Latest / Inside Politics / Best of 2024: Dutton's nuclear plans 'slightly bonkers', but will it win an election?

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Best of 2024: Dutton's nuclear plans 'slightly bonkers', but will it win an election? · Inside Politics

0:02
S1: Hi there, I'm Jacqueline Maley, the host of Inside Politics,
0:05
S1: The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald's weekly politics podcast.
0:09
S1: We're bringing you the best episodes of 2024 before we
0:12
S1: return in early February for the election year. One of
0:17
S1: the big issues of the federal election will be energy policy,
0:20
S1: with the opposition backing nuclear power over wind and solar
0:23
S1: as its path to a greener, cleaner world. This episode
0:28
S1: aired just after opposition leader Peter Dutton first unveiled his
0:31
S1: nuclear plans, all dissected by chief political correspondent David Crowe
0:35
S1: and national climate and environment editor Nick O'Malley. National affairs
0:40
S1: correspondent Matthew Knott also makes an appearance to talk about
0:43
S1: a visit from Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. We're releasing it
0:47
S1: for you today on December 27th. Welcome to the pod,
0:55
S1: David and Nick.
0:56
S2: Hello. Thank you. Good day. Jacki.
0:58
S1: So, David, we have often remarked on this podcast that
1:01
S1: the coalition hasn't announced any proper policy yet, and it's
1:04
S1: about time they did. But that changed this week. Tell
1:06
S1: us what Peter Dutton did announce.
1:08
S2: Well, we finally got to see at least something about
1:12
S2: what the coalition proposes to do with nuclear energy. It
1:17
S2: wasn't an awful lot. Huge gaps in what was announced,
1:20
S2: but they committed to seven sites for nuclear power stations
1:24
S2: over the decades ahead. So they made a commitment that
1:28
S2: they would do that as a government as well as that.
1:32
S2: They revealed that their intention was for these sites to
1:35
S2: be Commonwealth funded and owned. And that's different. Very different,
1:40
S2: in fact, to what we'd been expecting in recent months.
1:43
S2: We kind of knew that they were wanting to build
1:46
S2: nuclear power stations on the sites of existing coal fired
1:50
S2: power stations close to transmission lines. There's sort of logic
1:54
S2: behind that. So we're talking about the Hunter Valley in
1:56
S2: New South Wales, the Latrobe Valley in Victoria and so forth,
2:01
S2: but we'd been speculating about whether they would subsidise private
2:05
S2: operators to build these power plants, and they've decided not
2:07
S2: to go down that route. Instead of just a subsidy,
2:11
S2: it's going to be full funding and ownership by the Commonwealth.
2:14
S2: So they were kind of the the two big things
2:16
S2: that they committed to. And on every other question, the
2:20
S2: answer from Peter Dutton and his colleagues was there'll be
2:23
S2: more to come later about what exactly the details of
2:26
S2: the policy will be.
2:27
S1: So, Nick, when are these nuclear power plants going to
2:30
S1: be up and running? According to Dutton.
2:32
S3: They suggest the first between 2035 and 2037, and the
2:35
S3: rest to follow, with at least sufficient to reach net
2:39
S3: zero by 2050. Is the plan?
2:41
S1: Yes. And Dutton's talking about a mix of small scale
2:44
S1: reactors and large scale reactors. Right. Can you just explain
2:47
S1: the difference and tell us which one we're going to
2:49
S1: get first?
2:50
S3: There is a new type of technology afoot called the
2:52
S3: Small Modular Reactor. Its advocates say that you can build
2:55
S3: it in a factory, deliver it almost Most complete embedded
2:59
S3: on site. Turn it on. And Bob's your uncle. Lots
3:02
S3: of of cheap energy. The only problem with it is
3:04
S3: that it doesn't really exist yet. There is one in
3:07
S3: operation in China. There's none in operation in the West.
