Thursday, 20 June 2024

Motions

Nuclear energy

Debate resumed on motion of Lily D’Ambrosio:

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.

And James Newbury’s amendment:

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.’

Tim McCURDY (Ovens Valley) (16:14): This debate that we are having today really surprises me. It really does surprise me. I have said for years in this place that Labor likes to trade in fear, and here is another example of trading in fear. It is not about facts, it is about just putting the fear of God into everybody and hoping that they will all swing your way. I am the first to admit I do not have the answers; I am not an expert in nuclear. I am happy to learn. It is a federal issue. Commonwealth MPs have launched this and are starting to talk about it. It is a discussion. I am certainly going to educate myself, and I hope everybody does the same, particularly on the other side. What I will not do is be a Silly Lily and make stupid claims about what may or may not happen with nuclear.

Labor federally said before the election that prices were going to come down in energy, and what we have seen in fact is that energy prices have gone up. We know that by 2028 Yallourn is going off grid ‍– so is Loy Yang in 2035 – and we need to be looking towards the future. Is nuclear the answer? I do not know, but I am certainly happy to have that conversation, that discussion, to see whether it might be a suitable alternative, because we do know 440 nuclear plants exist around the world. I do not think they would be there if they were as bad as those on the other side are purporting. There are 32 countries that have nuclear. Again, are they squeaky clean? I do not know, but I am sure those communities would not have that –

A member interjected.

Tim McCURDY: Yes, well, that is exactly what I expect from those on the other side: ‘If you don’t know, vote no.’ Instead of getting the facts and finding out, just vote no. Just put the fear of God in everybody. Get yourself a fact sheet – they have already started rolling them out ‍– about what some of the facts are and some of the quotes are. I heard the member for Box Hill. He was reeling off quotes from the CSIRO and other places. There are plenty of quotes out there. Here is one. Nuclear is:

… a reliable, relatively cheap, energy source that can be used for baseload energy requirements.

Geoscience Australia. Here is another one:

It is unequivocally zero emissions during operation … It integrates smoothly with our existing electricity grid and contributes to frequency control and system strength.

Alan Finkel, our former chief scientist. Here is another one that is worth listening to – just take a moment, take a breath:

Nuclear power would be a win for the environment and an essential part of attacking global warming.

Bob Hawke, 23rd Prime Minister of Australia. Gee, they have gone quiet now. They have gone quiet. So does Bob Hawke not know what he is talking about either?

A member interjected.

Tim McCURDY: Oh, Bob is wrong. Bob Hawke is wrong. We talk about power and our energy prices going up. We have got to have this conversation. Nuclear, we all know, will take maybe 10, 15 ‍years or even longer, but start the conversations. If you want to find out about how your renewable program is going, come to Dederang. Come to Meadow Creek up in Wangaratta, and Glenrowan, and look and listen to the communities about how renewables are going in our communities. They are frustrated because beautiful arable land is being taken away. If you listen to Labor’s own figures, 70 ‍per cent of Australia’s arable land will need to be covered in renewables if we want to make the energy target that we need.

Our power bills are going up. They are going through the roof. And you continue to have what I would call a bloody-minded approach towards renewables – it is renewables or nothing. As I say, the feds have started – bounced the ball, for want of a better word, Acting Speaker Farnham – to have the conversation, and I think we should have a mature discussion, as you said in your contribution.

Again, others have said that Labor like to talk about antinuclear themes while we have got crime waves, cost-of-living issues, cost blowouts, the Metro Tunnel, roads, health issues – I mean, the list goes on and on, and they want to talk about anything but those things. They can talk about nuclear, the queen of distraction: ‘Look away – nothing to see here.’ This is part of the way they operate and do business. Victorians want their energy bills affordable, reliable and clean, and from the bit of research I have done – and I have got a lot more to do – I know that a nuclear power plant is very expensive to build but then the running costs are much cheaper. And when you build something that goes for 80 to 100 years versus a wind turbine or a solar panel that might have a lifetime of 15 to 20 ‍years, well, you have got to do the sums. You have got to do the cradle-to-grave, so to speak, to try and get the full understanding of what power will cost and not just invent figures on your own. You have actually got to get some of those facts.

