Sunrise interview with Minister for the Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek

SUBJECTS: Dunkley by-election; Newspoll; Nuclear power.

NATALIE BARR: Voters in the South East Melbourne seat of Dunkley will go to the polls this weekend for what's being called a high-stakes litmus test for the federal government. It comes as the latest newspoll shows Labor's primary vote has fallen to 33 per cent. However, the government maintains its 52 to 48 lead on a two party preferred basis. Labor currently holds Dunkley by a margin of 6.3 per cent. But as the Prime Minister admitted on Weekend Sunrise, recent cost of living pressures and the political fall out over border security mean the result could go either way.
 
[Excerpt]
 
ANTHONY ALBANESE: It's a tough fight, but we've got the best candidate for this seat in Jodie.
 
[End of Excerpt]
 
BARR: For more, let's bring in our pollies, Environment Minister, Tanya Plibersek, and Nationals MP, Barnaby Joyce. Tanya, are you concerned by this latest Newspoll result as you head into the Dunkley by-election? Did you expect a bit more of a bump from the tax announcement?
 
TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Oh, look, we always knew that the Dunkley by-election would be very close. As you said, this is a seat we hold by just over a 6 per cent margin, and the average swing against a government in a by election is 7 per cent. So we're already behind the eight ball, so that's why we are absolutely laser-focused on cost of living.
 
BARR: So are you expecting to lose?
 
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: No, I'm just saying it's tough; by elections are tough, and that's why our candidate, Jodie Belyea, is out there every single day talking to people about what matters to them, and that's cost of living. It's why we're so happy that we saw wages starting to go up in the most recent wages data, and it's why we're focused on giving more than 70,000 taxpayers in Dunkley a tax cut; it's why we're focused on cheaper medicines, more bulk billing, free TAFE, cheaper childcare, expanded parental leave, and all of those other things that take a little bit of pressure off the families in Dunkley.
 
BARR: Barnaby, are you expecting to win, because those figures sound like you might?
 
BARNABY JOYCE: For a moment there I thought Tanya had given us the by-election when she said "absolutely", but not so the case. Look, I think Nathan Conroy has a big job in front of him. We see the tragic circumstances of the death of Peta Murphy that brought on this by election, but nonetheless, I believe that people have a real reason to vote against the Labor Party.
 
It's not only in the lack of border protection, and basically now we have people from overseas just making their own way on to their coast; very bad on certain things such as biosecurity, foot and mouth, issues such as that, but also the inability of our nation to actually defend itself, full stop, with this ridiculous process that we're apparently going to get new ships in the next decade or so. We can't wait that long. Cost of living, absolutely murdering people. They can't afford what's happening at the check-out, they certainly can't afford their power price. 500,000 people in Victoria the other day lost power and had a black-out. It's just incompetency in this government and, well --
 
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: That was a storm, Barnaby.
 
JOYCE: -- and we're putting $900 million on the table, by the way, for a new rail line down there which the Labor Party are not doing.
 
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Are you going to stop storms?
 
JOYCE: But let's see what the Labor Party can do. They don't deserve to win --
 
BARR: Yeah, Barnaby --
 
JOYCE: -- let's put it that way. Let's see what happens.
 
BARR: That was, as Tanya said, that was a storm, and it was on the transmission lines, which, you know, the experts say it wouldn't have mattered where the power came from, it was the transmission which was how it went out. Let's get on power though, because as you say this is important --
 
JOYCE: I don't know about that.
 
BARR: -- to every Australian because it's very, you know, expensive at the moment. The majority of Australians would back a proposal to replace retired coal fired power plants with small modular nuclear reactors. A new survey out this morning found 55 per cent of voters support the idea of nuclear power, with just 31 per cent opposing it. Tanya, more than half of Aussie voters say they would back a proposal for these. Will the government change its position on nuclear power?
 
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Oh, Nat, until you tell them that there's going to be a nuclear reactor next door, and then I don't think anybody's a supporter of nuclear power. This is just a fantasy, it's a distraction from what we need to do, and we know that the nuclear solution is the most expensive solution here.
 
JOYCE: No, it's not.
 
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: You're talking about, I think it's billion $389 billion estimated cost --
 
JOYCE: No, it's not.
 
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: -- and where are the reactors going to go, Barnaby? What will it cost and where will they go?
 
JOYCE: I'm happy to talk to you about that.
 
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: We've got a solution. Already we've approved more than 40 --
 
JOYCE: Look, what we've said - what we can say --
 
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: -- more than 40 renewable energy projects, enough to power two and a half million homes --
 
JOYCE: They don't like those, Tanya.
 
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: -- we've done that already since coming to government.
 
JOYCE: They don't like those. I tell you what they don't is you putting wind factories --
 
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: The previous government had 22 energy policies --
 
JOYCE: -- and solar factories all over their land. They definitely don't like those.
 
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: -- and they didn't land one of them.
 
BARR: Maybe we'll do this one at a time. Tanya, let's finish your train of thought, and then we'll go to Barnaby.
 
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah. The previous government had 22 energy policies; they didn't land one. They were told that 24 coal-fired power stations were going to close; they didn't replace any of them. They could have introduced nuclear when they were in government. They didn't. They're doing it now as a distraction from what will work, which is cheaper, cleaner, renewable energy.
 
BARR: Yeah. Barnaby, final word to you, but you've got all these fresh ideas. 18 months ago, you guys were in. Why didn't you do this?
 
JOYCE: Look, I've been a supporter of nuclear for basically all my time in politics. A nuclear power plant has a footprint like that. Renewables   
 
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Just didn't get around to it.
 
JOYCE: -- Tanya's still lauding them. People dislike them intensely, Tanya. They take the whole countryside, the whole - it all goes, it all goes on it. And what we see is, if people have a choice between a small footprint from nuclear or a complete industrialisation of their landscape with wind factories, solar factories, transmission lines - there are going to be two here. I mean it's just ludicrous, and from Greta Thunberg to Rishi Sunak, Prime Minister of the UK --
 
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: You tell us where the nuclear plants are going then.
 
BARR: Tanya, we'll just let Barnaby finish.
 
JOYCE: -- from the President of the United States to the President of France, everybody's expanding nuclear, except Chris Bowen and apparently you. I mean apparently you're the only wise ones in the world, and your idea that it costs more is just bumpkin. Once you get away from Australia, that is bumpkin. And talk to the lady who's the leader of Westinghouse, runs Westinghouse, she builds nuclear reactors. It's absolute garbage. Stop saying it, it's rubbish.
 
BARR: Okay. Well, look, we're going to have to leave it there, but   
 
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: So the people who are selling them think they're a good idea. Barnaby says the people who are selling them think they're a good idea. There’s a surprise.
 
JOYCE: You're selling renewables, you're selling the wind towers, you're selling the solar, all foreign owned, prices of power go through the roof, reliability going through the floor, and the money, overseas companies, overseas.
 
BARR: We will have to leave it there, but it is interesting that the polls are saying particularly younger people are very much more in favour of these small mobile nuclear reactors. Shirvo, what about Barnaby, full of fire on that one.

MATT SHIRVINGTON: Yeah, going nuclear, in more ways than one.