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

I'm not sure about the billionaires in Tasmania with hydro and renewables; the last time I looked, that wasn't the case. Putting that to one side, what this debate is really about is the fantasy about the nuclear 'policy'—the nuclear fantasy from those opposite. As we saw, the nuclear plan from those opposite is more of a budget black hole than it is a policy, because it actually turns around and takes additional costs from every Australian's pocket. They have to turn around and have money taken out: $1,000 extra per week. That's the increase in their tax bills as a result of the energy fiasco on the 23rd energy policy from those opposite. What's that energy policy actually based on? It's based on the fact that they can't reach agreement in their own caucus. It's about lying to the Australian public because they're trying to maintain their own cohesion whilst turning around and still arguing about the policy being incorrect. So not only are they not giving us answers but they haven't got a consistent position across their party.

The fact is that they've got person after person coming forward and saying that this policy is a crock. We've seen frontbencher after frontbencher and member of parliament after member of parliament contradicting each other. We saw it in the statement that 'the local community is going to be consulted'. The deputy leader was then contradicted by the Leader of the Nationals, because the local public where these reactors are going to be placed are not going to be consulted. We then look at the arguments put forward, and some of the decisions made, by the likes of the opposition leader in the Senate, Senator Birmingham. The opposition leader—Mr Dutton's own frontbencher—Senator Birmingham, spoke in favour of renewables, saying that they've become more cost competitive in their own right and are an important part of the mix. But then we're going to hear person after person get up here and make contradictory arguments. It is that simple.

They haven't got their act together, and if this policy they're putting forward, the $600 billion, does go forward—I used to watch that show called The Six Million Dollar Manhe'll be the $600 billion man. But, unlike The Six Million Dollar Man, it's not going to be entertaining because everyone will be paying more for their energy. They're going to be putting on more costs and putting more on their bills. There will be more consequences for families that are trying to deal with the cost of living.

Then there is this other fantasy that says that workers who have been working in coal-fired electricity generating facilities are going to somehow miraculously be moved over to these new facilities run by nuclear energy. The fact is that those workers need support now, because the coal industry is already moving out and coal-fired power stations are already getting closed down. Those workers don't need to wait till 2035, under the best-case scenario, not the reality scenario. Even those opposite admit that it'll be 2035.

So they've already decided that they're going to abandon communities to higher prices, no job transition and no dealing with the reality of climate change so that they can bring every sort of crazy idea that exists within their caucus and make them all feel at home whilst they actually deliver an economic bombshell to the entire Australian community. It's a bombshell in your home budget, it's a bombshell in your business budget and it's a bombshell across the Australian economy. It's the black hole of policies, where this nuclear money will just get ploughed in and ploughed in, and it will come out of the pockets of everybody's in this country.

Quite clearly, the only thing we can see that's more mysterious than these nuclear reactors is Area 51, because they actually aren't telling us what the policy is going to do. They're not telling us what the costs are. They can't quite work out how many nuclear reactors they're going to have and what models of reactors they're going to have on each site. They can't work out what the gigawatts are going to be. They can't work it out. They tell us that they have made the decision to commit every Australian in this country to spending $600 billion, and they still haven't worked out the answers. It's a fantasy.