SENATOR TIM AYRES, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR A FUTURE MADE IN AUSTRALIA AND TRADE: It’s 180 days since Peter Dutton announced this so-called nuclear policy. It's very strange that it's taken 180 days for him to announce that he's finally going to come up with some costings. It's either Christmas is going to come first, or Peter Dutton’s nuclear costings will come before it. The thing that is very clear from all of this is that either in June, when Peter Dutton announced this nuclear folly, that he knew the costings and kept them from the Australian people, or when he announced it in June, he didn't know the costings and has been trying to make it up ever since. It does seem very strange to be so attached to an idea without knowing how much it costs. Well, the real cost that is going to matter to Australians is the cost that they feel in their annual and their quarterly electricity bills, $1,200 a year extra in power bills. That means Australians under a Dutton government will have to find $300 or $400 at the end of every quarter more from their household budgets to fund this expensive and risky nuclear folly. This is a bad idea. It's a bad idea at the wrong time, and it's designed to take us back to the same old energy policy uncertainty that we saw in the Morrison government. Let's see if these costings actually ever arrive. It's taken 180 days, the slowest moving forgery in Australian politics. It's about time that Peter Dutton levelled with Australians, announcing the nuclear policy costings during the Christmas period while Australians’ attention is going elsewhere. Sounds a little bit like Bridget McKenzie revealing her upgrades on the day of the US election. I'm happy to take any questions. 
 
JOURNALIST: What did you think of Peter Dutton attacking the integrity of the CSIRO? 
 
SENATOR AYRES: Well, I'm shocked that after this institution that has provided independent advice to industry and to governments for almost 100 years, has been fundamental in agriculture, in Wi-Fi, in technological research, has been part of so many Australian inventions, that Peter Dutton, rather than listen to the evidence, is all about attacking independent scientists. It should be beneath somebody who aspires to be the Prime Minister of Australia.  
 
JOURNALIST: Which do you think voters will care more about: seeing the costings for the nuclear policy or his comments about the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags? 
 
SENATOR AYRES: Well, I think people are pretty entitled to be sceptical about the costings, full stop. 180 days to try and cobble together these costings, either keeping them from the Australian people, or, as I suspect, spending night after night trying to make the sums add up. But it does say a little bit about Peter Dutton that on the eve of announcing his nuclear costumes, he wants to have a fight with people about flags. I don't think Australians are spending too much time thinking about flags. I think they're thinking about cost-of-living, and which government, which potential government next year is best equipped to deal with that.  
 
JOURNALIST: He says they're divisive. Isn't taking them away being divisive as well. 
 
SENATOR AYRES: It’s a weird culture wars debate that Peter Dutton wants to start, coincidentally hours before, if you believe in him, he announces his nuclear costings. I'm just a bit suspicious that it's not really about a passionate commitment, you know which number of flags he has behind him, that it's really about creating a distraction. I think it also says this bloke is very arrogant. He's already starting to think about the press conferences that he wants to have as prime minister. He does no press conferences here. He's never done, he's very rarely in front of all of you for a press conference as opposition leader, because he doesn't want the scrutiny, but he drifts off to sleep every night thinking about measuring up the drapes in the office and which flags he'd like to have behind him. I think he actually needs to focus on the real cost-of-living and economic concerns of ordinary Australians. And how is it that he squares his so-called commitment to these issues with his opposition to every single thing that the Albanese government has done to deal with the cost-of-living issues for ordinary Australians: opposed tax cuts, opposed reductions for childcare costs, opposed reductions for medicine costs, opposed wage rises for particularly low-income childcare, aged care workers. None of this adds up. None of this adds up and I think people are entitled to be very sceptical.  
 
JOURNALIST: Peter Dutton was seen in Muswellbrook today, but he was very quick to hose down those suggestions that he was there, his office was too. What does that say about his willingness to actually hear the concerns of local communities?  
 
