Speech to National Press Club, Canberra ACT

As we acknowledge the elders of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples, let us also acknowledge that the energy transition underway in our country can and will play a role to play in closing the gap of Indigenous disadvantage.

First Nations people have had very little equity in traditional energy generation.

And so far, only about 1 per cent of renewable energy projects in Australia have First Nations equity in them – this compares to 20 per cent in Canada.

So, it doesn't have to be this way in Australia.

Let me give you an example. The East Kimberley Clean Energy Project will see the construction of a 900 megawatt solar farm – the largest in Australia – and a 50,000 tonne hydrogen facility near Kununurra.

This project is an entirely new way of ensuring First Nations involvement in large infrastructure projects. With the traditional owners of the land – MG Corporation and Balanggarra Aboriginal Corporation – joining the Kimberley Land Council and a climate change investment firm as equal shareholders.

But Indigenous participation should be the norm, not the exception. It should be standard operating procedure not to be singled out at the National Press Club.

That’s why we’ve made First Nations engagement one of the merit criteria under our Capacity Investment Scheme.

And it’s why the Government's forthcoming First Nations Clean Energy Strategy will be a focus of the Energy and Climate Change Ministers Council this Friday – because the only way we will get it working is with our colleagues across the states and territories.

I would also like to acknowledge Senator Jenny McAllister, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy. There are none I’d rather have representing me and us at the Senate Estimates table or leading important priorities like energy efficiency and climate adaptation. I thank you for your work and thank you for your friendship.

The title of my speech today is “Australia’s Energy Choice in the Critical Decade”.

It’s a very deliberate title.

Because this decade will be critical for our energy grid.

And for our economy.

And critical for the climate.

And in many ways, the course of this decade will be shaped by the choice the Australian people will make in the next twelve months.

Australians will have a choice between paying for Peter Dutton’s uncosted, unexplained and undeliverable nuclear reactors…

… or continuing with the Albanese Government and the experts’ plan to get on with the job of delivering more reliable, cheap renewables, bringing down emissions at the same time.

That’s why I want to talk about the importance of our reliable renewable journey. A reminder on the 'why' as well as an update on the how.

I will give you an honest assessment of the opportunities and challenges in this journey.

And finally, I want to underline some of the fatal flaws and gaping missing pieces in the alternative that is being offered to the Australian people.

And to pose some questions that our opponents really need to answer urgently if they are to be taken seriously as an alternative in the upcoming election.

Friends,

Responsible energy policy matters, not just for our future but for the reality today.

Every home and business needs reliable, affordable power.

But a decade of energy policy chaos means we are now paying the price for that inaction. It costs Australians because we have an energy sector that is vulnerable to international price spikes and ageing coal plants.

We could have been generating the cheapest power available, had there been deliberate, considered policy over the last decade. Instead there were 22 policies and none of them stuck.

And we know Australians are paying more as a result.

The Government has responded in the immediate with two rounds of energy bill rebates, and we’re working towards greater consumer protections with the states and territories as well.

But ultimately, cheaper energy bills for homes and businesses rely on the delivery of reliable renewables, firmed by gas, storage and pumped hydro.

Let’s be clear, 2050 isn’t the start date for action – it’s the deadline for delivery.

Some people say they are committed to net zero by 2050 as if saying it is enough, and they can delay action to the late 2030s or indeed the 2040s.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the task before us and of the opportunities before our country.

This is the case across the board, whether it comes to our grid, our economy or the climate.

In relation to our grid, investment is vital now.

We lost 4 gigawatts of dispatchable energy over the last decade, replaced by just one gigawatt.

That means we don’t have the luxury of delaying investment in new generation for another 15 or 20 years while we wait for a new form of energy generation that Australia has never had.

Far and away the biggest threat to reliability in our grid is over-reliance on aging coal fired power stations.

Over the last year, not a single day, not a single day, has passed without an unplanned outage at a coal power generator in eastern Australia. Not one.

Here’s the thing. Like all of us, these coal fired power stations are getting any younger.

Here’s the other thing: they don’t get more reliable as they age either.

So when David Littleproud says we need to (and I quote) “sweat the coal assets for longer” he is describing a recipe for reliability ruin.

And meeting our future energy needs is not as simple as switching one form of energy to another.