3:11
S3: The most advanced western design was by an outfit called Nuscale,
3:14
S3: which recently abandoned the effort in the United States because
3:18
S3: of massive cost overruns. The large ones are the ones
3:21
S3: that everyone probably knows. If they haven't seen them, they've
3:25
S3: seen the images of them. Great big cooling towers, lots
3:28
S3: of concrete, lots of engineering, big old factories that make
3:31
S3: massive amounts of energy.
3:32
S1: Just like we saw in The Simpsons.
3:34
S3: Just like The Simpsons. That's right.
3:35
S1: So, David, the assets, as you just said, will be
3:38
S1: owned by the government under this proposal. But what does
3:41
S1: that mean exactly? And can you talk me through the
3:43
S1: politics of that? Because normally liberal parties and Liberal governments
3:47
S1: allow the market to decide where the investment decision should
3:51
S1: be made and they're against government ownership.
3:54
S2: So this whole thing is playing havoc with the usual
3:57
S2: sort of political philosophies, isn't it? Because I'm seeing really
4:02
S2: Pro-liberal commentary on this policy from people who are economic conservatives,
4:09
S2: and suddenly they're cheerleading for state ownership of massive assets
4:13
S2: with huge cost to taxpayers that we still don't really
4:17
S2: know about. And I think this is the this is
4:20
S2: the big debate. Something has to be done with the
4:22
S2: electricity grid. There's a transition underway and it's not easy.
4:25
S2: It's incredibly challenging. But is nuclear the answer? What cost
4:31
S2: does it come with? Is the government up to the
4:34
S2: task of owning and running these power stations? And what
4:40
S2: are all the subsequent questions such as where's the waste
4:43
S2: going to be stored? What do the communities get to
4:46
S2: say about whether they have a nuclear power station in
4:48
S2: their backyard? And what do the states get to do
4:51
S2: about whether they have, you know, approval rights over whether
4:55
S2: a nuclear power station is built in their state. All
4:57
S2: these secondary questions are huge mysteries because they weren't addressed
5:01
S2: in Peter Dutton's policy announcement.
5:04
S1: We should say that Dutton sort of answer to that
5:07
S1: is that, you know, he doesn't want to sort of
5:08
S1: overwhelm us with too much information about this plan all
5:11
S1: at once. He's going to sort of parcel it out
5:13
S1: in bite sized pieces. And and that includes the cost.
5:16
S1: I want to ask you about that because it's quite extraordinary,
5:18
S1: isn't it, that they would introduce such a huge policy
5:21
S1: on pretty much the sort of primary economic challenge of
5:24
S1: our time and not have any costings at all. And yet,
5:28
S1: at the same time, Dutton and the opposition claim that
5:31
S1: their policy will be cheaper than renewables, which are going
5:34
S1: to cost too much for consumers.
5:36
S2: There was a big number at the beginning of Peter
5:38
S2: Dutton's press conference, which is that he blamed the government
5:41
S2: for spending $1.5 trillion on the electricity grid. Now that
5:46
S2: number appeared to be plucked out of the air. I've
5:48
S2: talked to energy industry experts who don't know where that
5:52
S2: number has come from. It's not a you know, it's
5:54
S2: not an accepted consensus figure, right? So you pluck a
5:57
S2: number out of the air, and then you say, however,
6:00
S2: our our scheme won't cost $1.5 trillion. It'll cost a
6:03
S2: fraction of that. Well, you know, it sets up an
6:06
S2: entirely false debate. It's you know, voters do deserve a
6:09
S2: way better debate than that about the competing costs. And
6:13
S2: I think the onus was on the coalition to actually
6:17
S2: talk Australians through that debate. But they chose not to,
6:22
S2: because they don't really know what decision they're going to
6:25
S2: make about what kind of nuclear they think will work.
6:29
S1: Nick, what if experts had to say about the cost
6:31
S1: of the policy and the policy more generally?
6:34
S3: Well, as David was saying, no one can really cost
6:36
S3: the policy. But I've been speaking with international experts overnight.
6:40
S3: And what they do say is that whatever the cost
6:43
S3: will be, it'll be eye bleeding. So the most recent
6:45
S3: reactor built in Europe was in Finland, which I visited recently.
