Thursday, 29 August 2024

Nuclear energy

Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:27): I move:

That this house:

(1) condemns the federal Liberal–Nationals coalition plans for dangerous and costly nuclear energy, which will send power bills sky-high;

(2) calls on the leader of the Victorian opposition to:

(a) retract his statement that nuclear may well be part of the energy mix going forward;

(b) rule out nuclear power plants in Victorian communities;

(3) calls on the leader of the Victorian Nationals to confirm whether his party supports the pro-nuclear motion passed at the 2024 Victorian Nationals state conference;

(4) notes:

(a) the pro-nuclear statements made by Mrs Bev McArthur MLC and Mr Richard Welch MLC;

(b) the latest CSIRO 2023–24 GenCost report that confirms that nuclear energy is by far the most expensive form of energy generation you can build; and

(c) that because of the Allan Labor government’s record investments in cheap, reliable renewable energy, Victoria’s wholesale power prices are consistently amongst the lowest in the country.

We have all been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to debate this motion. I note Mrs McArthur is over there on the opposition benches. It is going to be a battle royale, isn’t it, Mrs McArthur? It is going to be on like Donkey Kong I think today, because I have got half an hour to talk about nuclear. So bring it on. It is going to be a great end to the Thursday of the sitting week. It is going to be fantastic. I welcome your contribution, Mrs McArthur. I know it will be a great one. I hope that you will be able to mention some candle-powered something in there and also some quangos. I have not heard the word ‘quango’ for a while. Absolutely bring it all out, because we love to talk about that when we are talking about alternative sources of power.

But anyway, I do rise to talk about my motion, which notes the federal Liberal-Nationals coalition plans for dangerous and costly nuclear energy, which will send power bills sky-high, and also calls on the leader of the Victorian opposition to:

(a) retract his statement that nuclear may well be part of the energy mix going forward;

(b) rule out nuclear power plants in Victorian communities.

This is going to be something I will talk a lot about in this debate today – what has just been happening in Gippsland and why it is not a good idea to build nuclear power plants out there. The motion also:

(3) calls on the leader of the Victorian Nationals to confirm whether his party supports the pro-nuclear motion passed at the 2024 Victorian Nationals state conference;

(4) notes:

(a) the pro-nuclear statements made by Mrs Bev McArthur MLC and Mr Richard Welch MLC;

(b) the latest CSIRO 2023–24 GenCost report that confirms that nuclear energy is by far the most expensive form of energy generation you can build; and

(c) that because of the Allan Labor Government’s record investments in cheap, reliable renewable energy, Victoria’s wholesale power prices are consistently amongst the lowest in the country.

There is little bit of a grab bag there of a whole range of things about renewable energy, the costs of electricity and power and power prices. What I will do is just talk a little bit about our record on renewables. It is important to note just as the underpinning basis for this contribution that in terms of our emissions targets, in 2020 we smashed our emissions target of a 15 to 20 per cent reduction. In fact we achieved a 29.6 per cent reduction, and then in 2021 we achieved a 32.3 per cent reduction. We are decarbonising at the fastest rate in the country, and since the government was elected in 2014 we have cut emissions by more than any other state. We have got the strongest climate change legislation in the country. Victorians voted overwhelmingly for the next steps in our ambitious agenda, and our targets of a 75 to 80 per cent reduction by 2035 and net zero by 2045 align Victoria with the Paris goals of limiting global warming to 1.5°degrees Celsius. Our targets are delivering the most rapid reduction of emissions in Australia, unlocking billions of dollars of investment and creating thousands of jobs. We are investing almost $2 billion in programs to reduce emissions. That is just the background in terms of our record on emissions reductions and renewable energy.

I will get to the GenCost report in a moment, because that is something that I think sparked a lot of debate between people who are wedded to renewables and decarbonising and those who think that putting nuclear energy in the mix is a good thing. I will just refer to the Honourable Chris Bowen, Minister for Climate Change and Energy, as he was then in May 2024, who also referred to the GenCost report and talked about the fact that in his view that confirms that the federal government’s plan for reliable renewables is on track to deliver cheaper, cleaner energy now and into the future.

The GenCost report was prepared by the CSIRO – and these are expert bodies, mind you. We like science; we are wedded to science over here on these benches. It is something that is critically important. The CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator compared the cost to build new coal, gas, solar, onshore wind, offshore wind batteries and nuclear generators – that is important. If you want to look at the benefits of these sorts of things, there has got to be a comparison done. The report finds:

… firmed renewables, including transmission and storage costs, provide Australians the cheapest power, at between $83/MWh and $120/MWh in 2030 –

so that is projecting forward what it will cost –

when they account for 80 per cent of variable generation.

It goes on to say:

Were small modular nuclear reactors able to be up and running in Australia by 2030 –

because other reports talk about the fact that nuclear power would not really be available in Australia until 2040, and we really cannot afford to wait that long –

… the cost of their power would be up to $382 MWh, not including the hefty ‘first of a kind’ premium.

Again, we do not have a nuclear industry here in Victoria or in Australia. The cost of power from small modular nuclear reactors, if that were possible, would be eight times more expensive than firmed large-scale wind and solar when the first-of-a-kind premium is included. That is quite concerning. Again, we are looking at the cheapest renewable power, between $83 and $120 per megawatt hour projected forward in 2030, compared to $382 per megawatt hour. That is very concerning, and it just goes to show that people talk about small modular reactors, but the technology just is not there yet. It is an unknown cost, but the projections are done by the GenCost report.

