‘Literally science’: Barnaby Joyce, Dee Madigan trade verbal barbs over nuclear power stance on ABC’s Q&A

Barnaby Joyce has claimed intermittent power is “wrecking” Australia’s landscape and asserted a potential future site for a nuclear plant only sustained minor damage from a 4.7 magnitude quake, sparking a fiery debate with fellow panellists. The Shadow Minister for Veterans’ Affairs joined fellow panellists assistant Minister for Trade Tim Ayres, company director and former ACT Chief Minister Kate Carnell, and campaign strategist and author Dee Madigan on ABC’s Q&A on Monday night, which was hosted in Newcastle. Mr Joyce was asked by audience member David whether the recent earthquakes — including a 4.7 earthquake near Muswellbrook last month — had changed his mind about Muswellbrook as a potential site for a nuclear power plant. The minister replied that the alternative options are either intermittent power — which he claimed is “wrecking” Australia’s landscape — or solar and wind power, the responsibility of which is thrust on every day Australians, according to Mr Joyce. He also said he was in Muswellbrook the day after the earthquake and said it was only minor damage that occurred. But Mr Joyce maintained this is taken into account when designing a nuclear power plant. “Remember, 30 countries in the world are using nuclear power, serious economies, and they all deal with issues like this. So they do engineer for that circumstance,” Mr Joyce said. “I had lunch in the RSL club. The damage from that was a chimney fell over and maybe a couple of windows broke out.” However Ms Madigan jumped in, claiming there have been about 36 accidents related to nuclear power plants worldwide. “Even the slightest raise in radiation means increasing miscarriage and stillbirth, in childhood cancers, I certainly wouldn’t want my kids being near one,” Ms Madigan said. Mr Joyce was quick to demand where she had got her evidence from, asking her to “put some substance to that” and “what are you quoting?” “Literally science,” Ms Madigan fired back to cheers from the audience. “And while we’re there on wind farms, who was the politician who promoted the Sapphire Wind Farm in New England? Oh, that’d be you,” she continued. “How can you change your mind so quickly?” Mr Joyce replied: “When the facts change, I change my mind”. However Ms Madigan hit back again, saying “When the polls change you change your mind”. Ms Carnell also joined the nuclear debate, calling it an “incredibly cheap and very carbon neutral option”. However, she said it’s “too late” for nuclear. “Problem is it’s not 20 years ago, it’s now. And we’ve got a problem with base load power in 10 years, maybe in some states sooner than that,” Ms Carnell said. “So we can’t wait for nuclear now, it’s too late … we’ve got to have another option for base load power, and it’s got to be gas.” Host Patricia Karvelas brought 18-year-old audience member Miles Punch into the debate. The 18-year-old from Maitland is studying maths and physics with hopes of pursuing engineering next year, and has already learned about the different types of power through his studies. “Having looked at all of these from a non-political point of view, purely scientifically, our best option would realistically be to diversify our power grid to take it into as many forms as possible so that we don’t lose our economy and our power grid when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining,” Mr Punch said. “We need to have nuclear, we need to have solar, we need to have wind.” When questioned on the cost of nuclear, Mr Punch said coal simply isn’t sustainable forever.