Thursday, 30 May 2024

Motions

Nuclear energy

Lily D’AMBROSIO (Mill Park – Minister for Climate Action, Minister for Energy and Resources, Minister for the State Electricity Commission) (15:02): I move:

That this house:

(1) condemns the federal opposition’s plan to send energy bills sky-high with dangerous and expensive nuclear power;

(2) calls on the leader and deputy leader of the Victorian opposition to rule out nuclear reactors on the Great Ocean Road or in any Victorian community.

There is no doubt about it: nuclear power is toxic, dangerous and the most expensive form of new energy that you can build – indeed of energy at all. That is why on this side of the house, as Labor is in government, we will never entertain it. The reality is this: our coal-fired generators are getting older and they are getting less reliable, and we need to make sure that the replacement power that is built is clean, genuinely clean, in terms of emissions and of course the cheapest to build, and we know that it is exactly what renewable energy projects bring to us. We simply do not have time to wait for nuclear power plants to be built, even if they were somehow desirable. We need new renewable energy generation in the system as quickly as possible to keep the lights on and to keep prices down.

Our government, the Allan Labor government, is committed to bringing down power prices for Victorians, and that is exactly what we are doing. As testament to the effort that we have put in to this space and the transition, the new Victorian default offer last week was released, with electricity bills for households on the VDO going down by an average of $100 from 1 July this year. And Victorians on the default offer are paying the lowest electricity prices in the national market. The VDO is $311 less than the average household default market offer in New South Wales and other states. Some people want to be in denial about the facts, about the evidence, but the evidence speaks for itself, and the evidence will be in people’s energy bills from 1 July. That is great news for small businesses as well, with their VDO going down by an average of $261, a huge $1290 less than the average default market offer in other states.

Victorians have the lowest power prices in the country because our record renewable energy investments are clear, and we continue to grow our ambition and make Victoria the most welcoming state when it comes to the build of new replacement renewable energy for Victorians. That is how you reduce power prices for Victorians – with renewables, the cheapest form of new-build electricity generation on the market. What you do not do is the exact opposite of that and play with the notion of introducing nuclear power here in Victoria and in the same breath claim that you are concerned about the cost of living for Victorians and energy prices.

Victorians can be assured that a Labor government will never slug them with nuclear energy, the most expensive energy that there is. The CSIRO estimates that nuclear would cost around 400 per cent more than renewables and a reactor would not even be finished – if it were to be built – until at least 2040. So what is the answer now? Some are pursuing ideology here in terms of the energy transition, an ideology which is not grounded in fact or evidence or indeed prospectivity in terms of when a potential power station powered by nuclear could ever be built. So it is absolutely not providing any solutions for anyone. Our government is absolutely clear that we will never go down the road of toxic and expensive nuclear energy, but we know that for those opposite you cannot say the same. Much like a nuclear atom, the coalition are absolutely split on this, and the consequences are about tearing themselves down and failing to look the evidence in the face and work on behalf of Victorians.

When the right wing of their party comes calling, Peter Dutton gets on the phone: ‘Johnny, roll over, mate; we’re going to need to build nuclear power because I need this to win a federal election.’ Guess what, no-one seems to want it – go to any community across Victoria – other than those politicians who pass motions at their state conferences or councils that say we need nuclear energy. They are not listening to Victorians. They are trying to have a bet each way on this. After allowing a pro-nuclear party room to run rampant on this, he is now trying to walk it back and pretend that somehow he is in control of this issue. That is exactly what we are faced with from the Leader of the Opposition. Even his own Shadow Minister for Energy, Affordability and Security brushed off calls for them to rule out nuclear energy by saying it is a matter for the federal government.

Well, big news – newsflash – we have legislation in Victoria that prohibits nuclear energy. It prohibits the mining of uranium and certainly prohibits the building of nuclear energy plants. So that is not a federal government matter. I want the opposition here in Victoria to put it on the record that they will not change or seek to change laws in Victoria to allow Peter Dutton to come in and put a nuclear power plant in Anglesea, in the Latrobe Valley or wherever else they think is suitable for nuclear power. That is what the responsibility of the Leader of the Opposition is, not to pretend that it is not a matter for him – it is a matter for him. It is a matter for him, and he ought to come clean and stop trying to have it both ways to keep his party room in control, in check. You have got to take the pulse on the opposition every morning when you wake up – are they still around, are they still alive? We do not know, but the fact is –

James Newbury interjected.

Lily D’AMBROSIO: The news is very clear: stand up for Victorians and rule out changing the laws in Victoria or, if you are not prepared to rule it out, tell Victorians where they are going to have these nuclear power plants. Victoria has its own prohibition on nuclear energy generation. That is what we need to hear from them. The federal government does not make the decision on this restriction; a future coalition government, if they were ever elected, would be making that decision.

We will never grant any nuclear facility planning approvals in this state. That is absolutely rock solid, and we have never deviated from that position. Victorians do not want it. It creates toxic waste that stays in our environment for more than centuries – millennia. It is the most expensive form of new energy that you can impose on Victorians’ bills, and it is not available here and now – today. This is an argument that is being perpetuated by those people who want to put a pause on investment confidence when it comes to renewable energy. They want to cause uncertainty in the market so that if there is any potential for nuclear energy to be built or pursued in a policy sense by either a Commonwealth coalition government or a future coalition government in Victoria, they can slow down the transition. When you do that you are actually forcing up people’s power bills; that is what you are doing when you are slowing down the transition.

Let us also be very clear: language matters here, because language and what you say is what you are judged by. Just a couple of months ago the Leader of the Opposition was saying nuclear would be part of the energy mix. Now he is not saying that of course; he says it is not. He will say anything to appease the right-wingers in his party when it suits him. The Nationals over there are off on their own frolic. In March of this year on ABC radio the Leader of the Opposition said:

… nuclear will almost certainly play a part in our energy mix going forward.

That was on 24 March on ABC radio. We cannot forget that the member for Caulfield said, in reference to nuclear energy, in October last year on 3AW, ‘I wouldn’t rule anything out.’ Wow – you would not rule out increasing people’s power bills. That is what that means. You would not rule out increasing people’s power bills and you would not rule out promoting nuclear reactors in people’s backyards without any commentary at all on what you would do with the toxic waste. A member for Western Victoria in the other place is avowedly pro nuclear, even putting out a media release in November 23 saying ‘the future is nuclear’.

Perhaps that is why just last week the Leader of the Opposition refused to rule out nuclear energy at a press conference. His position may now be to equivocate on this issue, but Victorians can see right through that. When you stay silent or mince your words or prevaricate or equivocate, what you are doing is trying to send a signal to the people in your party room not to basically end your career. This is what this is about. It is about keeping people sweet in the party room that are gung-ho on nuclear – gung-ho on it. They are gung-ho on so many things that are effectively against the interests of Victorians, especially with the cost-of-living problems that Victorians are experiencing now. The coalition, whether it is the state or federal parties, want to go nuclear, and it is Victorians who are going to be picking up the bill. Be honest, be up-front on this. Rule it out and rule it out properly, or indeed tell us what the plan is. Or are you just sitting by the phone waiting for Peter Dutton to give you his marching instructions? Just last week we had the shadow energy minister on Sky News refusing to say whether he would try and overturn our state’s ban on fracking. Today they are actually refusing to say whether they would rule out giving approvals for these expensive, toxic and dangerous nuclear facilities. It is very simple: if you will not give these projects their approvals, then say so. Otherwise Victorians cannot trust the Leader of the Opposition and his party to stand up to Peter Dutton and the right wing of his party.

Victorians know what they are getting with a Labor government on nuclear. It has been absolutely written in stone for many decades, and it will never be moving. We know that the quickest way to manage an energy transition is to look at the projects that are the most efficient to be built, the cheapest to be built – lowering people’s power bills, not sending them through the roof, not sending them sky-high because of some ideology. It is about doing that and delivering it in a timely fashion and doing it whilst we are also reducing our emissions.

All of this is dog whistling. When they talk about nuclear being clean somehow – clean of what, toxic waste that stays in our environment for centuries, millennia? We know the record globally on the storage and maintenance of nuclear waste facilities leaves a lot to be desired. Can I just say also it is unforgiving – one mistake, and it is unforgiving. Victorians can be very confident they not going to get that from this side of Parliament and certainly not from any future Labor government in Victoria or indeed nationally. I commend this motion, and I look forward to the debate.

James NEWBURY (Brighton) (15:15): It is clear that this motion is just another one of the government’s sledge motions, a break-glass attempt by the government to divert from their own problems, and I move:

That all the words after ‘That’ be omitted and replaced with the words ‘the Allan Labor government be condemned for failing to provide secure, reliable and affordable energy to Victorians.’

We know why this motion is being moved, and that is because Labor’s primary has hit 28 per cent and because at a federal level it has hit 29. So this government has decided, ‘Why don’t we help our Prime Minister, who is tanking, and our Premier, who is tanking?’ And aren’t they tanking? Victorians and Australians have lost trust in Labor, and why? One of the core reasons goes to the heart of this motion, because everybody in this state deserves reliable, secure, affordable energy, and they do not have it with this government that oversaw the worst blackout this state has ever seen – over half a million people without power. Every Victorian knows they would move a motion in this place to cover up their 28-point primary. That is what they do. They think, ‘Oh, let’s throw the dead cat over there; maybe everyone’ll look at that.’ Well, we all know what this is about. We have bills that could be debated – the budget, which the government is hiding from. I have said it all week – the government has spent so little time debating the budget. Of course they have, because they want to try and deflect from their problems.

