Press conference in Sydney, NSW

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, thanks for coming. Australia's energy transition is well underway. This year, 2024, is a record year for new renewable energy, more renewable energy connected to our grid in 2024 than any other year in Australian history. The Albanese Government has delivered more electricity than three Snowy Hydro Schemes in our two-and-a-half-years in office so far. But we need to keep going, and that's exactly what we're doing. And today, I'm announcing the results of the first NEM Wide, National Energy Market Wide Capacity Investment Scheme Auction. This is what will drive our push to 82 per cent renewables but 2030. It's what will deliver 82 per cent renewables by 2030.

This first option was designed to deliver 6 gigawatts across the eastern states and South Australia. And we're delivering more than that, around 6.4 gigawatts will be delivered. That's enough to power three million homes. 19 projects spread across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. Projects that will deliver energy, that will deliver storage, so that's reliable energy, and will deliver jobs and community benefit, and I'm particularly pleased with the community benefit that's being delivered as well as the new electricity. This is a key criteria under our Capacity Investment Scheme Auction guidelines for which we make no apologies. We ask the proponents, “how will this benefit the communities that will host these projects?”

Now I'm pleased to say that we have $660 million in shared community benefits, $280 million in First Nations benefits, $14 billion in expenditure for local businesses, $60 million in local employment, and for the New South Wales projects, the use of $200 million of locally milled steel. So this is good news for Australian jobs, good news for emissions, good news for renewable energy, good news for communities.

And this is just the first NEM-Wide auction. There's an auction underway for Western Australia. We're also launching the next round, which as I've previously announced will target 10 gigawatts of new renewable energy. So, this transition is well underway, underpinned and driven by the policies of the Albanese Government which will see emissions come down, which will see jobs created, and will see more of the cheapest form of energy ever known, renewable energy.

Now in contrast, to our opponents, while we're getting on with the job, they continue to fail. Peter Dutton's announced a flag policy, he hasn't got around to announcing his nuclear policy. I'd like to see more details about the costings of his nuclear policy than details about which flags he is happy to stand in front of. Talking about flags won't reduce cost of living, talking about flags won't help Australians doing it tough. The policies of the Albanese Government will do that. The Prime Minister's announcing a childcare policy today that’s directly and carefully targeted to Australian families who need more help. And what we have here is Mr Dutton continuing to fail to announce his policies.

He said he'd announce his nuclear policy before Christmas. He previously said he'd announce it prior to previous budgets, and he hasn't done that. But we're now almost at Christmas and there's still no signs of the Opposition's energy policy. The Australian people are entitled to ask, “is he hoping to sneak it out under the cover of the lead-up to Christmas?” Well, it's high time for Mr Dutton to reveal. How much nuclear power will they generate? How many gigawatts? What percentage of Australia's energy needs? How much will it cost to build? How much more energy will be generated from coal while they wait for the first nuclear power plant to come on under their own calculations in 2037? Now 2037 is wildly optimistic, but even if it's accurate, it's too late for Australia's needs. How much more coal will be used? What are the emissions implications? What are the implications for bills? How much more gas be used over those years? What's the timetable beyond 2037? When will we get more nuclear reactors? And what will be the impact of all this on bills? And how much new transmission will be required?

Mr O'Brien has hinted they will need - they think they will need less transmission. Well, that's not true. If you look at transmission lines, say from Port Augusta to Adelaide, Port Augusta to where they want to build a nuclear power station, those transmission lines are already full. Full of renewable energy. So they need to build more transmission lines. How will this be reflected in their costings? What are the full details of the costings? Who did the costings? Why wasn't the Parliamentary Budget Office used? These are the questions that Mr Dutton should answer. Rather than talking about flags, it's time to talk about energy. That's the challenge for Mr Dutton. The Albanese Government is getting on with the job while he continues to fail at the job. Happy to take some questions.

