Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Ruby Jones.
Speaker 2: This is seven am. The Liberal Party says it wants
Speaker 2: the next election to be a referendum on energy. After
Speaker 2: months of waiting, Opposition leader Peter Dutton finally released the
Speaker 2: cost of his nuclear proposal proof Dutton says that nuclear
Speaker 2: power will be cheaper than renewables and save all Australians
Speaker 2: money on their energy bills, but his modeling stands in
Speaker 2: sharp contrast to that of Australia's top scientists and the
Speaker 2: energy industry. Today National correspondent for the Saturday Paper like
Speaker 2: second on how the numbers stack up and whether that
Speaker 2: matters to voters eager for lower power bills. It's Monday,
Speaker 2: December sixteenth, Mike. On Friday, Opposition leader Peter Dutton announced
Speaker 2: the long awaited costings for his party's nuclear policy plan.
Speaker 1: So tell me what he said.
Speaker 3: Well, first observation about time. We've been waiting for this
Speaker 3: for months and months and months. You know it was
Speaker 3: all very optimistic modeling right. What happened was on Friday morning,
Speaker 3: Peter Dutton stood up at a press conference in Brisbane.
Speaker 3: Beside him were the Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor, the Shadow
Speaker 3: Climate Change and Energy Minister Tat O'Brian and the Leader
Speaker 3: of the National stated little proud.
Speaker 4: This is a plan which will underpin the economic success
Speaker 4: of out country for the next century.
Speaker 3: And they presented this final piece of the coalition's vision
Speaker 3: for a nuclear future. You know, the economic modeling that
Speaker 3: they claim shows that their policy is actually financially viable.
Speaker 3: In fact, they argue that it will come in substantially
Speaker 3: cheaper than Labour's path to net zero.
Speaker 4: This will make electricity reliable, it'll make it more consistent,
Speaker 4: it'll make it cheaper for Australia, and it will help
Speaker 4: us to carbonize as a trading economy as we must. So.
Speaker 3: Under their plan, nuclear energy would account for about thirty
Speaker 3: eight percent of the Australian energy mix by twenty fifty,
Speaker 3: which is when we're supposed to get to net zero.
Speaker 3: Of course, renewables would cover fifty four percent and the
Speaker 3: rest of it, which about eight percent, would come mostly
Speaker 3: from gas and from a bit of storage. They had
Speaker 3: previously announced a plan to build seven nuclear reactors around
Speaker 3: the country, which will be publicly owned. The first of
Speaker 3: these reactors would be operating by twenty thirty five, or
Speaker 3: they're about so ten or eleven years away, and according
Speaker 3: to their modeling, their plan would cost three hundred and
Speaker 3: thirty one billion dollars over the twenty five years out
Speaker 3: to twenty fifty. And that is two hundred and sixty
Speaker 3: three billion dollars they claim, or forty four percent cheaper
Speaker 3: than their estimate. And it's important to say their estimate
Speaker 3: of what Labour's path to net zero would cost.
Speaker 1: That's around ten billion dollars every single year.
Speaker 3: And you know, the Shadow Energy Minister Tetobrand simply said
Speaker 3: that prices ultimately reflect costs over time, so you know
Speaker 3: their pitches. It will cost a great deal less to
Speaker 3: build a system and as a result, power will be
Speaker 3: cheaper for everyone.
Speaker 2: Right, okay, so tell me how Peter Dutton came to
Speaker 2: these figures.
