As it happened: Coalition unveils nuclear power plant sites; Melbourne MP’s office vandalised in ‘escalation’ of attacks

Thanks for reading today’s live national news blog. This is where we’ll end today’s coverage.

To conclude, here’s a look back at what we covered today.

• Opposition Leader Peter Dutton named seven locations where a Coalition government would build nuclear plants but didn’t confirm the project’s cost and has already faced rebukes from state leaders over the plan.
• Vandals smashed windows and used flammable liquid to set fire to the office of Jewish Labor MP Josh Burns early this morning, which Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says represents a troubling escalation of radical pro-Palestinian activism in Australia.
• Australian journalist Cheng Lei claimed she was barred from entering a second major government press event attended by Chinese Premier Li Qiang this week.
• A former Australian Taxation Office employee-turned-whistleblower facing prosecution over steps he took to gather evidence has lost his appeal against a court decision preventing him from relying on Commonwealth whistleblower protections.
• Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong are among a delegation of senior government figures visiting Papua New Guinea as Australia tries to cement its relationships in the region against expanding Chinese influence.
• In NSW, bird flu has been detected on a commercial egg farm in Sydney’s Hawkesbury region, triggering an emergency biosecurity lockdown. The strain found differs from the one detected in Victoria.

Thanks again, have a lovely night.

Victorian Liberal senator Jane Hume says Victoria could host two nuclear reactors in the Latrobe Valley, suggesting they would still constitute a single nuclear power plant despite the location currently being two separate coal-fired power stations owned by different companies.

Opposition finance spokeswoman Jane Hume.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

This morning, the Coalition’s media release listed “Loy Yang power stations” as the single site in Victoria where the opposition proposes to build a nuclear plant, if it wins the next election.

There are two Loy Yang power stations situated close together just south of Traralgon in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley but they are owned by different companies and have different closing dates. AGL owns Loy Yang A and plans to close it in 2035. Alinta Energy owns Loy Yang B and currently intends to operate it until 2047.

ABC Radio Melbourne Drive host Ali Moore then asked Hume which one the Coalition would target for a nuclear plant. Here’s some of their exchange:

Hume: “Well, obviously, as coal-fired power stations retire, that’s when it would be appropriate to consider transferring them to nuclear because that’s when the site becomes available. These sites have been chosen very carefully. They’ve been chosen because they already have the infrastructure.”

Moore: “I get that. I’m just wondering which site is it – is it A, or is it B?”

Hume: “Well, it is [Loy Yang] A that is retiring in 2035 and [Loy Yang] B that’s retiring a little later than that. So they would be considered as they retire.”

Moore: “So, there could be two sites? You could have two reactors in Victoria?”

Hume: “They’re literally next door to each other. They use the same mine, the same infrastructure. So that would make sense.”

Moore: “To have two reactors?”

Hume: “Well you could have multiple generators on the one site, yes.”

Moore: “So then we [Australia] could get eight [nuclear reactors] then? Not seven?”

Hume: “I think you’re now conflating the issue. This is a plan to have a nuclear energy generating facility on this particular site because the infrastructure is there.”

Resources Minister Madeleine King says she is “baffled” as to why the Coalition is confident nuclear is an election-winning policy, saying she thinks it is “because they are so out of touch”.

Resources Minister Madeleine KingCredit: Dion Georgopoulos

King was asked on ABC’s Afternoon Briefing how the government could be so confident that Australians are opposed to nuclear energy, given the Coalition is centring the next election on the issue.

She answered that “no one has ever raised” it with her.

“I have not met a person that walked up to me in the street, in the many areas and business people I meet, they simply don’t [raise it].”

She said the robust uptake of solar panels on residential roofs also gave her confidence that Australians backed renewables.

“People do embrace solar energy and that is not the same as a whole grid-wide power source, but nonetheless, it does indicate that people want sustainable energy and they know that we have got the sunshine,” King said.

“I must say I am baffled as to why [the Coalition] are confident of this and I think it is because they are so out of touch.”

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan has re-affirmed her strong stance against the federal opposition’s proposed nuclear energy plan.

She posted a letter addressed to Opposition Leader Peter Dutton to X, with the caption: “We will never allow a toxic nuclear power plant in this state.”

Police are conducting forensic tests on human bones discovered on a NSW beach to establish the age, gender and possible identity of the remains.

The bones were discovered by a bush regeneration volunteer on Tuesday on Jetty Beach in Coffs Harbour.

Jetty Beach in Coffs Harbour.Credit: Janie Barrett

Police took the bones and searched the beach again today, when they discovered items believed to be linked to the remains. Police are waiting on post-mortem analysis to help pinpoint a cause of death, and couldn’t yet say if the remains were the result of a homicide or drowning.

“I believe [the remains] have been there for some time,” Detective Acting Inspector Mark Rogers from Coffs Harbour police station told the media this afternoon.

“We have not been able to identify who the remains belong to at this stage.”

Police described the remains as “historic in nature”.

“Investigators will look into things like missing persons, that will form part of the investigation, we’ll definitely be looking at that,” Rogers said.

“It’s very early on in the investigation and we won’t rule anything out. Firstly, we’ll be trying to identify who the person is.”

Nationals leader David Littleproud, one of the key proponents of the Coalition’s nuclear energy plan, has claimed today’s announcement of proposed plant sites was only “the first step in the journey”.

Asked on ABC’s Afternoon Briefing if the opposition has the preliminary costing figures for the proposal, Littleproud confirmed they did, and claimed the Coalition would be “upfront and honest” about the cost.