I might just now go to the GenCost report itself and talk about some of the content that was in fact in the executive summary of that report. What the GenCost report authors talk about is the majority of submissions in the consultation process in developing the GenCost report saying that the submitters wanted and requested the inclusion of large-scale nuclear in addition to the nuclear small modular reactors that had been included in the report since the inception of the GenCost report in 2018. In response to those requests GenCost re-examined the appropriateness of large-scale nuclear and concluded that, although the development of large-scale nuclear would require a significant increase in the reserve margin relative to the small modular reactors and existing Australian generation plants, there was no known technical constraint to deploying generation units of this size. But it also concluded that due to the state of the development pipeline in Australia the earliest deployment would be from 2040. So, again, it confirmed what the Honourable Chris Bowen had said – that we are not ready yet. The technology is not there, and at the earliest possible opportunity it would not be until 2040 that we would actually see any availability of nuclear to fall into the renewables mix. That would significantly delay any capacity or ability that we have to try and meet our renewable energy targets, and that is something we just cannot afford. We do not have the time to waste. We want to decarbonise. We are on track to meet our commitments to renewables and, as I outlined earlier at the beginning of my contribution, we are very well on track in terms of meeting our targets and exceeding them. As I said, our net zero by 2045 target aligns Victoria with the Paris goals. We have got to reduce warming by 1.5 degrees Celsius, so that is what we are on track to do.

In terms of the GenCost report, the GenCost report based the large-scale nuclear costs on the South Korean costs as the best representation of a continuous building program consistent with other technologies in the report. GenCost then adjusted for differences in the Australian and South Korean deployment costs by studying the ratio of new coal generation costs in each country, and that ratio was used to scale the South Korean large-scale nuclear costs to Australian deployment costs. Based on this approach the expected capital cost of a large-scale nuclear plant in 2023 was $9217 per kilowatt. The capital cost can only be achieved if Australia commits to a continuous building program and only after an initial higher cost unit is constructed. So you can see the cost is astronomical, and I am not sure where we would actually find that kind of capital investment coming from and, again, at what cost. If we waited or delayed, what that would then mean is we would fall behind in meeting our renewable energy targets and we would not be on track to reduce global warming at all.

It is just concerning that the proponents on the opposition benches, who love nuclear – and again, we get criticised on the government benches all the time; I just heard Dr Heath’s contribution earlier saying how terrible we are at managing money – want to plunge us into a bit of an unknown and risky foray into exploring nuclear power, particularly when there are a lot of unknowns. What the experts are telling us is that not only is it risky but it is horrendously expensive; it would not result in cheaper energy prices but it would result in more expensive energy prices; and we would still not be doing the heavy lifting when it comes to global warming. Again, we need to continue to reaffirm our commitment to renewable energy.

I might say, I did dust this off – I know I am not allowed to use props, but I will just give it a quick shout-out. I am just disappointed, Mrs McArthur, that you were not on this one. This was the inquiry into nuclear prohibition. It was a committee inquiry that the government did in November 2020. I know Mr Limbrick was there.

Bev McArthur interjected.

Sonja TERPSTRA: Okay, a minority report. Well, there you go.

Bev McArthur interjected.

Sonja TERPSTRA: They must have left you off the blurb at the front. My apologies if you did do a minority report, but there it is there. This one is a bit like a good old Acme fightback, I reckon. I dusted it off my shelf and had a bit of a look around at it. The interesting thing about that report and why I am mentioning that report is because one of the things that the inquiry looked at was the ability to actually support a nuclear industry in Victoria. One of the things that the report looked at was the availability of natural resources and whether that was something that could be sustained. For example, when you look at uranium, Australia is the third-largest producer of uranium in the world, but uranium deposits are located in six locations in South Australia, the Northern Territory and WA; there are none in Victoria. At the time of looking at this there were three operating mines in Australia: Ranger in the Northern Territory; Four Mile in South Australia; and Olympic Dam, which is the world’s largest uranium deposit, in South Australia.

If we were to look at embarking upon having a nuclear industry here – because we do not have one – obviously resources are something that you need to operate nuclear power. There are no uranium deposits in Victoria, so the question then becomes: what do we do? Where do we mine those things from? Yes, there is an availability of these natural resources, but you would have to truck them in. This means that those natural resources would have to be transported through our suburbs. So because of that lack of resources, how would that actually play out? Whilst those opposite might like to talk about the benefits of nuclear, there is a lot of detail that is not actually factored in. We have no industry, and the GenCostreport actually talks about that. They talk about that in their executive summary, saying that the initial costs would be astronomical. Again there is that early premium to try and get that industry up and running.

The other thing I will talk about shortly and that I have done a lot of reading on just recently, not only in the GenCost report, is that when we talk about not having an industry – we have got to have workers. So you have got to either bring workers into the country to work on these projects who have the appropriate skills or you have got to train them. You have got to do one or the other, because you just cannot magic something to happen unless you want to run it with robots, but I do not think anyone is wanting to do that. It is actually better that you have people working in jobs. There has been a lot of research also done on the impacts of nuclear on workers and people who have worked long term in the nuclear industry and what the health impacts have been on those workers. I am going to talk about that again in a minute.

Of course the big question that was discussed in the nuclear inquiry, which is also something that people talk to me a lot about every day when they talk about nuclear, was how there are so many unanswered questions about waste – waste disposal, waste storage and what we are going to do with it. You hear lots of stories about how they will just encase it in concrete and put it in a hole that is 30 kilometres down or whatever and how it will be safe and secure, but we know that that is not the case. We also know that we can look around the world in terms of accidents, and I will talk a little bit about Fukushima in a minute and what that has done to people – and Chernobyl.

One of the proposed sites that I think Peter Dutton talked about when he was talking about his plan for nuclear power – there were seven proposed sites, I believe, and the seven sites that Peter Dutton thinks are appropriate for nuclear power plants are Tarong and Callide in Queensland, Mount Piper and Liddell in New South Wales, Collie in WA and of course Loy Yang in Victoria and Northern Power Station in South Australia – I thought I would like to have a bit of a detailed look into. People say that Australia is such a seismically stable continent and that there are not a lot of earthquakes and the like. But given the seismic activity in Gippsland of late, we should note there have actually been quite a few earthquakes recently. I just looked at some of the scientific information available about this, and there have actually been 700 earthquakes in the Gippsland region since 1960. Loy Yang power station is just 33 kilometres from where a 5.4 magnitude earthquake was recorded in Moe back in 2012. It was one of the biggest seismic events since the 1960s. Then a 5.9 magnitude quake was 36 kilometres from Rawson in 2021. On average 10 earthquakes occur in Gippsland each year, and mostly they are between 2 to 3 magnitude in range. However, in Gippsland you can have four to six earthquakes which are known to cause some structural damage on average once every three years. So there is a significant amount of seismic activity that is there. Obviously with the recent earthquakes that have just occurred in the last month or so, it raises the question about nuclear safety again. We only have to look, as I said, to places like Fukushima and Chernobyl to understand about nuclear safety.

