TIM AYRES: Well in the in the shadow of Christmas, after six months of evading scrutiny, Peter Dutton, is going to release his costings for the most expensive form of power that Australia could produce. This is clearly just a political document. It's a political document that is designed to assist this tissue of lies that Peter Dutton is trying to create around nuclear.

It is utterly irresponsible – in the midst of all of the cost-of-living challenges that Australian families are facing, to launch a strategy which will push power prices up, which will increase costs for ordinary households and increase costs for Australian business. This policy, if implemented in a future Dutton government, would lead to $1,200 increases at the very least – at the very least in Australian household electricity bills – would lead to reliability problems, would lead to disinvestment in the energy system and the industrial system more broadly.

Let me make a couple of points about what we know about Mr. Dutton’s flawed, arrogant, and reckless nuclear plan. We know that it will push prices up for ordinary Australians in the middle of the cost-of-living crisis, and we know that it will lead to disinvestment in the electricity system and in manufacturing. That makes it harder for households. There's going to be a blizzard of numbers – that there will be numbers from the tips of your toes to your nose in the lead up to Christmas.

There are two numbers that Australians need to focus on, $1,200 increase in electricity bills and secondly, let's just use our common sense about this program. The same people who said that Snowy 2.0 – Malcolm Turnbull and Barnaby Joyce's plan – the same people that said Snowy 2.0 would cost $2 billion dollars now have to reckon with the fact that the program is hopelessly over budget, hopelessly over time, and at best, will cost Australians $12 billion. Similar nuclear programs across the Western world, hopelessly over budget, hopelessly over time and what this plan requires is utterly improbable extensions of life of coal fired power stations that have already announced their closure that will cost billions and billions of dollars to maintain. There is not a single day over the last 300 days where one of these power stations hasn't had an unplanned outage. So, what this means is reliability changes costs going up for households, and it means that ordinary Australians will pay the price.

Common sense is a key issue here. If a plan is going to cost everybody twice as much, it will cost Australians as taxpayers, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars to build these nuclear power plants, and then it will cost them hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars as electricity consumers, then it is a bad plan. I do just want to make one small observation, as the Assistant Minister for Future Made in Australia, what is clear already from the material, scant material, that has been released, is It is that this dodgy, reckless, arrogant plan relies upon reduced electricity use growth in Australia. What does that mean? It means less manufacturing. It means less investment in energy intensive manufacturing, precisely the areas of Australia's future comparative advantage. Precisely the areas where there should be, with proper leadership, good jobs growth in our regions and suburbs. So, the party that pushed the automotive industry offshore, costing 40,000 jobs, now wants to deter future investment, and now wants to lead a rush of manufacturing jobs offshore. This this plan is bad for cost of living. It's bad for electricity prices. It's bad for the competitors of Australia business, particularly Australia manufacturing.

Journalist: The Prime Minister is saying that renewables will only account for 50% of our energy needs [in the Opposition’s nuclear costings], driving costs up, what do you say?

TIM AYRES Well, that is one of the weirder claims that I thought, that I've seen been made. Let's wait to see how they sort of re-engineer that claim – I suspect over the course of the next few hours – that renewable energy target will be realised the year after next. So, the Coalition, wants to reduce low-cost renewables and storage in the system, increase coal-fired power stations, most of which announced their closure when they were in government and to introduce the most expensive form of power, which will cost hundreds of billions of dollars, but only at best, capture 4% of Australia's energy electricity requirements. This is a plan for disinvestment. Disinvestment means firms that would have built factories here, are building factories overseas, disinvestment means a less reliable electricity system. Disinvestment means fewer good jobs, and it means higher power prices for ordinary Australians.

Journalist: So, Frontier Economics announced new costings based on their projections regarding both energy plans, the projections for Labor's renewable energy plan was $50 billion lower than the projections they put out last month. That seems like a lot of money. Is it possible that they either miscalculated, or is it possible that these numbers might not be as accurate as the Coalition wants to claim they are?

TIM AYRES Well, it just underlines that this is a dodgy process. This is a political document that's taken six months from the announcement to now finally be released. It will be full of holes because it's constructed on a bed of sand. This will be out there with, remember the “Back in Black” mugs that they released when they claimed they would have a budget surplus? This will just be another paperweight of lies in a few weeks’ time, when it becomes apparent how dodgy these cost estimates are, and if Peter Dutton is elected as Prime Minister, it will be ordinary Australians who pay the price.

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ENDS.