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Hello and welcome, dear listener.

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Yes, the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove podcast, episode 433, coming

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to you on the 24th of June, 2024.

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I'm Trevor, aka The Iron Fist.

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With me as always, Joe the Tech Guy.

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How are you, Joe?

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Evening all.

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Yes.

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We don't have Scott.

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Scott is working hard this evening.

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So keeping that private school accounts, uh, keeping those private school accounts.

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In order, no doubt, making sure that every government dollar is

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extracted as much as possible.

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I think that's what he's up to.

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Anyway, uh, Scott, good morning to you as you're listening to us on your morning

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walk, which will effectively be tomorrow.

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Well, dear listener, I reckon we'll probably just do an episode on Peter

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Dutton's nuclear Now I don't want to say policy, folly, folly, thought bubble, it

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is an exaggeration to call this a policy and the ruckus that it's caused and let's

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just talk about it and it's so instructive of where our politics is at, where our,

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our population is at in its ability to understand topics and its tribalism.

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And, you know, it's really going to be a good examination of our capacity as

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a community to call out bullshit when we see it, call out obvious crap, and

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if we can't do that on what is a really simple decision, then, Lord help us,

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Joe, um, maybe not the best expression.

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We saw this in 2016 with Trump, didn't we?

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Yeah,

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what are you thinking exactly there?

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The

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more egregious the lie, the more the press were falling over themselves to repeat it.

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Yes, yeah.

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So, let's get something straight right from the get go with nuclear energy.

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Joe and I were just talking about this prior to going live.

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In certain countries, it may well be a very good decision.

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to fire up and create nuclear reactors.

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Like it may make perfect sense if you don't have the ability to use wind

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turbines and, and solar energy and you don't have access to those things.

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And your other peculiar circumstances of industry or other requirements

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might make it a sensible thing.

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But not here.

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I, I think 60 years ago maybe that was the case.

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I don't even think he in Europe these days.

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It is.

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Yeah.

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I don't know.

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I, I, I just, so I, you know, I'm not against nuclear power in that sense.

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Like I'm completely agnostic about it in the sense I don't have

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particular fears about danger.

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I don't have, I, I grew up in the shadow of nuclear power station.

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Yep, I don't have particular fears about the waste storage,

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particularly in Australia with fairly stable, um, you know, we

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don't have earthquakes and whatnot.

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It's just the economics of it.

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It's so obvious that our economics means that it doesn't make sense.

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And that's the incredible part about all this.

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Um, we'll see where we get to.

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You were about to say something else then, or not?

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Oh, it was just, um, there was something about one of the power stations,

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because they're talking about converting some of the power, the coal fired

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stations, sites, uh, of the seven that have been picked, and one of them,

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it was mentioned, was actually in Australia's highest area of earthquakes.

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Oh, was it?

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Okay.

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So it wasn't a particularly good choice, but I think it's still relatively low

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compared to Japan, which does have.

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nuclear and despite Fukushima, uh, the actual impact to the, um, the

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population has been relatively little, given that they've been running nuclear

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power plants for what, 60, 70 years?

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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So it's, it's an amazing sort of case study that we can use on

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the state of Australian politics, looking at this whole, um, issue.

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So, so, um, . Before we get onto that, Joe, just a quick bit of homework.

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I did a a, a video last week about Joe Biden and the Parachuters and how he

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sort of wandered off to the side and to

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talk to another, to a guy who was backing up a shoot.

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Yes.

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And which was the

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video that you showed

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kind of Yeah.

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The video was kind of, there are videos going around that

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are kind of clipped and right.

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So the spokespeople for Biden are saying that, that these videos have been altered

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and they're cheap fakes and that there was a perfectly good explanation for him for

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the way he wandered off from the crowd and

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What did you think?

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Is it still,

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it's still an odd behavior.

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He does look like a dazed old man when he's guided back.

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Yes Um, I don't think it was quite as bad as was made out by The right wing press.

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Yes.

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But I think they're both in their dotage.

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Yes.

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So, so some of the videos, I'm not sure the one I showed, um, whether

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it showed the guy, it did show the guy packing his parachute.

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It was certainly odd behaviour and there are some videos which are edited in

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that they cut off some of the vision.

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But in any event, I think, uh, Joe is sliding into a type of dementia

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that doesn't look particularly good.

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So anyway, just mention that as an aside as a bit of homework.

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Um, thanks for, um, He wouldn't be the first

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president to die in office.

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How many have died in office?

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Um, FDR at the very least.

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I think there have been, uh, what's his name, Lincoln was assassinated.

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Yes, Kennedy was assassinated, yeah.

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I think

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there was another one that was assassinated, wasn't

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there?

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Don't know, but um

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Further back in time.

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Yeah, certainly Reagan was in a dementia type state towards the end and was

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relying on cue cards and things like that.

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And, um, it was just being shuffled along as an old man.

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So

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he was an actor.

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He was used to it.

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Yeah.

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Alison's in the chat room.

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Hello Alison and Landon Hardbottom is there and John Simmons as well.

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So good on you folks.

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Right.

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Let's talk a bit.

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Um, This whole Dutton and his nuclear thought bubble.

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Ah, Joe, I've been listening to different arguments as people mount them on left

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wing or even neutral sort of sides, thinking ABC here, thinking Labor Party

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members as they're talking about it.

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One of the things that came up was that there was a sort of initially

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Labor was concentrating on the dangers of nuclear and there were memes

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being passed around showing mutations of people and things like that.

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And that just made it easy for the pro Dutton camp to say, stupid Labor,

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raising unnecessary fear mongering.

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This is a safe technology.

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It was, it was an arc of.

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You know, of all the things you could complain about with his

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policy, that was way down the list.

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And I watched, uh, the 7.

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30 report.

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Two episodes where they were, um, sort of dealing with this topic.

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And, um, Basically, in the two episodes on the 7.

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30 report on ABC, there was no mention of the levelised cost of energy report

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showing that nuclear is expensive in Australia compared to the other options.

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That would be

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too useful.

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Exactly.

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What we got was old men living in the electorates where there's currently coal

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fired stations That would be the likely spots for nuclear power stations, and

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this would create jobs in their community.

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You do know what generates large levels of radiation in the community, don't you?

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What's that?

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Coal fired power stations.

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Yeah, right.

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No, I didn't, but it doesn't surprise me, right?

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Yeah, yeah.

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Coal emits radiation?

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Coal has small amounts of radiation in it, and as you burn it off, uh,

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the small specks of radioactive dust go up the chimney and fall

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out in the surrounding area.

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Right.

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So there are actually higher levels of radiation around a coal

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fired power station than there are outside a nuclear power station.

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Well, all these 7.

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30 reports didn't care, Joe.

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They just went to the, to these, um, well, they're really

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rural areas, I guess, I guess.

