Interview with Steve Cannane, ABC Radio National

STEVE CANNANE: The Federal Opposition is vowing to push ahead with its plan to build seven nuclear power plants around the country if it wins Government, even as the new LNP Government in Queensland distances itself from that idea.

The Coalition has promised to release an economic case for the policy by the end of the year, while experts are giving evidence about the price and viability of nuclear power at a Parliamentary Inquiry this week.

During yesterday's hearings, representatives from Geoscience Australia were asked these two simple questions.

[Excerpt]

MATT BURNELL: Just for clarity, has the Deputy Chair of the Committee or Opposition members approached Geoscience Australia with requests for assistance in site-specific studies of construction of a nuclear power plant on the site of Liddell Power Station?

SPEAKER: No.

DAN REPACHOLI: Thank you, Mr Burnell, can I just do one follow on question from that one. Have any of the Coalition came and spoke to about any of the seven proposed sites at all, to see if there's an –  

SPEAKER: No.

DAN REPACHOLI: Thank you.

[Excerpt ends]

STEVE CANNANE: That was the Committee's Chair Labor MP Dan Repacholi, and before him Labor MP Matt Burnell asking those questions. Chris Bowen is the Minister for Energy and Climate Change and joins us now. Minister, thanks for your time.

CHRIS BOWEN: Pleasure, Steve, good morning mate.

STEVE CANNANE: Why should the Coalition have consulted with Geoscience Australia on its nuclear plan, in your view?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, if you look at what else Geoscience Australia said to the Committee yesterday, they said, and I quote, "You need significant and serious geotechnical work done to assess a site before you can guarantee it's appropriate for a nuclear reactor".

Now Peter Dutton and Ted O'Brien have said repeatedly they've done all their homework. Clearly, they haven't. This is a big deal for Australia, that's why this Inquiry's appropriate, and we know from previous experience that whenever you expose the claims of the Liberal Party about nuclear energy to scrutiny, their claims crumble like a Sao in a blender, and I mean, the issues raised by Geoscience Australia are no small thing.

Now if after examination one of these seven sites was found to be inappropriate, what would be the Liberal Party do; reduce even further the amount of nuclear energy they would produce, when we know it's already only predicted to be 4 per cent of our energy needs, or impose a nuclear reactor on another site, another community, without having told them before an election.

I mean these are all the sorts of serious questions which Mr Dutton and Mr O'Brien just don't have any satisfactory answers to on such a big and important policy matter.

STEVE CANNANE: Isn't it possible though they've done their homework elsewhere? The Coalition says it's been taking advice from Professor Andrew Whittaker, an American expert on earthquake engineering and nuclear power plant design. Why isn't that good enough?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, why would you ignore the expert body, Geoscience Australia, with all due respect to anyone else from anywhere else around the world? I mean if you want to be a serious party of government in Australia you've got to work with the established Australian expert bodies.

And this is again a piece, other piece with the arrogant approach of the Opposition, whether it's the CSIRO or AEMO, The Australian Energy Regulator or Geoscience Australia, the Opposition knows better than all these groups and just dismisses them arrogantly and accuses them inappropriately and improperly of not knowing what they're talking about.

Now with all due respect, when you put those bodies and groups together, I would take their combined expert analysis over Ted O'Brien's back-of-an-envelope claims about nuclear energy any day.

STEVE CANNANE: Well, let's talk about cost, one of the key questions about nuclear is the cost, and the Committee did hear from former Chief Executive of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, Chief Executive Dr Adrian Paterson. Here's what he had to say.

[Excerpt]

ADRIAN PATERSON: When they switched on the plant in a country that invested tremendously in wind – obviously solar doesn't really work in Finland, it's like the South of South Australia, it's very, very low capacity factor for solar – when they switched on the reactor and they'd let it stabilise, the cost of electricity to the people in Finland dropped to 30 per cent of what it had been.

[Excerpt ends]

STEVE CANNANE: That is Dr Paterson saying electricity prices dropped significantly in Finland. Isn't that evidence that nuclear can bring down the cost of power bills?

CHRIS BOWEN: Look, Adi has become a very strong advocate for nuclear power, and he's entitled to that view, but any proper analysis of overseas –

STEVE CANNANE: Well, do you dispute that, in Finland?

CHRIS BOWEN: Yeah, and I would also refer you to your very good guest yesterday, who I listened to closely, Mark Winfield, from Canada, and all the claims that have been made about Ontario, just aren't true, and their energy prices; it just doesn't stack up to any proper analysis.

And look, in relation to Finland, or any other country, we have never said that we would tell another country what their right energy mix with their natural resources is.