We have got a cabinet that is split up. They have got different positions on everything, and the Deputy Premier, the stalking horse – he is a stalking horse that one. We all see that thoroughbred over there, we all see him – he is racing strongly at the moment, isn’t he? Hasn’t he had a week? He is standing up for a bit of common sense. ‘I don’t want to get rid of gas,’ he says. Well, you have got a minister who will not approve any projects. The Minister for Energy and Resources will not approve any gas projects and then comes into this place and says, after 10 years, ‘Oh, we don’t have any more gas.’ Well, you have not approved any projects, Minister. If you do not approve any projects, guess what happens, you run out of gas. That is what has happened in this state. Everybody knows it, and the minister has been exposed for it to the point that the Deputy Premier has called it out. I mean, how embarrassing that the Deputy Premier has had to call out the minister. Every time the minister for energy is asked about gas the minister gets up and says, ‘Oh, we’ve run out of gas.’ It is because you have not approved any projects, Minister – it is pretty simple. Victorians deserve to have reliable, secure and affordable energy. That is what they deserve, and when you vote Liberal, you will get it. That is the difference.

This motion is a joke. It is a cover-up for a 28-point primary. Everybody can see it. That is what this motion is about, but we can see and Victorians now can see how badly the government is failing at delivering for them. They do not have trust in this Premier, and this motion goes to one of the core reasons why Victorians have lost trust, because people do not have reliable, secure and affordable energy. Every member, if they were honest – which I will leave up to them – would stand up in this place and say that their constituencies are worried about power supply. They are worried about the cost of energy provision. These are things that every single person will talk to you about, and they have got every right to feel that way. After 10 years we know this government has not delivered it for them.

To not approve any gas projects and then say, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re out of gas’: can you believe the hypocrisy of it? We know why it was not approved: ideology, that is why. And the Deputy Premier has called it out. We know what the Deputy Premier is doing on this side of the chamber. We know the Deputy Premier is standing for common sense on gas. If only the Premier would hear his words, that great thoroughbred, the stalking horse that he is. That is why we have amended the motion to deal with the real substance of these issues. This should not be a debate about sledging. This should be a motion about the substance of ensuring that we have secure, reliable and affordable energy.

At the start of the year we saw one of the most embarrassing displays of an energy policy collapse this nation has ever seen. We saw the offshore wind policy of this government collapse in front of our very eyes. We had the Premier standing up to talk about offshore wind and not understanding basic details. We had the Minister for Energy standing up and not knowing basic details. We had the Minister for Environment, who took a little break out of his holiday, talking about this issue and not understanding the basic details. He said the details of the project were not available to the public when they were on a public website. You would think with all of his staff they would have the capacity to understand the basic details. The Premier said that the project had been approved by the state government despite the Minister for Planning doing something entirely different reviewing it. It was a mess. No wonder Victorians know they cannot have secure energy. Of course they cannot, because the Premier does not even understand the policy. The Minister for Energy is ideologically strangling gas. That is what the minister is doing, and everyone can see it. The minister has finally been exposed, because after saying that they are not going to approve any project, guess what happens, they run out. And now the minister comes into question time and says, ‘Oh, if someone came and saw me, maybe I’d consider their approach.’ Do you know what businesses are saying? ‘Why would we bother with this minister?’ That is what every single person in industry is telling us, and now they are starting to say it publicly. They are saying, ‘Why would we go to this minister?’ because this minister is not making value-based decisions; this minister is entirely ideological. We know it is true. This is a minister who started a process of locking up the entire parkland of much of Victoria. This minister is entirely ideological and has been exposed for it. That is what the substance of this motion is about.

What makes things worse is not just that the government has lost control of this policy area, the government has also cut the community out entirely from the process. They have created a new pathway for energy projects that entirely cuts the community from the process. It is so fundamentally wrong. Yesterday one of the members of this place came into the chamber and spent a number of contributions talking about the fact that I was recently at a rally at Lethbridge Airport, upset with me because I had met with her community. Well, of course I met with her community, because, guess what, the member has not. The member is absent. We have hundreds of people in that community asking a very, very simple and fair question: if you put windfarms 1 kilometre from the landing flight path of an airport where the emergency services vehicles land for the entire Geelong region, will it affect the capacity of those emergency services vehicles to land? That is a fair question. That is why hundreds of people are asking it, and they are getting no answer. So they have come to me and said, ‘Why are we not getting an opportunity through the government’s new processes to have a right to speak and to have our questions answered?’

What I find so offensive about the way that the communities are being cut out of not only energy but also planning more generally is that people move into communities – well, let us go even a step further: people create communities, people create towns, people create suburbs. They move into those areas. They look after those areas, and they form community groups. They care for these areas for years and for decades. Then the government comes along and says, ‘I’m going to put something here and you don’t get a say.’ How is that right? How is that okay? What will happen later this year is the government will introduce draft laws which will entirely cut out communities for much of the planning process. That is what the government will do, and the community will turn on them. The community is going to turn in a way we have not seen before. You think a 28 per cent primary is bad – you wait and see.

If you cut the community out of all planning decisions and out of all energy decisions, what will happen is that the community will reject them, because the government is not some bunch of overlords. The minister cannot make a single decision, let alone doubling, tripling or quadrupling her workload every day. I mean, the minister cannot make any decisions. So if you give her more decisions, what is going to happen? The briefs are going to get taller. The dust on the briefs is going to get bigger. It is outrageous what the government is doing with energy, and cutting the community out of that process will bite them hard. And so it should. That is what is going to happen when these proposed laws come to Parliament later this year. You will see a groundswell from across the entire community, who will say, ‘No more. We don’t accept you building whatever you want wherever you want, because our community has character and community should be protected.’ Community should be protected, and community having a say should be a core part of that.

We have moved an amendment to this motion, and the core of this amendment is about the failure of this government to provide secure, reliable and affordable energy. That is what we want to talk about, because that is the core of this issue. What the government has tried to do is bring up a break-glass political tactic in the form of a sledge motion. The Premier has been criticised for her speech last night at a pro-Israel function, the government has no capacity over policy day to day, the Deputy Premier is contradicting and the litany of errors is banking up. ‘So what do we do? We’re going to use a word over here to try and scare people.’ The only way that works is if you have a Premier that people listen to, and, guess what, you do not. If you have a Premier that people actually trust and listen to, that tactic will work. But the tactic of the government now will not work, because the problems the community have are deep and they are real, and the cost-of-living impact on people is hurting them. People are worried about the fact that inflation rose this week and we may see another rate rise. That is the kind of stuff people are worried about.

For the government to, after 10 years, come along and throw some silly political sledge across the chamber to try and detract – it will not work, and neither should it. It is juvenile. It is university juvenile, what the government is doing at the moment, and the community can see it. That is why their primary is 28 per cent. People can see it. Unless the government actually get on to the priorities that people in this community care about, it will get worse for them. And so it should – they should be condemned for their behaviour. So for the minister to come in here and move some motion after crippling an industry – after destroying policy in this space – the minister should stand condemned. And the Premier, for trying to throw her dead cat politics over in the corner to try and trick Victorians away from the things they actually care about, should be condemned. The Premier should be condemned for her behaviour.

Victorians see it – that is why it is not working. Throw all the stupid university politics tactics you want, Premier, but you have been seen. Victorians see what you are doing, and they will call you out for it, and you will never, never get the standing that a Premier deserves while you behave in that way. Fix the problems that are there. Fix the things that people care about. Make sure people have energy. Make sure that cost-of-living issues are at the forefront of your agenda, not stupid university politics. That is what is happening, and that is why the amendment we have moved condemns the government for it and, in my view, condemns the Premier for it.

It is time that this behaviour gets called out – enough. It is time for the government to start talking about policies that matter and fixing problems that matter and not move things in this place that hurt people. Yesterday we debated a bill that is going to hurt 15,000 people. I did not see very many people on that side of the chamber get up and give a 10-minute defence of 15,000 people, did I? No – silence of course. Where is the party of the people? That was gone a long, long, long time ago, and it is sad. This motion is a disappointing reflection of what this government has become.

We will be debating the substance of what we should be debating, which is the core of my amendment, and we have a very long list of speakers that want to speak till the end of the day about it. Though I would love to spend the entire 30 minutes – I can assure you I would love to speak for the entire 30 ‍minutes – we have a long list of people who want to get up and talk about the substance of this motion, about ensuring we have secure, reliable and affordable energy. So I will finish where I started and say: this is the Premier’s dead cat sledge motion. That is what this is, and that is why we have amended it.

This is about the fact that the Premier has hit a 28 per cent primary – and all the members on that side of the chamber are very quiet. We know what they are thinking. We know they have lost confidence, like Victorians. How can you have trust and confidence in this Premier? The Premier has no standing ‍– that is the issue – because the Premier is not focused on things that actually matter to people. The Premier is not focused on fixing problems that exist for people, and the Liberal–National parties are. That is the difference.

