Labor Party suffering fallout from latest nuclear implosion

Illustration: Johannes Leak

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s $387bn nuclear costings political stunt backfired spectacularly.

Instead of heaping pressure on Peter Dutton and the Coalition – who haven’t finalised their 2025 election energy and climate change policies – Bowen brought heat onto himself.

Labor insiders believe the “shocking” misrepresentation of Dutton’s policy idea smacked of two pressure points for the Albanese government.

That the ALP’s long-held anti-nuclear, NIMBY, renewables-only approach is losing traction; and that Bowen’s spray was a diversion away from his struggles tomeet Labor’s 82 per cent renewables and 43 per cent emissions reduction by 2030 targets.

It takes a special effort to turn a political hit job back on yourself. No doubt, Bowen was keen to walk into the Q&A studio on Monday night with ammunition to fire at his Coalition counterpart Ted O’Brien. However, the suggestion that the Coalition would force taxpayers to fully fund the construction of 71 nuclear Small Modular Reactors is nonsense.

At best, the Coalition has proposed an idea to convert existing coal-fired power sites into SMRs. Along with the private sector, including BHP and other miners, Dutton wants barriers and prohibitions on nuclear removed.

Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen during Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

SMR technology is heavily backed by the US, Britain and other Western allies who are working to bring the nuclear energy source to scale. An SMR, which Bill Gates is co-funding in the US coalmining state of Wyoming, is not a Chernobyl or Fukushima.

Polling of 2400 voters in May revealed that public sentiment to nuclear energy was shifting in a country that boasts world-leading uranium stocks.

The poll, commissioned shortly after Australia pledged up to $368bn for AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines, found 56 per cent of voters agreed the government should seriously consider the use of SMRs to generate emissions-free energy and help the nation decarbonise faster.