E&OE
Fiona, thank you very much.
Good morning ladies and gentlemen. It’s great to be here with you and I want to say thank you, firstly, to the AFR, to Stutch, and to all of the team for what I think is a very important part of the calendar of our nation’s public debate.
I believe very strongly, and part of my vision for this country is that we need to have affordable and reliable energy.
We know that it’s essential for a functioning economy and for a prosperous society.
Affordable and reliable energy is critical for Australians to run their households and of course their businesses – big or small – and to live their lives better.
Affordable and reliable energy is fundamental for our nation’s energy security – especially in what are precarious times where we’ve seen conflicts spark and tensions rise.
And yet, under the current Government, energy has become exorbitantly expensive and our grid unreliable.
Since coming to power 21 months ago, Labor has implemented what I would describe as a reckless energy policy which is clearly damaging our nation.
Indeed, Labor’s energy policy is playing out with catastrophic consequences for our nation’s future.
On almost 100 occasions, the Prime Minister promised at the last election, that power prices would reduce by $275 a year.
Under the Government’s watch, electricity and gas prices have gone up by 20 per cent and 27 per cent respectively.
Now, we’re a resource-rich nation with an abundance of resources and reliable and affordable energy, yet businesses are paying thousands-of-dollars more and more each year in their power bills.
I was speaking to a manufacturer yesterday who employs 300 staff. His bill has gone up by 129 per cent in a 12-month period.
The cost-of-running that small business, a factory, or a farm has gone through the roof and Australian’s recognise that every time they go to the supermarket.
Business owners, manufacturers and farmers who are barely staying afloat don’t have any choice but to pass on their higher energy costs onto consumers.
It’s no wonder then that Australians are paying more for the items stocked on the shelves of their supermarket, and it’s why many families are struggling to manage and balance their budgets at the moment.
With our nation beset with crippling energy costs, it’s no surprise that almost 14,000 businesses across the country have gone insolvent since the 1st of July last year.
Worse, the Albanese Government’s energy policies are inflicting such a magnitude of economic self-harm that we are seeing the early stages of de-industrialisation.
News headlines have been filled with examples of production facilities closing, or on the verge of collapse, or indeed offshoring.
Alumina production, nickel mining and plastic manufacturing are recent examples.
Such sectors are facing excessive energy costs as a primary reason why they have become uncompetitive.
Naïve and radical green activists cheer on our national de-industrialisation.
Yet they’re oblivious to the facts.
We will only end up having to import, of course, those commodities and products from overseas back into our country at a much higher price.
And there will be far more emissions through that process, from producing the commodities in other countries where they don’t have our clean industry practices.
We lose the jobs, there’s no net benefit to the environment and de-industrialisation is accompanied by huge risks to foreign investment in our country.
We know, for example, Japan and South Korea both depend on our gas.
But the Albanese Government is ideologically opposed to gas.
The Government has been hindering the gas sector through market interventions, more regulations, and funding advocates to wage lawfare.
Because our partners can no longer rely on Australia for supply, they’re looking to other markets for the first time.
And our eyes don’t lie.
We can see the disastrous implications of this energy fiasco around the nation.
Skyrocketing energy costs and an unstable energy grid are a central factor contributing to our cost-of-living crisis.
Families really are hurting.
Many of us in this room are in a fortunate position, but there are many thousands, hundreds of thousands, of Australians at the moment who are working additional hours, and they just can’t make ends meet.
Today, we are a less competitive and less industrious nation.
Instead of being able to ramp up energy use at peak periods, we’re having to ramp it down.
There is a direct link between affordable, reliable energy and our national productivity.
Revealingly, our national productivity has fallen by 5.4 per cent during this Government’s tenure – an indictment of its energy policy, among others.
But the longer-term ramifications of the Government’s reckless energy policy are far worse.
We are on the trajectory to immiserating our economy and impoverishing future generations of Australians under a ‘renewables only’ energy policy.
I want to be very clear:
As we’ve stated and as we’ve demonstrated in Government and Opposition, we are strong supporters of renewables in the system.
We believe that renewables have a significant role to play in our energy mix. We need to make sure it’s a diverse mix of complementary technologies.
But the Government’s ideologically-driven ‘renewables only’ policy – is an ‘all-eggs-in-one basket’ approach – and it is reckless.
