Hansard debates

Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (21:31): (1585) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change. I was delighted to read in the press that the Australian Workers Union have called for the establishment of a nuclear power industry in Australia. The AWU national secretary, Daniel Walton, said that we should:

… make Australia part of the international supply chain for this nascent, zero-emissions energy technology.

I could not agree more with the AWU. This is not the first time that Daniel Walton and the union movement have come out in support of this reliable, accessible source of energy. I was pleased to be part of the Environment and Planning Committee’s inquiry into nuclear prohibition, where Mr Walton also said:

… there is an enormous opportunity for the state to work alongside the federal government, who have now undertaken two separate rounds of inquiries looking at opportunities for the nation in exploring nuclear energy development.

Geoff Dyke, the secretary of the Victorian branch of the CFMEU, told the committee:

The ban on nuclear in Australia makes no logical sense. We regard it as emotive, and it is out of step with other developed countries.

The effectiveness of the Labor Party and Greens fearmongering about nuclear power is quickly dissipating. The Lowy Institute has revealed that support for nuclear energy has increased over the past 10 years from 35 to 47 per cent. Any day now the support for nuclear power will surpass 50 per cent and the populists on the other side will be in strategic strife.

Minister D’Ambrosio has been suspiciously quiet on the prospect of nuclear power, and it is difficult to find any public comment beyond her lauding of John Cain for his declaration to keep Victoria nuclear free. The minister ought to explain to the union movement why her ideological fixation on Victoria becoming emissions free must entail higher power prices, more brownouts and fewer jobs rather than simply embracing at least a nuclear energy conversation that provides dispatchable baseload power generation and complements intermittent renewables.

The action I seek from the minister is to publicly endorse her union friends in the AWU and the CFMEU in their support for nuclear industry. I mean, after all, if we truly want to reduce carbon emissions, we must become technology agnostic and utilise all energy options, whether they be nuclear, hydrogen, waste to energy, wave energy, carbon capture and storage, onshore conventional gas or even HELE coal alongside renewables. That is what we need to do.