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And, and found old men and said, what do you reckon?

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Would you be happy with a nuclear power site here?

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And guys with only a decade or two left in their lifespans, still

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running businesses, were going, yeah, I'd be happy to have one here.

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And because Joe, because they wanted the jobs, they wanted the

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economy, they wanted the, um, the infrastructure, the spending, they

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wanted people to stay in their community.

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And they had no idea of the relative cost of nuclear versus renewables.

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If it was

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the right technology, I wouldn't have a problem with nuclear.

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Yeah.

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The problem is it's not the right technology.

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Yep.

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But these guys were seeing it from the point of view of, well our

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community could use some jobs.

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And if this is offering jobs, then great.

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They were totally without any knowledge of the merits in terms

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of, of the cost compared to other.

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I do think that's been the other problem, is we haven't offered a viable answer

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for the communities that are going to be hit by the shutting down of coal mining.

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Yes.

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We haven't said, here is our plan for the future, this is how we move to renewables,

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these are the jobs we're going to create.

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Thank you very much.

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Uh, this is how we're going to take your expertise and leverage it.

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Yeah, like maybe construct, uh, solar farms, uh, wind farms, um, uh, the,

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the water dams that are required, you know, the lower dam, the upper

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dam for the sort of the storage.

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Yeah, the pumped hydro.

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These sorts of things could be done maybe in those areas if they're

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suitable, but you know what?

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I don't know.

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If the areas just aren't suitable for that, then they're just not suitable.

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If it's flat, if it's not windy, um, maybe it's just not suitable.

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Um, and you have to move.

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Like sometimes people just have to move.

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It happens, it happens everywhere.

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Yeah.

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Ah.

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But there are other things.

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We can look at, um, green hydrogen.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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True.

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Um, So, so we can be a, a major source of green hydrogen that we

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can sell to the rest of the world.

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Yep.

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Uh, and we can also grow biodiesel.

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Yep.

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It may not happen in those electorates.

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It might have to be in other electorates for other reasons, but certainly overall

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that's, that's the possibilities.

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But,

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but I think regional areas.

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don't necessarily, even if it's not the same regional, it's not

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that everyone's going to be forced into the cities or whatever.

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Yes, a lot of that stuff, you're right, could definitely be in the regions.

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But Joe, just cost money, money, money, like when it comes to elections,

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the famous Clinton line was, you know, it's the economy stupid.

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Well, when it comes to a range of, of, Uh, energy sources.

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The fact that, the fact that the renewables are so much cheaper than

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nuclear should have been the first, second, third and last thing that

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every advocate should have said to these people because the people

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who are against this, Joe, money's their, usually their main motivation.

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Like.

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Yeah, but again, um.

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We, we come to the fact that renewables aren't 24 hour a day.

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Mm-Hmm.

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Uh, and I don't think it's been explained adequately to the public

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how we can have a solely renewable system that can cope 24 hours a

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day, seven days a week, 365 a year.

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Yeah.

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And I think that's the, that's the big missing piece is people are

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going, but what about my base load?

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And I, I have seen people, um, talking.

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Uh, very, very persuasively about that.

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The problem is these conversations are not being held in front

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of the average citizen.

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Exactly.

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We've talked about it here.

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We've gone through it and talked about Pumped Hydro and various reports that are

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available that make it perfectly feasible.

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And it's, um, it's a great system.

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And that sort of information, if you tell it to people, their eyes just pop out of

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their heads and go, I talk to people, you know, old boomers around here and say,

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you realise of course that renewables are so much cheaper than nuclear.

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And they just have no idea.

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Nobody's ever, from the information sources they have, they have no idea.

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And also They're taking their experiences.

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I mean, obviously Australia is an incredibly sunny country, but yeah,

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uh, we get an average of eight hours of sun a day in Brisbane, but that's,

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that's only a third of the day.

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Yes.

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Um, but what people don't realize is between Tasmania and the

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mainland are the Roaring Forties.

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Um,

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where the wind is so consistent Yep.

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That's sailors before the age of steam.

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regularly moved around the world using the wind.

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Yeah.

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You could run hydro, sorry not hydro, uh, wind there for probably

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60 70 percent of the time.

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Hmm.

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Um, so the wind is, yeah, the wind is going to blow in some part

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of Australia most of the time.

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Yes.

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Yep.

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Yep.

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So, um, I'm going to talk later about an article in the Sydney Morning

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Herald where Peter Fitzsimmons was interviewing an energy expert about this.

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But, um, uh, he made a really interesting point about wind power

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and I'm just going to try and find it here now if I can quickly find

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it, um, about how much is generated by, um, these offshore wind farms.

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So, yeah.

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The latest turbines tend to be offshore and the biggest of them are 15 megawatts

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in size, which provides 150 times more power than the first ones that they had.

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Just one turbine could power a town with a population of 5, 000 homes.

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It's incredible, isn't it?

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And he says here, a single rotation of the blades of a large wind turbine generates

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the same power as the solar panels on five homes would export in an entire day.

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These things are huge and their capacity to generate energy is massive.

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They're offshore.

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They're out of the way.

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They're a really good solution.

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Wind blows at night time.

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They're an amazing solution in conjunction with all, you know,

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photovoltaic, solar, and the um, and the storage that we've mentioned before.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, I mean, um, when I was back in France at Christmas, um, I was, up at

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a cliff on the northern part of France, and they've just opened up a brand new

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wind farm out there that's 496 megawatts.

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Yeah.

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So that's about the same size as a standard power station.

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The biggest power station I think here is one, just over a gigawatt.

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Yep.

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And this was half.

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Wow.

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Yep.

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Yeah.

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They're quite extraordinary, what's possible.

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The other thing about this, Joe, that just, It just amazes me that, uh, right

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wingers, Liberal Party, Rustadons, have, you know, are all for the nuclear

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because that's what their tribe's for, or their tribe leader has declared.

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And it goes against the fundamentals of what they normally go for.

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So it's, it's fully acknowledged by Dutton.

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That if this nuclear power, I don't want to call it policy, this thought

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bubble, requires the government to do it.

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It's not private enterprise.

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It's going to be a big government bureaucratic operation.

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And the people in favour of this are normally so pro free enterprise.

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You know, the market, free enterprise, you can't have government doing stuff

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because the government's always wasting money, you don't want large bureaucracy,

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and, and on this issue, those sort of fundamental liberal values are just thrown

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away, and all of a sudden they're happy to have a big government bureaucratic, um,

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monster created, building infrastructure that is notoriously corrupt.

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built over time and over budget.

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It's so

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counter to what they would

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normally

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want.

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Well, no, they, they want government funds going to private industry.

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Oh yes, of course.

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So this is government funds going to government industry.

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Well no, so you spin off a private company that's going to have shareholders.

