COMMITTEES

Mr RICK WILSON (O'Connor) (17:20): I acknowledge, as I follow on from the member for Moreton, that that was possibly his last contribution in this place. He is just about quota-ed out; another couple of days. That probably isn't going to be one of your best contributions, unfortunately.

I don't think it will age well. To the chair of the committee, the member for Hunter, I thank you for bringing the committee to Collie, in my electorate. It was good to give the people of Collie, and certainly some experts that appeared before the committee, the opportunity to have some input into the findings of the committee.

Having looked at the evidence and looked at what was received, I find it difficult to see how the committee arrived at its conclusion, but it is the privilege of the chair to direct the secretariat to produce the report at the end of the day. My good friend the member for Cook, who has only been in this place a little bit over 12 months, said during his contribution this morning that he came in here naively thinking that these committees were about going out, gathering evidence, considering that evidence in an unbiased and balanced way and then coming up with a conclusion that is supported by the evidence and in the best interests of the nation.

But he was sadly disillusioned by the way that things panned out. I think back to my own experiences. I'm the deputy chair of the Standing Committee on Agriculture.

In the middle of last year we had a report on live exports that was delivered that certainly wasn't backed up by the evidence that the committee heard over the period of its work. I return to the issue at hand, which is the potential for nuclear energy in this country and how it might solve some of the issues that we're confronting, which include some of the highest energy costs in the world, which are up to three times higher than equivalent jurisdictions.

The Labor Party has never revealed the true cost of its renewables-only plan through to 2050, and not even the market operator could advise the House Select Committee on Nuclear Energy of the total system cost of the renewables-only plan, but we do see the cost to businesses and households soaring, with an up to $1,300 increase in the last three years alone, and, as I said, the highest energy costs of any similar jurisdiction in the world.

No evidence was presented to the inquiry to challenge the Frontier Economics report, which put a price tag of $642 billion on the Labor Party's plan, and that's before factoring in the billions more for transmission lines, land acquisition and storage. Of course, the $642 billion—for those people from Western Australia who may watch this video—didn't include Western Australia; that's the eastern market grid.

Western Australia, with the South West Interconnected System, is separate from that. In November last year it was quite revealing on ABC's Country Hour when Jai Thomas, the coordinator of energy for a WA government initiative called Powering WA, estimated that the level of investment required for the WA system would be—and this is a direct quote—'in the order of $200 billion over the next 20 to 25 years'.

That's just for the WA system, so that's on top of the eastern market over here. In comparison, the total system cost of the coalition's plan to transform the entire National Electricity Market through to 2050, including nuclear energy, is $331 billion. This includes transmission lines, renewables, gas and nuclear.

The nuclear part of the equation is around $120 billion, with nuclear making up 38 per cent of a balanced energy mix. Labor's 100 per cent renewables-only plan, by comparison, is 44 per cent more expensive and does not provide any firming baseload power for when the sun does not shine and the wind doesn't blow. The House Select Committee on Nuclear Energy visited Collie, the site for a proposed small modular reactor, in my electorate.

I thank all those who took the time to make a submission or give evidence to the committee. Collie has long been the energy capital of Western Australia, with several coal-fired power plants delivering reliable electricity to large parts of Western Australia through the comprehensive transmission network which radiates out of Collie. Collie also produces the electricity for the nearby Worsley Alumina refinery, which supports over 2,000 jobs.

The good people of Collie and surrounds have a high degree of energy literacy. If they haven't worked in the coalmines or in the power plants, they've have been involved in other industries dependent on the reliable energy produced in Collie and are most accustomed to wages commensurate with their skills. They're all concerned about their employment, particularly given that the WA state government plans to close down the coalmines and the Muja power plant in 2029.

I know the Labor Party think they're on a political winner here, but we did see in the Queensland election that they gave up on trying to run the scare campaign after a few weeks. In the recent WA election—which, I'll be the first to admit, wasn't great for the WA Liberal Party—it was very revealing that in the seat of Collie-Preston, which is a Labor town and a union town, there was a 19 per cent two-party preferred swing against Jodie Hanns, who led the scare campaign on behalf of Labor in WA.

The member for Perth popped up with the odd cameo performance, but it's mainly been the member for Collie-Preston running the scare campaign. The swing against the sitting member on the primary vote was 20 per cent. I'm just not that sure that this is the political winner, particularly in the town of Collie, that people think it is.

Mr Laxale: It was 22.9 per cent. Mr RICK WILSON: Sorry? Do you want to quote the numbers to me?

Mr Laxale: I was looking at the results. You only got 22.9 per cent. Mr RICK WILSON: What's the two-party preferred swing?

It's 20 per cent. We have a preferential voting system, in case you hadn't noticed. You might notice come election day.

The interest in nuclear energy in my electorate is not just confined to Collie. In fact, in the city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, which is at the end of a 600-kilometre transmission line which has regularly had power blackouts—in February 2024 the power was out for up to a week for some residents there—they are crying out for a nuclear power plant. Mr Repacholi: Was it transmission issues?

Mr RICK WILSON: Yes, it was transmission issues. Mr Repacholi: It was transmission issues, so it was nothing to do with the power plant. Mr RICK WILSON: But, if you have a power plant in Kalgoorlie, then you don't have the transmission issues.

You can send it back down the line, Dan. Mr Repacholi interjecting— Mr RICK WILSON: Am I able to speak here? The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Scrymgour ): Yes.

Mr RICK WILSON: When the Leader of the Opposition came to Diggers and Dealers in Kalgoorlie in August last year to meet with mining industry people, as we drove into town, there was a banner on one of the main intersections on Hannan Street. The banner said 'Kalgoorlie-Boulder welcomes Peter Dutton and welcomes nuclear energy'. There are towns out there and there are people across my electorate who welcome nuclear energy because they can see the benefits of it.

But it's not only that; in the seat of O'Connor, we've got three uranium deposits—Australia does mine uranium; we export it to the rest of the world—that are waiting to be exploited. One of them, Deep Yellow's Mulga Rock, is permitted and ready to go. They are in the process of preparing that mine for operation.

So we will see uranium being mined in O'Connor. It'll be trucked through Kalgoorlie and then through to South Australia, where it will be exported out of the Port of Adelaide, which is already accredited. We export a significant amount of uranium out of Adelaide.

An honourable member interjecting— Mr RICK WILSON: That's right. So we mine uranium and we export it. But not only that; we have an extraordinary storage site in the electorate of O'Connor at Sandy Ridge, which is about halfway between Coolgardie and Southern Cross.

It's one of the most geologically stable parts of the planet's surface. It is fully permitted. It is permitted to accept low-level nuclear waste.

There was the planned site in South Australia at Kimba which fell over, but the site at Sandy Ridge is permanent to take low-level nuclear waste and is ready to go.