‘Voldemort policy’: Labor, Coalition deny hiding energy plans in nuclear election

Another earthquake has struck one of the seven sites where Opposition Leader Peter Dutton wants to build a nuclear power station – but the seismic event is unlikely to be powerful enough to shake the major parties into putting energy policy onto the election campaign’s centre stage.

With less than two weeks until polling day, Energy Minister Chris Bowen made his first appearance of the campaign with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday, attacking the Coalition’s nuclear policy from the site of a proposed nuclear plant while batting away questions on the impact of Labor’s energy plan.

Opposition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien has barely appeared with Dutton as both Labor and the Coalition faced tricky questions over the cost of their competing policies and their impact on household power bills.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has furiously called out what he calls Labor’s lie that his nuclear plan would cost $600 billion to build – the Coalition’s costings put the price at $331 billion – but he has notably not visited any of his proposed nuclear sites during the campaign to refute the claims.

Dutton has not teamed with O’Brien to promote the nuclear policy – the two have joined forces once to promote their gas reservation scheme.

Albanese has attacked Dutton’s nuclear plan, declaring that it will raise power prices as taxpayers foot a big bill due to lack of interest from investors. But he has not visited a solar or wind farm to champion his plan for the large-scale rollout of renewable energy.

This is a stark contrast to the 2022 election campaign, when Labor’s ambitious climate targets and renewables goals were at the heart of their successful election campaign.

Albanese escalated his attack on Dutton’s energy plan on Wednesday, devoting a whole day of his busy campaign schedule to fly to Collie, Western Australia, teaming for the first time with Bowen to launch an attack from one of Dutton’s proposed nuclear sites.

“Nuclear policy is the dark lord of policies, the ‘Voldemort policy’ whose name cannot be mentioned by them [the Coalition],” Bowen said.

Albanese said Dutton was refusing to visit the locations where he wanted to build nuclear plants.

Out on the trail: Bowen addresses the media on Wednesday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“You would think that there was radiation coming from these sites,” Albanese said.

Bowen and Albanese did not say if they would visit a controversial offshore wind farm zone in southern WA when asked by reporters on Wednesday, but Bowen said he would listen only to “legitimate concerns” over proposed development.

Albanese’s trip followed a 4.6-magnitude earthquake at 2.55am on Wednesday in the Hunter Valley, near the location of Liddell power station, which was closed in 2023 and is a site for a proposed nuclear plant. It was the region’s third earthquake since the election campaign began on March 28.

The risk of public backlash over earthquakes prompted O’Brien to promise in August last year to abide by independent advice on seismic safety for any of the nominated sites.

Honorary Associate Professor Tony Irwin, from the Australian National University, operated nuclear power plants in the UK for three decades. He said all reactors were constructed to comply with international standards and could withstand far greater seismic disturbances than the Hunter Valley earthquakes.

“There’s never been a nuclear power plant that’s been severely damaged by a seismic event. Even at Fukushima, the reactors survived the world’s fourth-biggest earthquake,” Irwin said, pointing out Japan’s nuclear meltdown was triggered by a tsunami resulting from the earthquake.

However, Labor’s Hunter MP Dan Repacholi referenced Dutton’s reluctance to visit proposed nuclear sites when he said the earthquake’s epicentre was 40 kilometres from Liddell.

“He won’t even go near his own proposed nuclear site, a project that will cost billions, paid for by massive cuts. He thinks we’re mugs. Well, I’ve got news for him – we’re not. People in the Hunter are onto this and they don’t like it,” Repacholi said.

The Coalition’s hopeful for Hunter, Nationals candidate Sue Gilroy, said nuclear energy was safe for the community, which would welcome the jobs created by building a nuclear plant.

“Australia is the most geologically stable continent on Earth, and nuclear facilities are designed so that earthquakes and major events pose no safety risks,” Gilroy said.

“I believe that when people are given the facts, when they see the jobs, the investment, and the environmental benefits of nuclear support for our plan will continue to grow.”

A Coalition spokesperson said it was “appalling” that Labor would seek to invoke fear over nuclear safety, and labelled claims that O’Brien was in hiding as “flat-out wrong”, adding Bowen was “in witness protection over Labor’s failing energy plan”.

A spokesperson for Bowen denied that he had been missing from the campaign before Wednesday, and said: “The Albanese Labor government is happy to talk about energy.”

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