Speaker 3: Well, it's down to economic modeling, of course, which you
Speaker 3: know it depends entirely on the assumptions you put into
Speaker 3: the model, and this I have to say includes some
Speaker 3: rather dubious and occasionally troubling assumptions. For one, it's assumed
Speaker 3: that Australia's geriatric I think you could safely call them
Speaker 3: very breakdown prone col fired power stations, most of which
Speaker 3: will be shuttered within a decade, and all of which
Speaker 3: are currently scheduled to be closed by twenty thirty eight,
Speaker 3: will continue to operate for some years longer. It's not
Speaker 3: entirely clear how many years longer, but somewhere in the
Speaker 3: three to five years range. Another assumption is that they
Speaker 3: will get the first nuclear power station up and running
Speaker 3: eleven years from now, in twenty thirty six. They've also
Speaker 3: assumed that Australia's electricity demand will rise by considerably less
Speaker 3: between now and twenty fifty than it is currently forecast too,
Speaker 3: and in part that's based on things like they expect
Speaker 3: that Australia's uptake of electric vehicles will be much slower
Speaker 3: than current forecasts. So all of these things indicate that
Speaker 3: we're going to continue to pump out greenhouse gases at
Speaker 3: a greater rate than we would otherwise. The other big
Speaker 3: assumption is that nuclear generation will cost far less than
Speaker 3: the CSIRO and others say. Their other claim is that
Speaker 3: there will be savings from not building unnecessary infrastructure, by
Speaker 3: which they mean mostly transmission. So they're saying that they
Speaker 3: will be able to plug nuclear power stations into already
Speaker 3: existing transmission lines rather than having to build new transmission,
Speaker 3: as is the case with renewables, which tend to be
Speaker 3: located in sunny end windy places away from a lot
Speaker 3: of infrastructure. So all of this is based on modeling
Speaker 3: from this bunch of climate consultants called Frontier Economics, which
Speaker 3: is run by a guy called Danny Price.
Speaker 1: Right, and who is Danny Price.
Speaker 3: Well, he's an energy economist and a consultant and he's
Speaker 3: worked for both sides of politics. He actually has a
Speaker 3: pretty strong track record, I have to say, you know,
Speaker 3: he's worked for Labor as well as the Coalition, most recently,
Speaker 3: I believe for the Labor government South Australia. The other
Speaker 3: thing that is notable about Danny Price is that he
Speaker 3: seems to have fallen out with just about anyone who's
Speaker 3: anyone in the energy space. You know, the former Chief
Speaker 3: Scientist Alan Finkel, former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, the former
Speaker 3: head of the Australian Energy Market operator Ordrew Zibelman. He
Speaker 3: said that her agency should simply be abolished. I actually
Speaker 3: spoke to Price last week and he expected that he
Speaker 3: would be criticized for this. He wears it as a
Speaker 3: badge of pride. Quite frankly, he's always up for a
Speaker 3: stoush and like I said, the view of various policy
Speaker 3: experts that I spoke to was that he was a
Speaker 3: competent economist, but also someone with very st opinions and
Speaker 3: a tendency to respond forcefully to those with whom he disagrees.
Speaker 3: And the other thing to say about him is that
Speaker 3: he has a way of getting headlines for the work
Speaker 3: he producers. For example, he came up with a figure
Speaker 3: for costing the current government's renewables plan that was five
Speaker 3: hundred billion dollars higher than the Australian Energy Market Operator
Speaker 3: estimates it will cost. Bottom line, his modeling is not
Speaker 3: without controversy, and it also stands in pretty stark contrast
Speaker 3: to the work of a lot of other experts and
Speaker 3: agencies like the CSIO. It would suggest, you know, he's
Speaker 3: a bit outside the mainstream in his views and perhaps
Speaker 3: a bit of a contrarian.
Speaker 2: After the break the science that contradicts the coalition's claims,
Speaker 2: so Mike.
Speaker 1: On Friday, the coal.
Speaker 2: Released its numbers for its nuclear policy, and that was
Speaker 2: based on this modeling from Frontier Economics run by Danny Price.
Speaker 2: Around the same time, though the CSIRO actually also released
Speaker 2: a report into nuclear power.
Speaker 1: So how did the two compare.
Speaker 3: The CSIRO, Australia's premiere scientific organization in association with the
Speaker 3: Australian Energy market operator and stakeholders in the energy business,
Speaker 3: dropped their latest annual gen Cost Report, which sets out
Speaker 3: to work out the relative costs of different ways of
Speaker 3: generating electricity.