Nationals leader David Littleproud during today’s announcement.Credit: Rhett Wyman

“But firstly, [today’s announcement] was about showing respect to those communities that through our initial geotechnical assessment showed that they were the best sites on which to place these nuclear power plants.”

Littleproud was questioned extensively on whether a Coalition government would proceed with their plans without the support of the states, as has been flagged across the country today, including taking measures like compulsory acquisition of sites.

He said such a move would be a “last resort”.

“What we are seeking is a mandate from the Australian people to move forward with an energy mix rather than an all-renewables approach.”

Littleproud also contradicted his deputy, Perin Davey, who today said that, “if a community is absolutely adamant then we will not proceed”.

The Nationals leader said Davey’s claim is “not correct”.

“Peter Dutton and David Littleproud, as part of a Coalition government, are prepared to make the tough decisions in the national interest. We will consult, and we will give plenty of notice,” Littleproud said.

Host Greg Jennett rattled off several questions about nuclear waste, ownership arrangements of the plants, and the future of the Snowy Hydro 2.0, to which Littleproud responded with variations of the claim that the Coalition would be “clear” or “upfront” on these questions at a later date.

A former Australian Taxation Office employee-turned-whistleblower facing prosecution over steps he took to gather evidence has lost his appeal against a court decision preventing him from relying on Commonwealth whistleblower protections.

Richard Boyle worked in the ATO’s debt recovery division in Adelaide and made headlines in 2018 when he spoke out against his employer’s heavy-handed approach to some taxpayers in a joint investigation by this masthead and ABC’s Four Corners.

He was charged with a raft of offences in 2019, subsequently reduced to 24 charges, including covertly recording conversations with ATO colleagues and using his mobile phone to photograph taxpayer information.

ATO whistleblower Richard Boyle.Credit: Joe Armao

If convicted, he faces a lengthy prison sentence.

In a decision last year, the South Australian District Court ruled that Boyle could not rely on an immunity against prosecution in the Public Interest Disclosure Act, the whistleblowing law for public servants.

He appealed against that decision in the South Australian Court of Appeal. In a decision today, Boyle’s appeal was dismissed.

He is facing a jury trial in September, unless he seeks leave to appeal to the High Court or the Commonwealth attorney-general intervenes to stop the prosecution.

Under the Judiciary Act, the attorney-general may “decline to proceed further in the prosecution” of a person for a Commonwealth offence.

A key issue that emerged in Boyle’s case was whether a whistleblower was immune from prosecution for preparatory acts that reasonably formed part of the process of making a public interest disclosure, or only for the specific act of making the disclosure.

Boyle told the SA District Court he believed he needed to collect evidence to back up his claims.

Judge Liesl Kudelka said the whistleblower laws did not “expressly prohibit or endorse the collection of evidence by a public official to support ... [their] public interest disclosure”.

However, the judge was not satisfied the laws protected public officials “in the performance of an investigative role which the PID Act does not contemplate they undertake”.

Teal MPs have rebuked Peter Dutton’s proposed nuclear energy policy.

Kooyong MP Monique Ryan told Melbourne radio station 3AW that the proposal announced this morning is a “fantasy”.

“This is just a crazy way of Peter Dutton trying to keep the lights on with coal for the next 20 year,” she said.

Teal MPs Allegra Spender (left) and Monique Ryan. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Wentworth MP Allegra Spender said the policy was “too uncertain, too expensive and too slow for what Australia needs right now”.

“I think this is the wrong policy,” Spender told Sky News.

Meanwhile, after also slamming the policy on X, Warringah MP Zali Steggall made a direct appeal for disenfranchised members of the Coalition to join her on the crossbench.

Queensland mining billionaire Clive Palmer has spoken in favour of the opposition’s plan to build nuclear power plants across the country, saying that “nuclear power makes sense”.

“There’s no emissions with nuclear power whatsoever, and of course, Australia has got unprecedented resources in uranium, so this makes common sense,” he said, noting that nuclear power stations were “very safe”.

Clive Palmer at a press conference today with right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson.Credit: Nick Dent

The billionaire businessman and sometime politician was speaking in Brisbane today at the launch of his Australian Freedom Conference speaking tour alongside conservative US political commentator Tucker Carlson.

Carlson, who has been called “the most influential voice in right-wing media”, agreed that cheap energy was a good thing, but added that those concerned about climate change should be more worried about Ukraine.

“We are on the cusp of nuclear war, right now,” he said.

“That’s also a form of climate change, nuclear war. It heightens the temperature pretty intensely.”

The Australian Freedom Conference tour begins in Cairns on Friday before travelling to Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Sydney and Melbourne. Tickets start at $200.

The country’s air traffic controllers have been offered an 11.2 per cent pay increase over three years and improved conditions, as Airservices Australia edges closer to ending months of tense negotiations which could have resulted in lengthy industrial action and disrupted flights.

The association that represents air traffic controllers, Civil Air, has reached an in principle agreement with the government-owned body and is in the process of putting the offer before its members.

Air traffic controllers are responsible for air navigation safety and determine when aircraft across the country may take off and land.

All up, Australian air traffic controllers oversee 11 per cent of the world’s airspace.

The industry has grappled with staffing shortages and high levels of attrition for years due to the demands of the role and historic disengagement Airservices Australia. They’re also very difficult to recruit; less than 3 per cent of applicants pass the entry-level test to become an air traffic controller.

These shortages contribute to the number of flights that are cancelled or delayed as airlines will not fly without enough controllers rostered on.