Will Australia get behind Dutton's nuclear campaign?

From Schwartz Media. I'm Scott Mitchell. This is seven am. Nuclear power has been politically toxic in this country for decades. That's why it's been fifty five years since a leader won an election promising to build nuclear reactors. But Peter Dutton is betting at all that he can do it, and as strange as it sounds, he's convincing people. A little over ten years ago, sixty two percent of Australians opposed nuclear power. Today poles are showing the majority support it.

Paul.

It's been long promised, long anticipated, But this week Peter Dutton finally went from a fairly vague nuclear promise to announcing a nuclear policy he'll take to the next election. First, just how big a moment is this for the opposition?

Well, Scott, this is Peter Dutton's crazy, brave moment. It's born of a desperation as a first term opposition leader trying to achieve the rare feat of knocking off a first term prime minister and government.

Okay, Fron, thank you very much for being here today. I'm very pleased to be joined by my colleagues because this is a major announcement to the future of our country. Is incredibly important and we need to have a plan for the economy. We need to have a plan for jobs, and we need to have a plan for cheaper electricity.

The news conference in Sydney was a firm statement that the leadership of the coalition parties was all on side with his attempt to paint seven nuclear reactors sometime in the next thirty years as the answer to all struggling Australian's problems.

Well, thanks, Dada. It's a proud day to be the Nationals leader. This has been a long held view of the National Party. But it's proud of me to stand here with my coalition friends, led by Peter Dutton, who's had the courage of the conviction to come forward, to stand forward and show a different way for Australia.

He was joined by the Leader of the Nationals David little Brown, his Deputy Leader, Susan Lee, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Ted O'Brien, he's the architect of the yet to be fully and credibly released plan and finally, Shadow Treasurer Angus.

Taylor today, I want the very clear focus to be on the fact that the sites we're proposing end of use call fire POWERstation sites. So when you hear labor go out and say is it going to be in this park? Will it be on this beach? All of that childish behavior that we'll expect from the Prime minister.

What we got was the sites for the proposed nuclear reactors as flagged or on current coal fired power stations to in Queensland, to in New South Wales, one in South Australia, one in Victoria and one in Western Australia, and we had the claim the first of them would be online by twenty thirty five to twenty thirty seven.

Actually I'm ordering christ tag whatever it is.

Where does that money come from or where does it taken from and might not get invested?

Well, again, it comes from the same place that the snowy hydro funds come from, or the subsidies around solar and win now it comes from the Australian taxpayer. The Australian government doesn't have any money without the Australian taxpayers. So that's a decision for the government of the day as to whether it's a wise investment.

But Scott the most stunning part of the announcement was the Liberals abandoning their holy writ of a free market and private enterprise, knowing best and best able to del hover. The taxpayers of Australia will be asked to stump up the as yet unspecified billions of dollars, and in what would make any socialist proud, the Australian government will own and operate these power stations.

The assets will be owned by the Commonwealth, a very important point. And we'll work with experts to deliver these programs, will work with the state premiers. Some debate about that I see.

Of course, don't mention the waste or the safety issues, or how the local communities will be involved. Dutton says we'll get all those answers in due course. But when that is, and whether it'll be before the election or after, it is far from clear.

If we're want to set our country up for the future, if we're going to bring those electricity prices down, if we want to make a stable economy and if we want to grow that economy, and if we want to grow jobs for generations to come, our country must seize this opportunity.

Now, right, Paul, A few hurdles to overcome. Do we have a sense yet how serious those kind of practical challenges are with this policy?

Well, State labor premiers immediately came out against the plan. New South Wales Chris Min's and Victoria's Jacinta Allen reminded us that even if Dutton removed federal legislation that bans nuclear power stations, states like theirs have their own bands and they won't be lifting them.

We're not going to remove the nuclear prohibition on energy production in New South Wales.

So I don't know how they're going to get around it. Queensland Premier Stephen Miles, South Australia's Peter Melanowskis and Western Australia's Roger Cook made that rejection universal.

The only known fact is that it's the most expensive form of power out there.

And Scott At this stage, even the state Liberal and National Party oppositions are very cool on the idea, though they are choosing their words carefully. Victorian Opposition leader John Persuto says he has no plans to introduce nuclear, and Queensland Opposition leader David Chris Afuley, who looks like becoming the next premiere of that state, well, he says he's been clear that nuclear was not part of his plan. Then there's the energy companies who own most of these sites.

