TRANSCRIPT - ABC Afternoon Briefing with Greg Jennett

PAUL FLETCHER MP

Shadow Minister for Science and the Arts

Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy

Manager of Opposition Business in the House

TRANSCRIPT

ABC Afternoon Briefing 

20 JUNE 2024

Greg Jennett: Well, as we said at the beginning of the program today we have more questions than we have time for answers on nuclear power, it being only about 30 hours ago now that the Coalition showed its hand with this policy. But let's get through what we can with Liberal frontbencher, including someone with shadow responsibility for science as it turns out, Paul Fletcher. 

He joins us now from Sydney. Paul, welcome back to the program. It's hard to go past nuclear, so let's launch straight into it. Some Liberal colleagues of yours today, Rowan Ramsey among them, made it clear that holding back costings was a deliberate decision yesterday, so people had a chance to digest the seven selected sites. Can you confirm it's not that the figures haven't been prepared, it's that the information was in fact held back for tactical purposes. That's why we don't have the costings?

Paul Fletcher: Well, what I can confirm is that the Coalition's been going through a measured, careful, detailed process of developing our policy in relation to nuclear power, including extensive overseas visits and studies and work. 

And of course, that's been key to the approach of identifying that the preferred locations are, places which have or have recently had existing coal fired power stations, because that means, number one, there's available water for cooling. Number two, there's a workforce with skills and aptitude in energy. And number three, critically connected to transmission lines, which means that when you build a new power plant there, you don't need to be building new transmission lines. Compared to Labor's plan, which involves 28,000 kilometres of new transmission lines all across the country, poles and wires everywhere, that'll be a very long, cumbersome, expensive process.

Now, will we have more to say about the economics of this? Yes, we will, but what we wanted to do was demonstrate to the Australian people the very careful thinking that's gone into the prospective locations. And of course, what we also talked about was the community consultation model that we're going to engage in with those communities.

Greg Jennett: I do want to talk to you about consultation, one very quick one on costings, because it's obvious to me, Paul Fletcher, you're not going to be giving those to us today, but a process question. You do have as an Opposition, the services of the Parliamentary Budget Office at your disposal. Have you requested assistance and costings from them on this policy?

Paul Fletcher: Look, we've sought advice from a whole range of sources, global experts, and it is remarkable, frankly, how ill-informed some of the comments are from, Labor politicians who don't really seem to understand. Just listening to Pat Conroy there, you know, every other country that has nuclear powered submarines also has a domestic nuclear industry.

And it makes a lot of sense as you build out the university courses in nuclear engineering that will be required and all of the expertise that will be developed, the regulatory capacity, it makes a lot of sense to be having civil nuclear in parallel with nuclear powered submarines.

Greg Jennett All right, let's go to consultation. Since you raised it, there's been a bit of variance between Coalition front benchers and back over where decision making starts and consultation ends for a Dutton Government. Do you agree with David Littleproud that, quote, “the tough decisions and the burden of responsibility need to fall on government in making decisions”. So is the formation of a coalition government, the one and only green light you in your own mind believe you have to obtain?

Paul Fletcher: Well again, if you look at the materials that we've put out and the things we've been saying, we've given a lot of focus to community consultation. We've allocated time periods for that -over two years to engage in a staged, detailed community consultation process with community advisory committees. But we've also talked about some of the very tangible benefits that communities will receive, including of course, the availability of reliable, affordable, baseload power as a major factor in then attracting industrial facilities, data centres, advanced manufacturing facilities.

We've talked about regional deals. Now we've got a track record in doing this. I was minister for cities and urban infrastructure. We did city deals around the country. We also did regional deals. And what you do there is you have a staged process of consultation with community leaders.

You understand what the key community needs are, what the priorities are, and that's a tool that will again be part of our armoury as we work through the process of building community consensus around the provision of nuclear power stations.

Greg Jennett: Ok, but if that consensus can't be built, is dropping one of the sites in the face of intense community opposition an option?