I know those opposite have got to be wedded to what Dutton says about Victoria. I doubt that the communities that he has listed were ever consulted about whether they think the sites for these proposed nuclear power plants are actually a good idea. No-one was consulted. I think they were just announced. So it came as quite a surprise to a number of people that these things are being thought about. Then of course there has been, following on from that, lots of discussion and debate about the safety or relatively unsafe state of nuclear power. Mr Limbrick, I am sure you are going to talk on this motion too, aren’t you?

David Limbrick interjected.

Sonja TERPSTRA: Yes, of course. And I know Mr Limbrick will disagree with everything I say.

David Limbrick interjected.

Sonja TERPSTRA: You will not be able to correct it because I know that we just have opposing views, and just because we have opposing views it does not mean I am wrong. As I said, I like to talk about the science and the facts, and I have actually gone through and referred to science and facts, which I know you do not like, but nevertheless it is something that is important.

With the Liberals in Victoria, it is a bit disappointing because I would like to think that we could have the Liberals over there on the opposition benches come up with some of their own ideas. Rather than being the Dutton lickspittles of the world, they have got an opportunity to rise above those sorts of things and actually propose their own ideas. It would be wonderful to see them on board with renewable energy. We have got an abundance of wind here in Victoria particularly and around Australia. Bass Strait is one of the windiest places in the world. We have got such an amazing opportunity to look at increasing our share of renewables, but again those opposite just want to kowtow and be Dutton lickspittles.

Anyway, what I am going to talk about next are some of the impacts of these things. I am going to talk about the health impacts. I note that during the nuclear inquiry Dr Helen Caldicott, who is a renowned expert in nuclear, and she is actually a doctor and a scientist –

Members interjecting.

Sonja TERPSTRA: I know, that is something that you do not like to talk about, but it is something. She is an expert and a seasoned antinuclear campaigner and has written numerous books on it.

Members interjecting.

Sonja TERPSTRA: Well, she is an expert. She is a doctor.

David Davis: On a point of order, Acting President, the member is misleading the house by calling Dr Caldicott an expert. She is not an expert; she is an ideologue.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jacinta Ermacora): That is not a point of order.

Sonja TERPSTRA: Dr Caldicott did give evidence to our nuclear inquiry as an expert. Her evidence was excellent and very much appreciated. I just want to quote from some of the research that she has put out there, particularly on neutron radiation and what it does to people. In relation to Fukushima, she said:

Reactor 1 at Fukushima has been periodically emitting neutron radiation as sections of the molten core become intermittently critical. Neutrons are large radioactive particles that travel many kilometers, and they pass through everything including concrete, steel … There is no way to hide from them …

Let us talk about what that does – radioactive elements that are continually being released into the air and water at Fukushima. What are the consequences of that? So:

… there are over 200 such elements each with its own … characteristics and pathways in the food chain and the human body. They are invisible, tasteless and odorless. When the cancer manifests it is impossible to determine its aetiology, but there is a large literature proving that radiation causes cancer including the data from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Cesium 137 is a beta and gamma emitter with a half-life of 30 years.

Okay. So some of this stuff is around a long time, and when you have an accident like a nuclear explosion at a power plant, these things can get into the food chain and then people consume them. It is not only humans that consume it; it is other things like fish. Caesium has a half-life of 30 years.

That means in 30 years only half of its radioactive energy has decayed, so it is detectable as a radioactive hazard for over 300 years. Cesium, like all radioactive elements bio-concentrates in at each level of the food chain – from soil to grass, fruit and vegetables and tens to hundreds of times more in meat and milk and the sea from algae to crustaceans to small fish to big fish.

So it goes on and on. If anyone understands anything about the food chain – because humans eat fish and meat and consume milk, we are consuming those sorts of things. When we talk about nuclear and we talk about the potential for accidents and the impacts of that being felt on humans, the risk is too high.

We talk about what the impacts might be on people, but again there is very little discussion from those opposite. Mr Limbrick, I look forward to your contribution and hearing you talk about what the impacts on workers have been around the world. I have looked at the National Cancer Institute paper which actually examines the impacts on workers who have worked in the nuclear industry for many, many decades. That is important. Working people actually work in these jobs. You do not just want them to go off and, you know, think of them as automatons just to be used and abused and disposed of when their productive lives have finished.

We all know what happened in Chernobyl when the workers, after that exposure, actually had to go down there and clean it up. The impacts, the thyroid cancers – people died. And I know Mr Limbrick is going to say, ‘Oh, that wasn’t this or that,’ whatever, but you cannot deny the fact. Let us talk about what the National Cancer Institute researchers have said and what they have learned from nuclear accidents. They looked at the April 1986 nuclear power plant disaster in Chernobyl in Ukraine and then talked about what was involved – radioactive isotopes and the like. This is what they found:

Power plant workers on-site at the time of the accident. Approximately 600 workers at the power plant during the emergency received very high doses of radiation and suffered from radiation sickness. All of those who received more than 6 grays (Gy) –

they call it ‘grays’, and that is their reference point to refer to the measure of radiation –

… became very sick right away and subsequently died. Those who received less than 4 Gy had a better chance of survival.

But that does not then address the point about what happened afterwards:

Cleanup workers. Hundreds of thousands of people who worked as part of the cleanup crews in the years after the accident were exposed to average external doses of ionizing radiation that ranged from approximately 0.14 Gy in 1986 to 0.04 Gy in 1989.

The studies conducted through that group of people have found an increased risk of leukaemia as well:

Residents near Chernobyl. From 1986 through 2005, approximately 5 million residents of the contaminated areas surrounding Chernobyl received an accumulated whole-body average dose of around 0.01 Gy. Studies that have followed children and adolescents exposed to I-131 from the Chernobyl accident showed an increased risk of developing thyroid cancer.