6:49
S3: It came in ten years too late at double the
6:51
S3: expected cost of $20 billion. I think that was built
6:55
S3: by a French organization, which is also building two reactors
6:58
S3: in the UK at the moment, which were meant to
7:01
S3: have been completed years ago. They're still not completed and
7:04
S3: their cost has doubled. The coalition has pointed to a
7:08
S3: reactor that was built very quickly in the UAE. But
7:10
S3: I was speaking with someone last night who says they
7:11
S3: can't really look under the bonnet of that because no
7:14
S3: costs are public. There was a Reuters report last year
7:18
S3: that said that the consortium behind that was something like
7:22
S3: $100 billion in debt to be building seven of these
7:26
S3: almost concurrently. Whatever technology the coalition chooses to go for,
7:32
S3: should this go ahead. The sums would be absolutely astronomical,
7:36
S3: which is why environmental experts and climate scientists oppose it. Partly,
7:40
S3: they oppose it because it would take a long time,
7:42
S3: and every tonne of emissions that goes into the atmosphere
7:45
S3: every day is is causing damage, but also because the
7:48
S3: opportunity costs, whatever the eventual sum is, that is money
7:52
S3: that that won't have been spent on other existing forms
7:56
S3: of clean technology, the costs of which are collapsing year
7:59
S3: on year, to the point that experts internationally agree that
8:03
S3: renewables are the cheapest form of new energy, and solar
8:07
S3: technology is the cheapest form of electricity created in history. Okay.
8:11
S1: I mean, obviously, as you say, there's already been enormous
8:14
S1: amounts of investments in renewables, and that's where sort of
8:16
S1: all the investment dollars are fleeing, if you like, as
8:19
S1: they leave the fossil fuel sort of stranded assets. What
8:22
S1: is business had to say about this plan? Did Dutton
8:25
S1: consult with business or does he kind of not need
8:28
S1: them because it's going to be wholly government owned?
8:30
S3: There's that point. He doesn't need them. And look, I
8:32
S3: should leave it to David to talk politics. But it
8:34
S3: struck me in the press conference yesterday that he was
8:37
S3: almost antagonistic to business. He said, look, I'm not doing
8:39
S3: this for the millionaires. Um, the to the extent that
8:44
S3: they have said anything, the, the organisations of the sort
8:47
S3: that once supported the coalition, even on climate issues and
8:52
S3: energy issues. There have been tepid at best. You know,
8:55
S3: I'm talking about statements that have come out of the
8:57
S3: BCA and Australian Industry group. They have been tepid at best,
9:01
S3: and they have all said, uh, look, they're glad to
9:06
S3: see a focus on this issue broadly. However, they want
9:09
S3: to see interim Paris targets met. They want stability. And
9:14
S3: they think that's a very significant role for renewables.
9:17
S1: David, on all the facts, this policy does seem slightly
9:21
S1: bonkers in the sense that it's uncosted. It could potentially
9:25
S1: be eye bleedingly expensive. As Nick just said, it's unclear
9:29
S1: when and how long it will take for the nuclear
9:32
S1: reactors to get going, and there's no guarantee that the states,
9:35
S1: let alone the local communities, will be on board with
9:37
S1: this because we currently have nuclear bans in this country.
9:40
S1: I mean, given all of this potential opposition, what what
9:44
S1: is the political strategy here for Dutton? I mean, it's
9:46
S1: a huge political risk for him, isn't it? And is
9:48
S1: he gambling on just being able to win over the public.
9:52
S1: What's going on here in the sort of Liberal Party
9:55
S1: war room?
9:56
S2: There is a strong support for nuclear within the Liberal
9:59
S2: Party base, and that argument has been building over some years.
10:04
S2: And there's, as you can see in public remarks from
10:08
S2: the coalition, this incredible skepticism about renewable. So there is
10:13
S2: an ideological factor at work that we shouldn't underestimate. They've
10:17
S2: decided that renewables aren't going to be enough. There's a
10:21
S2: scepticism about them from the national side, even though some liberals,
10:25
S2: like Simon Birmingham on the moderate wing of the party,
10:27
S2: are saying there is a place for large scale renewable.