As I said, Victorians want affordable, reliable and clean power, and after 10 years of hard Labor in Victoria power is certainly not affordable now. I am sticking my hand up to say: let us look at all options and let the communities make their decisions. Those on the other side are very quick to want to speak on behalf of those in the Latrobe Valley. It has been mooted that there might be an opportunity to put a nuclear plant down there. Let them decide. Let them have the discussion. Give them the courtesy of having that discussion rather than the stupid memes that we have seen, even on the Premier’s Facebook page. That was just disgraceful, surely you have got to agree, the three-eyed fish stuff. There is a level here, and you can drop to this level, but you can go way down there. You would not have seen that from your former Premier, I can tell you. It would not have been on his Facebook page, I can assure you. He had more brains than that. That is just disgraceful.

In terms of building a nuclear plant, I wonder if they asked Mr Setka if Mr Setka wanted to build a nuclear plant. He could spend many, many years with his CFMEU. They might change their tune. They might say, ‘Actually, hang on a minute. Nuclear might be worth looking into, because there’s a project that we can look at and try and get some work out of.’

I am sure they will change their tune as time goes on, but I just would like to see a healthy and mature discussion. The member for Mildura mentioned Dr David Gillespie. I heard him speak recently. He is a wealth of knowledge, one of many in the country that is a wealth of knowledge, and across the world. I think we have to pull all that knowledge together and make some considered opinions.

I will listen to many experts, but not necessarily those on the other side who are just reading their notes from somebody who sent them to them by email. Do your own research. Has it got handwriting on it, or have you just printed it off? These are handwritten, see? That is my poor handwriting. They are not the typed notes that you get from the Premier’s department. As I said, I really would like to see those on the other side consider the facts and get some common sense in this discussion.

Members interjecting.

Tim McCURDY: Well, this is what I am saying. Get some facts. Educate yourself. I am telling you I am prepared to admit I do not have all the answers. And I can tell you what, you certainly do not either when you stand up and just dribble on with your notes saying how bad it is going to be and what a disaster – Chicken Little, the sky is going to fall down – without putting any facts forward either. The member for Narracan was very accurate when he said we need to have a commonsense approach and a fair discussion, and I hope that in time you will see that a commonsense approach is the way forward and we can all have a civil discussion about nuclear, whether it is right, wrong or indifferent. I am happy to find out the answers myself as well.

Meng Heang TAK (Clarinda) (16:23): Acting Speaker Farnham, it is with disappointment that I rise today to speak on this motion, but I take on your invitation that this discussion needs to be a mature discussion, and I listened to your contribution wholeheartedly and keenly. But somewhere, somehow we need to take the view of the previous speaker that, if you do not know all the answers, maybe we should rely on facts and not fantasy. It is disappointing because Victorians do not want a nuclear reactor or nuclear waste in our backyard.

A member interjected.

Meng Heang TAK: No, not much. That is true in my community, and that is true across Victoria. We have heard nuclear is the most expensive, toxic and dangerous form of energy out there. The facts are here. The CSIRO found that nuclear power is up to eight times more expensive than large-scale wind or solar power, and they also estimated the development timeline is at least 15 years for nuclear power.

A member interjected.

Meng Heang TAK: This is only the science, that is right. On this side of the house we can be very clear that nuclear energy will not be built in Victoria under this government and nuclear waste will not be dumped in Victoria under our government. Instead, we are getting on with the job of delivering cheaper power and keeping the lights on as our transition is getting underway. These are extremely important issues for my community. Cheaper power is extremely important, especially in the wintertime, right now. Cost of living is front and centre of the minds of the residents in my electorate. The bills, everyday bills, and balancing the family budget are constantly on the minds of families in Clarinda and across the state. This is particularly so in the City of Greater Dandenong, which is right up there in terms of Victoria’s most socially disadvantaged local government areas.