So the effects of radiation and the after-effects of nuclear accidents when they have looked at workers who have worked at the time of the accident, clean-up workers who then went into those areas to clean up things after the accidents, residents of Chernobyl and then subsequently children who lived in those areas are that they have all been affected:

In a 2021 study, investigators found that thyroid tumors in children who were exposed to fallout from the Chernobyl accident had higher levels of a particular kind of DNA damage that involves breaks in both DNA strands than tumors in unexposed individuals born more than 9 months after the accident. The more radiation the children had been exposed to, the more of this type of DNA damage was seen.

Not only do we see disease caused in people, there was actually damage to their DNA. So I just ask the question of those opposite and any nuclear proponents: if it is all about nuclear and we want to see nuclear being added to the mix, the risks associated are very well documented and scientifically proven, and we know, according to the GenCost report, that the cost of electricity will be astronomically higher. We know that the –

David Davis interjected.

Sonja TERPSTRA: Well, you were not here, excuse me. I will take up the interjection, because you were not here. You were not here when I talked to the GenCost report, because I went through it in great detail.

David Davis interjected.

Sonja TERPSTRA: No, you were not here, and do not verbal me either, Mr Davis, because you were not here when I went through it. So the point is –

David Davis interjected.

Sonja TERPSTRA: You were not here. The point is that you are wrong when you talk about the cost of power, because again the cost has been well documented and documented by experts like the CSIRO.

David Davis interjected.

Sonja TERPSTRA: They are scientists, and the scientists are the people who know what they are talking about. You do not want to acknowledge science, because it is an inconvenient truth for you.

I will just talk about one other little accident that happened just recently – and people thought it was kind of funny at the time but it really was not funny; it was kind of embarrassing. This was documented in February 2023. A tiny radioactive capsule fell off the back of a truck in the Australian outback. It was an 8-millimetre by 6-millimetre capsule. It fell from a truck that was travelling from a Rio Tinto mine site in the Pilbara to Perth. The radioactive capsule was part of a gauge used to measure the density of iron ore feed in the mine of the state’s remote Kimberley region. This is what happened as a consequence: a 20-metre exclusion zone had to be established because the device was found just a short distance from where it began an over 1400-kilometre journey to Perth. This was a consequence of not wanting to expose people to any fallout. Health authorities warned that standing within a metre of the capsule would be the equivalent of receiving 10 X-rays in an hour. They warned people not to touch or approach it. Having to impose a 20-metre exclusion zone around where the device was found is ludicrous. They believed a bolt securing the lead-lined gauge containing the capsule worked loose – it had shaken loose because of the vibration of the truck – and therefore the capsule then fell through a hole left by the missing bolt.

The thing is: we see time and time again accidents that happen in the nuclear sector – time and time and time again. But the nuclear proponents over there want to conveniently wipe all those things away. They want to sweep them under the rug or under the carpet and say the Holy Grail of renewable energy is all about nuclear. It is not. It is deadly. I have just gone through in great detail in a whole range of ways why it is deadly, how it is deadly. I have relied on expert scientific evidence to back up all those claims.

I have also gone through in great detail reports from the CSIRO in the GenCost report detailing how expensive it is going to be – the cost of building it – and the fact that nuclear, even if we do look at small modular nuclear reactors, is not going to be available until 2040. We simply cannot wait that long. The unanswered questions go on and on and on.

What are we going to do with any waste that is produced as a consequence of having nuclear reactors? Again, in Victoria we do not have natural resources like uranium. Where are we going to truck that in? Through people’s streets? There are so many unanswered questions. We saw yesterday in this place that they could not even draft a motion in the house. What would it be like if these people on the opposition benches were ever in government? The stuff-ups would be immeasurable and ongoing.

People’s lives are too valuable. We do not want to see children impacted by nuclear. It is dangerous. But those opposite feel that people’s lives and their health and livelihoods are absolutely disposable, and that is a shame and a sad indictment on those opposite.

I call on the federal Liberal–Nationals coalition to really come clean on the true cost of nuclear power.

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:57): I am very pleased to talk on this motion. I will start by reflecting my deep offence at not being named in this motion. It only names Mrs McArthur and Mr Welch. I am deeply offended by this – that I was not named in this motion – but nevertheless, let us put that aside.

Ms Terpstra spoke at length about the GenCost report. In fact there has been much discussion amongst the scientific community and those involved in the energy industry about the GenCost report.

David Davis interjected.

David LIMBRICK: It is a very shoddy report. They made two –

Members interjecting.

David LIMBRICK: I majored in physics, so let us talk about science. Let me talk – let us talk about science.

One of the first assumptions that was put in the GenCost report is that the lifetime of a nuclear reactor will be 30 years. Now, anyone that knows anything about nuclear technology will laugh at that. In fact many reactors in the United States are licensed out to 80 years, and there is no technical reason they could not run even longer than that. I would pose a question to the chamber: how many wind turbines and solar panels will still be operational in Victoria in 30 years? What is the answer to that? Zero – every single one of them will be decommissioned within 30 years.

David Davis: 25 for wind.

David LIMBRICK: Yes. And for solar I think the average life span is around 15 to 20 years, depending on weather events and things like that. People say that nuclear is going to take a long time, that it might take us 20 years to get an industry. Guess what, it will be just in time for when every bit of renewables infrastructure will have to be decommissioned – and there are lots of issues around that, I might say.

Another major problem with the GenCost report by the CSIRO was that they assumed that all of the transmission and other infrastructure required for renewables was a sunk cost. They magicked it away. They imagined that the infrastructure already exists, which it does not. As the government itself is discovering, there are a lot of people in regional Victoria who are getting quite upset about this infrastructure, and we are only just getting started. I am sure the opposition will have more to say about the GenCost report, but suffice to say there have been corrections made to these assumptions.

David Davis: They’ve gone away with their tail between their legs.

David LIMBRICK: Yes, there have been corrections done to this, and actually nuclear is quite competitive with other types of technologies.

