Angus Taylor has door open to subsidising nuclear energy projects

The Coalition has left the door open to subsidising nuclear energy projects while declaring the party will go to the next election with a tax policy targeting bracket creep.

Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

The Coalition has left the door open to subsidising nuclear energy projects while declaring the party will go to the next election with a tax policy targeting bracket creep, ahead of Peter Dutton’s budget reply speech on Tuesday.

Despite being critical of the Albanese government’s intention to subsidise clean energy projects through the Future Made in Australia plan, Opposition Treasury spokesman Angus Taylor left subsidising nuclear energy on the table.

Mr Taylor was asked on Sunday if the Coalition would subsidise the alternative power source, to which he said it would depend on whether projects “were capable of delivering a commercial return”.

When Mr Taylor was quizzed on whether he believed nuclear was capable of delivering such a return, he said “yes I do”.

“Any energy source that’s going to be able to deliver affordable, reliable energy and bring down emissions at the same time has to be able to deliver a commercial return, and I think (nuclear) will be able to,” he told ABC’s Insiders.

Mr Taylor said Labor must ensure it was “restrained in spending” in next week’s budget.

“We’ve seen spending growing in real terms much faster than the economy in the last two years. We have seen a government that loves to spend, I mean, it’s their natural instinct,” he said.

On tax reform, Liberal frontbenchers offered mixed messages over the Opposition’s plans ahead of the next election.

While Mr Taylor said the Coalition would deliver a tax package before the next election which would “keep with the stage three tax cuts”, opposition finance spokeswoman Jane Hume said the party was “not talking about restoring stage three tax cuts as they previously were”.

“They’ve been trashed … even when reform was already embedded, already costed, already paid for in the system, (Labor) still repealed it because they are so gun shy of genuine tax reform,” she told Sky News.

Senator Hume said the Coalition was committed to tackling the “insidious bracket creep eating away at the prosperity and the aspirations of Australians for years”.

“We have made this very clear from the beginning, that the Coalition will always stand up for lower simpler, fairer taxes for businesses, and for households,” she said.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers declared on Sunday that while the rejigged stage three tax cuts served as the government’s foundation to cost of living relief, other measures would be in the budget, including provisions for wage rises for feminised industries.