In our community there is great concern regarding the nuclear debate. Of course we want to have a mature debate, and the facts are that nuclear means higher power bills. It is as simple as that. The evidence is clear. We have heard from other members who said that the CSIRO’s most recent report GenCost 2023–24 confirmed that nuclear is the most expensive form of power generation available. Alternatively, the cheapest forms of power are wind and solar, even coupled with the cost of energy storage and transmission. Given the cost-of-living pressures in my community, across our state and across the country, it makes absolute sense that this is where our focus is – cheap, clean and reliable power.

We are extremely fortunate in Victoria with our world-class wind resource. Just recently here in this place we had before us the Energy and Public Land Legislation Amendment (Enabling Offshore Wind Energy) Bill 2024, which I was proud to make a contribution on along with many of my colleagues here. A large focus of that debate was also cost of living and how we are utilising our renewables for bills and cost-of-living pressures. Again, I will make the point that cost-of-living relief is also important for those doing it tough. For those on fixed income support, for pensioners and for those doing it tough, every little bit helps, every little cent helps. This debate is really important. The Allan Labor government has been delivering real and meaningful help from free kinder to free TAFE, and there are also many more initiatives. We are helping Victorians and Victorian families, in big ways and small ways, because every bit adds up. Making sure that we capitalise on and utilise our renewables, our world-class wind and abundant sunshine, which really make us a global renewable energy powerhouse to deliver cheap, clean, reliable energy, is really important. We need to continue to capitalise on that.

We also have the opportunity to produce electricity far more cheaply than almost anywhere else in the world by harnessing our wind and solar resources. This government has a great track record of doing just that. Victoria already has the lowest wholesale power price in the national electricity market due to our record investments in renewable energy over the past eight years. The question that needs to be asked is: why should we throw away our competitive advantage by building the most expensive form of power generation available? Instead, we have a really positive outlook here in Victoria, a positive plan with a lot to be excited about in onshore and offshore renewables and of course the SEC. It is particularly exciting news for the SEC’s first project, a 1.6-gigawatt battery in Melton first and also many other places. It is one of the new renewable energy generation and storage projects helping accelerate the energy transition and driving down the cost of living. The project will power over 200,000 homes, which is amazing. By storing excess cheap, renewable energy in batteries, homes and businesses will utilise more cheap, renewable energy, and by powering the state through more renewables and more often we avoid the reliance on expensive coal and gas without causing high bills. We need more renewable energy storage to put downward pressure on power bills, especially in wintertime.

Again, this demonstrates the focus of the government, playing this role and delivering these projects. That is our focus – delivering cheap, reliable, renewable energy, putting power back in the hands of Victorians and accelerating our transition to cheaper, more reliable renewable energy. We are leading the nation on renewables and on climate action, and that is something to be really, really proud of. It is a legacy for our children, making sure that we protect the climate for our kids – our generation’s children – our grandchildren and the future generations. We continue to meet that task. Our transition is underway, and we are well on our way to meeting our target and delivering for future generations. This, I believe, is a mature discussion that we are having here, Acting Speaker. I am looking forward to having even more mature discussions with you into the future. We will continue with that positive outlook – getting on with the job of delivering cheaper, cleaner, reliable power for all Victorians.

