Leader of The Nationals David Littleproud's interview on Sky News
LAURA JAYES
Well the Liddell Power Station in New South Wales will start to shut down on Wednesday of this week, and there could be knock on effects for the whole east coast market. Joining me live now is The Nationals leader David Littleproud. Great to see you once again. The ACCC doesn't seem overly concerned about Liddell, but I guess the caveat here is that supply is, seemingly okayed until 2025 is the question for you. What happens after that?
DAVID LITTLEPROUD
Well, it is, and it's what we're doing now, and it's what we've done particularly over the last 12 months, the opportunity that this government has missed in increasing supply, not just in coal. And you've got to appreciate that these companies are making commercial decisions in shutting down coal fired power stations because of the increase in renewables. You’ve got to keep coal fired power stations going 24/7, but when you get renewables come into it, it's not as competitive. And so these companies are making commercial decisions, but what you do need to make renewables work is this thing called firming.
And firming needs to come through gas in particular, which we already have. And this government has wasted nearly 12 months of opportunity in increasing gas supply to continue to drive down prices. And this is the challenge we're going to face, not just in 2025.
We're facing it now. Our prices have gone up because the investment confidence is lost in the gas industry. Investment decisions are being made with coal fired power stations, but this transition that they're trying to put us on has been a reckless one that hasn't been thought through the practical realities of what is needed to maintain reliable energy, but more importantly, affordable energy. And this is where the government has missed the opportunity, and they need to re-engage very quickly with gas companies and re-engage with a mature conversation about our future opportunities like small scale modular nuclear that could be plugged in where these existing coal fire power stations are going.
And we won't need the extra 28,000 kilometres of new transmission lines that they're currently going to ask you to pay for.
LAURA JAYES
Well, it would be remiss of me, not to point out that this decision about Liddell was actually made when you were in government and when there was a conservative government in power in New South Wales.
DAVID LITTLEPROUD
Totally. And we made a commitment to net zero by 2050. We made a pathway to that net zero. But what this government did was accelerate that because they've said that there is now a linear pathway, to 2030 commitments of 43 per cent.
LAURA JAYES
So are you saying the Federal Albanese government accelerated this or the current Minns government did, because the timeline was always the same, wasn't it?
DAVID LITTLEPROUD
No. The investment decisions that are being made that are sending these signals to companies about saying, that they are going to actually have to move out because we are going to have 82 per cent of our energy, in renewables by 2030.
They're making commercial decisions. We made one. And that's why, AGL made that decision by 2050, and it came on the age of the asset. So as you see some of these older assets, they will go sooner.
But what this has the potential to do is, what I'm saying is, send the commercial decisions and investment confidence into directions that we're not ready for.
LAURA JAYES
But didn't this is have the opportunity, didn't you have the opportunity to intervene here and you didn't on Liddell with AGL?
DAVID LITTLEPROUD
Well, again, this was about us on the other side, increasing gas supply. We didn't put in place mechanisms of price caps that the Albanese government did. That's taken away investment confident in gas. We never had a problem like this. We could transition, the way that we could do sensibly, in keeping affordable energy because we were increasing gas, we were increasing that firming supply. While the commercial decisions of AGL and others are coming through, that's the common sense approach to making sure that you can reduce emissions.
But make sure that you have affordable energy. And this is where the opportunity's been lost, and we're now scrambling when you've seen, a billion dollar project just west of me here, gone, that was going put an extra 10 per cent of gas supply into the east coast market to firm up what's happening with renewables, but also have a mature conversation about the emerging technologies that are coming. Those are the decisions this government has made and the demonization of the gas industry that's coming back to bite them. Now we're just saying, if you're going to have this and accelerate these policies beyond our international commitment, then you've got to make sure there's a practical reality about how you implement it.
LAURA JAYES
In the last 24 hours or so, Germany has just officially shut its last three nuclear reactors. So in a decade it's gone from 17 to zero. Everyone's aware of the, the energy pressures that are going on in Germany. They're essentially relying on Russia. And that has been a huge political problem with your call for nuclear here. How do you square that with what has happened in Germany?
DAVID LITTLEPROUD
Well, I wouldn't look at Germany as the gold star when seven other European nations in the EU are actually increasing their nuclear energy output. So what they're also looking at is old nuclear technology. We're saying, let's peek over the Pacific. Let's look at the emerging new technology, the small scale modular nuclear technology that will help make renewables work. We've even had a finished green member here last week telling the Australian government that we should have a nuclear industry.
And we are not like Germany. We have sovereignty of all our resources, whether it be gas, whether it be uranium. And so we can see whether this technology can emerge, but let's have the practical, honest conversation. And I sense that the only reason the Prime Minister knocked back my request to have a National Energy summit when I first became The Nationals leader, was because he knows that there is just too much division in his own party about nuclear energy. You don't have to look at how they're tearing themselves apart on submarines. Proudly, the Liberals have been able to show our level of maturity and come with us now, but let's have that honest conversation about the sovereignty of our assets that we've got to in, in giving us reliable energy that reduces our emissions.
That's common sense, and that's what The Nationals are saying we want to take to Canberra and have that conversation.
LAURA JAYES
Okay. One final question here. We've seen Marion Scrymgour this morning, a Senator that I know that both sides have great respect for. She is such an important voice in what happens in the Northern Territory, particularly when it comes to the protection of children. This morning, she has written a considered opinion piece where she's called for a Queensland style intervention where families who neglect and abuse children and have found to have done that, have their income managed.
They basically have their finances managed by the state. What do you think of that intervention for Marion Scrymgour this morning and does it work in Queensland?
DAVID LITTLEPROUD
Yeah, and this is shown real courage for Marion to break from the Labor fold, because normally that ends in expulsion. So good on her for having the courage, but understanding what's happening on the ground. These types of measures are things that have worked to a degree in Queensland and can continue to work in other jurisdictions. And I think for Marion to call out her own Northern Territory Labor government took the courage and conviction of understanding what's needed on the ground, the practical solutions. So whether that's income management, but that's also about us, I think revisiting the lines in the sand about when is that trigger point that they can go back to their families or next of kin.
I think we need to have honest conversations and we've got to get back to first principles. The first principle should be the safety of a child. The innocence of that child should be kept at every cost. We have to look at the policies and procedures have been put in place that Jacinta Price has been talking about for some time, and now Marion, about what actually practically can work. And this is the problem that we see, is that we get a lot of good intentions from city bureaucrats that don't have the lived experience of what's happening on the ground. And we're just saying, please stop, listen, understand and learn because there are people's lives at risk.