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Yes.

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And it's going to be run by Peter Dudden's mates.

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Of

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course, it'll be sold off, privatised.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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Government will build it and then it'll be privatised.

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Yeah.

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In the meantime though, just the fundamentals, when they're looking

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for solutions for things, it's They always talk about the market and free

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enterprise and, and we've got heaps of free enterprise groups wanting

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to build renewable sort of options.

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Um, actually, I think it was, uh, who was it?

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Monique Ryan said, if only we lived in a country with lots of sparsely

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populated land, year round sunshine, endless windy coastlines, established

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solar, hydro and wind industries.

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And billions of dollars of private investment lined up and ready to go.

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You know, if only we

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had that.

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They've been lined up for a long time, but because of every time the, um, LNP

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get into power, they screw up whatever renewable incentives are out there.

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They're just unwilling to invest because they don't know what the

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next LNP government's going to do.

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Yeah.

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You know, 40 years ago, we could have had a booming renewable sector.

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But there's too much money floating around in certain other industries.

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Yeah.

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Um, in Crikey, some letters to the editor I think summed it up.

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There was a guy, Terry O'Hanlon, wrote, All Peter Dutton cares about

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is appearing to offer an alternative.

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He doesn't care if it's unrealistic or if there are federal and state laws in place.

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That'll make it impractical or even impossible.

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It's likely better for him that way, as he can more easily abandon his nuclear

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folly after he wins the election.

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He wants simply to be proposing an alternative something, so he can

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give the electorate a justification for kicking the current mob out.

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There's a lot of truth in that.

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The headache of actually getting this done.

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is not something that Peter Dutton thinks he's going to have to deal with.

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No, and I don't think it was.

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It's also an excuse not to, uh, stop burning coal.

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Yes.

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Which realistically is what the LNP and the Murdoch press is all about.

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Indeed.

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So even as the

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coal fired power stations break down, which they are, you know, they're reaching

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their end of their design lives, um, they want to move to coal seam gas.

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They don't want renewables.

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Yep.

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That is part of it.

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Another guy, Bill Barnes wrote, Dutton and his strategists have appeared to

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borrow straight from the Steve Bannon playbook to flood the zone with shit,

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announce something highly controversial with little detail and sit back and watch

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the media and other commentators fall over themselves reporting on nothing.

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That's true too.

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Trump 2016.

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Yep.

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Indeed, just announce shit and step back, and there's no accountability, there's no

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shame in the world anymore, Joe, so this is why people can get away with this.

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Jack the Insider on Twitter said, half a trillion dollar energy policy announced

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with a 20 minute press conference.

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And a one page press release.

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He said, I've seen Nigerian email scams with more detail.

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Dead right.

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And probably more realistic.

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Indeed.

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More believable.

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Well, yeah.

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With the assistance, Joe, of News Corp, who are actively

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promoting the nuclear idea.

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Oh yeah.

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And the ABC, who are inadvertently promoting it.

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I think Dutton might pull this off.

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As in, win over voters, enough.

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I'm

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sure.

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As in, it's depressing, isn't it?

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I think he might pull it off.

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And

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also it gives him an excuse to get out of Paris, because we can't

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possibly meet Paris in the short term.

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Yes.

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So we're going to go completely zero emissions by going nuclear, whilst

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ignoring that electricity generation isn't all of our carbon emissions.

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Mm.

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I'm going to give some examples of News Corp and the ABC and how they've

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handled this whole issue, um, One guy, Dean Rosario, again on Twitter

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said, Peter Dutton could claim the Earth is flat, and the ignoramuses at

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ABC News would report that as news.

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Spears and Cavallis would ask Albo, Peter Dutton says the Earth is

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flat, what's your response to that?

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It's dead right.

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They don't stop and say.

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Hang on a minute, that's complete nonsense.

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Have you gone crazy?

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I'm not going to put that to anybody else.

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You've got to justify this before we start getting other people's opinions on this.

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It's completely bonkers.

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Nope, don't get any of that.

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I think Albanese should just announce a perpetual motion machine that's going

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to generate lots of energy for nothing.

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Yeah, yeah.

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And, and give as much detail as Mr.

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Dutton has.

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Yeah.

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So it'll be even cheaper because, you know, it's a perpetual motion machine.

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Yes.

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So.

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I

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agree with Alison, it's a

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scam to protect fossil fuels.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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Uh, um, yeah.

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John says this is not a policy that will get the teal seats back.

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We can only hope.

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That's true.

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That will not.

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Um, um, Sue says people complain about wind farms next to them as well.

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It is a big deal in Port Stephens at the moment.

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Um, yes, people do complain about the wind farms.

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Um, I wonder how much they'll complain about nuclear facilities

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and I just, that's, well, I think the, um, The wind farms that are

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20 kilometres out to sea are such a great option, I mean, realistically.

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Yeah, but then of course they interfere with the right whale migrations.

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Yeah.

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I think, uh, whales have been navigating, um, shipping, um,

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islands, um, other hazards.

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Yeah.

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I reckon they'll find their way around a wind farm without too much trouble.

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Mm.

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Mm.

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Mm.

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Okay, what else have I got here?

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So legal hurdles, Joe.

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This is the interesting part.

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Um, Michael Bradley writing in Crikey talked about some of the legal hurdles.

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And the fact is that the premiers of the states where the reactors will

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supposedly be built have already said they don't want them and they won't

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be changing the law to allow them.

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And each of the states has specific legislation prohibiting.

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The sort of activities you need to build a nuclear power plant, like constructing

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and operating a nuclear facility, transporting nuclear material or waste,

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and converting or enriching uranium.

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That's all banned

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at a state level.

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Well, New South Wales doesn't.

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Um, doesn't have some of that?

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Well, um, there's um, what's it, isn't there?

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The, the, Lucas Heights.

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Yes.

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I would imagine it has a special exemption to a broad prohibition.

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Probably.

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That's what I think would probably be the case here.

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So, so Dutton needs the states to repeal the laws that are already in place,

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um, or he somehow needs to override it with valid Commonwealth legislation.

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So, neither of those is possible.

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But even before we get to that, there's federal law against it.

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So, there's existing federal law which explicitly Expressly prohibits.

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An Environment Minister from approving the construction or operation of

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a nuclear fuel fabrication plants, nuclear power plants, enrichment plants.

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In addition, there's the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety

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Act, which prohibits the nuclear regulator from authorising the same activities.

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So at a federal level, the law is against it.

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He would have to get control of the House of Reps and the Senate.

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in order to change that law.

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That's never going to happen.

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The last time the Liberals had control of the Senate and the

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House of Reps was John Howard.

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And in, ironically, Use that power to legislate the federal

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ban on nuclear power, Joe.

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I love the irony of that.

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So, at a federal level They had,

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um, Ziggy Swiatowski for a while, didn't they?