Tim READ (Brunswick) (16:32): It is a pleasure to rise to debate this motion. I have tried very hard to get excited about the announcement of nuclear energy from the federal opposition leader, but I am struggling. I am struggling to get excited about the idea of nuclear power plants at the sites of our major coal-fired power stations. Frankly, I do not think it has got a hope in hell. I think that the prospects of this happening are close to zero. The member for Clarinda has easily and efficiently debunked the arguments against renewable energy and in favour of nuclear energy. I barely need to repeat them, but to summarise, as carefully explained by CSIRO, the cost of building and, people forget to mention, decommissioning nuclear power plants and dealing with the waste, which will last thousands of years, not to mention their voracious water use and safety concerns, is massive. Nuclear energy will be the most expensive form, and we will have to go a long way, I think, to find a billionaire willing to invest in it in Victoria when we have got so many other wonderful options. We could, for example, just drill for gas near the Twelve Apostles or we could invest in Victoria’s abundant renewable energy resources – whatever. I think that the fairly scientifically illiterate arguments that we have been hearing against renewable energy really need to be called out for what they are, which is a sort of modern version of the Luddites, who opposed technology a couple of centuries ago. I think that given Victoria’s abundant wind and sunshine and Australia’s landmass available for renewable energy, we would go a long way before we could find anything more cost-effective.

I will just single out a couple of other points made by some of the speakers from the coalition. The idea of renewables competing with farming has been debunked by the Clean Energy Council, who have calculated that we would need 2 per cent of Australia’s landmass to generate 27 times more energy than we currently are using. Also, as a previous speaker mentioned, renewables and farming can coexist in many places. Certainly wind farms do not take up a lot of space, but solar farms can coexist with sheep grazing. In fact in some places they have found they have got more green grass with the condensation run-off from the solar panels, giving them more prolonged green pick through the year, increasing, believe it or not, the productivity of the sheep farm.

As I said, the member for Clarinda debunked all of these arguments, and it is not surprising really, because in a way the coalition, by promoting nuclear energy at this time, is doing both the federal and state governments a service by creating a sort of straw man. The nuclear argument is so easily defeated that it is a convenient distraction from the far more important issue, which is that every single day that we stand here and talk about nuclear or not nuclear we are burning over 100,000 tonnes of brown coal in Victoria, which is an extraordinary amount and kind of hard to visualise. So I will make it a little easier for you. If you put our daily coal consumption onto a coal train – which we do not do in Victoria, but just imagine if you did – the train would be over 20 kilometres long. It would be arriving at Glen Waverley Station before it had left Flinders Street. That is a massive amount of coal, and we burn that every day, and when you burn 100,000 tonnes of coal even something that is present in a very small concentration in the coal can become quite voluminous in the atmosphere. We produce over a year about a tonne of mercury compounds in the atmosphere over Gippsland, and that mercury is found in tests taken from wildlife in Gippsland and would probably be found in humans as well if it was done.

The 100,000 tonnes of coal we burn every day is burnt in 10 electricity-generating units found in three power stations. I think it is four at Yallourn, four at Loy Yang A and two at Loy Yang B. That is 10 ‍units that we have got to retire between now and the government’s target year of 2035. I reckon we could do it faster. I reckon we should be able to close one of these units each year over the next decade. One of the other things we could do to burn less coal is require coal power stations to turn off one or two units during forecast periods of lower demand. Demand for electricity is seasonal, and at the moment peak electricity consumption is on hot summer days, presumably due to air conditioning. We probably do not need all 10 coal units burning through winter when peak demand is during summer, so there may well be months in the year, particularly perhaps as we move increasingly towards getting rid of gas from homes around autumn and spring, when we could turn off a coal-burning unit for a month or two and put less of that mercury, sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere while we are waiting to build all the renewables that we need or, if you are in the coalition, the nuclear power plants, which I do not think we are ever really going to get.