We are not going to be moved by some silly little motion. Every single sitting week the government can move a silly, little motion, and every week I will get up and I will point it out and every one of my members on this side of the chamber will do it too, because we are sick of the way the government uses this place – we are sick of it. The government needs to start doing things for people and fixing problems that they have.

Yesterday 15,000 people were hurt because of a bill, and every member who voted for that without standing up for those communities and who speaks for those communities without working to protect those communities should be condemned. That is what we are doing. That is what the Shadow Minister for Agriculture the member for Lowan is doing – working hard to try and do everything that we can to help 15,000 people. I know how hard the shadow minister is working to try and get a deal for these people. The government should be condemned for their failure on this policy and for the misuse of this place, and from now on, every time they do it they are going to be called out for it.

Mathew HILAKARI (Point Cook) (15:34): I cannot believe that the opposition has been in opposition for 20 out of the last 24 years with such a rousing performance! They are the sorts of rousing performances that guarantee another 20 years. The member for Brighton spoke about breaking the glass. His response to energy prices is to support nuclear power, the most expensive. I would welcome the member for Brighton to stand up and say that he does not support nuclear power and that I am somehow misrepresenting him in this place. No, he is not going to get on his feet. Okay, we have got our answer. The member for Brighton is up on his feet all the time, but when invited to say that I am misrepresenting him when I say he supports nuclear power in this state, nuclear waste in this state –

James Newbury: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, is this question time? I do not even know who that person is.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Daniela De Martino): That is not a point of order.

A member interjected.

Mathew HILAKARI: Yes, indeed, it is a ‘you’ problem, it sounds like, from the member for Brighton.

Of course I rise in support of the Minister for Energy and Resources – no to nuclear and no to nuclear waste, no to higher power prices and bills, no to expensive, long bills and cost blowouts and no to small modular nuclear reactors, which do not or are unlikely to exist anytime soon. When will the member for Hawthorn stand up to Mr Dutton and his yellowcake cronies? When will the opposition in Victoria stand up? When invited moments ago, they did not stand up. They are choosing not to stand up for Victorians.

I could talk about all these matters, but I want to talk about some of the workers in the nuclear power industry in Japan, because there will be workers who will need to deal with a nuclear power industry if it is set up. The nuclear power industry has an atrocious record. I am going to talk about 30 ‍September 1999. The member for Brighton at that point was just continuing in his debating club, refreshing some of his early social media. In Tokaimura in Japan a 35-year-old, Hisashi Ouchi, Masato Shinohara and Yutaka Yokokawa were purifying uranium oxide to make fuel rods. They were at a very low risk, small facility, not like some of the big energy-producing nuclear power plants across Japan. On the morning they were not even wearing the regulation full protective clothing to undertake these tasks. Mr Ouchi was described as a handsome, powerfully built former high school rugby player with a wife and a young son. Mr Shinohara was married with three children. They were standing at a tank holding a funnel, pouring in a mixture of intermediate-enriched uranium oxide into steel buckets. Mr Yokokawa was in an adjacent room. A steel bucket and some funnels – these were the safety standards of a technologically advanced country with 40 years history in the nuclear industry. I do not think the member at the bench should talk down the technological ability of Japan; I would have thought that would be a mistake. The workers had no previous experience of handling uranium with that level of enrichment. They inadvertently had put in too much – seven times too much, in fact.

Clearly the prioritisation of profit over worker safety has been running rampant in the nuclear power industry. Clearly the profits over community safety were running rampant. As a result Mr Ouchi and his colleagues inadvertently triggered what is known in the nuclear industry as a criticality excursion. This is a phrase that may be entering Hansard for the first time. According to the Nuclear Energy Agency:

A criticality excursion (also referred to as a criticality accident) is the accidental production of a self-sustaining or divergent chain reaction of fissionable material.

In layman’s terms, it is a nuclear accident. On this occasion it released as much radiation as the bomb dropped over Hiroshima, but without the accompanying explosion. Mr Ouchi said he saw a flash of blue light and passed out. He was the closest to the nuclear reaction and received what was probably the biggest exposure of radiation in the history of nuclear accidents. The processes, the safeguards to avoid this nuclear accident, a criticality excursion, were not taught and were not followed, and this was not the first time that it happened at this facility or other facilities like it.

These decades of investment in the nuclear industry had not protected those workers. It was profits over the protection of the workers and the citizens who lived in the area. These failings will no doubt be repeated in Australia should Peter Dutton and the Liberals and the Nationals across this country have their way. A year 2000 US Nuclear Regulatory Commission report noted that before Tokaimura, 21 previous criticality excursions had occurred between 1953 and 1997 in Japan.

There is some confusion now as to whether the workers were dragged from the room or they left the room themselves. Emergency workers who did arrive to support them received 4000 times the regular dose of radioactivity. The warnings of the community happened only for the first 350 metres. In the end those living a mile away were told to go inside. Children were playing at their schools. But the workers’ fate was sealed; the damage had been done. Mr Ouchi was the closest to the reaction and received a massive dose of radiation – an estimated 17 sieverts of radiation or about 17,000 times the maximum annual permissible exposure level set by the government. The burst of neutrons and gamma rays from this criticality excursion was lethal but not immediately. The concentration of exposure was enormous. How do these high doses of radiation damage the body? It rendered Mr Ouchi unable to make new cells. His bone marrow stopped making the red blood cells that carry oxygen and the white blood cells that fight infection. His white blood cells basically dropped to zero. The exposure guaranteed the outcome, but just how much suffering would occur in the intervening 83 days was yet to be discovered.

The workers were first taken to the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Chiba, just east of Tokyo. It was confirmed that their lymphatic blood count had dropped to almost zero. Their symptoms included nausea, dehydration and diarrhoea. Three days later they were transferred to the University of Tokyo Hospital, where doctors tried various measures in a desperate effort to save their lives. The Japan Times said Mr Ouchi reportedly underwent the world’s first transfusion of peripheral stem cells on 6 and 7 October. The doctors kept Mr Ouchi alive by pumping huge amounts of blood and fluids into him on a daily basis, treating him with drugs normally unavailable in Japan, indicating the high priority the government placed on his survival. He continued to deteriorate. A team of surgeons looked after him during this period.

At first his face was slightly red and swollen and his eyes were bloodshot, but he did not have blisters or burns. Within a few days his condition got worse. He began to require oxygen, his abdomen swelled and he continued downhill. Six days after the accident the only cells that doctors could see were scattered black dots, indicating that they were broken into pieces. He was unable to generate new cells. A week after the accident he received a peripheral blood stem cell transplant from his sister. He continued to deteriorate. When medical tape was removed from his chest his skin started to come off with it. He began developing blisters. It had killed his chromosomes. The pain became intense. Skin transplants were attempted to try and stop fluids escaping through the pores of his skin. He cried blood. He experienced breathing problems, and soon his heart stopped. He was resuscitated. His heart stopped again, and he was resuscitated again. For 70 minutes he lay dead. On 21 December his body finally gave out due to multiple organ failure.

Why should we not have a nuclear industry in Australia? That is why we should not. Because the care for workers will never exist in an industry that places profits at a premium. I did not talk about Fukushima. I did not talk about all the other accidents in this industry – accidents that are the result of deliberate profit-taking over the lives of community and workers. I commend this bill to the house.

Emma KEALY (Lowan) (15:44): It is wonderful to be able to rise on the motion that is before the house today, which shows that yet again the Allan Labor government is so focused on continuing sky-high energy bills, and it is Victorians that consistently pay the price. I have never, ever seen any government right across Australia more focused on shutting down every single opportunity for energy supply in their own state than the Allan Labor government. When it comes to looking at all of the energy options, there is only one thing that this Labor government will support and that is renewables. We have got so many other resources we could be taking advantage of, but because Labor refuses to do so and continually bans different energy supplies, we simply have not got enough energy.

Unsurprisingly, Labor are pushing up power prices, and it is Victorians that are paying the price. We know, while we want to support renewables, you cannot just build them overnight. We need to have a grid to transmit the energy around. We need to build these things. We may need to make sure that farmers are actually supported and that we are not seeing our farmland replaced with renewables factories right across our state. We see already in Victoria that energy prices are going through the roof. That is what the first point of the minister’s motion really goes to – Labor have failed to secure sufficient energy supply in Victoria, and as a result electricity prices have gone up by 25 per cent, gas prices have gone up by 27 per cent, there are Victorians who are struggling to put food on the table to feed their family and there are pensioners who cannot keep warm this winter because they cannot afford to heat their homes.

This is the state that we are in in Victoria because Labor have banned gas and they have shut down the coal industry. We have had huge losses of jobs, but I hear something different; I hear that behind the scenes the Minister for Energy and Resources is having secret discussions to see whether they can ramp that up again. So a much more intensive emitter of coal is okay, but we have got large-scale gas reserves in Victoria – not that the minister wants to agree that that has happened, even though her federal counterpart in her own party continually points out to her that there is sufficient conventional gas available around Victoria to be able to meet our gas supply needs if we tapped into that. If the minister would not mislead the Parliament and say that she has not ever been approached by a gas company to unlock more reserves here – we have seen them on the record today, gas companies, coming out and saying, ‘Well, the minister might want to check her records, because we wrote to her. We said that we wanted to tap into Victoria’s gas reserves. We said that we would help to boost the supply to bring down gas prices in Victoria, to give cost-of-living relief to families in Victoria, to give cost-of-business relief to people who are trying to run a business in Victoria.’