JOURNALIST: Minister, just in terms of the CIS announcements today, 6.4 gigawatts, is there any estimate about how large that investment is going to be drawn in by these contracts?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, billions of dollars’ worth of new renewable energy investments. As I've said, including $14 billion in expenditure on local businesses. So these are big projects, good projects. They vary in size, Peter, as you would have seen in the press release from, you know, 60 megawatts in one instance, 936 megawatts in another. And that's appropriate given that we need a wide range of different forms of new energy. Some of them include batteries, others don't. But there's lots of storage created in this auction as well which means that we are storing renewable energy during the middle of the day for when we need it in the evening. Peter Dutton denies that batteries exist. The fact is that batteries exist and are being rolled out at record pace and even more after today.

JOURNALIST: Do you think that the completion of these projects and related transmission works and so on, how close will that get the NEM to 82 per cent?

CHRIS BOWEN: This auction alone won't but the entire CIS will. So as you know, 32 gigawatts across the entire CIS, this 6 gigawatt auction is the biggest chunk we've done so far. We've done a couple of pilot auctions 1 gigawatt and then 600 megawatts. This is a 6 gigawatt auction, the first of the big ones.

This, together with what we're doing with states, the renewable energy transformation agreements, so signed the agreement with Victoria last week. I will be signing another one with a different state tomorrow, which is making sure that we're working with the states to unlock planning laws to get faster approvals. All this will see us reach 82.

JOURNALIST: Now obviously, it will take some time to build that out. Not obviously in time for, say, the coming summer. You just had the Energy Ministers' meeting in Adelaide last week and probably discussed the readiness.

CHRIS BOWEN: Of course.

JOURNALIST: What's your sense of going into the summer, the forecast for heat and the like, what 
does that tell you about the reliability prospects?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, of course, people said there would be blackouts last summer. Ted O'Brien said there would be blackouts last summer, there were none caused by a lack of energy, of course. And since last summer, we've connected many more gigawatts to the grid across Australia.

Now the biggest threat to reliability in Australia is coal-fired power closures. We're dealing with more coal-fired power outages, breakdowns, unexpected this week, which has put, you know, more pressure on the grid, although the grid is coping well, particularly in the eastern states. So what we've done is work with AEMO to ensure more power coming on, which puts us in a much better position going to this summer than last summer, even though there were no blackouts caused by a lack of energy last summer. We continue to monitor the situation with coal-fired power because that is the biggest threat to reliability across the grid.

But, of course, the important point to note, Pete, is that when the system was under pressure a couple of weeks ago, there were also expected outages, maintenance getting ready for the heat of summer. That won't be occurring over summer. You do the maintenance in spring so you don't need to do it over summer. So there will be more capacity available. So we are as appropriately confident as we should be that all the necessary measures have been put in place.

JOURNALIST: Would you anticipate either the two Hunter Power Project units from Snowy Hydro being ready before the end of summer? Is that really something that's beyond the summer project?

CHRIS BOWEN: It will - the Hunter Power Project is developing well, but it's not yet finally complete. It won't be pumping its full amount of power into the grid this year. But it will be in the first half of next year.

JOURNALIST: May I turn to the issue of the nuclear costings? There's some discussions about the GenCost report with CSIRO and the prospect of the fact that they've actually been quite conservative, that construction costs, say, for Hinckley in the UK was even -

CHRIS BOWEN: AUD$92 billion, yeah, for one power plant. Look, I don't have a problem with the CSIRO being conservative if, indeed, they have been. That's an entire matter for them. I don't second guess their work. They have given their best estimate of what nuclear would cost in Australia, taking into account Australian conditions.

Now, yes, you can point to the United Kingdom and say it's cost even more in the United Kingdom. When I pointed that out on the ABC earlier in the week, Ted O'Brien thought that was a big revelation. Well, now, the CSIRO looks at the experience of the United States, the United Kingdom, Finland, Korea, and makes their best assessment of how that would translate to Australia. And they're not alone there. I can cite 11 other reports showing renewables are much cheaper than nuclear.

Now, if others - if people say the CSIRO has been a bit too conservative and it would cost even more, well, I'm happy for the CSIRO to be conservative and I don't second guess their work. I respect them, I respect the integrity and independence of the CSIRO, and I wish Mr Dutton would as well.