I do not know if the member for Box Hill is here. Oh, yes, the member for Box Hill is here. I wonder whether the Prime Minister has gone on a bit of a fission expedition here just trying to pull out opponents and provoke them by suggesting nuclear. I wonder whether it is really a serious proposition. Further, we need far more renewable energy than we have got. Right now we have got something over a third of Victoria’s electricity generated by renewable energy, and we have got a target of over 65 per cent, I think, by 2030 but certainly 95 per cent by 2035. So to get there we need to build a lot more. A lot of the easy spots have been taken, so we need to build out the grid with more transmission lines so we can hook up more solar farms but we also need to build wind farms in places that are harder to build in, like Bass Strait. That is going to cost a lot of money, and it is not clear that the renewable construction pipeline is quite ready – that there are enough projects in the pipeline to meet the 2035 target. To do that, something like a government-funded renewable energy agency would do the trick to fill in the gaps where the private sector is falling short. That is why the idea of the SEC seemed like a good one before the election, when it was announced. The problem is the SEC only got $1 billion and around a third of that has already been spent on some battery projects, and a fair amount has been spent on photo ops and T-shirts. There is not enough money left in the SEC to fund a decent-sized renewable project to contribute towards the 2035 target. The SEC needs more funding.

To give you a sense of the scale, the SEC’s billion dollars pales into insignificance compared to the almost $10 billion achieved by selling the Port of Melbourne. Because renewable energy projects will generate money – they will generate revenue – I do not believe we need to privatise anything to build more. It is an investment into a revenue-making venture. I believe that we can dramatically increase the funding to the SEC and build enough renewable generation and transmission projects to cover the shortfall in the pipeline of planned projects to get us on the path to 100 per cent renewables by the end of the decade.

I think that given we have heard a bunch of arguments against renewables because of their supposed impact on agriculture, we do need to listen carefully to questions about where transmission lines and renewable projects are situated. We need to take account, for example, of the type of farming affected by renewables projects. Some agricultural land is very productive and worth a lot more, and having a blanket compensation fee per kilometre over all kinds of land might not adequately compensate farmers who have a small farm that is highly productive. They might need more compensation per kilometre than someone who has got relatively low-grade farmland that is far less productive. I think that transmission lines and, where possible, renewable projects should be situated on agricultural land, particularly degraded agricultural land, rather than native forest.

I also think we could do more to put renewable energy generating projects where the grid is strongest. That might mean putting more solar panels in the Latrobe Valley in and around currently coal-fired power stations, because they have got the best grid connections, and putting more of them around the Portland aluminium smelter, which is Victoria’s biggest energy consumer. Even though Portland and the Latrobe Valley are not the sunniest parts of Victoria, the fact that they have got the best grid connections would mean that the need for urgent transmission lines is reduced, because we know we can hook those projects up where the transmission lines are strongest.

I think that the other thing we can do is look at some of the new technology that Loy Yang A is introducing to enable them to just dial down the amount of coal they are burning from time to time. One of the problems with brown coal fired power stations has been that they have been unable to switch off or slow down. If you turn off a brown coal power station, it takes about a day and a half to start it up again. But Loy Yang A is installing some new technology which will enable it to dial down its rate of generation, and we should require Loy Yang B to do the same. As it is the youngest power station, it is probably going to hang around the longest.

Another bit of interesting technology has been installed in some aluminium smelters. We need to think about the Portland aluminium smelter kind of on the same page as our coal-fired power stations, because that smelter uses about as much electricity as one of those power stations produces. If we were, for example, to close the smelter, one of those power stations could close overnight, and vice versa.

Dylan Wight interjected.

Tim READ: To reassure the number for Tarneit, I am not suggesting that we close the smelter. Instead what we should do is require the smelter to introduce modern insulation around the aluminium pots so that when it is switched off the aluminium does not solidify and need to be thrown out. There is at least one smelter in Germany that does this. What it does is accept payment from the government for switching off, and because it has got this extra insulation it can keep the aluminium molten. This then means it has got an alternative source of revenue and it can switch off at times of high power demand. As we get more and more renewables onto the grid we are generating more power than we need at lunchtime and not enough at dinnertime, and so instead of continuing to consume electricity at 7 pm we want a smelter that can switch off for a few hours. Simply doing that will mean that we do not have to build as many batteries, and batteries, as the SEC has discovered, are way more expensive than some of this new technology that makes a more rational use of the power that is available.

