Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

What a joke: an urgency motion from those opposite, who had 10 years to come up with an energy plan, and are now proposing a plan so urgent that this Senate needs to speak about it today. It's so urgent, but it will take 20 years to develop and start. What an absolute joke. Those jokers over there come in here to talk about a plan that doesn't exist, that they didn't develop over 10 years of government, that they didn't take to the Australian people and that they won't have in place for 20-something years, as a way of dealing with the climate crisis and ensuring that Australians have clean and cheap energy.

The Labor Party has that plan. We're developing it. We have started delivering it. We are hitting those targets. We are making sure that we are getting renewable energy in the system because it's the cheapest and cleanest form of energy, and Australia has a lot of it. It's pretty simple. We did the maths, and we worked out, after all the experts said, 'This is the pathway forward,' that we were going to develop that plan. That's what we're doing. Those opposite listened to the experts and said: 'No. We know better. We've had 10 years to figure this out. Now we're going to start working on a plan that we might be able to deliver in maybe 2040.'

There are three main issues with the coalition's nuclear plan: cost, time and where it will be. Let's deal with cost to begin with. We don't know the cost. They can't tell you the costs. They don't know how much it'll cost the taxpayer. It could be billions. It could be billions of billions of billions of billions. I'm going to guess it's a pretty big number, because that's what Peter Dutton was able to confirm: 'It'll be a really big bill.' Let's talk about bills. This will mean that Australians will pay more for their electricity bills. That's a guarantee through this plan. Not only will it cost the taxpayer—because these nuclear power plants will be paid for by the taxpayer, because they're not commercially viable—but also you will pay more for your electricity bill.

Talking about time, when will these nuclear power plants be built? Maybe in 2040, maybe in 20 years—that's if they started building them today. Forget about the fact that most states in this country have a ban on nuclear power and that they don't want to see nuclear power in their states. Forget about the fact that we don't have the technology here to develop this type of energy. Even if they started today, which they won't, it would take 20 to 40 years. But they actually confirmed that, if they were in government, they'd take 2½ years after being elected before deciding where these nuclear reactors would be. It wouldn't take just one coalition government to develop this nuclear power plan. It would take one government, another government after that and another one after that to develop this. My two-year-old daughter would have graduated high school before any electricity would be generated under this plan. It is outrageous to come in here and talk about an urgency motion about a nuclear power plan that may or may not be delivered in the 2040s, 2050s—some day never. But this is a policy about delay. It's a policy about delaying where we are going to make sure that people can have lower electricity bills and have cleaner energy.

The last question is: where are they going to build them? The coalition have announced some sites. Did they talk to the community about those sites? No. Did they talk to even the local mayors in those places? No, because if they had, they would have found out that a lot of those mayors are opposed to nuclear at those sites. What if a community says, 'No thanks; we don't want to have nuclear power in our community'? The opposition are saying that they would decide and build it anyway and that it would be a decision by the minister. They're going to use your taxpayer money to make you pay more on your electricity bills, and they're going to put a nuclear power plant in your community whether you like it or not, maybe in 2040 or 2050—some day down the track. What an absolute joke. This is all about denying—denying that we need to do something about climate change. They had 10 years to agree on a policy, or to even say they supported taking action, and they couldn't do it, and they're still arguing about it. They don't want to take action on climate change, so they're going to have this plan to, sometime down the track, do something about it, maybe.

We have a plan that is developing renewable energy—clean energy, cheaper energy—and that is seeing investment roll into our regions. It's creating jobs right now and it will save jobs in the future, particularly those on the Great Barrier Reef. It is not urgent, because we're doing it right now— (Time expired)