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What about him?

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Well, he was, uh, he's actually a nuclear physicist.

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Yes.

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And they had him, I don't know, 10, 15 years ago, investigating

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the possibility of nuclear.

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Mm.

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I don't know what the output of that ever was, but They were in power at the time.

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They could have done it then.

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Yeah, they've been in power for, what, 10 years with, um, Turnbull, Morrison, etc.

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Never a mention of all this until the Dutton era.

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Ah, anyway, um, so, so at a federal level, there's laws against it and there's

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no way they're going to get power over both houses of parliament to change it.

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So that's not going to happen.

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Yeah.

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But even if they did, there's state laws in place that they cannot override

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because under our constitution, um, basically the state has power, the

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states have power to make laws and it's only where specific powers have

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been granted to the, to the federal government that they can make laws.

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And there's nothing in that list of specific powers That comes

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anywhere close to nuclear power generation is something that the

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federal government has power to do.

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That's why our electricity generation is all state based,

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because there's no federal power to legislate in relation to it.

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And you know, on a really outside chance, you could argue, well, we've

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signed an international treaty.

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Of some sort, and the federal power has relation, uh, federal government has power

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in relation to international treaties.

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But we haven't signed any treaty in relation to nuclear power,

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so they can't even use that.

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It's just, from a legal standpoint

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They're proposing to use sites that are currently coal fired power stations,

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and a lot of these are privately owned.

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So they would have to either buy them from these private operators, or,

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um, if the operators refuse to The

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private operator to run nuclear for them?

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Yes.

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Uh, they would have to They would have to, if the private operator

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refused to sell, they would have to, um, forcibly buy it from them.

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There are just so many issues, from a legal point of view, that it's,

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there's so much wrong with this.

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It is, it's crazy how, every which way you look at this proposal, it's a dumb,

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stupid, impossible, crazy idea, which makes it all the more infuriating.

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Such a large percentage of the population thinks it's quite,

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quite possibly a good idea.

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We'll get to that in a moment with some polls etc.

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Yeah, so, um, before we get to polls, how's the propaganda working out there?

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So, as you know, dear listener, on your behalf, I read the

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Courier Mail for my sins.

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And, uh, today's Courier Mail, headline, Yes, in my backyard.

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Exclusive poll shows nuclear support.

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Regions back plan to replace their coal plants with reactors.

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And a picture of a couple of farmers basically saying, yep, put

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the, uh, nuclear power plant here.

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We want it.

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And then on page four today, headline, Nation is open to the nuclear option.

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And on page, it goes all the way over to page five, where they've basically, um,

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done a quick poll of 923 people and asked them, um, whether they were happy to have

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a nuclear power plant in their backyard.

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And surprisingly, the people they surveyed, the majority of them said yes.

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And, you know, so there's the sort of propaganda, um, kickoff

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by, by Murdoch Press, um, all in favor of the nuclear power.

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And, um, And that's how that's sort of heading off.

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In terms of actual articles, so one of the I was just

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seeing the um, 60 billion dollars to build the plants.

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Mm.

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Are you aware of Hinkley Point C?

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No.

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It's okay, in the UK one of the big nuclear power stations is Hinkley Point.

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Yes.

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And EDF, who are probably one of the world's leading companies in

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terms of building power stations.

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You're welcome.

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are building the Hinkley Point C reactor for, uh, British

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Nuclear Fuels, I think it is.

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Yeah.

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Uh, it's four years, at least four years overdue.

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It's 50 percent over budget, uh, and, and this is at an existing budget.

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site that has the infrastructure already set up, uh, with all the

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laws in place, uh, by experts who know what they're doing.

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Yeah.

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Well over time.

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Well over budget.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I have heard of that one.

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It might be in the notes here somewhere.

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So, um, so one of the articles here, um, transfer of power skills set is ideal.

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This is one of the articles in today's Courier Mail.

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Coal fired power station workers are a ready made workforce.

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They could easily shift their skills across to new, high

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paying nuclear energy jobs.

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Experts say, Joe, I see that, I see those two words all the time in the News Corp.

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And it invariably means

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Some blokes on the pub.

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Some.

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Some guy with a degree who was sold out on his profession, which is

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only marginally related to the topic at hand, has, has come out in the

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same way that you can find some.

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Medical people came out as anti vaxxers, you know, um.

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You can find geologists, the young earth creationists.

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Indeed.

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So, experts say, is immediately, my ears prick up, experts say Australia

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should also tap into the growing pipeline of skilled specialists.

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For the AUKUS Nuclear Submarine Program and train them for a local industry.

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And he says here, um, Centre for Radiation Research, Education

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and Innovation, Director.

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Tony Hooker said the co location would not only lower energy transmission

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costs but provide a ready made workforce with transferable skills.

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Quote, the advantage is that all of your electrical engineers, mechanical

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engineers, all of your trades and ancillary staff would just likely

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transition across to a nuclear power plant, Professor Hooker said.

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Professor Tony Hooker.

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So I immediately googled.

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Who the fuck is Professor Tony Hooker?

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And, um, um, he's got a PhD in Molecular Biology Genetics with

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research interests in the mechanisms of radiation induced damage.

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He's the inaugural director of the Centre for Radiation Research, Education and

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Innovation at the University of Adelaide.

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Um, as the principal radiation advisor, Radiation Health for

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the South Australian Government.

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It's all to do with biology, genetics and radiation.

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Yeah, radiation damage and radiation cures, radiation treatment.

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Guess what?

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That doesn't make you an expert on whether a power station in the regions

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is a good idea, whether jobs are transferable, whether it's And the

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Courier Mail kicks off with experts say.

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He's not a friggin expert of what skilled specialists can transfer their skills.

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If you were going to ask him about what the risk of nuclear exposure is

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to humans in the surrounding area.

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Absolutely, he's an expert.

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Yes, yes, exactly.

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Ah, and there was another article, uh, in the Courier Mail, um, scare

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campaign, embarrassing, say experts.

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And this was about how I think a number of Labor MPs or others were

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sort of doing memes with, um, talking about sort of mutations of, of people

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and animals that might happen in around, um, Nuclear power plants.

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And, um, further on in that article, um, University of Sydney Electrical

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Engineering Senior Lecturer, Dr.

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Jeremy Kwee, said he was supportive of the Coalition's nuclear plan.

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He pushed back on claims nuclear was too expensive, by clarifying that although

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it is much higher capital costs in the short term, the production of energy is

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more affordable than renewable energy.

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Comparing nuclear to renewable, it is very stable, and its cost is very low.

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In terms of the running costs, it's lower than coal and natural gas.

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But when we talk about capital cost investment, that will be

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much higher over the short term.

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So

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But again, he says it's lower cost than coal and natural gas, renewables.