Speaker 2: Say, the CSIRO has found once again that nuclear power
Speaker 2: is about fifty percent more expensive than renewables, so, in
Speaker 2: other words, would cost twice as much to build.
Speaker 3: And what the CSIRO report found again for the seventh
Speaker 3: year in a row, was that my father the lowest
Speaker 3: cost means of generating electricity was renewables, wind and solar,
Speaker 3: even when you include you know, firming with batteries and
Speaker 3: all the rest of it. Not only a renew's cheaper,
Speaker 3: but they're continue to get cheaper. So large scale solar
Speaker 3: and battery storage are two areas with huge price drops.
Speaker 3: Solar has dropped eight percent in the past year, and
Speaker 3: it dropped eight percent in the year before that. Battery
Speaker 3: storage dropped twenty percent in the past year alone, so
Speaker 3: the alternatives to nuclear coming down dramatically in price. The
Speaker 3: other thing about gen cost is of course that it
Speaker 3: reckons that we can't build nuclear in the timeframes that
Speaker 3: Danny Price and the opposition are suggesting. It's saying at
Speaker 3: least fifteen years away. And the problem with that, of course,
Speaker 3: is that coal power is scheduled to be shut down
Speaker 3: within less time than that, so in the meantime we
Speaker 3: will extend the life of coal. But the coalition also
Speaker 3: says that we will rely more heavily on gas generation
Speaker 3: while we wait for nuclear, and gen cost says that
Speaker 3: gas generation is if you include carbon capture and storage,
Speaker 3: which would be necessary if for we're to make it
Speaker 3: carbon neutral, would be around the same cost as nuclear.
Speaker 3: So there's pretty big differences there, I think you'd say,
Speaker 3: between what gen costs and the CSRO are telling us
Speaker 3: and what the opposition modeling is telling us.
Speaker 2: And so how is Peter Dutton responding to criticism of
Speaker 2: his nuclear plan and the reports that contradict his costings.
Speaker 3: Well, I wouldn't say that Sarah was specifically criticizing his
Speaker 3: nuclear plan, but you're right, they come up with vastly
Speaker 3: different costs, and really Dartnes's response was simply to shoot
Speaker 3: the messenger.
Speaker 5: It just looks to me like there's a heavy hand
Speaker 5: of Chris Bowen in all of this, and I don't
Speaker 5: think people want to see that. I think what they
Speaker 5: know from Chris Bowen at the moment is that he's
Speaker 5: wrecking the energy system and that's wrecking the economy.
Speaker 3: He immediately came out and said that the government had
Speaker 3: meddled and that CSRO was not politically independent and that
Speaker 3: Chris bow and the Energy Minister essentially had his thumb
Speaker 3: on the scales.
Speaker 4: Peter dunt't wants you to believe that he can introduce
Speaker 4: the most expensive form of energy and somehow that will
Speaker 4: reduce power prices. A EMO and the CSIRO say nuclear
Speaker 4: is expensive.
Speaker 3: And Chris Bowen, in contrast, came out and said that
Speaker 3: Danny Price was a Liberal party operative and that his
Speaker 3: modeling was also politicized.
Speaker 4: The choice between Peter Dutton and the CSIRO, I go
Speaker 4: with the CSIRO.
Speaker 3: So we've got both sides attacking the impartiality of the
Speaker 3: experts that the other side is relying upon. The real
Speaker 3: test here is probably whether whether it matters to voters
Speaker 3: and whom the voters decide to believe.
Speaker 1: So what do you.
Speaker 2: Think that voters will make of Peter Dutton's plan, Mike,
Speaker 2: Because you know, he said that he wants this coming
Speaker 2: election to be a referendum on energy. So do you
Speaker 2: think that voters are going to support this particular vision.
Speaker 3: Look, frankly, I have no idea. I think voters are
Speaker 3: mostly concerned with cost of living, and so Peter Dutton
Speaker 3: has pitched this very much as the cost of living measure.