Paul Fletcher: Well, I think it's really premature here to be presuming failure. We will be putting a lot of effort into the community consultation. We've allocated a lot of time for it. In contrast, I might say to Mister M Bowen's rushed and frankly, in many cases failed processes which have got regional communities around Australia deeply resentful of having wind farms or transmission lines imposed on them without consent.

We will be going through a careful process and the essence of the process will be making the point to communities that with abundant economic power comes major opportunities to attract new economic activity, new businesses, new industrial facilities, data centres, high tech facilities, because power is the critical enabler of economic activity today.

And in a world of abundant data, in a world of artificial intelligence, in a world of ever increasing computer power, the importance of electric power to drive all of that, as well as to support our electric vehicles and everything else electric, is only going to get more important. You couldn't think of a more important enabler for economic activity in regional centres around Australia.

And that is why we think through that extensive period of community consultation time that we've allowed for, we will be able to win significant community support well.

Greg Jennett: That's the challenge that lies ahead of you. Can I try and draw you out on a broader understanding of the financing options available here, even if we don't get to the dollars today? Paul Fletcher, the proposal is to create a government business enterprise, a nuclear corporation very similar to the NBN Co. and you would be familiar with that as a former communications minister, will government be the sole owner of all shares in the nuclear corporation?

Paul Fletcher: Well you're right, I am certainly very familiar with the NBN model, which, as you rightly say, has government owning 100% of the shares. Although I might also make the point. It was then able to go to the private sector debt market and raise around 30 billion in debt. A correction, over $20 billion, I should say, but many billions in debt, and then also, of course, over time, to repay that debt out of the revenues that were generated from the business.

But there's another interesting parallel, I'd suggest, which is Western Sydney Airport, which the Coalition took from concept, we took a decision in 2014. By the time we left government, it was very well advanced. Now, we set it up as a government business enterprise, WSACO, 100% owned by the commonwealth.

And one of the reasons we did that was because we believed it was best placed to manage the regulatory risk in the case of the airport flight paths and other matters. And a similar argument applies in relation to nuclear power.

But I do make the point. It's very important to make the point. It will be run on commercial lines, it will be generating revenue, it will be charging users for power, just like AGL and Origin energy and other businesses do today.

Greg Jennett: So when would it return a dividend then? If it's commercial, if it's generating income, when would it return a dividend to its owners the government?

Paul Fletcher: Well one of the realities of capital intensive businesses, Greg, and I say this, having been an executive in one of them for many years and having worked on others of them as Communications Minister, as Urban Infrastructure Minister, one of the realities of capital intensive businesses is you put in a lot of capital upfront and then it takes quite a long time before you are able to generate a return.

Decades because of the cost, the time and cost of building, and then being able to come to operation. But that is not an unusual feature of nuclear power. The same is true of broadband networks. It took a long time between the NBN starting construction before it started to generate revenue.

Greg Jennett: One final question then, because it is opposite to the NBN code comparison, there was a latent plan by the coalition to one day privatise NBN code. Didn't happen, obviously, but would the plan be for the nuclear corporation to one day be privatised?

Paul Fletcher: We've been very clear this will be in government ownership. We've also been very clear we'll have more to say about it. But the point I make is that this is not by any means an unprecedented structure for a government to use either a Labor government or a coalition government.

And we'll have plenty more to say, so people will be able to understand the details. But what we wanted to start with was the nature of the locations that we intend and the nature of the very detailed community consultation process we'll go through so that we can make a case to regional communities that this will deliver them significant economic benefits.

And it will also deliver our nation a source of reliable, affordable, long term power.

Greg Jennett: Well, it's certainly complicated stuff. Financially, politically, economically, technically, scientifically. That means we'll have many more questions to ask. We're only scratching the surface here. Paul Fletcher, not sure how we went with the answers, but you gave us, plenty to get on with. We appreciate that, and we'll talk soon.

Paul Fletcher: Good on you. Thanks, Greg.