DAVID PENBERTHY, HOST: As an Adeladian in Sydney, and I think the journos, the eastern states journos, are the worst offenders, particularly in the backdraft of the State Bank having collapsed and with the car industry, so much of the narrative locally was we need to be saved, we need to be helped - you heard words like mendicant state, handout state - has the perception changed, do you think, over the other side of Australia?
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, it has. Massively. I think people look at this state and they look at the opportunity that's there and the focus over the subs deal and shipbuilding here, the focus on renewables, the fact is that South Australia was ahead of every other state in terms of the transition that is occurring, and I think that this bloke helps as well. Just in projecting - I think some of that can be self-fulfilling. If you're out there projecting an image of ‘help us, we're struggling’, then that can feed in. But, I brought the entire Cabinet here last year. People have spread out and about as well. If you look at my Government - has, Amanda is here - but Amanda, Mark Butler in health, Penny Wong in Foreign Affairs, Don Farrell in Trade - they are like four of the top ten ministries, all from South Australia. Like it punches way above its weight, including the Leader and Deputy Leader in the Senate. And I think that helps. You’ve got Birmo as the Opposition Leader in the Senate as well. So, I think you've got really prominent people as well. So South Australia is always in a position to have a really strong voice around the Cabinet table and around the Parliament as well.
PENBERTHY: Was that something I can remember a couple of years ago here, Mali, when you had that sort of JFK inspired form of words around the role that you wanted South Australia to play as the ‘defence state’, where you, to paraphrase said, it's not that we're pleading for it, it's not that we're begging for it, it's not that we need it, we want to do it because we are confident that we can deliver. So, it's more a sense of, you know, we don’t need some sort of – we should shed this cargo cult mentality and just do it because we can.
PETER MALINAUSKIAS, PREMIER OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA: Yeah, I think the words that I tried to use was, we've got to approach the naval shipbuilding exercise, not with a sense of entitlement, but a sense of ambition - because it is the most complex industrial undertaking that this country has ever sought to achieve. And we're trying to do it at world record pace. We're one of very few nations in the world that now is going to be building nuclear submarines. And most other countries have taken 40, 50 years to develop the capability that we're going to try and do in the space of ten to twelve. And we have to have ambition to pursue that. It's going to be extraordinarily difficult, I think we should be frank about that. But if we're open minded about it and start doing the work on skills, in particular now, it'll make a material difference. And one of the announcements that the Federal Government has made, that you know just on its own, completely changes the lives of over a thousand young South Australians every year, is the 1200 additional university places that are now coming our way exclusively to be able to accommodate the engineering capability that's going to be required in South Australia for the submarine program. That's 1200 kids every single year getting pumped out of our universities at a higher level of skill than what would otherwise be the case, because those university places are on top of all of the other ones we've had before us, and that's just one example. But the big challenge is around skills, and that's where, I guess, there's been a fair bit of dedicated effort between Commonwealth and the State Governments. So, we capture this opportunity that is going to outlast countless governments into the future.
PENBERTHY: Prime Minister, do you think that the AUKUS deal can survive, or rather, is it threatened by a second Trump presidency?
PRIME MINISTER: No, it's a deal between countries, not a deal between individuals, and so…
PENBERTHY: Is that going to stop him from…?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I think that when I went to the US last year a few times, but particularly for the State Department visit, I met with well over 100 - there was 100 in one meeting of Congress-people and Senators - I was the first person to meet the new Speaker, President Biden hadn't ever met him at the time, that he surprisingly came through that turmoil that was there, to emerge from the deadlock. There's broad support from Democrats, from Republicans. Kevin Rudd has done a great job as Ambassador there in rounding people up.
PENBERTHY: And he seems confident that it’s going to…emerge intact.
PRIME MINISTER: Absolutely - people will have different views about Kevin Rudd. One thing people should not doubt is a word that clarifies his approach to work, which is ‘relentless’. He's done an amazing job, as have others who've been there consistently - Richard Marles, Pat Conroy, Penny Wong, myself. That engagement with the United States through formal mechanisms, but also informal mechanisms, like the Australian-American Leadership dialogue - they are all really important events. And there's been, I think that it's beyond question now, it did take effort, it was essentially an idea without a plan. That plan is now in place. It enjoys bipartisan support here, and it enjoys bipartisan support in the US.