As other sectors electrify, we will need not only to replace coal, but to generate much more power to meet demand across the economy in the future.

Australia is unique in our abundance of reliable renewable resources.

Of course other countries have renewables. But we have the best.

Our sun and wind are there for us to harness and power our homes, industry and communities.

But there remains an urgent need to modernise our energy system, to ensure the power is getting where it’s needed.

Last month the Australian Energy Market Operator released its Integrated Systems Plan.

It showed we need $122 billion of investment in utility-scale generation, storage, firming and transmission infrastructure to keep the lights on and business going.

It’s critical we keep this pipeline of investment flowing.

When it comes to our economy, managing the biggest change since the Industrial Revolution is the key to prosperity.

Report after report, analysis after analysis shows us that delayed climate action is much more expensive.

Delay is expense.

And of course there are opportunity costs.

Missing the opportunity to seize our future as a renewable energy superpower.

Missing the opportunity for a Future Made in Australia.

Missing the opportunity to make our economy more complex, add more value to our critical minerals and rare earths.

Over the last two decades, Australia has slipped 22 places in the Harvard Economic Complexity Index. We are now ranked 93rd – in between Uganda and Pakistan.

Seizing the opportunities of a renewable manufacturing future is the key to unlocking a more productive, value-adding economy.

And of course, this is the critical decade when it comes to emission reduction.

Not all tonnes of emissions avoided are equal. A tonne of emissions avoided from 2049 is of infinitesimal value compared to an ongoing tonne of emissions avoided in 2024.

The emissions reductions from closing the average coal-powered plant in 2025 rather than 2049 is the annual emissions of over 50 million cars, or two thirds of the annual emissions of the UK. From just one power plant.

So we need to act now.

As the driest inhabited continent on the planet, Australia is particularly vulnerable to climate change.

Many of us are already living through this reality.

Our Black Summer bushfires shocked the world.

Every year more of us are sweltering through increasingly deadly heatwaves more often.

And as some of us are too regularly watching the floodwaters creep higher as others wait for the rains in more frequent, enduring droughts.

Temperature records, whether they be monthly or annual, are tumbling with unnerving regularity.

Delay is not an option.

Because this is the critical decade, it also needs to be the decisive decade.

It's not the time for a return of policy uncertainty, for new untested and untraveled policy paths. It is time to stay the course and finish the job.

After nine years of delay, denial and dysfunction we have to work harder and faster.

Not out of some ideological impulse, but because the reality of our energy system, our economy and our climate they all dictate that we must.

I understand, having travelled extensively through rural and regional Australia –

Having conducted countless public consultations and meetings –

Having met with people from all walks of life with all perspectives –

That this transformation is confronting for some.

I’ve met with passionate renewable advocates in the regions who’ve demanded more action, faster. Demanded to host more renewables.

I’ve met with people who are happy to see more renewables but want better consultation and better community benefits.

And of course, I’ve heard from some who oppose the renewable rollout altogether. It’s far from a majority, in any place I’ve visited, but it is a contested space.

That’s why we’re setting expectations for effective and responsible community engagement by transmission developers – to improve outcomes for the communities at the centre of the clean energy transformation.

We’ve introduced reforms for earlier and better engagement with communities by transmission companies.

With the states and territories, we’re implementing the recommendations of the Dyer Review into social licence and community engagement.

Importantly, in all of this we don’t see state and territory governments as obstacles to bulldoze through – but rather critical partners.

I have to tell you that’s a profound change from the situation we inherited.

And the good news is, we are making good progress on this journey.

Last year I delivered Australia’s second Annual Climate Change Statement.

It included our national projections, showing that Australia is within striking distance of reaching our 43 per cent by 2030 target.

And on track to beat our 10-year carbon budget.

These hard-earned gains have been made by efforts to massively boost renewable energy and our reforms to industrial emissions.

These put a cap on pollution from our 219 biggest industrial emitters, requiring them to reduce emissions to meet net zero by 2050.

That’s delivering abatement equivalent to taking two-thirds of the cars off our roads to 2030.

And talking of cars, of course we have finally legislated New Vehicle Efficiency Standards, a reform that had been in the too hard basket for 20 years. Well overdue, delivered by us.

There are bumps and challenges, of course.

