Liberals take note: Nuclear failure has crowned clean energy

One outcome of the federal election is the settling of the nuclear energy policy question once and for all.

It had lain dormant for years since the federal ban on nuclear energy, implemented in 1999 by then prime minister John Howard in a deal with the Greens. Then the former opposition leader Peter Dutton breathed new life into the nuclear debate with his proposal for seven nuclear power stations around regional Australia. He intended to solve energy shortages and provide jobs and investment in National Party strongholds.

An anti-nuclear campaign sign displayed during the federal election.Credit: Getty Images

But his poorly conceived policy blew up in his face and Australians have reaffirmed that nuclear power should be given a miss.

Many grew up in the shadow of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and reactor meltdowns at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. A collective concern about matters nuclear endured for years, but when federal governments signed onto the AUKUS deal for nuclear-powered submarines, it appeared to be fading. And when Dutton came up with his power stations plan last winter, few believed they posed any real danger. Certainly, almost none aged under 40 did.

But, while climate change and future energy had been furiously debated for years, Dutton misjudged that the population was ready to go nuclear.

The power stations fitted Dutton’s macho playbook of aggressively rubbing opponents’ noses in his policies and they provided a big-ticket attention-grabber. However, as moderate Liberal and former minister Christopher Pyne said last January, the key benefit of Dutton’s nuclear fantasy was political rather than societal, thanks to its uniting the Liberals and Nationals on a climate strategy. Pyne cheekily thought the likelihood of a station ever being built was “limited” but he said that in navigating debate about future energy policy away from coal and towards an acceptance of action on climate change, Dutton had succeeded where his predecessors, Brendan Nelson, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison, had failed.

Maybe. But outside the corridors of political power, his nuclear power policy played a role in the Coalition defeat on Saturday. Dutton was unable to justify or explain the cost adequately. His power stations were too expensive and bent future budgets into contortion. The CSIRO was unimpressed, and the private sector wanted nothing to do with them. Worse, they were a gift to Labor. It dawned on both sides early in the campaign that the nuclear policy had turned toxic. Labor jumped on it and Dutton’s battle bus steered well clear of the proposed nuclear sites.

The fantasy of the timeline to bring the nuclear power stations online and the dubious costings only added to the voters’ perceptions that Dutton was talking hot air and that his promised policy would never happen.

Now it’s back to square one for the Liberals on energy policy. It will not be easy. The shattered party must rebuild to recapture the heartland after it was crudely shoved towards conservative populism by Dutton and friends. Policy development will be a major cornerstone of that recovery. And energy is central to credible reform.

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