Onto the issue of safety now. Ms Terpstra talked about Fukushima. Interestingly, as I have said before in this place, I used to be anti nuclear power technology once upon a time and the thing that actually changed my mind was what happened at Fukushima. The reason is my family, as many people would know, is from Japan. My wife is from Japan, and I have got many friends and family in Japan. When Fukushima happened I was very, very concerned about what might be happening. I did not know much about the effects of radiation on the human body and what might be a problem. In Japan they have very sophisticated systems to monitor radiation throughout cities, and they can monitor the tiniest amount of radiation. In fact ANSTO are very good at this as well. That is why they found that radioactive isotope that was lost in Western Australia some time ago, which Ms Terpstra mentioned. However, despite all my concerns about what might be happening – I was even thinking, ‘Am I going to have to try and evacuate my parents-in-law from Japan to Australia?’ – what I discovered is I would receive a higher radiation dose of natural radiation from cosmic radiation on the plane trip over than what I would receive on the ground in Japan.

One of the things that has been a big problem for the people of Fukushima, who I have much sympathy for, is misinformation about the area. There have been many attacks on the people of the Fukushima prefecture – scientific misinformation about produce from that region. A lot of it has been coming from China, I might add. In fact I went for a holiday to Fukushima over Christmas. It is a wonderful place. I recommend anyone go there. I ate much of the seafood from there, and despite what the Labor Party may think, the fish did not have three eyes and I am not glowing. I do not think I am glowing. Am I glowing, Mrs McArthur?

Bev McArthur: No.

David LIMBRICK: No, I am not glowing; I am fine. The Australian Embassy in Tokyo was so concerned about the misinformation being propagated by other countries, mostly Korea and China, that they cooperated with the Japanese government and in the Australian Embassy in Tokyo they had a sampling of a wide array of produce from Fukushima, including sashimi and many other delicious products. The officials at the Australian Embassy ate the sashimi and these other products, with some other Japanese people, to prove that there is no problem whatsoever with the produce from Fukushima and it is in fact safe. I wish that the Victorian and federal governments were as sensible as our staff in the Australian Embassy in Tokyo, who are doing an excellent job of combating misinformation unfortunately propagated by our own government, which is terrifying to think. Because of this misinformation, there has been much concern about produce from the region of Fukushima – all of it based on misinformation and anti-science ideas. I have a lot of sympathy for the fishermen and other people who have suffered because of this. That is one of the reasons why my family went there, to support the local people of Fukushima. They have some wonderful attractions there. We went to a resort, actually – a beautiful resort. It has got water slides and hot springs and all sorts of stuff, and it is wonderful.

Many people, mostly the Chinese Communist Party and the South Korean government, have been making much of this radioactive water that the Japanese are planning on releasing into the ocean, which contains a radioactive element called tritium. They have removed all of the elements from it except for the tritium in very small amounts. This water, if you drank it – you would in fact die from drinking large amounts of this water, but the reason that you would die is not because of the tritium, it is because it is sea water. In fact the levels of tritium in this water would pass Australian safety standards for drinking water, but of course humans cannot consume salt water. Salt water is very dangerous to drink. I do not recommend that anyone drinks salt water. It is a very bad idea. But certainly from very small amounts of tritium there are no known effects on the human body, and in fact it is quite safe. Fisheries are open, beaches are open, and in fact at Fukushima they had a surfing competition some time ago and it was quite popular. Lots of people attended and there were no concerns about radiation or anything like it.

One of the things that happened after the Fukushima disaster was they shut down all the nuclear power plants in Japan and they went through a safety review, because of course they were concerned. They needed to replace that power with other forms of energy, and one of those forms of energy that they replaced it with was gas, and a lot of that gas came from Australia. They signed long-term contracts to import a large amount of gas from Australia. That gas turned out be very expensive, and for Japanese consumers power bills went up enormously. Quite recently they have started turning on the nuclear reactors again and they no longer require this Australian gas. This is a problem for Australia. It is not a problem for Japan, because they signed very long-term contracts at very good prices and now they are onselling the gas at a profit, so that is questionable. But now people in Japan are receiving huge reductions in their power bills because the nuclear reactors are coming back online, and in fact many, many people are clamouring for them to be brought back online because they realise that they do not need to pay for burning gas anymore.

Another point brought up by Ms Terpstra was about uranium and the quite ridiculous idea that we cannot get enough uranium to power reactors in Australia. We have one of the largest uranium reserves on the entire planet. But the amount of uranium required to power a nuclear reactor is absolutely tiny. We are talking tiny amounts of material. An amount of processed uranium the size of a can of soft drink is enough to power a human’s energy requirements for their entire life. Consider that. The size of a uranium pellet – they are about this big; they are very, very small, tiny things. One of those is equivalent to – I cannot remember the exact number, but it is a very large amount of coal. We are talking tiny, tiny, tiny amounts. The reason that we do not bury a lot of what many people term nuclear waste – in fact it is not really waste, it is actually considered a resource in many cases – is because once the fuel is spent in a nuclear reactor actually only about 7 per cent of the energy has been extracted from it. It is totally possible to reprocess the uranium, reprocess the reactor rods, and reuse it over and over again and effectively reduce the amount of material that eventually turns up as waste. The reason they do not do that is because the amounts are so minimal it is not really a big problem. In fact Switzerland has been running a nuclear program for decades and decades now. Their entire nuclear waste facility, all of the nuclear waste they have ever produced, fits in a room about the size of a basketball court. You can just go and walk along, look at it, walk around and it is totally safe. They do not want to bury it underground yet because they might want to reprocess it. It is a valuable material that might be valuable in the future. It would be silly to put it under the ground and bury it forever.

Also with Fukushima, what happened there was a terrible disaster. Tens of thousands of people died but the tragedy of that was not that they died from radiation. Many people may be surprised that actually no-one died from radiation and current projections are that no-one will die from radiation or radiation effects. People died from effects of the tsunami and also many people died from the frankly irresponsible response from the government of evacuating people from retirement homes and places like that, which turned out to be not necessary, and putting them in shelters. Many of those people unfortunately passed away and it was a terrible situation that happened, but no-one died from radiation from what was one of the worst disasters that we have ever seen. It is incredible, isn’t it? And the Labor Party keeps going on about safety. Well, if we look in terms of the number of people hurt per terawatt hour produced of energy, nuclear is easily one of the safest, if not the safest form of energy production that humanity has ever devised, so this is ridiculous.