SENATOR AYRES: Well, he's not often seen in Muswellbrook. He's announced all of these nuclear sites without consulting with communities, seven sites without consulting with communities, without doing any of the basic geotechnical research or consulting the experts about any of the basic geotechnical research that's required in Muswellbrook in particular. There have been three earthquakes in Muswellbrook since Peter Dutton made that announcement. It's not a very popular announcement, I can tell you, in the Upper Hunter Valley. He will appear for minutes, and then he will disappear, and he'll run back to Canberra, I assume, and finally come out with these costings. It really is an embarrassment for a potential party of government in Australia to behave this way. It should be subject, and I expect once these costings are finally brought out, will be subject, to some real, proper scrutiny. 
 
JOURNALIST: Much of the industrialised world successfully has nuclear power in its energy mix. Why is Australia different? Is this a purely political debate?  
 
SENATOR AYRES: Well, every country is different. Every country is different. And the issue for Australia is we're on the cheapest path to low-cost reliable energy and electricity for Australians. That's the path that the Albanese government is on. New developments in new generation capacity being approved hand-over-fist since this government was elected. The alternative path, the nuclear path, is expensive for Australia. It's expensive for Australia in relative terms to some of the countries that have a comparative advantage in this area. That's why it's going to be more expensive. There are no nuclear reactors built in the Western world since the beginning of the 21st century that haven't run hopelessly over budget by billions and billions of dollars, that haven't run hopelessly over time, sometimes by more than a decade. And in Australia, we have a straightforward pathway to renewables plus storage as the lowest possible cost route, and that means investment in the energy system, investment in manufacturing and lower costs for households.  
 
JOURNALIST: You had some numbers there in your remarks about the cost to households on their electricity bills from a nuclear policy. Now, hate to sound a bit sceptical about costings here, but can you elaborate on what that's based on this? There are CSIRO estimates on the cost of nuclear, but there's a cost of anything. There are costs involved with the transmission grid. There are costs involved in rolling out wind towers and solar. So, can you just be clear on how you how you're making that cost as such?  
 
SENATOR AYRES: Well, can I make three points about this? Firstly, it's the Institute for Energy, Economics and Financial Analysis that's released those figures, and that's the figures that the government is relying upon. Secondly, of course, every piece of new energy infrastructure, transmission, renewable storage, costs money, but the difference with Peter Dutton’s plan is that Australians pay twice. Taxpayers pay first $600 billion to build these boondoggles in communities that don't want them, and then consumers pay again through higher electricity bills. This is bad policy at the wrong time and people ought to be embarrassed in the Liberals and Nationals – that a party that once stood for fiscal rectitude and being able to add up – has launched a policy six months ago, and there are still no costings. 
 
JOURNALIST: Tim, just on a slightly different note, yesterday we obviously had the task force announced to tackle antisemitism. I just want to ask on Sunday in Western Sydney, with crowds on the street chanting antisemitic slogans, which translate to, “oh Jews, the army of Mohammed will return.” Do you think those people should be charged?  
 
SENATOR AYRES: Look, it's a very good development that this task force has been announced. We are all, all of us here, I think, in Canberra, shocked by what happened at that synagogue in Melbourne. It's an appalling event. It demands the response that's come from the Commonwealth and Victorian governments. I, like many of my colleagues, have been deeply concerned by the rise of antisemitism and that occurrence that you pointed to should be properly investigated, and there should be no tolerance, no tolerance in any section of the community, for antisemitism in any form. 
 
JOURNALIST: Was it the Institute of Energy, Economics and Finance that those figures came from? 
 
SENATOR AYRES: Yes. 
 
JOURNALIST: They're also pretty opposed to any further expansion of coal and gas, just sort of taking something that you like of theirs, but ignoring the rest? 
 
SENATOR AYRES: Well, there are plenty of experts with different views, but this is a properly posted report, it's credible, and it says a lot about the two alternative parties of government: one that's prepared to front up with costings and explain them, and another one that either didn't have the costings when they announced the policy or did have them and kept them a secret. Okay, thanks very much. See you all later. 


ENDS.