PENBERTHY: Peter Malinauskas, just in terms of the nuts and bolts aspects, in terms of the relationship with the US - if the US can't live up to its end of the bargain on the Virginia Class, do you think that's an opportunity potentially for South Australia, or is it more just a big worry?
PREMIER MALINAUSKAS: Well, I think what the US has announced during the course of the last week around the Virginia class is a demonstration of the necessity of AUKUS for our region more broadly. Because what the US is essentially acknowledging is that they can't produce submarines at a pace fast enough to be able to meet their own needs, let alone anybody else's. And that is true for every country around the world. This argument that we can simply go buy submarines from some other country to meet our strategic purposes is just not true. So, if we want to have the capacity to protect ourselves in the form of submarines, we have to build them here. And now we've got a means to do so at the highest possible end, in the nuclear form. So, what's happened in the US this week just demonstrates why the AUKUS arrangement is so committed to a fourth submarine production line amongst the three countries - two in the US and, of course, in the UK. So, us being that fourth is in the US's interests. And so that announcement shouldn't undermine people's confidence in the program, only enhance it.
PENBERTHY: Now, you guys obviously have a great relationship, but like every relationship, you have the odd testing moment. You had a public one last year over nuclear power, which is obviously an issue which Peter Dutton is running like a bull at a gate on. Now, your position, Mali, was an open minded one, I think it's fair to say, with the big caveat about cost, you're much more anti, PM. Could you ever see a situation where, if the cost concerns and the waste disposal concerns were addressed, where it could be put on the table in Australia?
PRIME MINISTER: I think our position is basically the same. Both of us - I think that nuclear power operates effectively in France and in some countries they have an industry. Here we don't. It is decades off. It's the most costly form. And what I say is - if you can find me one financier to put out their hand and say, yep, I got $20 billion, then I'll take you seriously. Peter Dutton was asked this morning - where are they going to go? And couldn't answer it. He spoke about having a debate at the National Press Club, which he's never spoken at. I'm happy to give him the map of where it is, but I wouldn't mind a debate on the site of one of the sites that he proposes. That'd be handy, because frankly, it's a distraction. And the problem is that that doesn't present just an academic argument. If it was – fine. What it does as a distraction is divert attention from what investors need. What investors need is certainty going forward. There is certainty in investing in renewables. There's certainty in investing in the sort of manufacturing breakthroughs that we can see - the investment that's taking place in Whyalla is about clearly prepared to have private sector investment, putting money where their mouth is. Every ten years there's been a nuclear debate. It's a cul de sac that leads you back to the same place, and what we had during the last term of the former Government was 22 energy policies, and none of them landed. None of them. And that meant nothing happened. We need things to happen. We cannot afford, in this country, to stand still because no one else is and the world will go past us. That's why it's a debate that I think should be called out for what it is - a bunch of people who don't want to act on climate change, who want to run a scare campaign about you know a transmission line. So, find me a community that's scared of a transmission line, but isn't scared of a nuclear reactor in their local area. I'll, happy to have that debate with Mr. Dutton anytime.
PENBERTHY: We're going to have to make this the last question because we've got the Teen Parliament people about to receive their presentations from Gemma. Can I finish with this one, and for both of you - how long do you both support coal and gas fired power, if carbon capture and storage is reducing the emissions - would you be happy to see it used into the long term?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, carbon capture and storage has a role to play in emissions reduction. The IPCC and others all say that, and we're investing in it. But the cheapest form of new energy is renewables. And the problem with coal fired power plants, like Liddell that used to be there, the biggest in NSW - and former Government used to stand up and talk about Liddell and keeping it open - it closed on their watch. A new coal fire power plant was not, in spite of the rhetoric and people bringing lumps of coal into Parliament, there were no investment in new coal fired power plants in Australia for more than a decade. And, because of water issues and other issues, they're just at the end of their life - like things reach the end, and most of them are past where they were due to be. Now gas has a really important role to play, in firming capacity as we go forward, we're not arguing for pre-emptive shutdown of coal fired power plants, that's not in our plan. The market is determining that. So, I think that there is - follow the science if you like. The CSIRO and follow the market. So, I think that there is follow the science, if you like, the CSIRO and others have looked at it. But follow the science, and follow the market, and that leads you to the destination that the Government is travelling in.