When we talk about long-term energy independence, this is something that people do not talk about much. Australia has the capability to make ourselves energy independent through our own infrastructure, which we cannot do with renewables. We are making ourselves perpetually dependent on ‘cheap renewables’ from China because we are going to have to replace them every 15 to 20 years. They reckon some turbines last up to 30 years. We are putting ourselves in a position where we are making ourselves perpetually dependent on a foreign state. This is a dangerous thing to do. Some people may say, ‘Why don’t we produce it here?’ Well, if we start producing it here, guess what, it is not cheap anymore. One of the reasons solar panels are cheap is because the polysilicates used in those supply chains – and I have brought this up in this chamber many times – are tainted with slave labour from the Xinjiang province. Many people will be familiar with the plight of the Uyghur people in China and many of these polysilicate supply chains are tainted with slave labour. The Victorian government has said that they are not aware of whether their subsidies for solar are effectively propping up slavery in China, but I do note that the Future Fund divested from a number of Chinese companies for exactly this reason. They were concerned about the supply chains being tainted by slave labour. I would urge the Victorian government to pay close attention to this because this puts a very dark spin on the idea of cheap renewables. In fact when they used slave labour in the United States historically, the idea of cheap cotton might have had a very dark ring to it as well. I think we need to be very careful about this.

I actually am not particularly fond of what the federal opposition is proposing in terms of the way that they are funding it. I am not particularly fond of what they are proposing, but I do thank them for opening up a discussion on whether or not Australia can use this technology. They are opening up a discussion on this and I think it is a sensible discussion to have. I think that the Labor Party’s response, both at a federal and a state level, of trying to reduce this to The Simpsons memes rather than taking it seriously and seriously considering whether or not Australia has the capacity to do this, is irresponsible. What they are doing with this scare campaign is trying to tell people, ‘What if we have to transport nuclear material?’ We transport nuclear material all the time in this city. Every single hospital has nuclear material transported to and from it. It is my understanding that about 50 per cent of Victorians will actually use nuclear medicine produced from our nuclear reactor that we already have at Lucas Heights. They will use that in medical technology. About half of the population will at some point use medicine produced from that nuclear reactor. It is also used for lots of industrial processes and many other things – but we already have it. As we heard during the inquiry into nuclear prohibition in Victoria, Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation were quite confident that they could expand their regulatory capacity for an energy sector as well as the current sector that we already have.

Ms Terpstra also brought up a point about labour force – what sort of labour force. We got some submissions to the nuclear inquiry, most notably from the Australian Workers’ Union and the CFMEU Victorian division, that were very interested in the idea of a nuclear reactor in the Latrobe Valley. One of the reasons that they were interested was because the construction workforce that would be required for a nuclear reactor is quite similar to the construction workforce that you already have on a coal-fired power station, namely welders, electricians and these sorts of jobs. These are exactly the types of skills that you need in the construction of a nuclear reactor, and therefore with some retraining these people could continue working in a high-tech industry that would provide intergenerational high-tech, high-paying jobs, possibly even union jobs, for eastern Victoria.

Although there was criticism of the opposition for not doing consultation with the local community on their plans for this, I will note that the Libertarian Party senate candidate Mr Jordan Dittloff did go out and talk to people on the streets in the area in eastern Victoria, and he spoke to many people. To no-one’s surprise, many average people on the street are quite interested in the idea of having an intergenerational high-tech industry to replace coal-fired power stations in eastern Victoria. Anyone who looks at polls – and I know that the Labor Party looks at polls very often – will know that especially younger Australians are not particularly scared by this technology. In fact many of them are wondering why on earth we are not using it. The majority of Australians either support or are open-minded about nuclear technology. The idea that you are going to convince everyone that we are going to have three-eyed fish and this sort of thing is absolute nonsense.

I would urge people to at least consider whether or not Australia is ready to move forward in the 21st century and not make ourselves perpetually dependent on China for renewable technology, because that is what we are doing at the moment. This transmission infrastructure that GenCost magicked into their numbers, saying that nuclear was expensive – what that number finally turns out to be maybe the government can tell us in their contribution. But actually I do not think they know, and they do not know. They do not know exactly how much resistance they are going to get from local communities. They are already starting to see it, and it is only going to grow further. I will end my contribution there.

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (17:19): I rise to make a contribution to this ill-considered motion 452 brought to the chamber by Ms Terpstra. I notice that Ms Terpstra fled the chamber as soon as she had finished. Off she went – away she went. Let me just record that fact. But if I start –

Members interjecting.

David DAVIS: No, but she had a go at that. She had a go at others, so there you are. The point I want to make here is that this motion is a longwinded motion that goes nowhere. It seeks to condemn the federal Liberal–National coalition, and it seeks to run around the block on a whole series of things about the Victorian Liberals and Nationals. It then seeks to attack members of the house – Bev McArthur and Richard Welch – and further, it then lauds the CSIRO GenCost 2023–24 report, and I will come to that. Then it makes false claims about record investments in cheap, reliable renewable energy. Victoria’s wholesale power prices, it claims, are amongst the lowest in the country. One of the reasons they are the lowest in the country is because of coal still being a very substantial share of our mix. That is actually true. But leaving that aside, what I want to do here is move some amendments to this motion. I move:

1. In paragraph (1) omit the word ‘condemns’ and replace it with ‘notes’.

2. In paragraph (1) omit the words ‘dangerous and costly’ and the words and expressions ‘, which will send power bills sky-high’.