Maybe even look at that energy supply from a bigger area if you are looking to support workers and make sure that we have not got this continual bleed of businesses out of Victoria to other states because it is cheaper to do business there because they can access cheaper energy and because they know that they have got a government that will support them and a government that will make sure that with the growth of their business it will put more money into the economy, which means more money into our roads and our hospitals – all of those things in our communities that make our lives better. But instead, Labor wants to make sure that we keep on pushing up energy prices and we keep on saying no to any other possible energy source apart from renewables.

The impact of this is significant, particularly for people in my electorate. In western Victoria it is now being seen as an opportunity to put so many wind farms and solar farms out there with no regard whatsoever for people who do not want to host these renewables factories on their farms. This is something that so many farmers right across the state are going to have to contend with, because it is the government’s own offshore wind policy directions paper which actually states that if we do not get offshore wind, we will lose 70 per cent of Victoria’s agricultural land. That means we will not be able to grow our own food. It means that you will harm the environment because you are going to have to have more food miles because you are going to have to import food to Victoria from interstate and from overseas.

That harms the environment more than actually supporting agriculture, which is a carbon sink. It helps to reduce our carbon emissions, which helps to lock them up, and most importantly, it helps to support our economy. Agriculture is such an important sector, and yet rather than listen to their own policy directions paper, do you know what the government have done – they have taken it offline. You cannot follow the link anymore to the policy directions paper because it was bad news for the government. They had a list of offshore wind projects which have been cancelled or not gone ahead, and the list is long. It clearly states in that document that if offshore wind cannot go ahead in Victoria, we will lose 70 per cent of Victoria’s productive agricultural land.

We know the list of offshore wind projects which are being canned is continuing to escalate in this bitter feud between the Victorian energy minister and her federal counterparts. If you look at the Port of Hastings, that was rejected because it would cause more harm to a significant wetland. It was banned; it could not happen. What other projects have we got? We have got the projects of course in Gippsland, the offshore wind projects. It was only revealed yesterday that Shell have pulled out of that project. They have pulled out of the offshore wind project off the coast of Gippsland because they did not have any sense of support from the government and felt that it is all talk and no action from Labor. Well, what a surprise. That has only been the case for 20 of the past 24 years, as I think was pointed out by the previous speaker.

We have also got a government which is willing to trade off important ecological benefits of our water environment. This is something the government is pushing for at the moment, around offshore wind in a whale migration route off the south-west coast. If this is what the government want to do, go ahead and just do renewables at any cost to the environment, at cost to rare species, at cost to our grasslands in regional areas, at cost to our whale migration paths and whale nurseries around the Bonney upwelling – that is what the government are doing – it is just ideology that is pushing this agenda.

Any responsible government should be looking at every opportunity for a variety of energy supplies. That does not mean that we have to build nuclear reactors right across Victoria. I think it is an eminently sensible discussion that the federal government are having about looking at different energy options to secure our energy future in Australia. But do you know where the most likely place would be? It of course would be South Australia. They have got large uranium reserves. They are building nuclear-fired submarines in South Australia. There are vast areas of land which are not occupied. It is a low population density. So the Labor government saying no to yet another energy source – ‘We’ll never, ever do it’ – is just naive. Our technology gets better and better. It can be a form of safe and reliable energy and provide ample supply.

I would encourage those opposite to do some research and learn more about nuclear, because it would not happen overnight either – there is no way. Even if the government were supportive of nuclear, they could not go ahead and build anything within the next 20 years. You are talking about something in the never-never, but it is today that we have not got enough gas supply. That is an easy way for this government to take pressure off the cost of living for every single Victorian, and I urge the government to do that. I urge the government, rather than blindly looking and trying to knock off every single energy source that is out there one by one, to make sure that they are looking at gas as an intervening supply of energy for our people. But we all know that Labor cannot manage Victoria’s energy supply, and Victorians are paying the price.

I will not go into great detail about VNI West, but it has been an unmitigated disaster with the consultation with that community. We know that Labor want to completely ban community consultation for large-scale projects like VNI West. I condemn the government for their narrow thinking about energy and urge them to immediately address Victoria’s cost-of-energy crisis.

Eden FOSTER (Mulgrave) (15:54): I am very happy today to stand here and support this motion condemning the federal opposition’s nuclear power policy. But before I go into a bit of detail as to why, I just want to remind the house that the member for Brighton said that the Premier is not focused on the things that matter to people on the same day that the Premier announced a comprehensive package to stop violence against women. How out of touch, on this day, to say that the Premier is not focused on things important to people.

Those on the other side seem to be quite obsessed with gas, talking a lot about gas as an energy source that we need to keep using. The Grattan Institute has stated that it is no longer plentiful, it is no longer cheap and it is also a fossil fuel, so we need to look at alternatives. We know, though, that the federal opposition would like to see nuclear in this country. We know that nuclear power is extremely expensive and the possible environmental impacts are devastating, and we heard the member for Point Cook highlight one serious and really sad example of the impacts that nuclear has. Those opposite have been quite inconsistent on this issue, flip-flopping between suggesting that it would be part of the energy mix if they were to form government and refusing to say whether they will remove the nuclear ban in Victoria: ‘We’re sending it off to South Australia.’ I am quite baffled at, I guess, the audacity, given that we know the history of nuclear testing in remote communities and the impact that that has had on First Nations people. So the suggestion that we perhaps consider South Australia as an opportunity is quite disappointing to hear.

It is very hard, but I will try to give nuclear power and those opposite the benefit of the doubt as much as possible, so I am talking the absolute best-case scenario for the timeline of establishing nuclear power plants in this country. The CSIRO’s most recent energy cost report card suggested that it would take 16 years to build the first nuclear reactor in this country. Let us assume that we have shovels in the ground tomorrow – let us just think about that, ignoring the fact that it would require legislative changes, planning approvals, the funding for the reactor and much more – whilst also assuming that there is not a time blowout from the initial 16-year timeframe. And we know in other countries there have been significant time blowouts and also cost blowouts, so we are clearly making a lot of assumptions in support of nuclear. Even when we ignore a number of very important issues that would certainly come up if a reactor was to be built in this state, the absolute earliest that plant could be online is 2040, so it is a long way away. If the grand ambition of this policy is replacing coal-fired power plants with nuclear reactors, then what this means is more coal for longer. Maybe I should have brought in a piece of coal, perhaps, like a former Prime Minister from the opposition.

We know that Loy Yang A power station is scheduled to close by 2035. I am wondering if those opposite support keeping it open until 2040 or 2045 even. And what policies would those opposite implement to make sure that private companies cannot close their own coal-fired power plants if they want to? I thought that they believed in the free market. The consequence of extending the life of coal-fired plants would be abandoning the state’s incredibly ambitious 2035 and 2040 emissions targets, which have been massively endorsed by the Victorian public. To be honest, I would not be surprised at all if those opposite are really just using nuclear power as a way to keep coal around for longer.

I want to make note of the severe consequences that keeping coal-fired plants online for longer would bring. The world is already teetering on the edge when it comes to emissions targets and the increase in global temperature. A cap of 1.5 degrees or even 2 degrees of warming is becoming harder and harder for us to reach, and the actions that those opposite implicitly support and their federal counterparts explicitly support would amount to environmental vandalism and would only make it harder for the world to reach those targets, let alone this state or this country. We can certainly experience climate change at the moment. We have had – who would have thought at the end of May ‍– 22 degrees.

Let us be very clear: if those opposite support nuclear power and the policies of their federal counterparts, the consequences of these reactors not being viable until the 2040s at the absolute earliest would mean that either we have no power or we have more dirty, expensive coal. This side of the chamber understands that lower power bills are a priority for households, and nuclear power clearly does not stack up when you compare it to cheap, clean renewable energy. The CSIRO’s most recent GenCost report reaffirms that nuclear power is the most expensive form of power generation available; even dirty coal-fired power plants are cheaper than nuclear. It is clear that renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy generation available and it is the best pathway to our goal of zero by 2045, and that is even when you include the cost of firming wind and solar with batteries as well as new transmission. It is obvious to any serious party of government that this state should take advantage of areas where we have a natural advantage compared to other parts of the world. We have been gifted with the best renewable opportunities in this world, and it would be simply foolish for us to ignore this opportunity. Victoria has the lowest wholesale power prices in the national electricity market because of our investments in renewables. Why would we want to backtrack on that? It just does not make sense.

And all of this is before we even consider the cost of constructing a nuclear power plant. According to cost estimates from the CSIRO, constructing sufficient nuclear capacity – a 1600-megawatt capacity power station approximately the size of the decommissioned Hazelwood power station – would cost $25.6 billion. It is an incredibly big estimate, but again I am trying my best to give the benefit of the doubt, because it could be bigger – we know in other countries it has been double that – if it even gets finished. The reality is that somebody is going to have to pay for that big amount, and whether those opposite would like to admit it or not, it might be with a nuclear tax. How do we pay for this? Someone has got to pay for it, whether that is in the form, maybe, of defunding public schools or maybe closing down hospitals. Who will fund this? What will happen?

