Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Hansard source

Sorry, Senator McCarthy. I apologise for verballing you, Senator Grogan. I'll tell you what's wrong with solar panels—their lifespan's not terribly long. So for a lot of those households who took up all of those rebates 10-15 years ago to put solar on their roofs, it was great for them at the time, plugged in, running their pools during the day, when the sun was shining. But all of those solar panels are coming to the end of their lives. So where are they going to go? They know, in their faux utopia, where all this waste is going to go and what's going to happen. It costs $22 to recycle a solar panel and it costs $2 to put it into landfill, so there are no prizes for guessing where all these outdated, used-up solar panels are going.

The other problem with solar panels is how they're produced. Those of us that sat on the side of the chamber do not believe, in any shape or form, in the use of slave labour. The use of slaves to create things, whatever they are—I don't care if they're a brand of sandshoe, a type of car or a solar panel. It is wrong for us as Australians to have in our supply chain any item that we know has been made by the use of slave labour. So when I'm asked what's wrong with solar panels, it's a basic human right that's being violated, as Chinese use Uyghur slaves to make these solar panels. I think that's a pretty big problem with solar panels that in this utopia, in this race to renewables, in this running after an ideology that comes way down the list of concerns.

Coming back to my point with regard to the wind turbines near Garden Island in WA and the national security implications that could be had there, we know what the communities are saying done in the Illawarra, in my home state of New South Wales. They're not quite jumping up and down with joy—maybe jumping up and down in anger and frustration—at the windfarms that are being pushed onto them with an absolutely—you couldn't call it community consultation. We know that this government is not interested in consultation. When they do consult, as we're learning with so many pieces of legislation, it's with NDAs being signed by those who are deemed worthy to speak to it. This is the problem when you are chasing ideology. It's an ideology that there is no chance we are going to reach the 82 per cent renewable target for by 2030. It is not going to happen. That's not me saying that; that's the experts in energy across the sector and the economists looking at it. Every single manufacturing and large group that relies on power all know that there is absolutely no way that 82 per cent renewables by 2030 is ever going to be achieved.

Can you imagine if we lived in a world and there was an opportunity to have reliable baseload power that had zero emissions? Imagine! We have unicorn farmers chasing every rabbit they can find down a hole. Imagine if there was a zero-emissions type of power that was reliable and could firm the grid. But—hang on—there is! Wait; there's more! It's nuclear power, embraced by every other of the top 20 economies in the world, except for little old us. We're still sitting here, with those in the government saying it can't be done. Don't worry about chasing the green hydrogen genie that doesn't even exist yet. Green hydrogen is, again, up there with the unicorn farmers. It doesn't exist in any capacity to deliver anything, but never let a goal or a dream get in the way of your ideology and the way that you chase it down.

We know that there is a proven technology that is zero emissions, is absolutely reliable, can be scaled up and down, will firm the grid and, on top of that, does not require the 28,000 extra kilometres of transmission lines. So what we're actually here for today, what we've been asking for—the Greens contribution earlier in the evening failed to use the word 'transmission', let alone 'transmission line' or 'powerline'; we can substitutes some terms in and out there, but they didn't use one, didn't even come close. I don't think she understands the intent of what we're trying to do here: protect rural and regional communities, protect areas of special significance to Indigenous populations, protect the chlamydia-free koalas—even the ones with chlamydia. We're actually not that fussy. We'll even support the koalas that have chlamydia, because we don't think they should have transmission lines going through their habitats.

The thing about this crazy thing called nuclear is that the transmission lines would come from the brownfield sites where the coalition has proposed that the reactors would go. That means no new transmission lines. What those opposite fail to understand—maybe, in their picture book on how energy works, they didn't get up to the page where it explains: generation is one thing; transmission and distribution are another, and that is over 50 per cent of the cost. At the very least, even to be kind to you, it's 50 per cent of the cost. We hear those opposite saying, 'Renewables are the cheapest form of energy,' but that's because the CSIRO's GenCost report, which looked into this, didn't factor in the cost of transmission or distribution, because in their unicorn land they had already been built. Somehow or other, infrastructure that doesn't exist today doesn't need to be costed. In the GenCost review they just decided it already existed. It is puerile. It is lacking any intellectual depth or rigour, the way that this is being pursued. There needs to be some honesty here. Someone on the other side who can actually read the GenCost review needs to have a look at it and see where the costs of transmission and distribution are. They're not there. I suppose it's no wonder Minister Gallagher couldn't answer the question today about how much this was going to cost. She couldn't tell us, because they don't know. They don't know, because GenCost hasn't told them, and we know that GenCost is the only thing they can ever look at.

It's all a bit sad and sorry that, in a cost-of-living crisis, with energy prices being pushed up, we have this absolutely fanciful claim that this race to renewables is somehow going to reduce energy bills. Look at what's happened since these guys have been in government for two years. We now have gas shortages. Victoria sits up on its moral high ground: 'No gas! No more gas in new homes. We're not having gas, but, Queensland: keep that pipeline open and keep pumping it down.' Remember when the hospitals in Queensland were for Queenslanders? The Victorians would be in all sorts of trouble if Premier Miles decided that Queensland gas was for Queenslanders. I was in Melbourne last week. It was a bit on the cold side. It would be a very chilly winter for those in Melbourne. Victorians wouldn't be able to put the hot water on—no warm showers and no heating services. Industry would shut down, but of course, we know that everyone else, pretty much other than those of us sitting on this side of the chamber, actually care about the survival of industry—particularly our heavy industries that we know need affordable, reliable base-load power, none of which is possible with these renewable projects.

Yet somehow, we are here for the 10th time, just trying to get an inquiry. We want to have a little look and go and talk to some of the communities. Clearly we can't talk to the koalas, but I'm sure someone—