While recognising there is more to do, and we can’t take the foot off the policy accelerator, I’m pleased with where we are at.

When it comes to powering Australia, nothing will beat our sun and wind. Reliable renewables are the cheapest form of power and we’ve got them in abundance.

The Integrated System Plan confirmed that renewables in the National Electricity Market reached as high as 72 per cent in 2023, with average penetration reaching just under 40 per cent.

In the past 12 months, more than 12.5 gigawatts of generation and storage projects were approved for grid connection.

For some context, that’s enough to power 2.9 million homes, or all the households in the greater metro regions of Sydney, Hobart, Adelaide and Canberra combined.

Since we’ve been in Government we’ve seen a 25 per cent increase in renewables in the grid with record investment in batteries and storage.

And of course there is more solar on Australian homes and businesses than any other nation in the world.

Last year there were over 330,000 rooftop solar installations. In Australia, homes with solar are now more common than homes with a pool.

But to get from around 30 per cent renewable energy when we came to office to 82 per cent by 2030 is a big task.

Deliberately so in the context of the critical decade.

That’s why we are unlocking private investment to deliver more reliable renewables through our Capacity Investment Scheme.

This scheme encourages new investment in renewable energy as well as dispatchable capacity, such as battery storage.

I’ll give you some examples of how well it’s going.

The joint pilot tender with NSW has now concluded. When the tender was announced, the Government’s plan was to contract 380 megawatts of dispatchable capacity.

But after receiving 3.3 gigawatts in bids, the Government increased the size of the tender to 1.1 gigawatts, delivering six battery and virtual power plant projects in NSW.

The first 6 gigawatt auction across the National Electricity Market is also now underway.

We received 40 gigawatts worth of registrations. This is enough to power over 21.5 million homes – more than twice the number of households in the National Electricity Market.

This shows the pipeline of good quality projects is there, and ready to invest with the right policy settings. And the right policy settings is what we are providing.

There are other examples I can give.

Take transmission.

Now you might have heard certain politicians say it is government policy to build 28,000 kilometres of transmission lines. This isn’t true. Never has been.

We are supporting the building of 4000 kilometres of transmission lines over the next decade plus the upgrading of another 1000 kilometres.

Of the 4000 kilometres actually required – 900 kilometres are complete or well under physical construction.

And the others are at various stages of advanced planning and approval.

Just over two years ago I stood here and described the gale blowing away nine years of climate denial, delay and dysfunction.

This remains true – Australia still has a federal Government taking serious action on climate change.

But unfortunately we also still have a Coalition serving up energy policies that will only deliver more climate denial, delay and dysfunction.

This is the choice for the Australian people when it comes to our energy future.

Our plans, based on expert work like CSIRO’s GenCost and AEMO’s Integrated Systems Plan.

Or the alternative: an uncosted, unexplained and undeliverable nuclear plan for Australia.

The Opposition blithely, and I must say arrogantly, ignores the data and facts from the experts about time and cost to build a nuclear industry in Australia and presents a false future for Australia.

The party that once prided itself on economic rationality shrugs it shoulders in the face of economic analysis and arrogantly says it knows better than the experts.

The Opposition’s nuclear policy is a triumph of dogma over data.

It is a front in a post-truth populist culture war, not a serious plan for Australia.

A plan which is less about future jobs for Australians, and more about keeping Peter Dutton in his job.

The Coalition dress up their ideological anti-renewables obsession as a pro-nuclear position.

But fundamentally it all comes down to a desire to do absolutely nothing.

To do nothing because, in fact, they don’t think there is a need to act.

If Peter Dutton believed this was the critical decade, he would not serve up policies which only guarantee inaction.

It’s obvious that this isn’t a serious plan in the way they’re going about it.

All the Opposition has released so far is seven locations.

To great fanfare, but their announcement raised more questions than it answered.

Perhaps deliberately so, because the Opposition knows the answers aren’t very good.

The seven locations fail the test, even before we get to more details. Five of them are in states with a nuclear prohibition and six of them are on sites where the owners have said they don’t want anything to do with nuclear power.

And they just arrogantly say they’ll force it through anyway.

What a triumph for the free enterprise party of states’ rights!

Mr Dutton hasn't been anywhere near the communities he has decided will host nuclear facilities and Mr O'Brien barely has.