JOURNALIST: Because one of the aspects was the ongoing cost savings of solar, which is well known, it's maintaining the learning gains. But storage seems to be falling even faster. I think storage price is maybe down 20 per cent in 2024 alone.

CHRIS BOWEN: Yes, that's right.

JOURNALIST: Which is probably more than GenCost because they had done that a while back, but this is a draft -

CHRIS BOWEN: Yeah, well that's a good point, Peter. I mean it is a draft and if there's further cost savings from storage, so people want to put into the CSIRO and AEMO to consider, that process is open to them. I won't be doing that. That's not appropriate for me to do. But others can. And the CSIRO will take it all into account. But it's a very good document, GenCost, internationally respected. I wish the alternative prime minister would respect it. And, by the way, he's had 48 hours now. He should have apologised to the CSIRO by now for his outrageous slur on their integrity by suggesting some sort of political interference. He's had 48 hours to reflect, he hasn't apologised. He should do it today.

JOURNALIST: When it comes to the actual nuclear costings, which may land partially and fully in the next little while, it does seem like issues such as discount rate applied and whether that's in line with other long-term projects that a Coalition government would be supporting. Would that add to the case of putting whatever their costings are to the PBO, which I think mentioned -

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, the PBO is the respected and defaulted - coster of default, should be for Oppositions. It's who we used in Opposition. It's completely independent. I understand an Opposition won't want to put costings into Treasury, I get that, but they can put them into the PBO in full confidence that their information won't be shared with others. The Opposition has to explain why they haven't used the PBO, if indeed they haven't.

JOURNALIST: The other issue, it's difficult to measure this, which is if you do add nuclear energy to the system and it's supposed to run most of the time, then it's going to force curtailment on renewables.

CHRIS BOWEN: Absolutely.

JOURNALIST: Is that something that can be modelled and presumably you would be looking for -

CHRIS BOWEN: I would be looking for details on that from the Opposition. This is a big concern - I've had many Australians raise this with me, to say "We've invested money on rooftop solar, we've spent our money to get rooftop solar. We don't get that much for feed-in tariffs these days, but we get a little bit, will that be turned off if nuclear is running 24/7?" And the answer to that is a lot of the time it will be because the system can't cater for nuclear running 24/7 and such a heavy penetration of roof-top solar. So Australians' investments would be curtailed as well as their feed into the grid. So, again, this is just one of the many, many - whether you look at any detail, Ted O'Brien and Peter Dutton just haven't thought it through. Probably the last one, yep.

JOURNALIST: Given you've got 19 of these projects signing up for CIS, they're presumably working on financials that don't include a nuclear energy component to the grid. At which point do you think discussion about a nuclear future will start to affect long-term investment in renewables, particularly as Mr Dutton right here, when he announced the two and five units, was asked is this a referendum, take it to the election, implied that this would remain the policy on the other side of the election whatever happens?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, I mean, that's a matter for them if they come second in the election. But look, the issue is here, here we have part of the pipeline, it's not just the 19 projects, a massive pipeline of private sector investment, which is what you want in our energy system. International investors, Australian investors, say Australia is a place we want to do business, we want to create jobs, build, renewable energy, build wealth. And on the other side, you've got the Opposition saying well, we recognise this isn't economic so we're going to spend hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayers' money.

Now, that's terrible for the Federal Government. It's terrible for services, what will they cut to pay for their nuclear investments? But also, if you're a private sector investor, and you're looking at that saying well, hang on, “why would I go and invest in Australia when I'm competing against subsidised government investments in nuclear, which is not consistent with a renewable grid?”

So this is the party of alleged free enterprise trying to choke private investment to create a government-led bureaucracy to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in an uneconomic venture. I mean, Robert Menzies wouldn't be really happy with this, wouldn't be really happy with it at all. It's the Labor Government which is embracing and working with the private sector to unleash millions and billions of dollars’ worth of investment in our country which will create energy and jobs, and Mr Dutton wants to stop all that. 

Alright, got to go. Cheers, guys.