Now, what do we know from today's announcement. The only details they released is an admission that even on their own timetable, which is hugely ambitious, they couldn't get a nuclear actor up in Australia until twenty thirty five or twenty thirty seven.

This was the central point made by Labour's Climate change and energy spokesman Chris Bowen. He called a press conference hours later to lay out the case against what he called a risky nuclear scam, saying that twenty thirty five is too far away and even if the Opposition somehow could deliver it would defy every example on record.

We now have a clear choice, the Australian people now have a very clear choice. Stick with the plan or go with this uncosted, unmodeled fantasy that mister Dutton is proposing today.

Bowen said it would be the fastest nuclear rollout in the world in a country that doesn't have a nuclear industry.

Mister Dutton's isolated here. He's isolated from his state and territory parties. He's isolated from the business community, he's isolated from the science community, he's isolated from sensible policy. Mister Dutton out on his time.

And the CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator agree with him. Their recent report found the earliest Australia could get nuclear online was twenty forty and that it would be more expensive than renewables. But Dutton is undeterred. He's hinted he'll use the constitutional powers of the federal government to override the states and their bands on nuclear and he'll use forced acquisition of the aging sites from their

Let's talk about that, because plenty of opposition leaders, including Peter Dutton himself at times, have made political wins with policies that have had some practical challenges. But is nuclear power really going to win people over?

Well, there's no doubt Dutton has managed to get Australians to be open to the idea of nuclear energy. The opinion polls reflect that I want.

To help families get their power bills down. I want electricity costs to be cheaper in our country. I want them to be I want businesses in particular, but families as well to have consistent or reliable power, and I want greener power. But at the moment the government is slowly choking the Australian economy.

But being open to the idea that sometime in the future nuclear reactors will be built in these specified communities is not the same as delivering them, and when push comes to shove, the risks may well deter acceptance. But the biggest weakness is that this plan has a twenty fifty deadline. Dutton is tying it to the cost of energy now, but nothing he announced yesterday will lower energy prices in the next three years. So the acid test will be on Anthony Albanizi's abilit to prosecute this case

After the break the Canberra visit that gave us a window into our energy future. Paul, we're talking about this nuclear plan and I want to talk about what this means for the future here, Paul. If we went with nuclear power and abandoned a lot of this renewable shift we're trying to make happen right now, what would that mean.

Well from the liberals point of view. Susan Lee attempted to frame the plan as a policy for the future, providing jobs, manufacturing for the next generation.

Thank you, Peter, and thank you for your clear eyed and consistent leadership on an issue that is so vital for the future of our country, for our children and our grandchildren. How can this Prime Minister promise a future made in Australia when he can't keep the lights on today. In order to have that future made in Australia, we have to have nuclear energy in the mix.

But we're seeing a huge global pivot to renewables man Australia is uniquely placed to take advantage. We've got a stark preview of that this week with Chinese Premier League Chang visiting Canberra. He's the highest ranking representative of our biggest trading partner to come in seven years. And while there was a lot of focus on pandas and on protests outside Parliament House, his main mission here was to strengthen trade ties. And that's because China is desperate to

And so finally, Paul, we have a major policy announcement from the opposition, and we have the Prime Minister falling behind the opposition leader for the first time in a major poll. And there have been a lot of moments in this term of government that we're going to look back on as defining it, whether it's Peter Dutton's decision to oppose the Voice alb Easy to make the tax cuts a bit more equal. Is this week going to be one of those moments?

Well, Scott, it could well be, but there's much more to play out. An aggregate of all the published polls still has the government just in front and either maintaining its slim majority or going into minority. But a week is a long time in politics, and Labor is counting on the tax cuts arriving in a matter of days and the energy bill relief to make voters less grumpy with it. So we'll see. You know, there's that old proverb often attributed to China that may you live in

Paul, thanks so much for your time. It's always a pleasure.

Thank you, Scott. Bye.

Also in the news today, undercover shoppers have found near identical prices being charged for groceries at both Coals and Woolworth's raising competition concerns. The price comparison run by consumer group Choice found that there was less than a one dollar price difference in a basket containing fourteen common items bought at both major supermarkets, while a basket of comparable