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The nuclear debate goes global · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Christinamiot.
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  Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, November twenty just weeks after the government canceled
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  Speaker 1: a space program worth seven billion dollars, it's been revealed
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  Speaker 1: Elon Musk's SpaceX launched a satellite for the Australian Defense Force.
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  Speaker 1: The secret communications device is part of a four hundred
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  Speaker 1: and five million dollar contract between the ADF and Optus.
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  Speaker 1: Construction sites in Victoria could be subject to snap twenty
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  Speaker 1: four hour shutdowns in the coming days. Building unions say
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  Speaker 1: they're concerned their offices could be targeted by bikis as
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  Speaker 1: the fallout from the CFMEU scandal continues. Those stories alive
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  Speaker 1: right now at the Australian dot com dot au. The
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  Speaker 1: government has sidestepped urging by our orcus allies to give
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  Speaker 1: civilians faster access to nuclear technology, and it's exposed a
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  Speaker 1: deep irony in the Labour Party's position on nuclear in
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  Speaker 1: today's episode, where the Government draws the line and how
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  Speaker 1: it could be a golden opportunity for the opposition. On
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  Speaker 1: Monday Night, at the United Nations Annual Climate Change Assembly,
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  Speaker 1: the United Kingdom's Energy Secretary ed Milliband and the United
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  Speaker 1: States Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk signed an agreement
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  Speaker 1: to pour billions of dollars into the research and development
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  Speaker 1: of nuclear technology. It's part of a bigger plan to
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  Speaker 1: cut carbon emissions and provide security for the energy industry
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  Speaker 1: as it transitions from fossil fuels to renewable energy solutions.
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  Speaker 1: Thirty one nations have already signed on to help triple
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  Speaker 1: nuclear capacity before the end of the decade and make
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  Speaker 1: new nuclear technology available by twenty fifty, and our UCUST
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  Speaker 1: allies made it abundantly clear they expect Australia to get
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  Speaker 1: on board. But on Tuesday Australia's Climate Change minister said
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  Speaker 1: that's a hard no.
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  Speaker 2: It was not unexpected that Australia would not support this
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  Speaker 2: nuclear proposal. There was one at the last cop meeting
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  Speaker 2: and we didn't support that. We are an observer.
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  Speaker 1: Dennis Shenahan is The Australian's national editor.
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  Speaker 2: But the real problem for the government in this case
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  Speaker 2: was that Ed Miliband, the UK Energy Secretary, said we
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  Speaker 2: were expected to sign it, and he referred to our allies,
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  Speaker 2: in other words, our ORCUS partners with whom we have
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  Speaker 2: a nuclear powered Submarine Agreement wanted US to join the
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  Speaker 2: new Enhanced Development Program for civilian nuclear energy. Now okay,
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  Speaker 2: the government decided not to do that in keeping with
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  Speaker 2: its policy, but it was an ill prepared decision and
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  Speaker 2: what it has done has highlighted the contradictory nature of
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  Speaker 2: actually having a nuclear powered submarine program. And once again
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  Speaker 2: there was a lack of preparedness in something that Chris
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  Speaker 2: Bowen knew was coming. It happened at the last COP,
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  Speaker 2: it was going to happen at this COP, and yet
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  Speaker 2: we were caught flat footed and embarrassed.
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  Speaker 1: Chris Bowen is in Azerbaijan for COP twenty nine and
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  Speaker 1: a statement released by his office said more or less
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  Speaker 1: that Australia doesn't need nuclear power because we have better weather.
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  Speaker 1: It's being read by a voice actor.
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  Speaker 3: Our international partners understand that Australia's abundance of renewable energy
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  Speaker 3: resources makes new nuclear power an unviable option for inclusion
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  Speaker 3: in our energy mix.
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  Speaker 1: For decarbonization efforts, Labour is backing renewables like solar as
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  Speaker 1: the path forward.
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  Speaker 3: Put simply, London has only one thousand, six hundred and
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  Speaker 3: thirty three hours of sunshine hours in an average year.
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  Speaker 3: By comparison, Australia's least sunny capital city is Melbourne with
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  Speaker 3: two thousand, three hundred and sixty two, while our sunniest
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  Speaker 3: capital city is Perth has three thy two hundred and
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  Speaker 3: twenty nine.
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  Speaker 1: The statement dropped in the midst of a ferocious attack
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  Speaker 1: by Labor on the Liberal Party's nuclear policy. Here's the
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  Speaker 1: Acting Prime Minister Richard Miles in Parliament on Tuesday.
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  Speaker 4: For Australia, pursuing a path of nuclear energy would represent
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  Speaker 4: pursuing the single most expensive electricity option on the planet.
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  Speaker 1: Environment Minister tenure pl said nuclear energy takes too long
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  Speaker 1: to develop, meaning millions of tons of carbon will continue
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  Speaker 1: to be pumped into the atmosphere in the meantime.
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  Speaker 2: It makes the government look too ideologically driven and it
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  Speaker 2: doesn't look at the making a serious decision about the
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  Speaker 2: appeal from the US and the UK, oh and about
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  Speaker 2: thirty other nations leading nations gluting Canada and France, and
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  Speaker 2: it just makes it look like we are isolating ourselves
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  Speaker 2: and we're not talking about some of the clearly very
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  Speaker 2: serious issues, and not just the firming of energy, which
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  Speaker 2: is what Ed Milliband was talking about, but also the
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  Speaker 2: cutting of carbon emissions. So the UK and the US,
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  Speaker 2: a labor government and a democratic government, we're asking Australian
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  Speaker 2: labor government to join them in securing energy security and
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  Speaker 2: cutting carbon emissions as part of the decarbonization of industry.