To conclude my points, I have not had the chance to actually talk about other things, like if we put a nuclear reactor in Sandown, for example, in my electorate. We might have a meltdown in Sandown, and I certainly do not want a meltdown in Sandown, and neither do the residents of my electorate of Mulgrave. I might leave much of that there, but we have also got to think about consultation and what the community would say. What about First Nations people? What would they say? We need to ensure that local communities are on board with this hypothetical project. I would like to finish by reaffirming my support of this motion condemning the federal opposition’s policy on nuclear.

Richard RIORDAN (Polwarth) (16:04): This motion that this lazy government has brought to the chamber this afternoon reflects the fact that all Victorians are being shut down, whether they are being shut down for talking about the budget or whether they are being shut down for talking about the closure of the forest industries, which we had yesterday when this government sought to shut it down. And now they want to make sure we do not have a proper debate and a proper conversation in the community about how we get affordable, reliable and deliverable energy into our homes. This government has a one-track mind. When it gets a bee in its bonnet it does not want discussion, it does not want debate and it will use all the measures it possibly can to shut those debates down.

I know and the member for Lowan knows as well that across our region this government is happy to talk about renewable energy but it is never happy to talk about the costs and consequences of renewable energy. All energy has a cost. It is about mitigating those costs, and it is about mitigating the long-term negatives if they exist. We know what the negatives are on coal; we have been talking about that for a long time. We know what they are. This government is always quick to talk about the negatives on nuclear – well, we know what they are too. But there are negatives on renewables as well. It is about having fearless and frank conversations in the community and making the best decisions, because ultimately the community needs reliable, affordable, deliverable energy.

In a country like Australia, we are blessed; we have every type of energy at our fingertips. In readiness we can access it all. We can access and have accessed coal and gas. We have the ability to make new nuclear; in fact the rest of the world that uses nuclear relies on Australia to provide the raw materials for that. We have lots of sun. We have lots of wind. We have wave energy. We have it all, and yet this government continues to weaponise and bring down sensible long-term discussions about the best way to provide that energy to our people. It is foolish, it is wrong, it is misguided and worst of all it is going to affect the people the Labor Party says it stands up for the most – because who uses the most energy? It is not households, actually, it is industry and business. Energy – affordable, reliable energy – delivers jobs. It delivers value-adding. It delivers wealth and prosperity to Australia if we get it right. We are hearing too often, way too often, that so much of our industry has been lost because we do not prioritise affordable, reliable energy. Instead, when Labor is in charge they prioritise politicising and weaponising the most crucial element to a good First World productive economy.

We have to amend this crazy, waste-of-time motion that this lazy government has brought to the chamber this afternoon, absolutely. The only thing we should be debating is: how do we allow for secure, reliable and affordable energy? That is the debate to be had. We put the information out there; we discuss it. If I hear one more time from this lazy, unreliable government the argument that we cannot have nuclear because it takes too long to build – I ask all the Labor MPs sitting here: how long do you think it takes to build a renewable energy project? I ought to know; I have got enough of them. I have been in this place nearly 10 years. There are projects that were started or thought about before I entered this chamber that still have not seen the light of day. It takes decades. It takes years. It is crazy, and what is worse is this lazy government over here are perfectly happy to say, ‘We want another wind farm.’ You guys will build a wind farm and you have not even built the transmission line to take the power. We have had wind farms stand for three years before you have even been able to plug them into the grid. I mean, that is insane. It is all very well to build something, but it has got to be useful. It has got to be useful, and so does this debate. This debate needs to be useful, not political. It does not need to be weaponised.

Energy is the ability for people to have heat and for people to turn the lights on and the ability for businesses to manufacture and grow our local economy, particularly for regional Victorians. We pride ourselves on being able to value-add, whether it is the timber industry, whether it is the dairy industry or whether it is the grains industry. It does not matter what it is, we need to be able to value-add, and it requires energy. Energy cannot be delivered when the lights go out. What most Victorians – most thinking Victorians – now understand is that you cannot trust Labor to get it right on energy. They are failing Victorians.

We have got everybody known to man who produces reports on this stuff – whether it is the Australian Energy Market Operator, whether it is the Productivity Commission; it does not matter who it is – all giving warnings loud and clear: this government is not planning properly for energy and energy use. Instead today this lazy government refuses to have a debate about the budget. You refuse to let Victorians know what you are doing with the billions and billions you are ripping out of the pockets of hardworking Victorians and where you are spending it. We found out yesterday you have got slush funds buried under the Treasurer’s seat. You are happy to do that, but you are not happy to debate it. So to think that you have turned up here today with a fanciful notion that you are going to put a nuclear power plant on the Great Ocean Road would have to be the most childish, university-student load of garbage that has been presented as a motion in this chamber for a very long time. You know it is not true. You know it is fanciful. It just shows the level of debate you cretins are prepared to lower yourselves to when you cannot have a sensible discussion. Because a sensible discussion needs to be about ‘How do you generate it? How do you transmit it? And how do you keep the price down?’ They are the only things that matter. What matters then is which one is the best long-term choice for Victorians. You guys do not understand that. You are obsessed with your transition to electricity, and you are hell-bent on forcing the price of energy up for the people who can least afford it.

We heard yesterday that you could not even maintain a sensible debate on the shutting down of Victorian forests. You refused to. You had to gag us all because you would not entertain the debate that 15,000 families will become unemployed as of next month because of your deliberate policies that are anti regional Victoria.

The ACTING SPEAKER (John Mullahy): Through the Chair.

Richard RIORDAN: Yes, Acting Speaker, I am happy to send it all through you, because quite honestly it is clearly a waste of breath on those opposite, because they are not listening. They are not listening to the experts and they are not listening to the industry. They are not listening to those that generate power, who will tell them – if any of you wanted to actually –

The ACTING SPEAKER (John Mullahy): Through the Chair.

Richard RIORDAN: If – through you – they were to approach anyone who actually generates electricity, they would understand that we are in a parlous state. And to think that you are wasting the time of this Parliament on some schoolchild motion that makes no sense and is irrelevant to the needs of Victorians – that is what is wrong with the state of Victoria. You will not talk about your debt. You will not talk about your mismanagement. Heavens above, you will not even talk about the behaviour of two of your colleagues. In a week when you have made so much –

Vicki Ward: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, it would appear that the member is ignoring your ruling to speak through the Chair. I recognise the passion with which he may defend not having a nuclear power facility in Anglesea, but I would ask that he refer his comments directly to the Chair.

The ACTING SPEAKER (John Mullahy): I ask you to direct your comments through the Chair.

Richard RIORDAN: To continue, directly through you, Chair, I do note with great interest that, despite all the very solid arguments I put forward, it is only when I mention the behaviour of some of your former colleagues that the minister at the table, the Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, decides to stand on her feet. I guess it is like so many of the debates here that this government is very quick to shut down. They are also very quick to shut down about how they are dealing gendered violence and inappropriate behaviours.

Anyway, I digress and will move back to the motion of the day. The motion of course is about the need to amend this silly motion that has been put to the house today. It is with great passion that I say to this government, on behalf of the constituents of Polwarth, that an economy like the one that we have that is so vibrant in western Victoria relies on the value-add of many billions of dollars of agricultural and regional product. It cannot be done with the inferior, second-rate, Third World energy system that this government is hell-bent on bequeathing to Victorians. So I fully support our amendment put forward today. Let us not talk about imaginary, fanciful problems that do not exist. Let us talk about the problem that does exist. The problem that exists is that Victoria is rapidly running out of reliable, deliverable, affordable energy that is absolutely critical and vital to the prosperity of Victoria.

Kathleen MATTHEWS-WARD (Broadmeadows) (16:14): I rise to support the motion by the Minister for Climate Action, Minister for Energy and Resources and, wonderfully, Minister for the State Electricity Commission. In 2024, in a country like Australia with abundant sunshine, wind and waves, I cannot understand why on earth the Libs would be pushing for nuclear power. What insanity. Before anyone on that side stands up – before the next person stands up – go in your office, because you do not probably do not do much else, and watch Chernobyl. You can still watch it on Binge. It is worth seeing, and you really should watch it before you stand up and speak.

Before you get in behind the potato in Canberra or continue with the right-wing division of the carrot in the US, have a good think about the legacy you might want to leave behind. Think about Fukushima, think about all the private companies that you have handed assets to over the years who inevitably cut corners on maintenance and safety, think about what would stop them doing exactly that again and think about how devastating this would be in the case of nuclear. There is no room for error. Mistakes end in deaths, often thousands and thousands of them, and effects that poison our environment for millennia. Any mistake is deadly, and with natural emergencies increasing, how on earth would we feel assured that a nuclear plant could withstand what nature is capable of these days? Apparently in France the residents surrounding reactors are given iodine tablets for those just-in-case scenarios. Imagine having to have them next to the children’s Panadol and the bandaids.

I know quite a lot of older people who have voted Liberal much of their lives, but these latest ideas must make them shake their heads. I know it is not a grievance debate today, but I really do grieve for those old Liberal voters, who once had halfway respectable people to vote for. You are not even attracting the young voters. They are turning away in droves, and I do feel sorry for them all. They must be feeling so disillusioned and left behind and ashamed.

