for Australians who are struggling to pay their energy bills at the moment.

Question agreed to.