There’s a great story from Kelvin McKenzie’s stint as editor of Britain’s The Sun newspaper, notorious for its salacious headlines and outrageous beat-ups. A journo came panting back in from a job and gabbled out his story to McKenzie, concluding with the words “and the most amazing thing is, it’s actually true!”
McKenzie is said to have bellowed across the newsroom: “True story alert, folks! Repeat: We have a TRUE STORY!”
Political leaders make policy decisions based on all kinds of factors — too often, the driving force is a sickly alloy of cowardice and polling.
The one that Peter Dutton rolled out today, however, is different. And certainly the riskiest gambit from opposition in many moons. He genuinely believes nuclear is the answer to Australia’s energy problems and is confident that the details (yet to be established) will vindicate him.
In other words: “Genuine conviction alert, folks! We have a GENUINELY HELD BELIEF here!”
There is no chance Dutton and his climate and energy spokesman Ted O’Brien, another nuclear true believer, are basing this decision on polling, unless they’re reading it upside down.
A national energy survey conducted last month by the research company RedBridge, which asked 2,000 respondents how they felt about various energy sources, put public support for nuclear at 35 per cent. Coal was the only less popular option, at 28 per cent. Solar was at 80 per cent.
Dutton has been a highly effective opposition leader for two years now. Just surviving as Liberal leader for two years after a sickening election loss is a triumph, historically speaking. But Dutton has built support, and has a united party room. Or has had, until now.
This success has been built on caution. He keeps a fairly low profile, and has built political capital among his colleagues by being consultative and concentrating his efforts on criticising the government’s errors rather than making his own.
Today, Peter Dutton has taken every single chip he’s amassed, and he’s put the whole lot on yellowcake.
He’s announced a full-strength tilt at nuclear power for Australia, said the first plant will be up and running within 13 years, doesn’t know how much it will cost, but does hold out the promise that it will bring rivers of cheap energy to Australia just like it has in France (which started building nuclear power stations in the 1970s).
Where will the plants go? Mostly in National Party seats, and they’re all on board, says Nats leader David Littleproud. Easy.
Where will the nuclear waste go? Probably on the sites of the reactors, came the opposition leader’s response when questioned at his press conference today. The “no big deal” tone to his reply was sharpened by his observation that the average volume of radioactive waste emitted by the proposed reactors would fit into “a can of Coke”. (One assumes that this is not actually the formal storage plan proposed, but in the absence of another model it’s all we have at this stage.)
Nuclear has full-throated support from certain parts of the Coalition’s party room, and among the high-volume, low-viewership opinion vendors who ply their trade on Sky as the evening shadows lengthen.
But among the broader population, there is a perceptible and fascinating pattern. Men don’t mind nuclear – 51 per cent expressed approval in the RedBridge survey – but women really, really don’t; only 19 per cent approved, and 40 per cent expressly disapproved.
The strongest support for nuclear is found among Coalition voters (52 per cent), the over-65s (47 per cent), people who own their houses outright (42 per cent) and people who describe themselves as under “no housing stress at all” (52 per cent).
Dutton will not only need to convince voters of his nuclear vision
Peter Dutton has spent two years declaring that the cost of living is the biggest issue Australians face. But the solution he’s proposing also happens to be the least attractive to the people with whom he’s trying hardest to emote.
His job now is to convince them that an Australian government led by him can — in just 15 years and at as-yet undisclosed national expense — generate cheap power.
If elected, he would also need to convince state governments to cooperate in NSW, Victoria, SA and his home state of Queensland, where even the state LNP leader David Crisafulli, who quite possibly will be premier within months, today issued a polite “no, thank you” to Dutton’s plan.
The whole thing certainly relieves John Hewson — author of the GST-toting Fightback package that the Coalition took to the 1993 election to a large and sustained round of voter indifference — of his mantle as the most courageous Liberal opposition leader in modern history.
Contacted today, Hewson did not appear to entertain any camaraderie with Dutton’s policy boldness.
“The comparison is most insulting, given the detailed policy work — including costings — in Fightback,” he said.
“This is the scam of the year. No detail, no costings.”
The opposition leader is correct that high power prices — and the exposure of Australian households to power shortages, and the concern over sacrifice of farming land to wind farms and transmission lines — are genuine issues of concern to Australians.
But committing untold volumes of public money to speed-build reactors about which voters are already nervous … well. Only a true believer would attempt such a thing. Which is what Dutton is, when it comes to nuclear.
He’s not the first leader to feel this way: John Howard floated nuclear after a long consultation process in 2007, and was promptly flattened by Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan who toured Australia sweetly asking voters how they’d feel about a reactor in their backyard. Bob Hawke was a fan, but didn’t have a crack at it while in an actual position to do so.
In whipping this decision through the shadow cabinet and then an online meeting of the party room, Dutton has also put his greatest political asset — party stability — on the table. Every marginal seat MP or candidate attempting to win back metropolitan seats for the Liberal Party will now be obliged to talk about nuclear power stations, when they’d prefer to be talking about the cost of living under Labor.
Up until now, the opposition leader has enjoyed — among his own colleagues — a reputation for caution, for keeping the party a small target, and for capitalising on the government’s mistakes rather than bolting out and making his own.
Not any more, folks. Peter Dutton has today placed a staggering bet on his own ability to sell Australians something they presently don’t want, at a price yet to be determined. They don’t make targets bigger than this.
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