Doorstop interview at Parliament House, Canberra

SENATOR JENNY MCALLISTER, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE & ENERGY: Well, in 2022, Peter Dutton promised the Australian people an intelligent conversation about nuclear power. It’s been some time now and it hasn't been much of a conversation. They haven't told us where these power plants would go. They haven't told us when they would be built. They haven't told us how they would build them. They haven't told us what they would cost or who would pay for them. And they certainly haven't gone into the communities that they proposed to use as sites for their power plants and talked to them directly about it either.

Let's recall this is a group of people who were in power for nine years, And during that period, they produced exactly zero nuclear power plants. The only thing they were able to confirm and agree about amongst themselves during that entire period was that Barnaby Joyce was in charge of the entire Coalition energy policy. They swiped through 22 policies without landing a single one and left us in a situation where four gigawatts of dispatchable power left the grid and only one came on.

Their record on delivery is appalling. First, they promised a conversation, then they promised a policy. Then they promised a list of sites. Well, the budget has come and gone, and we have seen nothing.

If these people can't trust - be trusted to deliver an energy policy on time. How could they possibly be trusted to deliver a risky nuclear power plant?

Our government accepts the advice from experts. We accept the advice provided to us by scientists and economists, which is that a reliable renewables agenda is the best and most cost-effective way for us to move towards net zero and to replace the aging coal fired power plants, which are shortly to retire from our energy system. We are getting on with that task. We're also providing bill relief for those people who have been affected by the international supply-side crisis that has caused so many challenges, relief that the Liberals incredibly voted against. Nothing about their energy policies is coherent, nothing about it is sensible and we simply can't trust them to deliver anything.