Interview with Geraldine Mellett, ABC Perth Drive

GERALDINE MELLETT: So, in just a moment, I'll come to your thoughts. But let's now go to Josh Wilson, the member for Fremantle, to get his reaction to this. Hi, Josh Wilson, thank you very much for joining us.

JOSH WILSON: No worries, Geraldine. Good to be with you.

MELLETT: So, I know that you've just listened to that interview and I want to get your reaction, because your party has had a ferocious reaction to the announcement made by Peter Dutton based on this report.

WILSON: Well, I'm not sure I’d describe it as ferocious. I mean, we're simply trying to make sure that the Australian community knows what a dangerous, reckless path that would be, and we think that that's entirely fair enough. And the fact that this is a policy that was announced six, seven, eight months ago, and we've waited all of this time for this bit of analysis, or modeling, to appear without lots of details that you might expect, on Friday the 13th, in the shadow of Christmas. I think it tells a story in itself.

But yeah, I mean I listened to Danny Price. I'm sorry that he's not feeling well. I hope, he gets better soon, but he essentially just acknowledged that between the two figures that Frontier themselves are putting out there to create that contrast, they are both totally different scenarios. So, one scenario involves significantly more – 45% more – energy use, and the other scenario involves 45% less energy use. And surprise, surprise, there's a sort of different figure, even though I don't necessarily, nobody necessarily accepts the two figures that Mr. Price has put forward. But as someone said today, you know, this is not apples and oranges, this is apples and elephants. I mean this is what you do when you want to artificially trick up some sort of bizarre contrast. And there's a few other things to that.

MELLETT: To be fair, though, he explained in the beginning, Josh, that he had, you know, taken the figures from AEMO and from CSIRO, I think ‘tricking up’ an artificial scenario is a bit strong in relation.

WILSON: Well, no Geraldine, I really don’t. I mean, he admitted himself that these are two totally different scenarios. One involves 45% more electricity generation. Now, surprise, surprise, the more energy you generate, the more it costs. So he's saying, here's one scenario that uses 45% more electricity, and I've put a notional number on that. And I'm not comparing those two scenarios with the same equivalent use, but different technologies, like renewables on the one hand and nuclear on the other. I'm literally taking a scenario that involves half as much energy, and I'm putting a notional price on that. And in order to put the notional price on it, a few other things that Mr Price and Frontier Economics have done, pushed some of the capital costs outside the time period. And that response about building in the costs of nuclear waste management was glib in the extreme. I mean, I don't know on what basis Mr. Price reached those numbers when there isn't a jurisdiction yet in the world that has a solution for high level waste. There is not a single jurisdiction in the world that has a solution for storing, permanently storing, high level waste. So you know, when he says ‘yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve costed that in,’ based on what?

MELLETT: Can I put it to you that nuclear was off the table for a really long time in Australia, but has, in fact, your government's agreement to AUKUS and the nuclear submarines coming into your very own electorate, in fact, opened this conversation about nuclear power up once more, because really, you can't have it both ways, can you?

WILSON: Well, we've had nuclear medicine in Australia for decades.

MELLETT: Yeah, but nuclear medicine and nuclear power are two very, very different scenarios, surely and certainly in terms of waste.

WILSON: And nuclear submarines and civilian nuclear power on a large scale are two very different things too. And I think that, that’s another way the coalition has tried to pull the wool over people’s eyes.

MELLETT: But, I mean, we're talking very close to home here, you know, waste stored at Garden Island, in addition to other places.

WILSON: The proposition at the moment is that there will be low level waste associated with testing procedures. That's the same waste that's stored in medical facilities at dozens and dozens of facilities. But, look, I understand that point Geraldine, it's not an unfair point to make, but the proposition that the coalition is making is that Australia should veer away from the path to a cleaner and cheaper energy future. Instead, without ever having a nuclear power industry, we should veer towards that when all of the evidence and all of the expertise makes it plain that it's the most expensive form of energy generation, and it is in decline globally. And one of the things that's buried in that report, in those assumptions that should really worry people is it's based on the idea that by 2050 if Peter Dutton had his way, 40% of the electricity in Australia would be nuclear generated. Now the United States has stayed relatively level at around 18%, 20% for the last 40 years, and they are the largest producer of nuclear energy in the world. But what are they doing between now and 2050? They are grading down. They're actually just recently reached a 25-year low, and they are grading down to have only 12% in their energy mix by 2050. Why are they doing that? Because it's the most expensive form of energy, and last year, they added 39 gigawatts of new renewables and zero gigawatts of new nuclear. The world as a whole last year, 460 gigawatts of new renewables, and globally, nuclear went backwards by one gigawatt. Why is that? It's because nuclear is the most expensive way of generating energy, and the idea that that's something that Australia should now go head over heels down that sort of mad vortex is literally one of the most irresponsible policy propositions I've ever seen in my life.

MELLETT: And yet, and yet, I come back to the fact that, you know, there's been an opening of the door with, with AUKUS and the nuclear submarines, even though you say that's like comparing apples and elephants. Josh Wilson, thank you very much for your time today.

WILSON: Thanks, Geraldine.