E&OE Transcript
Radio interview
4RO with Dales Whyte
Friday, 24 January 2025

Subjects: $2 Billion aluminium sector announcement; Nuclear power

DALES WHYTE, HOST: Joining us on the phone is the Assistant Minister for Trade, the Assistant Minister for a Future Made in Australia, and NSW Senator, Tim Ayres. Good morning Senator how are you?

SENATOR TIM AYRES, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR A FUTURE MADE IN AUSTRALIA AND TRADE: I'm good Dale. Good to be on the show. I'm at a very noisy airport in Sydney. Good to be in Gladstone this week for this very important announcement about the future of the aluminium sector.

HOST: Now we were talking earlier, like yesterday afternoon, and one of the things that was pointed out was an article in the Rockhampton Bulletin that said that, should the government change and Mr. Dutton become the Prime Minister, he wouldn't support the aluminium scheme.

AYRES: Well, there’s two big problems for the aluminium sector. Both of them have got Peter Dutton's name all over them. The first is that this $2 billion package he has refused to support and that means this package that delivers security for thousands of jobs, 3000 jobs in your listening area, tens of thousands of jobs right around Australia. Peter Dutton and the Liberals, once again saying no to supporting Australian industry.

HOST: But hold on, before you go any further, he's not saying we're not going to support the industry. He's simply saying we're not going to support it with renewables.

AYRES: Well, this package, this package of $2 billion is there to secure the future of the industry. It has been welcomed by Rio Tinto and all the serious adults, basically in the system, support the package. Peter Dutton, playing politics with this, is saying he won't support that. So, if you're for the aluminium industry, you're for this package. If you want to play partisan politics, then Peter Dutton is basically stabbing the aluminium industry in the back. The second problem is his nuclear reactor strategy presupposes forcing electricity intensive manufacturing offshore. It is in the core of the assumptions that have been used. It's in black and white in his costings, electricity intensive manufacturing, which in Australia, half of that is represented by the aluminium sector forced offshore. This guy is always wandering around the country looking for an argument. He is not serious on the key issues that determine the future of this industry. A Labor government is standing up for manufacturing, Peter Dutton is trying to make the country smaller and weaker and is an absolute job killer in areas like yours.

HOST: Well, I have to ask. He's not actually saying we're not going to support aluminium. He's simply saying we're going to power it with both renewables and nuclear. Well, the way I'm reading the article that we're referring to in the morning bulletin, which is also the Courier Mail, that's certainly the gist of it. He wants to keep those workers working hard in Gladstone.

AYRES: His message is, pull your socks up and hope for the best. That's Peter Dutton's message. Pull your socks up and hope for the best. We are backing it with a serious package that the industry itself says, Rio Tinto is a serious business that has made a serious decision that if they want to have markets to sell into, they are shifting to the lowest cost energy.

HOST: So let me just get the gist of this Senator. What you're effectively saying is that using renewables will keep the cost down for the creation of green aluminium.

AYRES: Well, that's not me saying that. That's Rio Tinto saying that, that's all of the serious actors in the aluminium sector here in Australia and around the world. The question is not whether the aluminium industry decarbonises its electricity. That decision has already been made by all of the companies and all of the players. The question is, does it happen here in Australia and under a Dutton government. It would happen in China and Oman and the United States and any other jurisdiction that's prepared to back their manufacturing sector. Under Anthony Albanese and Labor, it will happen in Boyne Island in Gladstone, where I was this week, in Tasmania, in the Hunter Valley, in Portland in Victoria. We are backing those facilities because it's in the national interest, and they deliver good jobs, good jobs in regional areas. But they also, as you know, deliver for the hundreds of small and medium engineering enterprises who rely upon them for contracts and for their future. This is this decision. It's a big call consistent with our broader Future Made in Australia agenda, a big call, but it's the right call for Australia, and it's the right call for Queensland.

HOST: Look, I can agree, and you and I are probably going to agree to disagree, because nowhere in this article is he saying he's not supporting the aluminium industry staying in Australia, which is the article we've been referring to this morning. He's indeed wanting to support it, but using nuclear and renewable energy.

AYRES: So nuclear, nuclear will kill the aluminium industry. Stone dead, if Peter Dutton gets his way. If Peter Dutton gets his way, the 3000 jobs in aluminium, in Gladstone will be replaced, you know, some decades down the track, by an expensive facility that will push the cost of power up for ordinary Queenslanders by $1,200 a household.

HOST: But with respect, Senator--

AYRES: They cannot coexist. They cannot coexist. Peter Dutton's own modelling says they cannot coexist, because that's his modelling, but it's not me saying that. It's his modelling.

HOST: I find it very hard to believe that they can't coexist because nuclear power is being used in the countries that you actually gave the mention to of sending the jobs overseas to be using nuclear power.

AYRES: Nuclear Power has been used in economies where they don't have access to other cheaper sources of power, it's been used in economies that don't have our natural advantages, but it's also been used in economies that have a pre-existing nuclear sector, right? It's the problem for Australia, for so many reasons, for so many reasons, is that nuclear will take too long, it will cost too much, and it will deliver not enough power for our needs. And that's the problem with Dutton's model. Is that it presupposes, core to his assumptions, that the reason that he makes the dodgy cost plans that he does is because it assumes that demand will fall because electricity intensive manufacturing is forced offshore. That means aluminium.

HOST: I haven't seen that as such, but Senator Ayres, I thank you for your time this morning.

AYRES: Thanks, Dales. Very good to talk to you.

HOST: I know you have to catch a plane.

AYRES: So I do. Thank you. That's right. Thanks, thanks.

HOST: Bye, bye, Senator Tim Ayres.


ENDS.