Liberal MP warns Dutton on nuclear energy as Labor steps up attacks

Liberal MP Bridget Archer has issued her colleagues a caution on the political risk of the party’s nuclear energy plans, which the backbencher claims have been catapulted into political debate partly to keep climate change doubters on board with the Coalition’s net zero emissions policy.

While there is widespread support within Peter Dutton’s opposition for a conversation on nuclear energy, several Coalition MPs speaking confidentially to detail private concerns said they were worried the opposition was moving too quickly and creating an easy target for Labor attacks.

Bridget Archer (top centre in pink jacket) during a vote in the House of Representatives last month.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

As the first Liberal to ask questions about the Coalition’s approach, Archer argued fiscally conservative opposition MPs, including herself, would be uneasy with the massive government investment required to build multibillion-dollar plants.

Nuclear energy, which Archer — a leading moderate voice within the party — says she is open to, should be pursued only if coupled with a rapid surge in renewables, she said, a contrast with Dutton and other Coalition MPs, who suggest extending the life of coal until nuclear availability in 10 or 20 years.

Dutton and the shadow cabinet MP leading the nuclear push, Ted O’Brien, are expected to detail their energy plans, including about six plant sites, by the budget in May, but Archer said the initial policy should be limited to lifting Australia’s nuclear moratorium.

“I’m very agnostic about it and I don’t think we should be afraid to just have conversations. But there are a lot of things that need to line up,” she said, noting technological and economic factors that might inhibit private investment even if the decades-old moratorium was overturned.

Peter Dutton and his energy spokesman Ted O’Brien.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“I think that’s got to be the starting point: let’s have a look at what it would look like to remove the moratorium.”

The opposition has spoken in favour of nuclear energy since losing government in 2022, and escalated its commitment this year as it declared support for large-scale nuclear on top of new-age small modular reactors.

Its backing of the new energy source has guaranteed that climate change and energy will be a key election issue. Voters will be presented with a choice between Labor’s renewables-heavy path to a zero emissions future and one complemented by nuclear energy, amid doubts over Labor’s emissions-reduction targets and expensive energy bills.

Signalling Labor’s future election attacks, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese compared Dutton to the contentious energy source in parliament on Wednesday, saying: “One is risky, expensive, divisive and toxic; the other is a nuclear reactor. The bad news for the Liberal Party is that you can put both on a corflute, and we certainly intend to do so.”

Dutton has been open about the potential need for government investment in nuclear plants, which Labor says have cost tens of billions overseas.

Archer, a member of an influential parliamentary inquiry into nuclear energy last term, said she would be uncomfortable with a “big government” approach to energy investment, which she said might irk Liberals with a fiscally conservative bent.

O’Brien has emphasised nuclear as a zero-emissions option to smooth Australia’s bumpy transition to net zero. However, some of the strongest voices for nuclear energy are MPs such as Barnaby Joyce, who oppose renewables and have questioned scientific orthodoxy on climate change.

Earlier this month O’Brien said, “we should not be closing our coal-fired power stations prematurely” because under Labor’s plans 90 per cent of baseload energy would exit the grid by 2034.

Archer, who Dutton this week congratulated for winning the McKinnon Prize for political leadership, said nuclear energy should not be used as an excuse to prolong fossil fuel reliance.

“There is no point even having a nuclear discussion if you don’t accept a need to decarbonise, to transition away from coal and gas,” she said. “There only is a case for nuclear if there is a fairly rapid transition to large-scale renewables, otherwise why are you doing it?”

“I think part of the reason for having the discussion is to keep people in the tent on net zero.”

Allegra Spender, a teal MP who some Liberals believe should be recruited to the party in future, said nuclear “may have a role in the distant future”.

Some Liberals want independent MP Allegra Spender brought into the party in the future.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“But it is too slow, too expensive and the UK Hinkley [nuclear power station] experience shows the costs are too uncertain for it to be relevant to our current energy plans,” she said.

“AGL Energy, Alinta, EnergyAustralia and Origin Energy have all dismissed nuclear.

“The community does not trust the Coalition’s commitment to climate action, and their current stance reinforces it.”

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