Thursday, 4 August 2022

Adjournment

Ms STITT (Western Metropolitan—Minister for Workplace Safety, Minister for Early Childhood and Pre-Prep) (20:33): I move:

That the house do now adjourn.

Nuclear energy

Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (20:33): (2033) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Energy and concerns electricity generation in Victoria. Specifically I want to raise this state’s continued moratorium on nuclear power and the minister’s own comments on the technology. She has recently described it as a ‘stupid idea’ and said without qualification that it is ‘dangerous’. I am worried that this clear prejudice will have damaging long-term consequences for our state.

In my view and in the view of many governments around the world nuclear is neither stupid nor dangerous. Indeed as the technology develops it is becoming ever more attractive, as recent commitments to small modular reactors in the US, the UK, Canada and elsewhere have shown. An already safe technology is becoming safer still. New construction methods and smaller reactors are making the capital investment and site requirements more palatable too.

It is easy to dismiss a novel idea, but the minister’s willingness to do so is concerning. Developing energy generation capacity is a long-term issue. We cannot just suddenly decide we need it and flick a switch. Will we soon have the same problem with generation that we have now with transmission? Labor’s short-sighted botching of our grid has left energy generators unable to connect and now a desperate rush job to criss-cross our state with new transmission lines to catch up with demand. Demand is only going in one direction. With the push for more electric vehicles and for cooking and heating to be done via electricity; with coal-fired generation going off-line without replacement in the next few years; with ever more ambitious emissions reductions policies from all sides of politics; with Victoria’s gas crisis; and with rising power bills hurting households, putting businesses under and damaging our economy, I worry the minister is closing her eyes and putting her fingers in her ears.

We need a change of direction, and we need it now. I welcome the leader of the federal opposition’s announcement of a policy review on nuclear. As he said, the average wholesale electricity price in the second quarter this year is three times higher than a year ago. The Australian Energy Market Operator called it unprecedented. It is a sign something is not right, and we cannot afford to let ideology dictate our response. Energy affordability is so basic and fundamental; providing it must be the government’s primary focus. The viability of nuclear power should be subject to stringent safety, public health and environmental regulation as well as economic reality, but it is nonsense to ban outright any investigation into the viability of this established low-carbon generation method. Minister, the action I seek is for you to scrap your prejudice and order a comprehensive review of future electricity generation policy, which starts with a genuinely blank slate.