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

I guess the rest of the world should just be looking to this Labor government, because clearly over 30 countries across the world who already have nuclear energy as part of their mix, and the other 50 who are looking to introduce it, need to have a chat to—Senator Farrell? Senator Watt? I mean, God help them if they went and had a chat to Minister Bowen—how that'd go. But clearly these ministers know something the rest of the world does not, because the rest of the world—19 of the largest 20 economies of the world—have nuclear energy as part of their mix. Guess who the one outlier is: that would be us. It is embarrassing to hear these regurgitated arguments that clearly were in Labor's talking points and that no-one's updated. No-one's been listening to the way the debate's gone over the last two years. No-one has bothered to update the talking points that are distributed. It's still the scare campaign: nuclear's too expensive; it's not safe. That is an absolute abomination—to have ministers of the Crown come in here and refuse to acknowledge the safety of nuclear power, when we have a nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights and when we are about to put our submariners to sleep and to work right next to nuclear reactors. To have ministers of the Crown refusing to acknowledge the safety aspects is beyond deplorable.

But the thing that I think got me—apart from the fact that I don't even know what Senator Farrell was talking about; he certainly didn't refer to the question, let alone provide any sort of answer or information to the chamber—was, interestingly, Senator Watt's response with regard to rural and regional communities and apparently the great focus that the ALP and this government has on rural and regional communities. I guess that's reflected in the fact that pretty much none of them ever votes for a Labor member, because the electorates there are far too smart and actually understand that Labor, and particularly this government, have no interest in rural and regional Australia. Yesterday we had 'transmission Monday' for the 10th time, where we've been asking for an inquiry to have a look at the transmission lines that are being bulldozed through rural and regional communities with very little to no consultation, that are being bulldozed through Indigenous heritage sites and that are being bulldozed through koala habitats. But those opposite paired up with their mates in the Greens, who used to care about the inquiry. They used to actually worry about the environment. They used to worry about koala habitats, but not anymore. If they can get a brand new transmission line for renewable power, that's their priority.

The other thing is those opposite—because most of them wouldn't know what a farm is compared to a zoo—don't understand that the nuclear footprint in terms of land required is a significantly smaller amount than for renewable projects. We are talking considerable differences in land size. To get a bit of an understanding, let's look at nuclear reactors that take up about the size of half a football field. Let's be specific, if we want to talk about specifics in reports. The Rolls-Royce SMR takes about five acres of land. The Westinghouse AP1000 takes up about 22 acres of land, so it's a bit larger than Parliament House. For every megawatt-hour of energy produced, though, to produce the same amount of energy from a wind farm, you would require 360 times that amount of land. Think of Parliament House—I'm sure everyone wants to think about 360 more parliament houses anywhere! An area 360 times the size of this Parliament House would be required to generate the same amount of power as one Parliament House would generate from nuclear. From the solar perspective—and we don't talk about the fact that Uighur and Chinese slavery is used to build solar panels—we would need 75 times the land mass.

When Minister Watt and any of those opposite want to go and talk to rural and regional communities, they might want to start to get their heads around the size and scope of the arable farming land, the fact that you are going through communities and the disruption that is happening in those areas. That's why rural and regional communities are fighting back against these reckless renewable programs that are not reliable energy and are so far behind schedule that it is absolutely jeopardising the future of our country.