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  Speaker 2: So it seems pretty obvious that at least we should
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  Speaker 2: talk about it, and so I think the way the
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  Speaker 2: government has gone about it, declaring its outlawed and using
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  Speaker 2: an argument that oh the Perth and Melbourne, even Melbourne
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  Speaker 2: is sunnier than London and makes it look a bit puole.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up the British government's nuclear sized gift to Peter Dutton.
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  Speaker 1: Back in June, Opposition leader Peter Dutton announced his party's
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  Speaker 1: plan to establish nuclear reactors at seven locations around Australia
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  Speaker 1: if the coalition gets up at the next election.
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  Speaker 5: We know that the government has a renewables only policy
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  Speaker 5: which is just not fit for purpose.
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  Speaker 1: The announcement was the centerpiece of a radical newsstands on
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  Speaker 1: energy policy that could see the government's legislated twenty thirty
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  Speaker 1: emissions reductions target scrapped.
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  Speaker 5: No other country in the world can keep the lights
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  Speaker 5: on twenty four to seven with the renewables only policy.
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  Speaker 5: We need to make sure that hospitals can stay on
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  Speaker 5: twenty four to seven. We need to make sure that
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  Speaker 5: cold rooms can stay on twenty four seven. We need
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  Speaker 5: to make sure that our economy can function twenty four
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  Speaker 5: to seven, and we can only do that with a
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  Speaker 5: strong base low power.
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  Speaker 1: So when the US and the UK urged Australia to
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  Speaker 1: join that global movement towards nuclear it gave Peter Dunnen
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  Speaker 1: a gift.
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  Speaker 2: What they've done is put out a perfectly logical, perfectly
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  Speaker 2: reasonable approach to expanding civilian nuclear energy around the world,
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  Speaker 2: working to get with a whole range of other nations,
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  Speaker 2: including China, to actually reduce carbon emissions and provide more
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  Speaker 2: secure and cheaper energy to industry. Now this seemed perfectly reasonable,
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  Speaker 2: and yet Australia is now being seen to reject it utterly,
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  Speaker 2: and Peter Dutton immediately picked up on it and said
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  Speaker 2: Australia is now isolating itself and he used the term
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  Speaker 2: we're embarrassing ourselves on the world stage. Now here's Peter Dutton,
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  Speaker 2: leader of the Coalition, saying that the Labor Party is
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  Speaker 2: embarrassing itself on the world stage over what climate change.
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  Speaker 1: But the Coalition has been vague on the details, refusing
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  Speaker 1: to release detailed costings of the nuclear scheme, which would
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  Speaker 1: see a mix of smaller modular nuclear reactors and full
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  Speaker 1: size facilities built on the sites of existing power stations.
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  Speaker 2: So he is fudging on his own costings, the details
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  Speaker 2: of his own policy, and yet today has given him
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  Speaker 2: another excuse to attack Labor over climate change and nuclear energy.
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  Speaker 2: It turned around in twenty four hours. This is not
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  Speaker 2: good politics. It helps Dutton and it helps him slip
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  Speaker 2: out from under once again on not having to provide
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  Speaker 2: the detail of his own policy, which he should be
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  Speaker 2: providing and which people are saying he should provide, but
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  Speaker 2: Labour gives him another excuse to avoid it.
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  Speaker 1: And with the cost of living front of mind for
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  Speaker 1: most voters in the run up to next year's federal election,
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  Speaker 1: the major parties are keen to pitch their solutions.
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  Speaker 2: What Labor is trying to do is reduce the nuclear
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  Speaker 2: argument to one of cost, and what they are saying
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  Speaker 2: is that Peter Dutton's nuclear policy will cost more than
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  Speaker 2: their renewables policy. One of the other reasons, of course,
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  Speaker 2: is they can't use the old argument about nuclear being
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  Speaker 2: dangerous because they're actually buying eight nuclear reactors from the
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  Speaker 2: UK for the submarines. The problem for them in why
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  Speaker 2: they're doing this is that Dutton has pursued the cost
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  Speaker 2: of living and the cost of energy and at the
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  Speaker 2: last election Anthony Albanasi promised on more than ninety occasions
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  Speaker 2: that people's power bills would drop by two hundred and
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  Speaker 2: seventy five dollars and come January one, that's an officially
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  Speaker 2: broken promise. So yes, the cost of living will be
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  Speaker 2: the main element, but energy will be at the heart
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  Speaker 2: of that, not just on the cost, but on what
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  Speaker 2: plans you have to address it. Dutton's argument is if
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  Speaker 2: you don't have nuclear in the mix, you can't have
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  Speaker 2: reliable and you will have more expensive renewable energy because
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  Speaker 2: of transmission costs. So it is a fight over the
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  Speaker 2: cost of living, it's a fight over the cost of energy,
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  Speaker 2: and nuclear is the vehicle with which the two sides
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  Speaker 2: are trying to have it out.
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  Speaker 1: Dennis Shanahan is The Australian's National editor. You can read
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  Speaker 1: his analysis, as well as all the nation's best news,
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  Speaker 1: sport and politics right now at The Australian dot com
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  Speaker 1: dot au