Here are the primary problems with their policy:
The Government’s negligently turning off the old reliable system before the new system is built.
And that’s why you are paying more today for everything.
The Government’s ‘renewables only’ policy is also an engineering feat of pure fantasy.
Some 58 million solar panels and almost 3,500 wind turbines need to be built over the course of the next six years.
Additionally, some 28,000 kilometres of new poles and wires are required to be in the ground and up and running by 2050.
It’s not a reality – it’s the equivalent of almost the entire coastline of mainland Australia.
And we are talking about going through national parks, and acquiring land – pristine farming land.
These matters will be before the courts for years.
The roll-out is already behind schedule.
Delays will get worse with the Government’s increasingly onerous green tape.
Under the EPBC Act, the average time between project referral and the granting of approvals is now about three years.
From a purely pragmatic point of view, the Government’s plans for our energy system to comprise 82 per cent renewables by 2030 is frankly the stuff of fiction.
To reach that target, there needs to be signed and sealed financial commitments for 5,000 megawatts of renewables per year.
The Clean Energy Council noted that, for the first three quarters of 2023, just 509 megawatts were delivered.
So, even ahead of the fourth quarter reporting, it’s clear Labor is falling way short of what their plan requires.
Now, the Government’s ‘renewables only’ policy is also economically and environmentally damaging.
Australians in coastal and regional communities are already contesting the renewables roll-out.
There’s a moral element to this argument as well – pitching one Australian against the other, whether you live in a capital city or whether you live in a regional area.
In the Hunter and Illawarra regions, residents there, of every political persuasion, continue to highlight the damaging impacts from offshore wind turbines to local wildlife and to their fishing and tourism industries.
But this Government pays no attention to it.
The 260-metre-tall wind turbines, which have blades spanning the distance of the A-380 aircraft.
Last October, hundreds of people from Newcastle and Port Stephens gathered in protest, including Greens supporters.
In a similar vein, this February, farmers flocked to Canberra to rally against the carpeting of Australia’s prime agricultural land with solar and wind farms.
Indeed, wherever communities are impacted by the Government’s extensive renewables roll-out, increasing numbers of Australians are voicing their disapproval.
There is clearly a deep-seated aversion to large-scale renewable projects, where there is a complete failure to properly engage with the community.
Making matters worse is the Government’s deficient engagement with residents.
The gas industry made many of these mistakes and some companies still do.
Many residents are left distressed and angered – and their thoughts are not illegitimate and they should be properly considered.
A recent report by the Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner found that 92 per cent of people were dissatisfied with community engagement for renewables projects.
In rolling-out those projects, the Government simply steamrolls over those public’s concerns, and I don’t believe it’s sustainable.
After years of emissions reduction under the Coalition, Australia’s emissions increased by more than 4 million tonnes in 2022-23.
The Government’s ‘renewables only’ policy is also astronomically expensive.
At a conservative estimate, the transition cost will be $1.3 trillion.
That figure has been cited by experts, including engineer Dr David Hayden Collins.
Dr Chris Greig of Princeton University has put the figure at $1.5 trillion by 2030 in a recent Net Zero Australia study.
If you think that energy’s expensive now, we haven’t seen anything yet. New transmission costs are all passed onto consumers and they’re starting to appear in a bigger and bigger way in people’s power bills.
The Government’s ‘renewables only’ policy is also causing unreliability in our grid, and it means that the Labor Government doesn’t have a credible pathway to zero emissions by 2050.
Whatever percentage of renewables are in the system – 20, 50, 70, 95 per cent – they need to be firmed-up.
It’s hardly controversial to point out that when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing, renewables produce weak and intermittent flows of energy.
Moreover, the latest battery technologies – like AGL’s Torrens Island Battery that cost $180 million – lasts for between one and two hours.
I want to believe that technology is further advanced, but the reality is, it’s not.
These are not partisan statements.
They are simply scientific facts.
I believe that too many leaders, CEOs, and inner-city advocates have burrowed so deeply down this rabbit hole to a renewables wonderland that they have lost all sense of objectivity.
Our nation is diminished in having Chris Bowen as the federal Energy Minister – a modern-day Rex Connor, although Rex Connor believed in nuclear energy – and a man who shows complete irreverence for the truth.