Last week, I spent time in Port Augusta, Lithgow and Central Queensland: three of the seven regions chosen for nuclear power by the Opposition.

They are of course, also central to our renewable future.

In each place I met with interested locals.

Of course, there are different issues raised in each location.

But there are also common themes and common issues at stake.

These regions are getting on with it. Because the reality is, they know waiting until closer to 2050 is in no one’s best interests.

All these communities are part of what is a remarkable energy transition, and already seeing results.

In Port Augusta, I toured the site of new green cement and critical minerals processing facilities on the site of the old coal fired power station where Mr Dutton wants to put a nuclear plant.

These developments will employ more people than used to be employed at the power station.

With the South Australian Minister for Energy and Mining Tom Koutsantonis, we signed the first Renewable Energy Transformation Agreement – lowering the remaining obstacles to delivery of energy infrastructure and ensuring we’re working seamlessly across governments.

While South Australia is the first state to sign, agreements are currently being finalised with other states and territories, except for Queensland.

In Lithgow I saw the Mount Piper Coal Fired Power Station, one of our youngest, where they are also investing to make the power station as flexible as they can to support our renewable transition and planning a big battery on the site of the coal mine.

And in Gladstone and Rockhampton, which of course I visit regularly because they are so central to our transition, I again visited one of the country's biggest energy users, the Boyne Island Smelter.

There, we are co-investing to ensure the smelter has a prosperous future in a decarbonising world.

All these investments and many more like them are at risk because of the policy uncertainty caused by an ill-informed nuclear frolic.

And the other key message from these communities is one I hear often, and it was a common one: they need jobs and investment now. Not in 2035 or 2037 and beyond, but now.

These communities had other very legitimate questions like how much water will these nuclear plants use? Where will this water come from? Will it be at the expense of farmers?

All fair questions, well asked.

Of course questions which it is Mr O’Brien’s place to answer, not mine.

Nuclear energy is a thirsty form of power. It requires a significant amount of water to cool its radioactive cores to avoid disaster.

Many of Peter Dutton’s proposed reactors are next prime agricultural land – places where water is already in high demand for farming.

Given our dry continent, you would like to think the National Party at the very least, would have an answer for where the water is going to come from and assurances it won’t be taken from farmers.

Now of course, they haven’t released the costs of their plan, nor the number of gigawatts they think will be generated.

So the experts have made some estimates.

The Smart Energy Council, drawing on recent experience in the UK, has estimated that the cost of the Opposition’s nuclear plan could run to around $600 billion.

That’s not private investment. That’s money from the Australian taxpayer – all of us.

While they haven’t announced how many reactors will be at each site, and will not before the election, the capacity of existing and retired coal plants at those seven sites suggests that nuclear power stations could generate perhaps 11 gigawatts of power.

11 gigawatts is 4% of the capacity our national electricity grid will need by 2050 when all these plants are meant to be up and running.

That’s a lot of dollars, for not many gigawatts.

And Australians will pay for those billions twice: once in their taxes, and again in their bills.

Some experts say bills would rise by $200 a year. Others say it’s more like $1,000.

Again, only Mr Dutton knows for sure how much bills will rise, but he’s refusing to tell us.

And from the perspective of our energy system, the biggest problem of all is that in Australia, nuclear and renewables are simply aren’t compatible with eachother.

While the Opposition purports to support an “all of the above” energy mix, their ideological pursuit of nuclear reactors in two decades’ time would wreck the renewables rollout today.

We know that’s the case for three reasons.

First, senior members of the Coalition admit it.

No less than the Leader of the National Party has called for a “pause” in renewables and a cap on large scale renewables.

Second, even if that’s not their explicit policy – and the Opposition is typically divided on that question – it’s the investment impact of their nuclear plan.

Why would domestic or global investors try to compete with unlimited taxpayer subsidies for state-sponsored generation in nuclear?

That investment chill wouldn’t come when the first reactor was delivered, in 2035 or 2037 a very ambitious timeline, or more likely the 2040s.

It would come as soon as the Coalition was elected.

And so Australia would be trading urgently-needed renewable investment for the hope of more costly reactors in two decades time.

