Interview with Sky News, First Edition

PETER STEFANOVIC: Well, Anthony Albanese has hired the divisive former Liberal Treasurer of NSW, Matt Kean, to chair the Climate Change Authority out of Canberra. Joining us live now is the Regional Development Minister, Kristy McBain. Minister, good to see you this morning. Is this the Prime Minister playing politics here just to annoy the opposition? Or is it for the betterment of the nation's climate creds?

KRISTY MCBAIN: The only one that's got a political overlay or lens on this is probably Barnaby Joyce, given the number of comments he's made on this over the last 24 hours. What it does is try to put politics aside, and say we should be working together, a bipartisan approach to climate change to deal with the energy transition that's in front of us.

STEFANOVIC: Yeah, but Matt Kean was a supporter of nuclear while he was in the state government, but now he's getting paid handsomely by the federal government. He's changed his tune. So, does that pass the pub test?

MCBAIN: When you look at his comments made in 2021, he also talks about making sure that you could do it cost effectively and timely. All the data now shows us that you cannot do nuclear energy in Australia. It is not cost effective, it is decades away and it will end up pushing up power prices in the interim. Fifteen years and beyond for the cost of nuclear. His comments have been sound, and if you actually review them in their entirety, that's exactly the comments he made in 2021.

STEFANOVIC: On the nuclear debate, and from a regional perspective, which brings in your portfolio, how do you feel about the nuclear push?

MCBAIN: It's a real slap in the face to a number of regional communities who weren't consulted, who weren't asked about this approach, who weren't talked to about the seven locations. I get rightly frustrated when we see renewable companies go through a tick the box community consultation exercise. It's one of the things that we've seen in regional communities. It's why our Energy Minister, Chris Bowen, had Andrew Dyer do that community consultation report. We've adopted all the recommendations of that and put $20 million behind it in the last budget to say community consultation needs to be better. The National Party and the Liberal Party are treating regional people like mugs by saying, here, you're going to have this in your backyard, without a word of consultation. None of the councils were consulted. No regional person was consulted about what they felt like. From my experience, that is absolutely ridiculous. You've got local Mayors saying, no one told us about this. I'm originally from the Latrobe Valley in Gippsland and it’s beyond ridiculous that you've got communities that have been through some pretty tough transitions already, one that my dad was a part of in the nineties at Loy Yang, and not a word of consultation with those communities. The Liberal and National party stood in Sydney of all places, to announce the location of seven reactor sites. Ted O'Brien's been to the Hunter, but he didn't tell anyone, didn't do any interviews and god knows who he met with. If you're serious about doing something, then go and actually talk to the people that you're wanting to impose these locations on. 

STEFANOVIC: Right. The Opposition says that there was consultation, though, and according to its own research, in the areas of the proposed sites, there was 50 per cent to 60 per cent of support for nuclear in those areas that were selected. So, might you be wrong on that point?

MCBAIN: Go and ask the Mayor of Lithgow. I was out there last month. She's been pretty heavily in the media saying no one spoke to them. If you go and speak to the Mayor of South Burnett Council in Queensland, no one spoke to them. If you go and speak to the Mayor of Gladstone, no one spoke to them. It's a furphy that the Opposition are going to throw out there. We still don't know what it'll cost. We still don't know whether these reactors can even plug into the grid at these locations. We still have no idea how many reactors there will be, and we still have no idea when they'll actually come online or where the waste will go. If the Opposition wants to give any detail and then go back and do some polling in those communities, I'd be all ears to hear it.

STEFANOVIC: On the question of costs, the Prime Minister and the Energy Minister, for that matter. They've criticised Coalition plans to retain ownership of any nuclear plants. But is it not true that the Federal Government already has full ownership of Snowy Hydro, plus presumably, the transmission lines to service current and future solar wind farms, which would exceed the costs of wind and solar farms themselves?

MCBAIN: If you have a look at the transmission lines in NSW, for example, we don't own any of those transmission lines, because the former Coalition NSW state government leased them out for 99 years. There is a wholly owned subsidiary company of the Federal Government that owns Snowy 2.0, but again, renewables are still the cheapest form of energy going into the grid. You don't have to take my word for it. AEMO and CSIRO do a gencost report every year. This isn't just one that's come out because the Coalition government have a nuclear fantasy. It comes out every year. Every year it has said that nuclear is the most expensive form of energy. We're talking about seven nuclear power plants across the country, which in the end equates to about 3 per cent of the grid. This is a hell of a lot of cost for not a big return to the community, and we're still talking 15 to 20 years away.

STEFANOVIC: Okay. Kristy McBain, appreciate your time this morning. Thank you. We'll talk to you again.