PENBERTHY: I'm guessing Premier, you might say, gas at the moment is emerging as a bit of an opportunity in an investment sense for SA, with the example only last month of Seeley International shifting 160 odd jobs back to SA from Victoria?
PREMIER MALINAUSKAS: As a Government, we have been very clear and consistent about - we think that gas has a major role to play for some time to come, principally as a firming capacity that actually helps unlock renewable investment, rather than the opposite. We think hydrogen can enter that mix as well. And obviously we're doing that with our hydrogen plant. But, yeah, I mean, we've been asked - are we going to turn off gas connections to new homes being built in the same way that has occurred in Victoria? And we reject that policy. We think that's a bad idea. Namely because in Victoria, people are going from gas powered heaters, produced by Seeley often, and going to reverse cycle air conditioning powered by coal fired generation. I don't know how that necessarily helps the equation. Here in South Australia, what we're seeking to do is decarbonise the gas network. And we've done that down at Tonsley, by seeing hydrogen being injected into the gas network that people use on their homes, and it's now going to go up potentially to 20 per cent in the not too distant future. So, someone turning on their gas heater at home, or their barbecue of its mains connected, or their stove cooktop, they'll be having 20 per cent hydrogen coming through it and they won't even notice it - except it will be cleaner and greener and have no impact on price. So, that's where we see the opportunities. And so there are opportunities to decarbonise gas through putting hydrogen into the network, or through carbon capture and storage, which South Australia - thanks to what Santos are doing - is going to be a global leader in. And that's a project that's not just past FID, construction has happened, is about to open up. And as a State government, we'll be celebrating that because it speaks to exactly what the PM spoke to - which is evidence based, market led solutions to decarbonise and have an appropriate price on outcome. And I just want to say something, because you mentioned the nuclear - every time a business or a household experiences the burden of higher power prices here than what they should be as an energy superpower, they need to blame only one type of policy argument. And that is the one that comes from the ideologues. It is the ideologues that have stuffed our power network throughout this country. It is the ideologues who have made price far higher than need to be. That's the Greens, when they opposed the CPRS and emissions trading scheme back in 2009, or whenever that occurred in the Federal Parliament, and it's the right side of the equation now arguing for a form of power that would, on every single independent analysis, make our power prices - particularly here in South Australia - far higher. The idea that we would spend 25, in fact, in the most recent example of a nuclear power station is in Georgia, which has now ballooned out by an additional 34 billion over its price for like a 2000 megawatt power station, the idea that we would have a $30 to $50 billion power station be built in South Australia - and that power station has to recoup that cost of capital, while competing against renewables that now have over 80 per cent penetration in the market. It is a fallacy. Unless, of course, nuclear power dramatically reduces its capital cost, in which case, I, for one, am comfortable with the technology. But there is no evidence, in fact, not only is there no evidence, there is only evidence that this would be a more expensive form of power in the context of the Australian market, where our industrial demand is not twenty four-seven and we don't have cities made up of 20 million people to sustain that sort of demand load that makes nuclear economic. So, let's dispense with the ideology and have a genuine debate about what is in the interests of consumers in this country when it comes to power. And when you do that analysis, look where the investment is flowing, and it is into renewables, to the extent that here in South Australia, within three years of where we are now, we will have 100 per cent net renewables in South Australia. That doesn't mean we have no gas. Quite the opposite. We'll have gas fired power on a semi frequent basis to firm the renewables, and we'll be exporting renewables to the rest of the country through interconnection.
PENBERTHY: Folks, can we please give a big hand to the Premier and the Prime Minister. Thank you for your time today, guys, it was great.