3. Omit paragraphs (2), (3) and (4).

4. After paragraph (4), insert the following:

‘(2) notes the CSIRO GenCost report that has been heavily criticised for failing to properly cost alternate energy forms;

(3) notes that the Allan Labor government’s record of energy policy management is, in fact, a record of mismanagement that the government cannot be proud of, in particular noting:

(a) the massive surge in electricity and gas prices for Victorian households that has occurred in recent years, during a cost-of-living crisis;

(b) the massive increase in prices of gas and electricity faced by Victorian businesses that is increasingly driving businesses from Victoria and making Victoria uncompetitive with other jurisdictions;

(c) the deteriorating position of energy security for Victorian households and businesses as pointed to in the recent statements and publications of the Australian Energy Market Operator;

(4) condemns the Minister for Energy and Environment, the Honourable Lily D’Ambrosio MP, who is conducting ‘a war on gas’ through the so-called Gas Substitution Roadmap;

(5) holds the Andrews and Allan governments, and Minister D’Ambrosio, responsible for the failure to issue gas exploration permits over the last 10 years;

(6) condemns the Allan Labor government for the increased regulatory burden and increased costs imposed on Victorian households and businesses; and

(7) notes the damage done by Minister D’Ambrosio’s ideological approach to energy policy.’.

David DAVIS: What these amendments seek to do is correct the first paragraph. They seek to omit paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 and insert a new paragraph that picks up a series of points about the state government’s achievements. The state government’s achievements are not ones to be proud of. They actually say that instead of ‘condemn’ the motion ‘notes’ the federal government’s position. They remove the words ‘dangerous and costly’ and ‘will send power bills sky-high’. They omit a number of paragraphs, and then they insert paragraphs that deal with issues that the mover of the motion tried to deal with.

One of those issues is about the GenCost report, and I want to talk about the GenCost report and note the exchange with Mr Limbrick and the fair set of points he made about the GenCost report. The GenCost report does not reflect well on the CSIRO. The CSIRO got this wrong. Other scientists have since criticised it, and the CSIRO has beaten a hasty retreat. It made some fundamental errors, and I am just to put these on the record, because they are now freely available everywhere – people can read them. But instead of looking at a 30-year cycle, nuclear arrangements would be much more reasonably examined on an 80-year cycle. Whether you agree or do not agree with nuclear, whether you think is a good thing or a bad thing, at least get the science right and make sensible analyses. It underplays the potential use of nuclear and underestimates the total system cost of the alternate renewables. It underplays the dispatchable advantages of nuclear, and indeed it does not deal with the short life cycle of a number of the renewables. Mr Limbrick pointed to this very sensibly. I mean, generally it is about 25 years for the wind farms, and it makes –

Bev McArthur: People are falling over in the car park.

David DAVIS: They are, but I am not going into a long analysis here. What I am also saying is that in the case of solar 20 years is a typical length of time, and it fails to properly take account of a number of these points. These are freely available, and that is why I have sought to amend that paragraph to read:

notes the CSIRO GenCost Report that has been heavily criticised for failing to properly cost alternate energy forms …

That is a very, very fair point.

Members interjecting.

David DAVIS: Yes, I understand from your whip that that is the intention. In fact I will just put on the record that we have negotiated that you are bringing it back and that I will speak briefly and succinctly. The government is intending to bring this motion back next sitting week, they inform me.

Members interjecting.

David DAVIS: No, they are talking about the nuclear motion. The Lawyer X bill is stalled. It has stopped. I do not understand why it has stalled. It was brought forward with great haste –

Sonja Terpstra: On a point of order, President, I am not sure that what Mr Davis is referring to has got anything to do with the motion that we are debating, and I would ask Mr Davis to be relevant to the motion. The Lawyer X bill has got nothing to do with this motion, nothing at all –

A member interjected.

Sonja Terpstra: No, relevance.

David DAVIS: On the point of order, President, I was responding to interjections about the fact that we will be coming back to this motion next sitting week. We were then talking about the flow of the house. Clearly another alternate thing that is on the notice paper this week is the Lawyer X bill, and that presumably will be debated next week, but at the moment it appears stalled and I understand that this motion is to come back. That is all.

The PRESIDENT: Mr Davis is the first speaker so he has some latitude. I call the house to order. Mr Davis, without any assistance.

David DAVIS: President, I undertake not to respond to interjections overly. I think the general points that have been made by me and Mr Limbrick about the failure to look at levelized costs of energy in the GenCost report are reasonable points. All of us want to have this assessment of energy options on a rational basis, on a properly costed basis. That means that you bring in all of the costings: the powerlines, the sunk costs and the long-term costs. The environmental costs should be properly brought in too. If there are going to be costs in cultural heritage, they should be brought in. All of these costs should be examined properly, and the GenCost report did not go within cooee of doing that. That is a point that I make.

The other points I want to make in the amendments are that they note the Allan Labor government’s record on energy policy management is an effective record of mismanagement and that the government cannot be proud of a number of things, in particular the massive surge in electricity and gas costs. Let me be clear that in the last several years there has been a surge in electricity and gas costs in Victoria under this government – you have been there for 10 years. The most reliable figures are the St Vincent de Paul’s figures. St Vincent’s went out late last year and they examined the actual bills that people encountered and paid.

Sonja Terpstra interjected.

David DAVIS: St Vincent’s – Gavin Dufty. They are a consumer advocacy group who are worried about energy and its impact on families. They said gas was up 22 per cent in a year, electricity was up 28 per cent, and that was year on year. There is more and more going up and up and up, massive costs. These points are very significant. Go and read the St Vincent’s figures if you doubt that energy costs are rising in the state. But most people know because the bills come through the mail and they are paying more and more and more. Further, it is hitting businesses, small businesses. In fact I spoke to somebody in Queen’s Hall today, a person who runs a nursery business. His gas costs have surged massively, and it is making it far less viable. That is what he is confronting. His electricity costs are up, but his gas costs have gone up too. That is the record of Labor. That is under your government. He is talking about the last two years.

Sonja Terpstra: On a point of order, President, Mr Davis is aggressively pointing, and I would ask that he not aggressively point.

The PRESIDENT: It is against standing orders to point. I am not too sure if he was pointing towards anyone or if he was gesticulating.

Sonja Terpstra: Further to the point of order, President, perhaps without gesticulating so much.