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Guess what's cheap?

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Sunlight and wind.

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Exactly.

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And who is he?

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He's currently a Senior Lecturer in Electrical Engineering.

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Thanks That doesn't make you an expert on energy costs.

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Just because you've got a degree in something electrical doesn't

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make you an expert in this field.

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Just because you've got a specialty in radiation damage doesn't make you an

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expert in, in the economics of putting nuclear power stations in the regions.

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But we get these Courier mail articles that have experts say, and these

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guys sell their souls for a few lines of propaganda, for God's sake.

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But Joe, Sydney Morning Herald, Peter Fitzsimmons, excellent article, um,

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which should be compulsory reading for every person in Australia.

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And so he has interviewed.

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Professor Ty Christopher, an electrical engineer

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with four decades of experience in the power industry, and is the

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director of Energy Futures Network within the Faculty of Engineering

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at the University of Wollongong.

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And so, uh, The interview starts and Fitz Simon says to this guy, you

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know, well, what's your credentials?

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And he says, I'm now just shy of 40 years in the power industry, including

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10 years on the executive of what is now Endeavour Energy, with the last

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five years as the chief engineer.

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I'm now with the University of Wollongong, helping coordinate energy futures

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research, and I lead a collaboration of just under 100 academics from all

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disciplines across the university Social scientists, market economists, marine

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ecologists and engineers, all the varying backgrounds, to bring together those

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minds in a focused way on energy systems.

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And, um, uh,

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there's somewhere else there where he talked about billions of dollars

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of stuff that he'd been involved in.

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Let me see if I can look.

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I might get to it soon.

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So, um,

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uh, there we go.

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Um, I say this from the point of view of being an engineer who's

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delivered billions, literally billions of dollars worth of

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energy projects throughout my life.

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Thank you.

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Even 20 years to build a power station is very optimistic.

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Thank you.

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So that's, that's, you know, this is somebody with some

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credentials that we can listen to.

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And he was the one who talked about, uh, the offshore turbines that I mentioned

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earlier about the size of them and, um, and, and the sort of equivalent of

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what a large wind turbine can produce compared to Five homes, et cetera.

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So, um, now, um, uh, he's talked about the capacity of offshore wind and

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how it's, um, it's relatively high compared to solar and onshore wind.

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Um, its capacity is around 50 to 55 percent.

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Um, so that's when it's sort of functioning and generating, um, power, um,

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compared to onshore, which is about 30%.

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And, um, and he's saying that in Australia, it makes even more

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sense because as a population, we mostly cling to the coast.

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So you can put them offshore near where the energy is needed.

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So it's much shorter and less expensive transmission lines.

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So he says, uh, Fitz Island says 55%.

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sort of, um, capacity still sounds a bit low, uh, compared to say

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nuclear, which is surely 100%.

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And he said, well, um, uh, and, and coal.

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And he says, well, um, the capacity factor of coal at the moment is 60%.

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So there's a lot of downtime in, you know, Electricity generation

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for our coal fired generators.

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Especially when they blow up.

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Yes, and um And the bulk of Australia's coal fired power plants

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will exit the grid within 10 years.

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Their energy has to be replaced, not in 20 to 30 years time,

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but within the next decade.

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And even, um, yeah, International Atomic Energy Agency publishes a guidelines

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handbook, step by step guide on how to go nuclear, internationally recognised

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manual on what you have to do to go from zero to a functioning nuclear power plant.

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And, um, it's at least 15 to 20 years, so our existing coal generators are going

Speaker:

within 10, nuclear would be at least 15 to 20, we need something in between,

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and um, uh, what else did he say here,

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um.

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He says, um, when people ask me, am I anti nuclear, I look them in the

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eye and say, no, I'm anti bullshit.

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That's a guy I can relate to.

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He says, renewables are the cheapest.

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They are reliable enough for what we need.

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They are the best way to bring down customer bills.

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And they are the best way for us to decarbonise our economy, which

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is what we are committed to do.

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Joe, we need to decarbonise and the solution Is cheaper, and it's

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decentralised, and these fuckwits in the conservative cause just

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want to make it harder and harder to get to the right decision.

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Yeah.

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I just like the scare stories about electric vehicles.

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Mm.

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The stuff I'm seeing about them, and

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it's bullshit.

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Yeah, and it's relatively easily debunked, but, you know, you put your news headline

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out, nobody reads past the headline.

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Yeah, and this is the problem with the ABC, when it just issues a headline, you

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know, Dutton says this, um, blah blah blah, uh, Albanese asked to respond.

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People think, oh, well it must be a reasonable proposition.

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Must be a 50 50 moment, must be some credibility to it.

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So you're saying the headline should say Dutton arse again?

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In an ideal world, Joe, uh, yes, yes.

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Dutton spews irrational nonsense Albanese refuses to answer.

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Yeah.

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Ted O'Brien, Joe.

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This guy reminds me of Morrison.

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He's got the same smirk happening.

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He's got the same

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mannerisms.

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So he's the opposition energy spokesman and, you know,

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they've got this nuclear plan.

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You would think one of the basics of the plan, Joe, would be, well,

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how much of our needs is going to be covered by nuclear under your plan?

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Mm hmm.

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Roughly.

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Ballpark figure.

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What percentage of our electricity needs are going to be met by

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these seven power stations?

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Because they haven't even said whether they're proper power stations or they're

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the small, modular ones that don't exist.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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So just the basics of, OK, you're going to go nuclear, how much

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can we expect from nuclear?

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Insiders, um, Spears is the guy who, the compere, normally he's terrible, but on

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this occasion maybe he's better than that.

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So let's go with a bit of, uh, David Spears on this one.

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Will it be 10%?

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And so again, our, our energy mix, we'll talk about In the future, ahead

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of the market needs to know now.

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I mean, if it's only going to be a tiny fraction of the market

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They won't have long to wait, David, until they understand

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the energy mix.

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Look, they need to know very soon, right now, really, whether they

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should keep investing or not.

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And what matters is whether nuclear is going to make up 20,

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50 percent of the energy mix, or 2 or 3 percent of the energy mix.

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So, a couple of things.

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Firstly, uh, I'm a Liberal.

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And, um, I appreciate and respect that investors want to make money.

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And so we have designed this policy with a crystal clear vision of Australians paying

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for cheaper, more affordable housing.

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And they'll only

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do

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that

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if the market keeps investing, as you've acknowledged at the outset.

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Indeed, and

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I've answered that, acknowledging the need.

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So, they'll only

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invest if you give them some clarity on whether nuclear is going to

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take up 50 percent or 2 percent

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of

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the

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mix.

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They will get clarity, um, and Do you know this answer?

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In terms of the broader energy mix, David, we will be coming

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out with that in due course.

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But do

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you know yourself or will you leave this to another body to work that out?