Instead of having a proper debate about what’s in our country’s best interests, Mr Bowen acts like a child and dismisses everything he disagrees with as a ‘scare campaign’.
His behaviour is symptomatic of his Government whose energy policy is grounded in ideology rather than pragmatism.
Our nation has three energy goals:
We need cheaper power.
We need consistent power.
And we need to move towards cleaner power – because we all want a better environment for our country, for our children and for generations to come.
But the Government’s ‘renewables only’ policy elevates the goal of clean power to the detriment of the other two goals.
The Government is choosing to put environmental crusades ahead of economic and security imperatives.
It’s prioritising, I believe, the wishes of activists and others instead of the needs of everyday Australians living in suburbs and towns across the country.
We are littering our landscape and oceans with vast solar and wind farms connected by thousands of kilometres of transmission wires, and the Government’s happy to destroy our environment to save the planet.
The point I want to press home is this:
We can reduce our emissions, we can have a reliable grid and we can have affordable energy.
We can meet our three national goals of cheaper, consistent and cleaner power.
But in our judgement, you can only do that with the right energy policy.
And only if Australia becomes a latest generation nuclear-powered nation.
Reassuringly, an increasing number of Australians recognise that there is zero chance of reaching net zero without zero-emission nuclear power.
A recent Newspoll found that 55 per cent of all Australians support new nuclear technologies as well as 65 per cent of 18 to 34-year-olds – because they are well-read, they understand what’s happening in Europe, and in Asia, and in North America.
The debate in the United Kingdom at the moment is for the Labour Party calling for the Tories to implement for nuclear energy into their baseload to support renewables.
And yet here, Labor sees nuclear power as a competitor to renewables.
We see nuclear power as a companion to renewables.
Nuclear is the only proven technology which emits zero emissions and can firm up renewables.
So, I just want to make a few points and address some of the straw man arguments.
Australia’s energy mix is about 21 per cent gas, 47 per cent coal, and 32 per cent renewables.
Ontario province in Canada is about five per cent gas, 35 per cent renewables, and 60 per cent nuclear.
South Korea is about 30 per cent gas, 30 per cent coal, and 30 per cent nuclear – with the balance mainly hydro.
Averaging the electricity costs for all Australian states and territories, at the moment we pay about 30 cents a kilowatt hour.
But costs are as high as 33 cents a kilowatt hour for New South Wales.
And 45 cents a kilowatt hour for South Australia.
Canadians in Ontario pay 16 cents Australian a kilowatt hour.
South Koreans are paying 18 cents Australian a kilowatt hour.
In other words, Australians pay almost double what Ontario and South Korea residents are paying for their electricity.
Recent reporting by the Herald Sun examined electricity prices of states in the US as well as countries around Europe.
It found that the US states and European countries who are using nuclear power enjoy cheaper electricity prices. That’s the fact.
As for the UK, its energy mix is fast approaching 50 per cent renewables.
Brits are paying about 52 cents Australian a kilowatt hour – close to double what Australians are paying.
What’s clear is that the baseload power in the energy mix, like nuclear in that mix, prices are cheaper.
Whereas overbuilding renewables drives up prices.
Many Australians might be surprised to learn that there are more than 400 reactors operating worldwide today.
In terms of nuclear waste, here too we need to put things in perspective.
All the used-fuel produced by the US nuclear industry since the 1950s would fit in the area the size of a football field, to a depth of about nine meters.
To paint you another picture, the waste from a large nuclear power plant per year is about three cubic metres.
Now, we are talking about small amounts of waste.
And the Government has signed up under the AUKUS deal to dispose of the nuclear waste, as well as the reactors at end of life.
Compare all of that to vast volumes of landfill which will be required to dispose of 58 million solar panels and almost 3,500 wind turbines which have lifespans, at best, of 25 to 30 years. The ones at sea amortised over a period of about 19 years.
Australia is already making inroads under AUKUS to manage the nuclear waste, as I say – that is part of their commitment and the future nuclear-powered submarines.
Moreover, we’re not starting a nuclear industry from scratch – let’s dispense with that.
The Lucas Heights nuclear reactor has been running for 66 years.
ANSTO – our nuclear research organisation – can be traced back to 1952.
And we’ve been engaged in radiation safety since the early 20th century with ARPANSA being our nuclear safety regulator since 1999.