I will conclude by pointing to one other area of technology, which is now present in the parliamentary car park. Every week I go out into the parliamentary car park, I see more electric vehicles. The car that was going to ruin the weekend only a couple of federal elections ago is now a popular possession of Labor and Liberal members alike, and I am delighted to see EVs proliferating in the parliamentary car park. But what people do not quite appreciate is that the combined battery power of half a dozen Teslas is about the same as the battery capacity of the community batteries being opened up around the suburbs with great fanfare. The community battery that opened with much hoopla and spin in North Fitzroy – and it is a wonderful thing – has a storage capacity of about 300 kilowatt hours. That is about five Teslas. In other words, the point I am making here is that very soon the family car will be able to be used as a storage resource for our grid. If you can take, say, 10 kilowatt hours out of your car battery and use it to power your home overnight, you are not drawing from the grid.

Some cars are capable of putting power back into the grid or back into your home, but currently most electric vehicles on sale in Victoria are not. But if you read Saul Griffith’s book, you can see the potential of using electric vehicles as a kind of electricity storage so that we can essentially shift electrical power from lunchtime, when we have an abundance of solar, to dinnertime, when we need the power but the sun is not shining. I am only aware of one brand of EV currently capable of doing that, but I think we should require all EVs sold in Australia to have that capacity. If the Nissan Leaf can do that, why can’t all of them?

I had better return to the motion before someone calls me out on this, and I am very glad that the member for Tarneit has not yet. But as I said at the beginning, nuclear energy is a distraction. It is a straw man. The member for Clarinda destroyed the coalition’s arguments in favour of nuclear energy. It is dead in the water. We need to focus on why we are still burning 100,000 tonnes of coal every single day in this state and what we can do to get off coal faster. That is the motion that we should be discussing, and I will retire before someone tells me to shut up.

Lauren KATHAGE (Yan Yean) (16:50): I do not know if you have ever wondered what we are saying on this side of the house sometimes, but during constituency questions I turned to the member for Point Cook and I said, ‘That member for Mornington, I don’t reckon he’s got a bad bone in his body.’

A member interjected.

Lauren KATHAGE: It is true; that is what I said. I think probably not 20 minutes later, as I walked past the TV in the annex, I had to swallow my words, because do you know what I heard the member for Mornington say as I walked past the annex TV? He said, very proudly – he has excellent posture ‍– ‘I fully support nuclear. I fully support Dutton.’ He was so proud in that moment that he was finally ungagged. He has been ungagged by the federal government, and now he can say what he wants to say in this chamber. Yes, his best colours are shining through. He even claimed credit. I do not know if you heard that. He said, ‘I suggested nuclear in the federal party room when I was a federal member,’ so the member for Mornington is the one who has brought nuclear here to Victoria. He did raise six points for why we should go nuclear, and I did miss some of them because I was feeling a bit faint and dizzy at that stage. One of the points he raised on why we should have nuclear was because we have more uranium than gold.

A member interjected.

Lauren KATHAGE: That is what I said: ‘What?’ I am not sure how that argument works. He said, ‘Nuclear is as safe as solar’ – which I believe is the town motto for Fukushima – and he said that the waste is compact and well managed.

I want to talk about that waste, because the member for Mildura also spoke about nuclear waste. She must have had a fantastic time with that mayor in France, because she keeps on bringing up conversations she had with him in the chamber. Last time she said she spoke to this mayor in France and he said, ‘We put solar power on our public buildings.’ She came back to the chamber in Victoria and said we should put solar power on our public buildings – well, surprise, we do. She said that this mayor in France – he should come to Parliament here – is very concerned about the wind turbine blades that they have there in France and is worried about what will happen to them at the end of their life, as though wind turbine blade waste is something that just cannot be overcome. We should get rid of wind energy because there are these wind turbine blades, which are probably only dangerous if you can manage to throw them at somebody, but you probably could not because they are quite large. I am happy to reassure the member for Mildura and indeed the mayor in France somewhere that Siemens have developed recyclable turbine blade technology, because science progresses and these turbine blades actually can be basically fully recycled. They can be used as soundproofing et cetera. Is that the case with nuclear waste? Would you like to use nuclear waste as soundproofing in your home? It might melt your ears, but I do not think it is going to work as soundproofing.