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You mentioned earlier this body that will work out how many

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reactors will go on each plant site.

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That suggests you haven't worked this out.

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So, we have done our planning and we'll be very explicit about our assumptions.

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Do you know?

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But, about our assumptions.

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Do you know the answer to this question?

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Rephrase the question, is it, is it The question is, how

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much of the energy mix will be nuclear under your plan?

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We will be announcing that at the time that we announce our broader mix.

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Because David, we've only talked But do you know it at the moment?

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Do you know it at the moment?

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I'm very clear Or would this be for an

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independent body to work out?

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We've announced the nuclear part of our, our policy.

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The real question is not on nuclear, for example, how much it costs.

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But is it value for money?

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I think a lot of people worry about how much it costs

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and whether it's pushing their bills up.

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But it's from a business case point of view.

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I just want to be clear on this.

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Go ahead.

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You're not sure at the moment whether nuclear would make up

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only 5 percent of the energy mix?

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David,

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we've done all the work on the nuclear front.

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Do you know this?

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But until, until we release renewables, policy and gas

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Depressing, Joe.

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Feels like that.

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Well, I guess he knows the answer.

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The answer is 0%.

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They've no intention of delivering nuclear.

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They've no intention of delivering it.

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No.

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But even if you said to him, you know, in a fanciful world where these seven

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nuclear reactors are built, because they haven't even said whether they're

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proper reactors or whether they're the small modular ones that don't

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even exist yet, he's got no idea.

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It just demonstrates how full of shit these guys are.

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That, um He couldn't give a ballpark figure of what they're

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gonna generate from this.

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And it just had a Morrison type smirk about him.

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For, oh, goodness me.

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Ahhhh.

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They're schooled in not answering the question, aren't they?

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But it's obvious to anybody watching it.

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Like, surely nobody fools for that anymore.

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The, it's clear to everybody, he doesn't know.

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No, I'm sure he doesn't.

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Or, or the answer is so low, he doesn't want to say.

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Each, each one is, you know, which one do you reckon it'd be, Joe?

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I reckon, I reckon he doesn't even know.

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No, I reckon they know and the answer is zero percent.

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This is a distraction.

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They've no intention of delivering on it.

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Oh, Joe.

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I reckon they'll have some reports that are, um, generated by some

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very expensive contractors.

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Some consultants will go out and go, actually, you know, nuclear

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is going to be too expensive.

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But it'll take them several years to get to that point.

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Yeah.

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By which time, you know, we'll have kicked the coal industry down the Road

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for another however many years and carried on digging up shit out of the ground.

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It should be staying in the ground Yeah, and it will have fulfilled its purpose

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John says the smirk reminds me of the Dunning Kruger theory.

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Look, the smirk reminded me of Morrison.

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I was reading about Dunning Kruger today statistical Screw up.

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Right.

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Yeah What do you mean it's a statistical screw up?

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It doesn't exist They've actually gone back and re analyzed the

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statistics from the paper.

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What did the paper say?

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The paper said basically people who are less capable overestimate their ability.

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Yes.

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Uh, and basically the way they figured this out was by correlating two numbers,

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but one of the numbers was actually generated from the other number.

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Ah.

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So it was correlated with itself.

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Yes.

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Okay, so it wasn't, um, okay, and so it's not a replicatable, um, study.

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Yeah.

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There's so much in, um, Thinking Fast and Slow that was not replicatable as well.

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Like a lot of these things are questionable.

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So, so Dunning Kruger theory doesn't stack up based on that.

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Yeah.

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Well, the evidence they relied on is flawed.

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Didn't show that.

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Yeah.

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Interesting.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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Look, there is a solution, Joe, to this power issue.

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Well, maybe not a solution, but some help.

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The Lucas Heights facility, um, Which is the one which, uh, actually Whatley

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was corresponding about, he had some connection with it at one point and,

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um, So this is the facility that sort of has a very low level sort of nuclear

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facility that generates stuff for medical purposes and for scientific

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research, like, Extremely, extremely low output for these sort of minor medical.

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interests of sort.

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Yeah, it

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basically allows us to become self sufficient in nuclear medicine.

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Yes.

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Um, anyway, that, um, the politician who was, um, kicked off from the

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Liberals, I think, and then stood as an independent, Dai Li, Li, Dai Li?

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I don't know how you pronounce her name.

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Okay.

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She's talking about that facility.

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We'll play this one.

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Um,

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my understanding also is That, uh, uh, Lucas Heights, where our, our nuclear

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reactor, my understanding is from speaking in this, uh, space is that

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it generates so much energy, but that energy is actually not being utilized.

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It's just, you know, it's not being captured.

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So that's another, you know, perhaps in discussing, uh, nuclear

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energy, we can look at Lucas Heights and see what's happening there.

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There

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we go.

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A secret height facility is possible, Joe.

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Lucasfix was never designed to generate electricity.

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It was designed for a completely different purpose.

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You're such a pessimist, Joe.

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Think expansively.

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Think, think outside the box.

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You know, get in touch with your community.

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And um, start sentences with, you know, it's my understanding that.

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Which is what you do in the law a lot, when you basically, I don't

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really know, but here's my best guess.

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But the laws of physics, you know, just obey whatever a lawmaker says.

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Oh, okay.

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Um, yeah.

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I was in the elevator, Joe, and um, there's a guy there I met,

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Mark, who I've talked to before, and I know he's a conservative, of

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a conservative bent, and he said, you know, how's your website going?

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I said, well, my podcast is going fine.

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In fact, tonight I'm going to be talking about Peter Dutton and his crazy nuclear

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policy, and I'll be bagging it severely.

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And he mentioned about the, um, sort of, mutation memes and stuff.

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And I said, Oh, I'm not worried about that.

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Oh, it's the cost.

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It's incredibly expensive.

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And he said, Oh, well, it's cheaper in France, actually.

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It's cheap in France, but you know, maybe they've been doing it for a long time.

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These are the sorts of things you've got to deal with all the time.

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Quick Google search.

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Dutton apparently said France has the cheapest power in Europe with

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70 percent of its electricity generated from nuclear energy.

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But And again from another article in the Sydney Morning Herald.

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The Sydney Morning Herald seems to at least be publishing stuff,

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um, anti nuclear that I don't see in the Murdoch press, Joe.

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Not sure why or what's going on there, but at least a couple of decent things

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have come from the Sydney Morning Herald.

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Anyway, in this article it says, Last month, France's spot electricity

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price went negative as cheap renewable energy flooded its power market.

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This Combined with reduced, combined with reduced demand over a weekend, French,

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French officials shut down three nuclear reactors because their power could not

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compete against ultra cheap renewables.

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Other parts of Europe are also turning off their nuclear reactors for

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periods of time because their power is expensive compared to renewables.

