Premier Peter Malinauskas decries nuclear power NIMBYS and culture warriors

Peter Malinauskas says left and right wing culture warriors are doing Australia a disservice as they put their ideology before the national interest.

Ill-informed “NIMBY” and ideological opposition to nuclear power has been condemned by Premier Peter Malinauskas, who also declared “a culture war debate on nuclear” was a disservice to the nation.

Speaking on Thursday at an Adelaide policy and business lunch, Mr Malinauskas said science was clear, showing that nuclear was safe and clean.

Repeating his sole opposition to nuclear power was that it was uneconomic for Australia, Mr Malinauskas said the nation was skipping over a civil industry and “going right to the hardcore stuff” – nuclear-powered submarines built at Adelaide’s Osborne Naval Shipyard.

“Fifteen or so kilometres from where we are now, we’re going to have a nuclear reactor put in the back of a submarine that will be below the water,” Mr Malinauskas told The Australian Competitive Advantage Boardroom Series lunch.

Premier Peter Malinauskas on Thursday at The Australian's Competitive Advantage Boardroom Series lunch at 2KW Bar and Restaurant, Adelaide. Picture Matt Turner.

Acknowledging debate about Australia disposing of nuclear waste from the submarines’ reactors, Mr Malinauskas said he was “infuriated” by differing opinions on the left and right about the science and cost of nuclear power respectively.

“For me, all of the ideological opposition, the NIMBY arguments against it – I think they’re ill-informed. I don’t think that’s doing the country much of a service,” he said.

“But I also think the country is not well-served by what has now become a culture war debate on nuclear, where you’ve got the far right saying: ‘Aha, here we go, we’ve got it. We’ve got all these lefties being opposed to nuclear, we’re gonna build nuclear’.

“And those people seem to be utterly indifferent to what it would actually mean to the cost of electricity. I think that’s nuts.

Premier Peter Malinauskas on Thursday at The Australian's Competitive Advantage Boardroom Series lunch. Picture Matt Turner.

“So you’ve got the left opposing it because of some NIMBY argument or some sort of ideological historic argument or some sort of unproven safety argument in the modern context.

“So that’s where the left are. Then you’ve got the right saying: “We can prove all those lefties wrong – we’re gonna get nuclear’.

“And none of them can substantiate the economic argument for what the cost would be in the context of the Australian energy market, which has a lot more complexity, and a lot more nuance, to where we see nuclear actually stack up economically, where there are populations of billions, 24/7 industrial demand beyond our comprehension in Australia, let alone actual capacity to deliver.”

Mr Malinauskas in late 2022 in an Advertiser interview declared himself “open-minded” to nuclear power as “a source of baseload energy with zero carbon emissions” – views later rejected as a mistake by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

At The Advertiser’s Building a Bigger, Better South Australia forum in March, Mr Malinauskas blamed “ideologues” for higher power prices, attacking the Greens for opposing carbon trading more than a decade ago and the Coalition for pushing nuclear power “that would on every single independent analysis make our power prices, particularly here in South Australia, far higher”.

“Every time a business or house experiences the burden of higher power prices here than what they should be in an energy superpower, they need to blame only one type of policy and that is the one that comes from the ideologues. It is the ideologues that have stuffed our power network throughout this country,” Mr Malinauskas said.