There is bipartisan support for AUKUS – appropriately so and to the Government’s credit.
The Government’s willing to have floating nuclear reactors moored at our naval bases, including here in Sydney.
And yet, it won’t even entertain a mature conversation about having the same technology on our soil.
I say to the Prime Minister today: it’s time for us to have a national debate. The Prime Minister’s fond of having a debate at the National Press Club. I’m willing to meet him there at any time to debate this important national interest issue.
We need to have the facts on the table.
Just last week, Labor MP, Andrew Charlton, repeated the Government’s falsehood that nuclear power is the most expensive type of energy.
He said, and I quote, ‘the market has made its decision about nuclear energy’.
Well which market is Mr Charlton talking about?
He can’t be talking about international markets.
More than 30 countries use zero emission nuclear power today.
More than 50 countries are exploring or investing in next-generation nuclear technology for the very first time.
Australia is the only country in the top 20 economies which hasn’t embraced domestic nuclear power or is taking steps to do so.
During COP28 last December, more than 20 countries from four continents pledged their intent to triple their nuclear energy capacity by 2050.
Perhaps Mr Charlton thinks all that these economies have got it wrong, and that somehow, the Labor Party economists have got it right.
But if Mr Charlton is referring to the Australian market, how can our market have reached a conclusion on nuclear energy when it hasn’t even tested the market?
There has been a ban on nuclear power production since 1998. Not for any reason, other than convenience of passing a bill in negotiation with Independents in the Senate.
If the Government is so confident its ‘renewables only’ energy policy is viable, it should have no fear in lifting the moratorium on nuclear energy and letting the market decide.
The fact is our country is blessed with a market advantage for nuclear power.
As you know, Australia holds the largest deposits of uranium on the planet – one third of the world’s reserves.
If there was ever a time to consider nuclear energy, the time is now.
The work taking place in Defence on AUKUS can complement the development of a civil nuclear power industry.
In terms of the Coalition’s energy approach, we are guided by core principles.
First and foremost, we want to get the highest yield of energy using the smallest amount of land. This is Bill Gates’ theory and it’s a very sound one.
We want to maximise the amount of energy that we can obtain per square metre and minimise our environmental footprint.
We can achieve that goal by putting new nuclear technologies on, or near the sites, of decommissioned or retiring coal-fired power plants using the existing grid.
We can achieve that goal without having to adopt Labor’s plan of re-writing the whole system, of re-wiring the nation and building a vast archipelago of industrial-scale solar and wind farms.
The Coalition will shortly unveil those potential host sites – we are only talking in the vicinity of about six sites where new nuclear technologies could be placed.
That leads to a second principle.
Labor has sidelined community concerns in its reckless roll-out of renewables.
The Coalition will seek a social licence for our energy policy by listening to, and incentivising communities to adopt nuclear power. It’s worked elsewhere in the world.
A third principle is that the Coalition will put people at the centre of our energy policy.
Labor has forsaken the needs of everyday Australians in its utopian vision of a ‘renewables only’ future.
Australians don’t want clean energy at any cost.
They want and they need affordable and reliable clean energy.
And under the Coalition’s plan, Australians will get cheaper power, consistent power and increasingly cleaner power.
Of course, we can’t switch on a system tomorrow.
It’s a long journey ahead, and there’s a lot more that we’ll have to say about measures in the interim.
But most countries are increasing their gas supplies to ensure affordable and reliable energy and to help transition their economies to new energy systems.
A Coalition Government will do the same.
We will ramp up domestic gas production and support ventures across the nation.
And we’ve already committed to cutting all Commonwealth funding from the Environmental Defenders Office.
We want proper processes in place, but we don’t want activists holding sway over our gas sector and our economy.
Ladies and gentlemen, at the next federal election, Australians will have a clear choice:
Between continuing on the current Government’s path – which is not a credible pathway forward. They cannot achieve their 2050 targets.
Or choosing the Coalition’s path – which leads to energy security, economic resurgence and real emissions reductions.
In the weeks ahead, we will continue to release more details of our energy policy.
It’s a plan which I believe offers hope for our nation.
A return of cheaper electricity for Australians.
A restoration of competitive economic settings.
A revival of confidence in our country.
But for today, I hope more Australians will appreciate that such a future is contingent on Australia moving forward adopting nuclear power.
Thank you very much.
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