The Libs and Nats getting behind nuclear should be ashamed of themselves. Bringing in nuclear makes just about as much sense as bringing back thalidomide. And where would the reactors go? Where would the waste go? I am sure it would not be Brighton or Boroondara, although I can think of another suburb starting with B whose people often pay the price for crazy ideologies and privatisation from that side.

My daughter is currently planning her year 12 subjects and thinking of engineering. Looking through the uni intake courses with her last night, there are such an abundance of opportunities in safe renewable energy, and Australia and Victoria are leading the way. Pardon the pun, but renewable energy really is a sunshine industry. Unlike poor old Homer stuck in Springfield, there is no way any of us would want our children working at a nuclear power plant.

Our beautiful country has a natural abundance of sunshine, waves, water and wind, perfectly demonstrated today by the windy conditions just outside the doors of this place. All of these things are a perfect recipe for cheap renewable energy, yet the drongos in the Liberal Party want to invest in nuclear. With our country in the grips of a cost-of-living crisis –

Sam Groth: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, I think you have let this go on long enough. Could you ask the member to come back to the motion, please?

Vicki Ward: On the point of order, Acting Speaker, I take on board what the member has raised, but I also reflect that the previous speaker referred to people in this chamber as cretins. So I do ask that the debate be elevated to a level that is respectful of everybody.

The ACTING SPEAKER (John Mullahy): On the point of order, I bring the member back to the motion before the house.

Kathleen MATTHEWS-WARD: Maybe I will just pre-emptively apologise for calling you all drongos. I just wanted to get that in. Sorry, I do apologise.

With our country in the grips of a cost-of-living crisis the Labor government is doing all it can to reduce the cost of energy bills to our community and doing it in a way that is sustainable and healthy. The Solar Homes package offers substantial rebates towards the cost of installing either solar panels or solar hot-water systems, reducing both household bills and greenhouse emissions. Those who have accessed the program already have been saving an average of $1073 per year. The Victorian budget 2024–25 will invest another $37.7 million to deliver 35,000 rebates for energy-efficient electric hot-water systems and a further $6 million for interest-free loans on solar battery and storage systems – and it does not take long for them to pay back themselves. This builds on the more than $624 million in rebates we have delivered since 2018, which has seen more than 257,000 rooftop solar systems installed on Victorian homes, generating a total of 1.7 gigawatts of power.

I was lucky enough to be an early adopter of solar with the Rudd baby bonus many, many years ago, and we were able to put solar panels on our house and also get the 66-cent rebate. We also had at the time the Moreland Energy Foundation, which was a really great organisation that did a really good job, and I thank Mike Hill and all the visionary people who set that up. They gave us free advice on things like double glazing, insulation and shading, and since then my husband and I, with the money we have been able to save on energy because we have solar panels, have been able to put in heat pumps, go fully electric in the kitchen and do lots of things as we go. We have been lucky enough to do that, and I thank Rudd for giving us that opportunity many years ago.

We are also investing $42 million to install 100 neighbourhood batteries in Victoria, and the member for Pascoe Vale and I are lucky enough to get two of these locally, one in Hume and one in Merri-bek. I can share that with the member for Greenvale, who is also happy with the one in Hume. This investment will support up to 25,000 homes in having access to renewable energy that brings down the energy prices for Victorians. In the year to date 36 per cent of our energy has come from renewables. I will repeat that: 36 per cent of our energy comes from renewables – more than three times the lowly 10 per cent we inherited in 2014.

Victoria already has the lowest wholesale prices in the national electricity market due to our record investment in renewable energy over the past eight years. The newest Victorian default offer is $100 lower than the last one. Why would we want to throw all that away to build overpriced and dangerous nuclear plants, not to mention the time it would take before a single kilowatt of energy is produced? The CSIRO’s most recent GenCost 2023–24 report again confirms that nuclear is the most expensive form of power generation available. According to the cost estimates from the CSIRO, constructing sufficient nuclear capacity for a 1600-megawatt capacity power station approximately the size of the decommissioned Hazelwood power station would cost $25.6 billion.

We need to learn from the experience of the nuclear leaders like France and the UK. The UK is currently building a new 3260-megawatt plant in Somerset. The initial estimate for the construction in 2016 was $30 billion. This has now blown out to more than double that, at $61.2 billion. Along with the cost blowouts, Somerset started construction in 2016 and still is not anywhere near being finished. The latest estimate is that it will be ready in 2027 – 11 years and growing before the energy is available. Yet we can stick our solar panels in the sun immediately for a private residence or build a major project within one to three years; it is just not even comparable. A new plant in Flamanville in France was originally expected to be completed in 2012. Ten years later it still is not producing electricity. These plants are being built in countries that have maintained a continuous build program over an extended period that reduces costs through economies of scale and learning-curve improvements in construction. It also makes it easier to provide skilled labour, as there is a career path for workers.

None of these things are true in Australia. The coalition are proposing to build maybe a handful of reactors, so there is no scale, no existing workforce in the industry and little incentive to move into the industry in the first place. As I said before, who would really want to work in it? I would not want my kids anywhere near it. If countries with a continuous build program have such significant time and cost overruns, we can only expect to see diabolical blowouts here. A 2024 Reuters article noted that France’s nuclear reactor fleet has faced a swathe of output issues since 2022, including extended maintenance issues at its aged reactor fleet.

The irony is that while the Libs want to follow suit and open Victoria up to nuclear energy, French power firms have been growing volumes of renewable energy in recent years to supplement the slump in production from their out-of-commission plants. In 2023 French output from solar and wind farms increased by 18 per cent and 26 per cent respectively from the year before to record highs. Output from hydro plants also increased sharply in 2023, by 17 per cent from 2022 levels, which helped push the country’s total clean electricity generation to the highest since 2021 and account for a record 24.3 per cent share of the total electricity output.

It seems that nuclear energy production is being replaced by renewables everywhere you look, so why would we want to go backwards? Victorians do not want nuclear reactors and waste in their backyards. I know I do not. I want my children and my children’s children to grow and not have to worry about fallout from a reactor or waste and pollutants from uranium mining.

Professor Ian Lowe’s submission to the 2019 inquiry into the prerequisites for nuclear energy in Australia noted:

All thermal power generation requires large volumes of cooling water. This is proving a serious limitation overseas; nuclear power stations in France have been forced to cease operating in recent summers because water cooling has not been available in the quantities required.

Any proposal to build nuclear power stations in Australia would be ridiculous.

Martin CAMERON (Morwell) (16:25): I rise today to talk on this motion. From the very start when the minister got up and moved the motion I think the fourth or fifth point out of her mouth was that nuclear power is virtually illegal in Victoria. I think she blows up her own argument for moving this motion. There is a moratorium on nuclear power in Australia and in the state. It is interesting to be able to stand up and talk and listen to other members in the chamber give their synopsis of what is going on. I am not sure there are too many other members in the chamber that have power stations in their seat, like I do. No matter what the change, coal-fired power stations are going to stop. We know that Yallourn is going to come off in 2028 and Loy Yang is going to finish producing energy in 2035.

The issue that we have is we need to have a move or a transition into another form of power. The government have put all their eggs in the renewables sector. We welcome renewable power, but there is just more than talking about wind blowing and sun shining on solar panels which I think we have got to get our head around. We have got transmission lines that need to be built right across the state of Victoria that can connect this offshore wind power and the solar farms into the grid so we can supply power. At the moment, as we stand in the chamber, the lights are shining, the microphones are working and Hansard are going, ‘Thank goodness we’ve got coal-fired power stations, because the transmission and broadcast is still going.’ We need to make sure that we have got a timeline that will work to make sure that we can transition out of coal-fired power stations and into our renewable assets.

Whatever it is that we have, whether it be wind or solar, the government continually starts to bring up the conversation about nuclear on Labor’s side. I do not think that we have actually spoken about it on our side too often in the chamber, but I have noticed in the last six or so weeks we have been down here that nearly every single person that stands up on Labor’s side is starting to talk about how our side of the chamber are going down that path of nuclear. It concerns me a little bit. If they are starting to bring that up, is that a conversation that obviously they do want brought into the chamber? But they do not want to be seen to be wanting to have that talk.

We have actually seen, with the member for Hastings, that the port has been canned down his end of the state. We have got no offshore wind being built. We have got no solar panels or solar farms; we do have some being built. Is it that people are starting to wake up that the timeline is wrong, we are going to run out of power and we are going to suffer blackouts? Is it the backup plan of the government to start just easing the conversation in about nuclear as to where we go? People around Victoria and the people that are advising the minister are doing their sums and thinking, ‘Hang on a minute, we’re in a little bit of trouble. We’re not going to be able to bring all these renewables on line and build our towers, which are each going to be as big as the Rialto building.’ Each tower is as big as the Rialto building – that is how big they are – so they do not go up in half a day.

To be able to have enough renewable energy to make sure the state keeps the lights on we have got to cover 70 per cent of our countryside with solar panels to make it work. The flip side of that is: how do we get enough food for the people of Victoria to eat? We are going to be importing our food. There has got to be a little bit of work done to say: do we want to eat, or do we want to have renewable power? The way forward is going to be one that needs timing. Yes, we are going to go to renewables, but why does it have to be done by 2030 and 2035?