10:30
S2: So they've got this renewable debate within their ranks and
10:35
S2: they've got strong supporters of nuclear, and they've made a
10:38
S2: decision to take the plunge. I think it's very hard
10:43
S2: to see how the politics of that play out, because
10:47
S2: when we've asked people in the past, we've found maybe
10:50
S2: at the most, maybe a third of the electorate might
10:52
S2: be open to nuclear. The objections to nuclear. Among voters
10:55
S2: are still very strong. And so on. The face of it,
10:58
S2: you would have to say that it's it's a risk
11:02
S2: where Peter Dutton would not have the majority on his
11:05
S2: side at this point. Now he's got the rest of
11:08
S2: this year to try and win that argument. And one
11:10
S2: point I would make, I guess, in in the coalition's
11:13
S2: favour on this argument, is that in the last electoral
11:17
S2: cycle before the last election, Anthony Albanese and Labor revealed
11:23
S2: their energy plan in December of 2021, about five months
11:27
S2: before the election. Peter Dutton has moved earlier than that
11:31
S2: to actually start the discussion about his energy plan. Maybe
11:36
S2: by December he'll get to accosted and modeled policy. I'm
11:39
S2: not assuming that happens, but I'm saying that he has
11:43
S2: actually moved faster than labor did at an equivalent time
11:46
S2: in the previous election cycle. It's on them to prove
11:50
S2: how it can work. But it is a massive gamble
11:54
S2: on winning voters over to to a nuclear energy policy.
11:58
S1: Yeah, it certainly sets up an interesting and gnarly contest
12:02
S1: for the next election. Nick, thank you so much for
12:04
S1: joining us. We'd love to have you back on. As
12:06
S1: the policy debate develops, and I'm sure it will develop
12:09
S1: very interestingly over coming months.
12:12
S3: Any time. Jack.
12:19
S4: Hi. Morning edition listeners, if you're looking for a series
12:22
S4: to binge over the break, I want to recommend Trial
12:25
S4: by Water. It's a podcast by some of my colleagues
12:27
S4: at The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. It's about
12:30
S4: a man, Robert Farquharson, who was convicted of murdering his
12:33
S4: three sons by driving them into a dam, and about
12:36
S4: the people who are now questioning that conviction. Trial by
12:40
S4: Water is a compelling and informative podcast series that will
12:43
S4: make you question the way our justice system operates, so
12:46
S4: please take a listen and recommend it to your friends. Thanks.
12:55
S1: Now we welcome our national security correspondent, Matthew, not to
12:58
S1: talk to us about pandas and interpersonal conflict and all
13:01
S1: things China. Matthew, not welcome to the podcast.
13:04
S5: Great to be here again.
13:06
S1: So this week, Australia hosted Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. First
13:09
S1: of all, can you tell us what the Chinese premier
13:12
S1: is and how this person is different from the president?
13:16
S5: The Chinese premier is a very senior official, but is
13:19
S5: second in command to Chinese President XI Jinping. You would
13:23
S5: say there's quite a distance between the two. Now, given
13:27
S5: XI has really implanted himself as such a powerful leader
13:33
S5: in China, but still a very important visit under this
13:36
S5: format of the annual leaders dialogue, it is often the
13:40
S5: Chinese premier who meets with the Prime Minister of Australia,
13:43
S5: and it was the last time that Chinese Premier visited
13:47
S5: Australia was 2017. That was the most recent visit on
13:51
S5: this scale. So this was a significant moment in the
13:54
S5: Australia-China relationship, which the government has been rebuilding and trying
13:58
S5: to get back on track since it came to power.
14:00
S1: Okay, so the first part of the visit was to Adelaide,
14:03
S1: and that was sort of the fun bit that involved pandas. Exactly.
14:06
S5: Yes. This was the soft and fluffy start to the
14:09
S5: trip in Adelaide. And the pandas are a big deal there.
14:12
S5: So they were very keen to have the lease of pandas.