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Joe, I didn't know it was possible to do that.

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shut down a nuclear facility.

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But it is?

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Yeah, I mean, you don't shut it down, you turn down the

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amount of energy you produce.

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They're always going to be ticking over.

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But yes, um, basically when you split an atom, uh, it produces a number of neutrons

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that fire off into and split other atoms.

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And if you stick in control rods, they absorb the neutrons.

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And they reduce the amount of atoms that are being split.

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Hmm.

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And so you can reduce the amount of energy that you are generating.

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So there you go dear listener, if you are in an elevator with

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somebody and strike up a conversation and they mention the French, uh,

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experience, you are now fully armed.

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Oh, and one extra bit for you, you can say, um, France, despite

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its long experience building nuclear power plants, has struggled

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to meet cost and time targets.

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The 1, 650 megawatt Flaminville.

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Power plant on the Cherbourg Peninsula in North West France completed fuel

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loading last month and is due to be fully operational by year's end.

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Construction started in 2007.

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That's a long time ago, Joe.

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That was, that's the one that literally, sitting on Mum and Dad's chimney stack,

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I could see when I was growing up.

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There you go.

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Well, this is, uh, Flammable, Flammable 3, our plant.

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Yeah, this is the third one, yeah.

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Yeah.

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And then just up

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the coast is Capitola Hog, which is the nuclear reprocessing plant.

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Yep.

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And you're perfectly fine, Joe, despite growing up, yep, and you are.

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So when I was, I don't know, early teens, they opened up a power line to France.

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We got more reliable electricity because the local power station used

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to drop out for hours at a time.

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Yes.

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Um, and it was cheaper.

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And the local press ran an April Fool's.

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article That said you could tell when we were switching over to french

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electricity There'd be a warning light and we'd have french sockets next to

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the english sockets on the wall And you'd have to unplug everything out

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of the english sockets and plug into the french sockets And you know that

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you were running on french electricity because it would smell faintly of garlic

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And people honestly believed it wrote in complaint

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letters Anyway, there's a third power plant.

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Construction started in 2007 and they've only just completed fuel loading.

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Yeah.

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It's nearly 20 years later.

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And it was,

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this is

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a hundred miles from the 500 megawatt offshore wind plant

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they've just built in three years.

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There you go.

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This one is, is.

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It's going to take close to 20, and it was initially supposed to take five.

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It was supposed to be up and running by 2012 at a cost of 3.

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3 billion.

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Brackets 5.

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3 billion.

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That would be 5.

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3 billion in today's money, I think.

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No, no, no, 3.

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3 billion euros.

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Ah, euros.

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Ah, 5.

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3 billion

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Dollars.

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Dollars, yep.

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12 years behind schedule, the estimated cost is now 20 billion euros.

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So, initially A five year build has blown out to nearly 20.

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Initial cost 3.

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3 billion euros, now 20 billion and, uh, and this is in a

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country with long experience of building nuclear power plants.

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There's a reason that the French are building, um,

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uh, wind farms.

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Yes.

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Because it's cheap.

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Yes.

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It

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works.

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They've got wind.

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Yeah.

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The other thing you'll see, some other people I speak to about this, life's

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getting hard dear listener, when I just speak to people, and you know,

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you say, well you realise of course the levelised cost of energy looks at

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the amortisation of the capital costs and is a fair way of working out the

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true cost of the various systems.

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You know, you'll say the CSIRO has done a report and somebody will go,

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well you can't trust them, bunch of scientists, they're all in the pay of the

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government, of course they're going to tell the government whatever it wants.

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And you just go, oh, okay.

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You've also got the international finance services firm, Lazard, has been doing

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this for a long time as well, and I know in previous episodes we've looked

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at their reports, and it's the same story, and it's all over the world.

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Onshore wind the cheapest, utility sized solar next cheapest,

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nuclear the most expensive.

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And in terms of trends, wind and solar getting cheaper,

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nuclear getting more expensive.

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Um,

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that's the sort of stuff that is going on.

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Interestingly, although solar isn't, um, effective for large periods of the

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day, It is effective at the time that we actually use the most energy, which

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is when we're running air conditioning.

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True.

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Which is in the middle of the day.

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Yep.

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To the point where when I was out at a coal fired power station back in 2018,

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I think, they said when the power plant was built, their don't touch anything

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period was in the middle of the day.

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They were running peak capacity, uh, and because they, um, Because

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power generation is based on the difference between the heat in the

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generator and the heat outside.

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So basically trying to shed the heat outside to cool the water down to reheat

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it.

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Um, they actually run at less capacity in the middle of the day.

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So they're less efficient in the middle of the day because of the heat outside.

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Hmm.

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That makes sense.

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Um, So that was their peak, don't do anything, don't do any work.

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It's now their maintenance period because there's so much rooftop

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solar that the demand for coal fired generation in the middle of the day

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has dropped down to nearly nothing.

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Yes.

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At least for this plant.

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Yes.

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Um, actually I should do with, um, levelised cost of energy, where

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have I put that in these notes?

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I did have it here somewhere.

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Yeah, I did it.

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It's gone missing.

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Doesn't matter.

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Let me just, um,

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Joe,

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share the screen here with a bit of luck.

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Am I going to share the screen?

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Share the screen.

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Not yet.

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Let me just try and add a screen share to this.

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Um, essential report.

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Um, there we go.

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A central report has asked people their views on nuclear power.

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And it's a bit depressing.

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This is from the 18th of June.

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Views on emission targets by voting intention.

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Oh dear.

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Which of the following is closer to your view on Australia's

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2030 2050 emissions targets?

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And the blue one is Australia should stick to the 2030 target.

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And achieving this target is necessary to meet the 2050, or the red one, which

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is Australia should abandon the 2030 target, because it's unachievable,

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it's hurting the economy, and instead we should focus on the 2050 target,

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which is basically 2030's too hard, we should kick this can down the road.

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Oh, and see the report where it said basically the earlier we start.

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Moving towards net zero, the less pain we have,

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the

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later we leave it, the more effort we have to put in.

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Yeah.

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Overall, 52 percent of Australians said we should stick to the 2030.

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48 percent of Australians said, let's forget 2030, it's too hard,

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it's hurting too much, let's just kick that can down the road.

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Do they have any evidence that it's actually hurting too much?

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That it's had any impact whatsoever on the economy?

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I doubt it.

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Uh, gender.

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Of course, um, males more likely to kick the can down the road than females.

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Age.

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Old people, 55 plus.

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They weren't going to live to see the Prime Minister.

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Correct.

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Uh, more than happy to kick that can down the road.

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It's the young people, 63 percent of 18 to 34 year olds want

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to stick to the 2030 target.

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Um, only 41 percent of 55 year olds want to.

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There's such a selfish bunch, these old codgers.