In Australia we have the best renewable energy resources in the world and the cheapest form of energy. Finland does not have that opportunity. And if I was the Energy Minister of another country I would consider the opportunities that I had in that country, but us, you know, a country saying to Australia, with our excellent renewable resources, that we should go down the nuclear road when we have no nuclear industry, no nuclear expertise of a scale that we would need for a nuclear power industry, is like us going to Finland or Scandinavia and saying, "Listen, we know you've got a lot of snow, but you should really try beach surfing". It just doesn't make any sense.

We have to play to our strengths in Australia, and we have the best renewable resources in the world and the Opposition wants to stop us using them, and in turn keep coal in the system for longer, they're quite explicit about that, while we wait for this nuclear fantasy to come on board. That would be terrible for emissions and fatal for energy reliability as these coal fired power stations get older and increasingly less reliable.

STEVE CANNANE: One of the key arguments the Coalition is making is that nuclear infrastructure lasts longer, and that if you measure the cost over the life span of the power plants it looks better than renewables. Does nuclear look better when you take a longer view of this?

CHRIS BOWEN: They haven't been able to stack that argument up at all. They've made that criticism of the CSIRO, the CSIRO has made their model available to the Opposition, and the Opposition has not been able to stack up their criticism of the CSIRO at all, not one little bit. And again this comes back to what I said earlier, Steve, they just dismiss the experts time after time.

Now CSIRO has done extensive analysis on the cost of nuclear, found it's around six times more expensive than renewables, including the cost of firming and storage and transmission, so again, the Opposition can't just continually – this is a pattern of behaviour, it's not a one-off, we can have a legitimate debate, but they can't just continually at every instance just dismiss all the evidence, whether it be from the CSIRO, AEMO, or Geoscience Australia and say they know better. If they do, then the Australian people are entitled to make an appropriate judgment about their level of competence.

STEVE CANNANE: On Radio National Breakfast, it's 17 to 8, we're talking to Chris Bowen, the Minister for Energy and Climate Change.

I wanted to bring you to another issue. The Coalition's talking about calling former Qantas CEO, Alan Joyce, before a Parliamentary Inquiry to answer questions about whether the Prime Minister was asking for special treatment with Qantas upgrades. Why doesn't the Prime Minister just provide some answers about whether he was in touch directly with the CEO about his personal travel arrangements?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, look, I think he has answered these questions, and look, the Opposition can focus on the cost of Qantas flights all they like, the Labor Party and the Prime Minister is focused on cost of living for ordinary Australians, whether it be the cost of housing, and a housing package we want to get through, cost of energy and our reforms there.

I mean Anthony Albanese is, I can tell you as a senior member of his Cabinet focused like a laser on these issues, not on these sort of political debates about what he may – conversations he may or may not have had, you know, 10 or 15 years ago. He's focused on the issues today. Peter Dutton can go down this rabbit hole if he wants. I think the Australian people have different priorities to Peter Dutton.

STEVE CANNANE: It would be a bit rich though, wouldn't it, for a Labor Prime Minister to be asking for travel favours from the CEO of Qantas. I imagine that wouldn't go down too well in the Smithfield Tavern in your neighbourhood.

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, look, I think frankly, I think if the Opposition wants to go down this road about, you know, what MPs get what upgrades, when, over the last 20 years, I mean they can if they want to, I really don't think people in the Smithfield Tavern or the Blue Cattle Dog Hotel in St Clair or anywhere else will be really focused on that, they would rather have a Prime Minister focused on their cost of living, the issues today, and I can assure you, again, any conversation I have with the Prime Minister is focused on those issues, not – Peter Dutton can go down this road of distraction if he wants to, I mean all that's up to him, but we've got other priorities.

STEVE CANNANE: Joe Aston, the author of The Chairman's Lounge, says Qantas has not been opened up properly to competition in this country, and that's partly because of the way they influence politicians and have over the years. You've previously been a Minister for Competition Policy. This is an area you're passionate about. Do you think Qantas has been subjected to enough competition over the past decade?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, I'm talking from Sydney Airport where there's pretty fierce competition between Virgin and Qantas. These are always issues of balance. I mean the fact of the matter is Qantas competes around the world as a private airline now, privatised by our Labor Government, of course, competing against airlines which are often government owned and receive massive subsidies from governments.

So, airlines around the world are always highly regulated, obviously for safety purposes, that's appropriate, but also for economic purposes, very highly regulated, and usually in government ownership.

We actually have a different system in Australia of two private airlines, two main private airlines, obviously others, competing, you know, with each other. That is a different dynamic to where you've got airlines, you know, right around the world that have either a full or partial government ownership and receiving government subsidies. That's not how we do it in Australia.

We'll always examine – the Prime Minister and Catherine King, will always examine the right policy settings to ensure the national interest and the best interests of consumers, but we do have to recognise that airlines around the world are highly regulated, and, you know, their competition settings are different to any other part of the economy.

STEVE CANNANE: Chris Bowen, we'll have to leave it there, but thanks for your time this morning.

CHRIS BOWEN: Good on you, Steve.