The member for Mildura mentioned how compact nuclear waste is and how in France they recycle their nuclear waste. I thought, ‘Oh, that’s interesting. I do want to debate the facts and learn what’s going on.’ I learned that the 1150 tonnes of nuclear fuel waste that is produced in France each year goes and sits in a pool for seven years – and I think that is what we all want to do now on the winter break, just like the radioactive waste. A certain amount, though, cannot be recycled, and that is 46 ‍tonnes a year. So 46 tonnes of nuclear waste – I do not know, is that compact? I am pretty sure it can still have a pretty negative impact. ‘It is compact’ – 46 tonnes. Can I remind those present – it has its own Wikipedia page – about the West Australian radioactive capsule incident. Do you remember when a piece of radioactive waste fell off a truck in Western Australia? Hundreds of people were out looking for it. We were told that the amount of radiation emitted by the capsule could induce burns and radiation sickness and was potentially deadly to humans. How big was that capsule? Was it as big as 46 tonnes, 10 tonnes, 1 tonne? It was 6 millimetres by 8 millimetres. That is how big it was. That is compact and that can still kill you. That is how dangerous nuclear waste is. I am not going to worry about that, but when things go wrong, because they do – things fall off the back of trucks, leaks occur in the uranium plant in Kakadu – what will Dutton say? ‘I don’t hold a Geiger counter, mate.’ Is that what he is going to say when things go wrong? He does not hold a Geiger counter. So who is going to cop it? We are going to cop it. The community is going to cop it. He will be long gone by the time we have nuclear power. He will have retired, in France, sitting in a pool, for seven years.

The member for Mildura said, ‘Let’s have a mature discussion.’ That is the key line they keep repeating: ‘Let’s have a mature discussion.’ But they are not going to have a conversation with their communities, not a real one. The member for Mildura, talking about Gippsland, said the sentiment there is of course they want a nuclear industry. The member for Mildura says, ‘Of course they want a nuclear industry.’ If you are representing your community, would you really come out, without having spoken to people, without having time for this news to sink in, and already have decided that the community supports nuclear? We can see that the Nationals members are not listening to their communities. What are they listening to? You need to go and ask your community what they think. Ask them: ‘Do you want a nuclear power plant on the site of Loy Yang B, where an earthquake knocked out three of four generators?’ They might like to ask them: ‘Do you want to store 46 tonnes of nuclear waste?’ ‘Do you want it travelling on your roads,’ they might ask them, ‘and buried in the ground there each year?’ That is 46 tonnes each year; it is cumulative. We understand compound interest as well over here. Do they want the most expensive form of power in their communities? They are the questions that the member for Mildura and the members for Gippsland South, east, west, north and all in between should be asking their community members, not coming in here and saying we should have a mature discussion.

But they have already decided what their community members want; they believe that their community members want nuclear. Well, I tell you what, we have heard loud and clear the opposite from community. Victorians do not want nuclear reactors in their state. They do not want nuclear waste in their backyards – the most expensive, toxic, dangerous form of energy there is. We on this side of the house can be unequivocal. We are singing from the same song sheet over those opposite. We heard from the member for Mornington that he is fully supportive. Then we heard from the member for Narracan: ‘Oh, well, we should hear the pros and cons, the positives and the negatives.’ We, though, are unequivocal. Ask any of us how we feel. We do not support nuclear energy in Victoria ‍– not today, not tomorrow, never. Never will we support nuclear energy in Victoria, and I ask those opposite to stand up if they do not want nuclear –

The SPEAKER: Order! The time set down for consideration of items on the government business program has arrived, and I am required to interrupt business. The member will have the call the next time the motion is before the house.