Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

While the coalition has been chasing its nuclear unicorn, Australian Manufacturing Workers Union members working at Muja Power Station have been fighting for a just transition for nearly a decade. They have been working hard for it. They have a closure timeline, onsite just-transition arrangements and new green manufacturing jobs in the pipeline. Their just transition is a nation-leading program. It's a plan put together by a quadripartite Collie just-transition working group. It's got representatives from the state and Commonwealth governments, the Collie community, relevant unions and affected industry, putting us on a path to a green manufacturing future in our south-west—a future that will bring with it tens of thousands of secure, high-paid manufacturing jobs.

But the Collie community hasn't been asked if they want to chuck their transition in the bin and instead have a nuclear reactor in their backyard. The opposition has slapped the community of Collie in the face. Rather than saying, 'Where should we invest money according to your local community plans?' they have billions of dollars that they want to put on the table in government to invest in their nuclear unicorn. Rather than asking the community of Collie about how they want to plan their future, instead they've slapped them in the face by saying they will not even negotiate about where future nuclear reactors would be located if they were elected. We need real solutions for the just transition, and only Labor governments in our nation are prepared to do that.

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Pratt. The time for—I believe Senator McGrath beat you, Senator Watt.