In the context I’ve outlined of ageing and unreliable coal-fired power stations, we can only imagine what that would do for affordability and reliability.

And third, if nuclear reactors were ever delivered, they are not fit-for-purpose for our grid.

Our grid is already almost 40% renewable today.

Renewable energy is incredibly cheap because its fuel is free, whether that is sunshine or wind.

When the wind is blowing and the sun is shining, we have ample power flowing into the grid at zero marginal cost, which brings down the wholesale cost of power to zero and even delivers negative prices in parts of the day.

The IEA recently reported that due to increased renewables, our National Electricity Market saw zero or negative prices for 19 per cent of the third quarter of 2023.

In South Australia zero or negative prices now occur 25 per cent of the time.

A baseload nuclear power plant will need to keep generating even when there are ample renewables, losing money for every watt of energy generated.

Baseload nuclear plants simply don’t stack up economically in a grid with significant renewable penetration.

Is the Coalition’s plan to curtail zero cost renewable energy to make room for expensive nuclear energy when renewables drive wholesale prices to very low levels? Some Queensland LNP members have said it is.

Or is their plan to bankroll these baseload plants to bid into the system at prices where they’ll bleed money?

Either one is a recipe for Australians to pay more.

For these reasons, Australians can choose reliable renewables or risky reactors – but not both.

I’ve said before and I’ll say again today I’m not ideological about nuclear.

But the simple reality is that we can’t have both renewables and nuclear, and so we face a critical choice in this critical decade. And I choose renewables.

Now this is a serious issue, with serious consequences for the Australian people.

It’s past time for the Opposition to provide serious answers and details.

If they don’t, the Australian people are entitled to reach the conclusion that they are not serious people when it comes to energy.

So, here’s three questions for Mr Dutton and Mr O’Brien:

First, what role would nuclear actually play in our energy system?

How many reactors, how many gigawatts, and what share of the energy mix?

What is the role of inflexible and expensive baseload generation and how do you make it economically viable given the role of low and zero cost renewables?

Second, how much is that going to cost to build and operate?

How will that cost be passed on in taxes and bills?

And third, what on earth is going to happen in the meantime?

With coal ageing and renewable investment chilled, how would we keep the lights on and bills down? And what would a coal and gas-based grid mean for emissions in the meantime?

The Liberals falsely claim the rest of the world is going down the nuclear road.

This is a lie.

The world adds more wind and solar every few weeks than it does nuclear all year.

Take offshore wind. Just offshore wind alone. This year, the world will add more than double the offshore wind capacity than nuclear.

Solar and wind combined already generate significantly more power than nuclear around the world.

In 2025, wind power alone will surpass nuclear in terms of generation.

This will be followed quickly by solar power alone surpassing nuclear energy in 2026.

Nuclear power generation was reduced not increased but reduced by 1.7 gigawatts in 2023.

Renewable energy increased around the world by a massive 507 gigawatts.

The nuclear renaissance Peter Dutton claims is a chimera.

In 2004, as Michael Liebreich points out, the world installed 1 gigawatt of solar power a year.

Now, the world installs that much solar power everyday. By the end of the year it’s forecast to be two gigawatts a day.

It would be a particular travesty if Australia, with our natural and obvious advantages in renewable energy bucked the trend, and paused our renewable rollout while we engaged in a national policy frolic of unprecedented irresponsibility.

Let's call this out for what it is.

The same people who have spent the last twenty years telling us that we didn’t need to worry and didn’t need to take action on climate are the same ones telling us nuclear is the answer on climate.

This is no co-incidence.

It is a tactic to divert, delay and avoid action on climate.

It is a ploy to keep coal running longer, at a massive cost to reliability and emissions.

It is a betrayal of those Australians who have suffered from bushfires, floods and cyclones in the critical decade for climate action.

It is a climate culture war, undercut by the facts of engineering and economics.

The choice for affected communities will be stark.

The choice for Australia is and will be stark.

We can have a mature debate on renewable energy and the nuclear alternative by all means.

But a mature debate requires facts, and the Liberals and Nationals have provided pitifully few so far.

The Government will be staying the course, and making the case to the Australian people that we should do the same.

This will be a choice to be made at the next election. We are here with the facts and the arguments. It's time for the alternative government to get serious with the same.

The Australian people deserve nothing less.