I speak with the power stations down in the Latrobe Valley, and – they do not say this; it is just my synopsis from listening to the government and talking with people that work in the power industries – I do not think they are going to be shutting in 2028 and 2035. I think they have got the heads-up from the minister: ‘We might have made a little bit of a mistake on our timeline, and we need to keep you open,’ to the point where one of the power stations there might have called the bluff of the government, and the government is apparently subsidising one of the power generators down there heavily. I would like to know where this can be found in the budget. It might be a question that I could ask the Treasurer or actually ask the Minister for the State Electricity Commission: how much is it costing Victoria at the moment to keep the power stations open? The workers there are doing a great job. We have talked to them – that is what they want to do; they want to keep the lights on for us. We just need to have a proper timeline and a proper conversation about what we are going to do.

Why are we hearing this stuff around the state? And it is not just coming from my half. It is because the people are starting to wake up to what is coming out from the government and in particular the minister when she is talking about our power prices and our gas prices going down – well, there is nothing further from the truth. If you open up your bill that you get online or, as I know a lot of the pensioners in my neck of the woods do, you are opening it up out of the mail, you will see that they are going up. The cost-of-living crisis and the actual amount of pressure it is putting on these people to be able to continue to move forward is really disappointing.

Now I will talk about the transmission lines and the wind turbines and the solar farms. It is fine that they come on, but it is not as if they are going to be ready and able to be used by 2028 when Yallourn shuts. So we are going to be ripping out 20 per cent of our state’s energy, and we are not going to be replacing it with a lot. I hear from other members too about how they are having batteries put in around the state. Well, it is great to have the batteries, but we have got to be able to charge the batteries so you can use the energy. If we have not got the energy to be able to charge the batteries to make sure that we have this new source of power, we need to do our homework.

We talk about nuclear energy, and it would be remiss of me as we move forward not to do my own homework on what it means to have nuclear energy and how it works. I do not think you need to be Einstein in the chamber to know that if at some stage nuclear energy does arrive in Australia, they are going to be putting it probably where the power stations are now, because that is where all the infrastructure is. So I need to do due diligence and have conversations and see how it is going to work, because I am not going to be putting the people in my community at any risk at all – none whatsoever. We need to have proper conversations to make sure of what the mix is going to be. And nuclear power is in the future, if it ever does arrive here. At the moment we cannot have it. But we need to be able to go out and do the work to make sure we know what is going on.

When we do have serious problems in the state, like with our power supply and our power sources, we need serious people in charge, and at the moment the biggest problem the minister has is that she has lost the people. Every time she gets up to speak about renewables and shutting the energy market down she loses the people. They are not going along with her at the moment. She stands up and talks in the chamber and she comes down at stages and talks in the Latrobe Valley, but I think everyone is thinking, ‘What is going on?’ We have seen at the moment that the people are just losing faith in the government. To the minister: people just want to know what the truth is. What is our make-up? What is our proper timeline? How much is it going to cost to get these renewables up and going? The minister cannot tell us the truth about these things. In closing, with a couple seconds to go: be up-front with us and tell us our timeline, because at the moment we are not hearing enough.

Daniela DE MARTINO (Monbulk) (16:35): I rise with conviction and sincerity to condemn the federal opposition’s plan to send energy bills sky-high with dangerous and expensive nuclear power and to call on the Victorian Leader of the Opposition and Deputy Leader of the Opposition to rule out nuclear reactors on the Great Ocean Road or in any Victorian community. There is sincerity in this motion. I know that those opposite have cast some aspersions our way, but I am concerned. I am concerned that we are actually in 2024 debating in Australia the prospect of nuclear power. We have a federal Leader of the Opposition openly discussing this and entertaining this as a potential. We have never used nuclear power in Australia, and I have always considered that a very good thing. I lived in the UK and I drove past nuclear reactors, and I can tell you I always felt a sense of unease, because when something goes wrong – and admittedly it does not always, but when it does, it goes horribly, terribly wrong. And the ramifications cover great space and time because it hangs around. We only need to look at Chernobyl as a prime example of that, amongst others.

There are moments in time which are imprinted in the collective consciousness of people – those who have borne witness or those who bear witness afterward through watching the footage and hearing the stories. It is intergenerational. The moment when the United States dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the moment when the nuclear reactor in Chernobyl melted down; the tsunami which destroyed the nuclear reactor in Fukushima, where they are still dealing with radioactive wastewater being released into the oceans – all of these moments are part of our collective memories. And why? It is because, as I just said, the sheer scale of the devastation is untold, and it transcends time. Unfortunately it goes well beyond the barriers. If it gets into the waterways, that nuclear radioactive material travels, and its impacts are widespread.

I was looking at the ocean currents around Japan and the wastewater being released there through the Fukushima power plant. It is quite terrifying if you are on the west coast of the US or Canada because it is coming your way as well if you look at ocean currents. I do not think those opposite and their counterparts in the federal Parliament quite understand the significance of what can go wrong when there is a nuclear meltdown. To hear the member for Point Cook’s contribution beforehand, it was not even a meltdown which occurred, but we heard of a terrible, terrible nuclear industrial accident – catastrophe, one could say – and I have to say I felt it viscerally. I was wincing at the descriptions of how that poor man died a slow, painful, torturous death as a result of exposure to uranium. It was horrific. For anyone who did not hear that, it is not for the faint-hearted, but it is worth apprising yourself of the information and reading Hansard just to really get an understanding of why those of us on this side of the chamber have deeply held concerns about this.

The other part of this too is that I am a bit puzzled. I am baffled, one could say. When we have renewable energy now supplying 39 per cent of Victoria’s power, why would the opposition even entertain the notion that the alternative to coal is to find something more dangerous, dirty in terms of the uranium waste byproducts and hideously expensive? When we hear cries of ‘Oh, the cost’, believe me, I know my power bills are not cheap anymore, but they are cheaper than if I were in New South Wales. They are cheaper than if I were anywhere else on the east coast of Australia because of our investment in renewables. That is a fact that those opposite sometimes find a little bit inconvenient to deal with. I cannot understand, then, why nuclear. The whole prospect of it and the length of time it would take to build –

Jess Wilson: Acting Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the house.

Quorum formed.

Daniela DE MARTINO: What a shame the clock ran down, because, clearly, I have too many inconvenient truths to share. I did notice the exodus that was occurring on that side, and I felt it in my waters. I am glad they were not radioactive waters. I would like to state – and I think that those opposite and everyone in the chamber should listen to this list because this is a frightening list – I did some research because I do like facts, and I read that the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission actually talks about emergency procedures in the event of a power plant meltdown. They have two areas which they denote to be general propositions for managing a fallout at a reactor. One is a 10-mile radius, which translates to 16 kilometres. They call that the plume exposure pathway. It is exposure to and inhalation of airborne radioactive particles. The next radius is 50 miles, and that is 80 ‍kilometres. That is called the ingestion pathway and is where you have to be concerned about the food and the liquid you ingest because it has been contaminated.

I would like to read out some of the areas around Anglesea within the 80-kilometre ingestion pathway, and bear in mind that this is in still conditions without a wind factor. If we have a look at Anglesea, it goes all the way to Mornington Peninsula, Sorrento, Portsea and all the way out to Mount Martha. It goes as far as Laverton, I am sorry to say to the member for Laverton – I am sorry to say all these lists ‍– and Altona Meadows. It goes just south of Buninyong and Bungal and it includes Colac. I dare say that the member for Polwarth may be quite intrigued to know that his area, which I know he is incredibly proud of, would be in the ingestion pathway if there was a nuclear reactor placed in Anglesea that had a meltdown.

We will look at the Latrobe Valley because we did just hear from the member for Morwell and I am not sure if he understands either that 80 kilometres from Loy Yang, if that happened to be where they decided to drop a reactor, includes Leongatha, Korumburra and Outtrim. It goes to Warragul, Drouin, Lake Wellington and Sale. It goes down to Wilsons Promontory. That is in still conditions with no wind factor, and heaven help us all if the wind is blowing in the wrong direction. That is easily searchable by anyone in this chamber if you look at a radius map. It is quite concerning when you see it, because when you look at what they have to do in order to be able to have a nuclear plant, they have to entertain the notion that things go horribly, terribly wrong.

I actually knew a PhD graduate, a doctor I went to university with, and he had a degree in nuclear science. I was quite surprised because, to be quite honest, he was a bit of a hippie. The reason why he had a degree in it was that his job was to decommission nuclear reactors. Do you know what happens in an evacuation situation? You know we are told here that if there is a fire – and we all had a fire evacuation the other sitting week – we need to walk calmly and slowly out of the building and go to our appointed places. When there is a nuclear reactor fallout, if someone falls down, you do not stop to help them. You are instructed to jump over them, and you go and you keep going. You wait for nothing, you wait for no-one and you keep moving because every nanosecond counts. That is what we are talking about, because even though the probability may not be overly high, there is always the possibility. It only takes one terrible disaster and thousands and thousands and thousands of people will be affected, not just at that time but ongoing. The effect it will have I do not even want to think about. So I support this motion wholeheartedly.