Speaker 3: We'll have to wait. I mean, they have dropped this
Speaker 3: enormous report from Danny Price. It's just dazzled you with
Speaker 3: economic jargon and numbers and calculations. I can only assume
Speaker 3: that every other economic modeler in the country is now
Speaker 3: going through it with a fine tooth comb, and we'll
Speaker 3: see how it holds up. I have to say previous
Speaker 3: modeling done for previous iterations of Coalition climate policy, not
Speaker 3: done by Danny Price, but done by other people engaged
Speaker 3: by them, have not held up well in retrospect, and
Speaker 3: nor for that matter, has some of the modeling that
Speaker 3: was done by labor You'll remember that Labour Right relied
Speaker 3: on economic modeling to say that power prices would decrease
Speaker 3: under them, and they haven't. They've gone up. So you know,
Speaker 3: modeling is very vulnerable to the assumptions that go into it,
Speaker 3: and it's also vulnerable to changes in circumstance. I mean,
Speaker 3: in the case of Labour's modeling, the change in circumstances
Speaker 3: was the Ukraine War that drove up power prices all
Speaker 3: around the world. So we're talking about something that has
Speaker 3: to foresee what might happen over the next twenty five years.
Speaker 3: And that's a very hard ask.
Speaker 2: And as you say, Mike, so much of the messaging
Speaker 2: around this energy plan is about cost, and you can
Speaker 2: see why, but or what about the climate crisis? What
Speaker 2: does Peter Dutton's plan mean for emissions compared to Labors.
Speaker 3: Well, I think in a nutshell, what the opposition is
Speaker 3: saying is, Okay, we will run more coal for longer,
Speaker 3: we will run more gas for longer, and then in
Speaker 3: due course, somewhere down the track they will come in
Speaker 3: with all this nuclear that will get us to net
Speaker 3: zero BO twenty fifty. Frankly, the thing that matters here
Speaker 3: is our overall emissions, what they call the carbon budget.
Speaker 3: And I haven't done the calculations, but it's hard to
Speaker 3: see how this will not put a big hole in
Speaker 3: our carbon budget. The other thing is there's a political
Speaker 3: consideration here. Of course, for Dutton and the Opposition, which
Speaker 3: is that there are still within the ranks of the
Speaker 3: coalition parties, particularly in the National Party, a bunch of
Speaker 3: people who don't even believe that climate is a thing.
Speaker 3: And there's a bunch more who are very reluctant to
Speaker 3: take the kinds of steps that are necessary. So as
Speaker 3: far as the politics of it is concerned, this is
Speaker 3: a very convenient thing for Peter Dutton because for those
Speaker 3: inner city liberals who realize their constituencies want something serious
Speaker 3: done about climate change, well they can say we will,
Speaker 3: but it will take a little while. And for those
Speaker 3: Nationals in the regions and others, they will say, yeah, well,
Speaker 3: you know, we've kicked the can down the road by
Speaker 3: ten or fifteen years and they can give a wink
Speaker 3: and not to their constituents. So it's a very neat
Speaker 3: political way of papering over divisions within the coalition and
Speaker 3: I think to a substantial extent that was always its intent.
Speaker 1: Mike, Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3: Thank you for yours.
Speaker 2: Also in the news today, a severe heat wave is
Speaker 2: set to continue across much of Australia until the middle
Speaker 2: of the week, with the Bureau of Meteorology issuing heat
Speaker 2: wave warnings for all states and territories on the mainland.
Speaker 2: The heat wave will hit Victoria and New South Wales today,
Speaker 2: where some inland areas may exceed forty five degrees and
Speaker 2: Kevin Andrews is being remembered as a Conservative warrior and
Speaker 2: loyal colleague after he died on Friday following a year
Speaker 2: long battle with cancer. MPs across the political spectrum have
Speaker 2: shared statements of condolences for Andrews, who represented the seat
Speaker 2: of Mensies in Melbourne for over three decades and served
Speaker 2: at various times as Minister for Defense, Social Services, Immigration
Speaker 2: and Workplace Relations. Hen Ruby Jones, this is seven am.
Speaker 1: It's hee tomorrow