14:16
S5: They've had two there. Wang Wang and Fu Ni, who've
14:20
S5: been there since 2009, are an extremely popular. But there
14:24
S5: are aging out.
14:25
S1: They're like 17 now, which is old in panda years.
14:27
S5: They're ageing and they haven't procreated, unfortunately. So there had
14:31
S5: been some speculation about what would happen here. China has
14:35
S5: pulled back pandas from various locations around the world, including
14:39
S5: several zoos in the United States and United Kingdom, and
14:42
S5: that's been seen as a symbol for the increasingly rocky
14:45
S5: relations between China and Western nations. So there was doubt
14:49
S5: about this. Penny Wong, who is from Adelaide, went in
14:52
S5: very hard on this issue during her discussions with her
14:55
S5: Chinese counterparts, and the Chinese premier announced during his visit
15:00
S5: that the loan agreement would be extended to new pandas
15:04
S5: will be going to Adelaide, and he actually invited South
15:07
S5: Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas to come over and pick the
15:10
S5: ones you want, as if from a showroom of pandas.
15:14
S5: And so it was very symbolically powerful there. It was
15:19
S5: interesting being there at the zoo because as they were
15:22
S5: doing this announcement about how wonderful everything's are, and with
15:26
S5: the pandas, you could hear the protesters shouting from outside
15:29
S5: at the entrance of the zoo about human rights atrocities
15:33
S5: in China, about the oppression of the Uyghurs, about the
15:36
S5: moves against democracy in Hong Kong. So it was a
15:39
S5: reminder that while the government is trying to put this
15:42
S5: relationship back on track and have a positive element to it,
15:45
S5: you simply can't escape the problematic aspects of the relationship.
15:48
S1: So the whole trip culminated in. We had the great
15:52
S1: diplomatic sort of coup of the pandas, and then we
15:54
S1: had these high level talks. But the whole trip sort
15:56
S1: of culminated in what was essentially a joint press conference.
15:59
S1: But there was controversy at that press conference which overshadowed
16:02
S1: everything else.
16:03
S5: Well, it was an interesting occasion. It wasn't technically a
16:06
S5: press conference because no questions were being taken from the
16:09
S5: media at the.
16:11
S1: On request from the Chinese authorities.
16:14
S5: Yes. The Australian government would have been happy to have
16:16
S5: a joint press conference where you take, say, three questions
16:18
S5: from the Australian side, three questions from the Chinese side.
16:21
S5: That's how it would work, for example, with American leaders
16:24
S5: when they come. British politicians when they come. It's not
16:27
S5: just China, but it is more common with authoritarian nations
16:31
S5: and including countries like India. President Prime Minister Modi didn't
16:35
S5: do any such availabilities while he was here. But yes,
16:38
S5: what this was was a signing ceremony where they were
16:40
S5: coming out to sign various memorandums of understanding that they'd
16:45
S5: agreed to in their meeting. So I and several other
16:48
S5: journalists went along to witness it. They were going to
16:50
S5: give remarks. And as we were sitting down and the
16:53
S5: leaders came into the room, something strange started happening. The
16:57
S5: journalist Cheng Lei, who of course, was detained in China
17:01
S5: for three years. She previously worked for state owned media there.