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With no concern for

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Well, they've proved that with house prices, haven't they?

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With everything.

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Voting intention, of course,

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Labor and the Greens more likely to stick to the 2030 target.

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Coalition and minor parties, which usually means Pauline Hanson

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and Catter and people like that.

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No, no, no, minor as in M I N E R parties.

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Yes.

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What gets me is 27 percent of Greens voters want to kick the can down the road.

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Yeah.

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What's a Greens vote?

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I mean, obviously you could consider nuclear as a green option, but

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it's an economically stupid option.

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Yeah.

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Maybe that's what they're thinking.

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Nuclear's green.

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Let's go the nuclear option.

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Without knowing their economics.

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The Greens Party's Greenpeace, for instance.

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were against the expansion of nuclear.

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Greens have historically been, not necessarily in this country,

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but Greens around the world have historically been against nuclear.

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Yes.

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Yep.

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Ah.

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Which of the following do you think is the better way for Australia to achieve

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its emissions target of net zero by 2050?

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The blue is continue to develop renewables, and Decommission Fossil Fuels.

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The red is Stop the development of renewables, stick with fossil fuels,

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and wait till nuclear is developed and can kick in in 15 to 20 years.

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In what world is stick with fossil fuels the right answer?

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Renewables are available and cheap even if you want to go for nuclear.

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Joe, 51 percent of coalition voters think that is the best option.

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Stop renewables, stick with fossil, wait for nuclear.

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See ya.

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Same in the minor parties.

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Joe, 26 percent of Greens voters think that's a good idea.

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That's the scary part.

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27 percent of Labor.

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Once again, let's look at gender.

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Gosh, wonder what this will reveal.

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Oh, actually very similar.

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Yeah.

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That's interesting.

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So

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I, I would say within statistical noise, actually

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yes.

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Matches the exactly 62% or of males.

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63% of females wanna continue renewables.

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Um, 37, 30 8% don't.

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What was the overall figure I should have had that, the overall figure, 63%

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of Australians, let's go with renewables.

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37% say, let's stop renewables, keep going with fossil fuels.

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Wait for Nuclear.

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And I bet with age it's very much skewed towards the older ones.

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Age.

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Not as strong as I would have thought.

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Age.

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No, no, it's the 35 to 54 that are the most keen on.

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Oh, sorry, no, Renewables is.

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Yeah.

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Funnily, the 35 to 54 are more keen on the Develop renewables and get rid

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of fossils than the younger 18 to 34.

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Still the 55 plus are the strongest group, but not by so

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much as I would have thought.

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No.

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Comparatively.

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Voting intention, um, kind of what you'd expect.

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Sometimes the way these things are phrased can make a difference.

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Um,

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we've already done the 2030 target, I won't do that one again.

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Um, Quickly, views on Israel, uh, overall,

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um, which is your, uh, view on Israel's military action in Gaza, um,

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the blue is Israel is justified, the orange is Israel should agree to a

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temporary ceasefire, and the red is Israel should permanently withdraw.

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The grey is unsure.

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So

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15 percent of Australians overall think Israel is justified in

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continuing its military action.

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The rest think there should be either a temporary or permanent

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withdrawal, or they don't know.

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So, only 15 percent think Israel is justified.

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That's the overall trend.

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Gender.

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Males.

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20 percent think Israel is justified.

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Only 10 percent of females think so?

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I

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think it's the unsure that shows the biggest gender variation.

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Yes.

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And in the unsure, 34 percent of females are unsure.

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19 percent of males are sure.

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Age, uh, the older you are, the more Well, 18 34 and 35 54.

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Only 11 percent think Israel is justified, but when you get to the Boomers, 55

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22 percent think Israel is justified.

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So, that's Australians current thinking of that, and, uh, the rest, uh,

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don't think we'll worry about those.

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I think we'll just move on from that.

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Sorry.

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Oh, Joe, where are we up to?

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9.

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13.

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I thought it would just be about nuclear, this one.

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Um, could I find that lowest cost, that lowest cost of energy report?

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I can't, but it's clear, dear listener, renewables are the cheaper option.

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When you look at the capital costs and the depreciation over the lifetime of

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the capital, And the decommissioning and the running costs, the renewables

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are considerably cheaper than nuclear.

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It's a no brainer.

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And all the other arguments don't really matter because you

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can bring it online quickly.

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You don't have to wait 20 years.

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It's not going to be, um, fraught with the, with the, With the same difficulties

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that nuclear has, and Joe, just a decentralized system, like, they worry

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about China attacking us, well, seven well placed bombs on nuclear facilities

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would wipe out, under the coalition plan, a fair bit of our power generation,

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but when you've got multiple facilities scattered all over the country It really

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provides, uh, comfort in the sense that, uh, you're spreading the risk amongst

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all these, these minor facilities.

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So in the event of disasters, uh, you don't have all your eggs in one basket

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or all your eggs in seven baskets.

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There's so many arguments for this.

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Um, but it's a measure, Joe, of where we are in this community.

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That's the most obvious, simple solution is somehow up for grabs for discussion.

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I'm depressed.

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You asked the average.

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I would say even the conservative voters, would you put rooftop solar on?

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Hmm.

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And they would absolutely.

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Yes.

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It would be interesting to ask that question actually.

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All these people who are going, oh no, we should keep fossil fuels, is to

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ask them, do you have rooftop solar?

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Yeah.

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Because I bet they do.

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I bet the majority of them do.

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Yeah.

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It's so tribal.

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It's our tribe has decided nuclear.

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If, if it was Labor pushing nuclear and Liberals pushing multiple privately

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owned renewable facilities all over the country that were cheaper, these

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same people would be jumping across to the other side of the argument.

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It's pathetic, Joe.

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It's depressing.

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How would anybody get into politics when

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good, solid arguments backed by facts.

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are just worth nothing.

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I think this is, I mean, you're again It's interesting with the whole, um, you

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can't trust C I R O, C S I R O, would be to ask, well, who would you trust?

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It

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was, yeah, let's say none of them.

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Right, so how, how would they know?

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Yeah, well, you won't know.

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They're all the same.

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You can't trust any of them, they then say.

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Well, that's enough of the rant, Joe.

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We've got an hour, hour 20, hour 17 on.

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And

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we've sent all the listeners to sleep.

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Yeah, we

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have.

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Anyone still there?

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Two people.

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John says, My ardent right wing FW climate denying man put solar on his roof.

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There we go.

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And he says, The positive twist on those polls is that the Libs are

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getting more popular in Libs seats.

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Only their base.

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Yeah, they're not appealing to the inner city suburbs,

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inner city electorates at all.

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Um, yeah.

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Right.

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Okay.

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Thanks in the chat room for watching.

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Next week, a grab bag of different topics.

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We'll talk to you then.

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Bye for now.