Interview with Sarah Ferguson, ABC 7:30

SARAH FERGUSON: Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen joined me earlier. Chris Bowen, welcome to 7:30.

CHRIS BOWEN: Thanks very much, Sarah.

SARAH FERGUSON: The question asked by Peter Dutton in Question Time today and not answered by the Prime Minister was what is the total cost of the government's energy plan? Is there a straight answer to that question?

CHRIS BOWEN: $121 billion is the cost of non-customer-owned generation, transmission and storage, as is outlined in great detail in the last version of the Integrated Systems Plan that will be updated later this week. But that's the figure.

SARAH FERGUSON: So why didn't the Prime Minister answer the question when asked today?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, because the Prime Minister was pointing out that Mr Dutton has got a hide asking about that when he announced a major shift in Australia's energy mix with absolutely no costings, no details and no respect to the Australian people in relation to their right for details.

Now, they have been unable to answer basic questions about how many gigawatts of nuclear power will generate at what expense. Now experts have said $600 billion to generate nuclear power, which would be about the equivalent of 3 per cent of our total generation mix. $600 billion for 3 percent. I mean, what a terrible equation. Now if Mr Dutton has a different set of figures, he should release them urgently.

SARAH FERGUSON: Now, just to stay with the second part of the questions that were being posed today. And obviously there's a reason for understanding the costs on both sides because it's what the public needs to be able to determine which policy to support when the election comes around. But that second part of the question was about your Capacity Investment Scheme. How much money has the government set aside to underwrite its investments in, or sorry, private investments in renewables?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, you're right. It will unlock many, many gigawatts of private investment and today I released figures showing that for the first auction of 6 gigawatts, we've had 40 gigawatts worth of bids. That shows we are going to do very, very well in this auction and get well-crafted bids. Because it's an auction, we don't reveal to the bidders what our reserve prices are, and we don't reveal our financials because it's an auction and I want to get the best arrangements for the taxpayer. It could well be that it doesn't cost the taxpayer a dollar because the bidders have to share profits with us as well.

SARAH FERGUSON: Let me just ask you a question about the politics of this, Minister. Are you surprised by how quickly Peter Dutton has been able to shift the focus of the climate and energy debate?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, I don't necessarily accept the premise of the question. What I'll say to this is, Sarah, in relation to politics, opinion poll after opinion poll matches what I'm told every day on the street. The most popular form of energy is renewables. As well as being the cheapest form of energy, the most popular form of energy is renewables. Then there's daylight, then there's gas, and then there's more daylight. And then there's coal with nuclear at the bottom. Now Mr Dutton is saying he wants nuclear power to be a key change for Australia's energy system going forward. He can't tell you how much it's going to cost. He can't tell you how many gigawatts you generate. After Mr O'Brien's performance on Insiders yesterday, we knew less about the policy after he'd finished than when we began because he made things up as he went. I mean, this is a rolling farce of an alleged policy. It's actually just a scam.

SARAH FERGUSON: You must be learning something about Mr Dutton's tactics because you adapted one of his key lines from his Opposition to the Voice campaign last year – 'If you don't know the details, vote ‘no'.

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, if they won't let you know, vote no. You know, Mr Dutton said we needed more details about an advisory committee. You know, he said we needed more details about an advisory committee on Indigenous affairs and if we couldn't get those details then Australians should vote no. He's promising a major change at many hundreds of billion dollars’ worth of cost and he can't answer basic questions. What detail he's put out there is wrong. He said a small modular reactor would generate waste equivalent to a can of coke. That is just wrong. It's a lie. And if Mr Dutton doesn't understand his policy, how can he be trusted to implement it?

SARAH FERGUSON: I think it's one of the problems here that the government's starting point for this debate is an ideological opposition as well to nuclear power. When the public knows that other comparable countries like France, like Canada, the US, the UK have placed a significant reliance on nuclear power.

CHRIS BOWEN: No, that's not right, Sarah, with respect on both fronts. It is not an ideological opposition from me or the government. It's because it doesn't stack up. Australia with our renewable resources would be crazy to go down – it would be a massive act of economic self-harm to go down the path of instituting the most expensive form of energy when we can capture the cheapest form of energy with our world class, world-beating renewable resources.

And let me just pick you up on the international point. Mr Dutton says this repeatedly, it's just plain wrong. The world adds more renewable capacity every couple of weeks than it will nuclear capacity around the world all year. I mean, we will add more than twice around the globe. More than twice the level of offshore wind –

SARAH FERGUSON: I think the point –

CHRIS BOWEN: No, no, Sarah, let me finish.

CHRIS BOWEN: More than twice the offshore wind capacity alone than nuclear. That's before we get to onshore wind or solar. I mean, it is absolute chalk and cheese. The number of gigawatts of nuclear capacity is infinitesimal that's being added around the world compared to the massive rollout of renewables right around the world. It would be a massive own goal for Australia to walk away from that, which is what Mr Dutton wants.

SARAH FERGUSON: I think the argument in those countries, and I think it's also the argument that Peter Dutton and Ted O'Brien have made, is they're talking about nuclear as a part of a mix, not to replace any in total, and once again –

CHRIS BOWEN: 3 per cent of our energy mix at a cost of 600. At a cost of $600 billion.

SARAH FERGUSON: We don't know exactly, because we don't know what size of reactors, we –

CHRIS BOWEN: And to make their nuclear policy work, Sarah, they need, and some of them admit this, some of the Nationals in Queensland admit this, they need to slow down the rollout of renewables to make their nuclear policy even vaguely work.

SARAH FERGUSON: Now, you've appointed Matt Kean to head the Climate Change Authority. Now, back in 2021, cautiously, he saw a potential role for nuclear energy in the mix. Have you discussed those views with him?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, I know exactly what he said in 2021. He said that it maybe has, and I'll quote you, "some role to play into the future, but I can't bet on that technology. It's not readily available". And then he went on today to outline that as energy Minister of NSW, he looked at it and he said, and I quote, "I did not want to bankrupt NSW".

I'm pleased and proud of this appointment, Sarah, because Mr Kean is not a political ally of mine. He's a former deputy leader of the opposing party in Australia's most populous state. But what he does reflect is the sensible mainstream view that used to be a sensible mainstream view in the Free Enterprise Party, that we should, as a country, adopt the cheapest, lowest cost form of energy and seize the economic opportunities that go with climate change.

I can think of no one better to give the government frank and fearless advice than a former Energy Minister who happens to be from the opposite party to me in Australia's most populous state and he has shown an ability to bring those economic arguments together. And I note the fact that the Liberal and National Parties have complained so ferociously that I would dare appoint a Liberal to a senior role like this just shows how out of touch and how no longer mainstream the Federal Liberal Party's energy policy is.

SARAH FERGUSON: Let me just put this question to you and I'm afraid it has to be briefly for a complex question. Tony Wood of the Grattan Institute says you're not on track to meet your renewable energy target costs. Problems with costs, planning delays, planning delays, workforce and ongoing community resistance are all obstacles. Do you need to set a more realistic target?

CHRIS BOWEN: No, we need to meet the targets we've set and the 40 gigawatts of generation that I talked about today and announced today show that we are on track to do that.

SARAH FERGUSON: Chris Bowen, thank you for the brevity and thank you for joining us this evening. Thank you.

CHRIS BOWEN: Always a pleasure. Sarah.