17:04
S5: She's now a Sky news journalist, having been a chinese-australian. Yes,
17:08
S5: Chinese-australian journalist. She is now working for Sky news. She's
17:12
S5: free in Australia. She was sitting in the row in
17:15
S5: front of me and behind a row of Chinese officials
17:20
S5: who came in, and as soon as the event started,
17:24
S5: two representatives from the Chinese embassy in Canberra stood in
17:29
S5: front of her very noticeably and quite quickly, the officials
17:33
S5: from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, the Australian
17:36
S5: hosts who were running this visit, noticed what was going
17:38
S5: on and tried to get them to move and they
17:41
S5: absolutely refused to move. It was all very confusing. It
17:44
S5: was quite tense. It became quite heated. As in front
17:48
S5: of us. These agreements were being signed and the leaders
17:51
S5: were talking about how relations are improving. And what became
17:55
S5: clear to me anyway, soon after was that what had
17:58
S5: happened was the Chinese embassy officials were trying to stop
18:02
S5: Cheng Li from being captured by the cameras, by photographers,
18:06
S5: by television cameras, including the Chinese state owned outlets, who
18:11
S5: would be beaming this visit back to China. Because for us, now,
18:14
S5: she's a free journalist who many would perceive as someone
18:18
S5: who was a political prisoner in China. They accused her
18:22
S5: of quite serious national security charges, and they don't want
18:26
S5: her in their footage. So in the grand scheme of things,
18:30
S5: it's a relatively minor incident. But it felt quite powerful
18:34
S5: even there in the moment because Australia was hosting this visit. Yeah,
18:39
S5: it's Parliament House, but technically the Chinese government, the Chinese
18:43
S5: premier is the guest of the Prime Minister, and these
18:46
S5: embassy officials from the Chinese embassy were acting very rudely,
18:50
S5: very obstinately refusing to do what their Australian counterparts were saying.
18:55
S5: So it seemed a pretty powerful moment of who's really
18:58
S5: running the show here.
18:59
S1: And, you know, this tussle over sovereignty. I mean, it's
19:02
S1: quite extraordinary, as you say, this is the heart of
19:04
S1: our democracy. And essentially, the Chinese officials are trying to
19:07
S1: shut down or somehow suppress the image of a of
19:11
S1: a journalist who is the symbol of our free press, which,
19:13
S1: of course, we hold dear. David, what was Albaneses reaction
19:17
S1: to this? And he was criticised, wasn't he, for not
19:20
S1: being strong enough in his reaction? Yes.
19:22
S2: He was very slow to actually react. Anthony Albanese, when
19:27
S2: first asked about it, said that he wasn't really aware
19:30
S2: of it. Now I wasn't in the room and I
19:33
S2: wasn't covering at that day, so I've got to be
19:35
S2: a bit careful about sort of my judgement of the situation.
19:38
S2: But I think he I think there's a good argument
19:40
S2: that he should have been briefed more quickly on what
19:42
S2: was happening, and it seems to me that he wasn't
19:44
S2: briefed quickly enough about how that played out. The Australian
19:49
S2: officials were angry about it. Mhm. That wasn't conveyed to
19:53
S2: the Prime Minister so that when he was first asked
19:55
S2: about it, he was relatively neutral on the issue. It
19:59
S2: was only later. And let's face it, after Peter Dutton
20:02
S2: had called him out on this, then Anthony Albanese declared
20:07
S2: that it was rude and inappropriate and he hardened his
20:11
S2: language about this behaviour. And then we learned that he
20:14
S2: actually conveyed that concern to the Chinese side. Yeah. So
20:19
S2: that did happen. But it was slow and I don't
20:21
S2: think it was totally unexpected. We've seen instances where the
20:28
S2: Chinese delegations can be very assertive to the point of
20:31
S2: being aggressive in overseas forums. I mean, I've seen that
20:35
S2: at a climate summit many, many years ago, but also
20:38
S2: we've seen it at the Pacific Island Forum where the
20:40
S2: Chinese have negotiated very firmly, tried to dictate terms and
20:44
S2: and offended host nations. So it's something to be on
20:48
S2: the lookout for. But in this case, I think the
20:50
S2: government response was a bit slow.
20:52
S1: Yeah, it was, as you say, it was quite a
20:53
S1: small incident, but extraordinary really, in what it sort of
20:57
S1: showed us about the clash of values and the clash
20:59
S1: of political cultures between the two countries. Gentlemen, that is
21:02
S1: all we've got time for. And I thank you both
21:04
S1: very much for being here.
21:06
S6: Cheers, jacki. Thank you.
21:08
S1: Today's episode of Inside Politics was produced by Julia Katzel,
21:12
S1: with technical assistance by Dave McMillan and Debbie Harrington. Our
21:16
S1: head of audio is Tom McKendrick. Inside politics is a
21:19
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21:33
S1: I'm Jacqueline Maley. This is inside politics. Thank you for listening.