The PRESIDENT: I do not want to create a new ruling. I think people should be allowed to gesticulate.

David DAVIS: People can read the amendments that are proposed. They deal with the gas substitution plan and the war on gas. They deal with the failure to issue enough gas exploration permits. There has not been a proper permit issued since 2013, and you wonder why there are gas challenges and costs are going up. It condemns the Allan Labor government for the increased regulatory burden and notes the ideological approach.

But I am going to be brief here, because I did have some sort of agreement with the whip that I would not go on endlessly and that if people wanted to speak a little further, including me and others next week, including on the other side, there might be some agreement on that so that others, particularly ones who are named in the motion, had the opportunity to speak.

The Australian Energy Market Operator has released figures in the last few days. People will be aware of those. They are ever so slightly better than a year ago, but they are much worse than just a few years ago. There is a problem in Victoria. There is a problem with supply, and there is a real risk this summer going forward. Nobody should be under any illusions that we are skating on thin ice, that we are right on the edge of the precipice. We have been left there by Labor and their policy in the last decade. That is their fault, their mismanagement, their mistakes, so I will say more about that at a future point.

I did want to very briefly draw the house’s attention to a very authoritative piece of material. I think Mr Limbrick would love to read this. This is the sort of thing that boffins read, and I read it from time to time, especially when I have got insomnia. WattClarity by Global-Roam is a site that goes into huge and detailed analysis of what is happening in our energy markets. They asked a question, and this was very recent: ‘Are we *still* not building enough replacement firming capacity?’ We have got a problem with our energy mix. We have intermittent supplies from some of the lower emission technologies, and we do not have enough firming, and we have got a government that is against gas. Lily D’Ambrosio has gone to war. She has fully declared war on ‘fossil gas’ as she calls it. She must have said fossil gas 4000 times in the last year. ‘Fossil gas’ she calls it. Well, she seems to have slowed on the use of fossil gas. I know that because the pollsters are telling her that people quite like natural gas, and they like the choice of gas. I note her federal colleagues said people should have a choice about energy in their homes. The principle that was laid out by Madeleine King and the federal government is that there should be choice on these issues.

Back to WattClarity, and people can go and read this. They talk about the peak requirement for firming capacity, and they look through this and they do some very, very useful graphs that look at the variable renewable energy in what is best understood as a waterfall chart. I quote them at point A:

In each edition of Appendix 4 within GenInsights Quarterly Updates we have updated the waterfall diagrams …

And they go on. They lay out the firming capacity on 30 June 2024 in absolute terms. If people want to look at that graph, there is a collapse, there is a fall in the amount of energy that is available. The graph is a straight line down. Look at it. It is like a shocking fall, isn’t it? That is the truth. Then they move to the change in installed firming capacity in relative terms. They said:

In relative terms, we see that we’re down (over) 4% of the installed … Firming Capacity in the post Hazelwood world …

That is what they are describing. Then looking forward to projected additions and withdrawals, they take three different perspectives. They look at perspective 1, which some might like to use. They said:

… we’d issue a strong note of caution …

if you were thinking like this. This is where they see a net increase in forward capacity but not all of this capacity will necessarily be delivered. It is kind of optimal: if everything goes well, we might get to that. That is perspective 1. They said:

However we’d issue a strong note of caution – including for reasons outlined below.

Perspective 2 = isn’t it more realistic to just consider additions that are (fully) Committed?

The problem is we have got power being withdrawn across the system, including in 2028 in Victoria when Yallourn goes, but the perspective is:

… isn’t it more realistic to just consider additions that are (fully) committed?

They said:

The AEMO uses the term ‘Anticipated’ for these projects …

anticipated. They said:

… if we excluded those (i.e. Anticipated, but not Committed) …

we have got a fall in the amount of energy in the system, a fall in what is available. This is, again, WattClarity. That is perspective 2, excluding anticipated but not committed new energy developments. Then they went on to say:

That’s not to say that either perspective is ‘wrong’ … just hoping to illustrate that each projection could yield a different narrative …

So you might look at the glass half full and say it is all going to be hunky-dory; well, I say I am a bit more cautious than that when our whole economy – heating our homes, running businesses, everything – is dependent on this. I am a bit more cautious than that.

They look at things like the Big Battery and other points and various load shedding and so forth. Then they went to perspective 3, excluding anticipated and discounting the system integrity protection scheme. The SIPS – I have to give you a description here of what the SIPS is. This is the actual amount that is available rather than the proposed amount. For example, when the Big Battery was meant to deliver a certain amount there was an actual lesser amount. There is the installed capacity of the battery and any share of the capacity specifically reserved for SIPS. It goes forward on this and says that once you exclude anticipated and you discount for SIPS, the fall is more catastrophic.

I would suggest to people that they look closely at this site. I think it is a very sensible analysis. I note Paul McArdle is the author, and I specifically say this is the kind of analysis that people will understand is very important to be done. What is a realistic way of looking forward at this as you go forward? What will we realistically be able to deal with given load shedding, given the perhaps not fully realised amounts and given the anticipated but not committed power? When you look at that, there is actually a significant fall across the forward period, and I direct people to the WattClarity website, which is I think a very thoughtful and sensible way to examine all of this.

I should conclude now to say that those who would move this motion, like Ms Terpstra, have misunderstood the issues here. We are obviously at a point where the federal coalition clearly has a pro-nuclear policy. We have been quite clear that we are neither for nor opposed. It is not our policy. We have also been in a position where we have said we will discuss these things. We are actually open to sensible discussion. My point is that the WattClarity site – and other similar sites and similar analysis – makes it clear that we have a real problem. I say the solution in the interim in Victoria – in the next two, four, six, eight, 10 years – is gas. Nothing else has a prospect of filling that problem hole that we have got in our system. We need to get on and find more gas. We need to make sure that people can use gas. We need to make sure that the gas contribution to firming the system is there and that the inherently intermittent nature of renewables is backed up by long-term firming gas that actually ensures that we have got a reliable supply.

Lee TARLAMIS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:39): I move:

That the debate be adjourned until the next day of meeting.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned until the next day of meeting.