Nicole WERNER (Warrandyte) (16:45): Here we are this afternoon on a Thursday talking about a hypothetical issue that the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change is using to waste our time, debating this hypothetical issue in the never-never – a possible energy issue that is great to talk about when we have a present energy issue at hand here and now. Wow, would you believe it, here we are talking about this hypothetical never-never issue when we had an issue this very year that saw half a million Victorians plummeted into blackouts thanks to the government’s inability to manage energy. It is a crisis the minister for energy is not equipped to handle – we all agree here on this side. According to the Financial Review:

Victorian Energy Minister conceded Lily D’Ambrosio conceded on Thursday that the state needed new gas supplies, after previously undisclosed documents revealed that her department had warned the Labor government last year that shortfalls were looming.

Minister D’Ambrosio … told a parliamentary hearing that no onshore gas explosion permits had been granted in Victoria since Labor came to power in 2014.

Not one. So maybe there is no gas because no permits have been issued or approved. Then recently on 3AW the minister said this:

Right now there are nine licences for exploration for gas in Victoria. Nothing is stopping any of those finding gas. The fact is they’re not finding the gas. And the reason for that is because of geology …

Minister, the reason that Victoria does not have gas is not geology, it is your ideology in fact. But let us hear from the experts – wait for it, the experts. Australian Energy Producers Victoria director Peter Kos has rubbished this claim, saying that Minister D’Ambrosio’s idea that Victoria’s gas reserves are running low is wrong, saying instead that Victoria ‘has abundant onshore gas reserves’. Peter went on to say:

But the political will is missing and new developments that can put downward pressure on prices and avoid blackouts –

like we saw earlier this year –

will not proceed unless the government provides a stable regulatory environment to allow investment.

There we have it. He pointed to the minister’s own Victorian gas program, which found that there is up to 830 petajoules, about four years worth, of conventional onshore gas. There you have it. That gas study, he also went on to say:

… did not consider unconventional gas and the state has not been explored as much as it should have given the state’s long-running anti-gas policies and bans.

There you have it. Minister D’Ambrosio’s gas-phobic, unscientific and wrongheaded – experts are saying that it is wrong – approach towards energy will leave our most vulnerable Victorians to freeze this winter as costs go up and up and up. According to the AFR:

Southern states led by Victoria face a gas shortfall this winter which will make them reliant on supply piped from Queensland and the Northern Territory to keep the heating on.

That is what the Labor government has done to this state over the past 10 years. That is what the minister for energy has done to our state: transformed us from independent to dependent, a state begging other states for just crumbs of energy.

In the spirit of bipartisanship, I will quote a senior member of federal Labor, who said this about Minister D’Ambrosio:

… on gas, it’s always someone else’s fault.

I could not have said it better myself. The minister’s opening speech made it seem like she can sometimes be a little bit nasty, but you know sometimes the minister occasionally can give a compliment. How is this: when the federal energy minister Madeleine King got up to provide some sort of reasonable policy – your own federal Labor energy minister – she said that she would not ban all gas exploration in Australia. What did Minister D’Ambrosio say to her federal colleague? She said Madeleine King is more like ‘a coalition minister’. There you have it – what a compliment. That is fantastic.

With an energy minister this sheltered from the realities of the energy landscape, it is no wonder we have more and more Victorians seeking energy bill assistance under Labor. Recent figures reveal the number of Victorians seeking assistance to help pay their gas and electricity bills, and this has risen more than 40 per cent compared to the previous summer. The facts and the figures are here. The energy ombudsman has also highlighted the significant rise in gas bills despite households cutting their usage. This comes as the Australian Energy Market Operator, or AEMO, in its latest Gas Statement of Opportunities warned that gas demand could outstrip supply in Victoria and other south-eastern states on days of extreme weather as soon as the middle of next year. The new figures also follow a recent St Vincent de Paul Society report finding that Victorians have paid 22 per cent more for gas and 28 ‍per cent more for electricity over the past year. I was in the chamber when the minister proudly talked about prices going ‘down, down, prices are down’ and using this catchcry, when figures show that they are actually up. They are going up – 22 per cent more is what Victorians have been paying for gas, and 28 per cent more is what they have been paying for electricity over the past year. That is absolutely tragic.

This is having a significant impact not just on the energy market but on the job market as Labor’s energy mismanagement is driving local jobs here in Victoria interstate. Recently Seeley International announced it would close its Albury–Wodonga facility by 2025 and consolidate operations in Adelaide – why? – citing the Allan Labor government’s hostile gas, energy and business policies. Seeley’s decision came a day after the South Australian Labor Premier – so it seems like you are at odds with all of your federal and your state counterparts – Peter Malinauskas criticised the Victorian government’s energy policies, confirming that gas has a role to play, there you have it, in the transition to net zero. To quote the Shadow Minister for Energy, Affordability and Security in the other place:

Lily D’Ambrosio’s failed gas policy is costing jobs and the Seeley closure in Albury–Wodonga is the latest devastating instalment and a body blow to manufacturing.

Wow, how is that! While the horrors of daily mass blackouts under Labor are yet to come, I assure you they will if they win again. But who could forget the mass blackouts in February, which left, as I said, half a million Victorian homes and businesses without power.

As we all know, the government have found no money to rebuild a gas industry in Victoria, but what they have found is a $75.7 billion pre-election slush fund. That is what the recent state budget has revealed. Victorians, hear this loud and clear: there is not enough money to pay down this debt, which is higher than in New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania combined. We have to pay $25 million in interest repayments every single day, not with the government’s money but with taxpayers money ‍– your money. Not only do we not have that, but what we do have is a $75.7 billion slush fund – a credit card that the Treasurer can keep swiping here and there and using for his pet projects and pork-barrelling and this, that and the other so that he can continue to have jobs for mates and continue to just waste taxpayers money day in, day out. You deserve better, Victoria. Warrandyte deserves better.

In my final minute, we know this: the government has allocated $38.5 billion for future programs –

Mary-Anne Thomas: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, the member knows full well that she should not be reflecting on you in the chair and that the use of the word ‘you’ in her contribution is entirely inappropriate. I ask that you ask her to respect the forms of the house and to speak directly to the motion.

The ACTING SPEAKER (John Mullahy): I am ready to rule on the point of order. Could the member talk through the Chair, please. I bring her back to the motion.

Nicole WERNER: I appreciate that, Acting Speaker. I am actually nine months elected, so I am still learning these things. In fact I note that ministers on that side of the house still use ‘you’ and also reflect on the Chair – and they use ‘you’re’ and call us drongos – yet that does not seem to be an issue on that side of the house, but there you go. Victoria, you deserve better than this Labor government, which cannot manage money.

Alison MARCHANT (Bellarine) (16:55): Wow. Okay; let us bring it back to some facts. I rise to speak on this motion. It is a pleasure to speak on this motion. I have been looking forward to adding to the contributions today. I am going to firstly go to the new CSIRO GenCost report and just talk a little bit about that. That GenCost report has been published annually since 2018. That gives us a really good indication about the forms of energy that we may see in this country. Not the last one that we have seen but the one before that talked about nuclear energy as being the most expensive form of power generation available. Again in this latest one we see that nuclear just does not stack up, so we have had two reports that say that by our CSIRO. It is just incredible that we are getting into this debate when we have a cost-of-living crisis – that a coalition federal opposition and this opposition are talking about nuclear energy for Victoria where we would be giving households more expensive power. It is absolutely incredible to think that we would not be investing into our wind and solar resources, which we know produce cheaper electricity and cheaper power. And why wouldn’t we want to make that investment into renewables when we also know it would create thousands of jobs?

I would just like to talk a little bit, with the time I have got left, about where we would put this nuclear power plant or the waste. If opposition came to government in the next little while, they would have to firstly remove the restrictions that we have, and then they would have to work out the location. Let us be up-front with the community now then about where you would put those nuclear power plants here in Victoria. It is an absolutely ludicrous idea, but it also goes to a social licence here in Victoria. I do not believe the Bellarine would indeed give a social licence for nuclear power in their electorate.

It kind of reminds me of another discussion that we have had in this state which I am very passionate about, which was about fracking. There was no social licence in Victoria to do gas extraction using the fracking technique. Interestingly, in the inquiry into unconventional gas, or fracking, when our government ultimately banned fracking in Victoria, we listened to the science and the community, and there was clearly no social licence from the community. But in that final report the coalition decided to do a minority report where they, one, did not call for a ban on fracking. But also in their report they did not use the word ‘community’ once. I have scanned that minority report many times, and the word ‘community’ is not in their minority report. I think that goes to the arrogance of that side of the house, really, to not even mention the word ‘community’ and the dangers of fracking. So I challenge them to be up-front with the community now on where they would put nuclear energy in Victoria.

Sam Groth: On a point of order, Speaker, there is only one political party in this state that has issued fracking licences.

The SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

Alison MARCHANT: It is interesting that the conversation has very much gone to gas in this debate when we have had questions in question time and we have had debate in here about gas. I sat on the advisory panel, with the chief scientist Amanda Caples, as a community representative – something which actually talked to the availability of onshore gas in Victoria – and it beggars belief that we continue to have this argument or this debate when the chief scientist is telling us the advice and the evidence is there in writing. The minister has been nothing but clear with the Victorian public about our gas situation.

The SPEAKER: Order! The time set down for consideration of the remaining items on the government business program has arrived, and I am required to interrupt business.