Dutton outlines Coalition energy policy featuring large and small nuclear reactors
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has this morning outlined the Coalition’s pre-election energy policy, which would include large-scale nuclear power plants and small modular reactors.
He was spruiking nuclear energy on Sunrise, and argued that nuclear plants could be built at retiring coal assets:
So (if) there’s a coal fired generator that’s already got an existing distribution network, (it has) wires and poles there to distribute the energy across the network to homes and businesses, (and) that’s what we’re interested in.
Sunrise host:
Australia is starting from ground zero on this. Why didn’t the Coalition get the ball rolling on nuclear while in government for 11 years?
Dutton argued the technology of today “doesn’t resemble anything that you have seen in the past”, and the technology is “unbelievable” compared to what it was 50 or 70 years ago. He wouldn’t name a specific suburb where these plants would be located, instead pointing to any suburb with an existing coal-fired power generator.
Last October, centre-right thinktank Blueprint Institute was calling for a “drastically accelerated deployment” of renewable energy, batteries and electricity transmission infrastructure and argued there is no prospect of nuclear energy playing a role in Australia before 2040. You can read the full story from our climate and environment editor Adam Morton below:
Key events
‘This is a nuclear fantasy’: Chalmers lashes Coalition’s energy policy and spruiks renewables
Making the rounds on breakfast television this morning, the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has lashed the Coalition’s nuclear-focused pre-election energy policy.
As we reported earlier, the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, said the Coalition’s policy would include large-scale nuclear power plants and small modular reactors. He argued the technology of today “doesn’t resemble anything that you have seen in the past” and suggested nuclear plants could be built at retiring coal-fired stations.
Speaking on Sunrise, Chalmers began by spruiking renewables as the “cheapest” and “cleanest” way to “satisfy our energy needs into the future”.
He argued that nuclear is “the most expensive option, the most divisive option and longest to build.”
(Dutton is) more interested in cheap and divisive politics than cheap and reliable power. We see that in this more-or-less culture war over nuclear energy, this is a nuclear fantasy. It’s more expensive, it takes longer, and we here in Australia our advantages and our future lies in renewable energy.
Chalmers argued that nuclear would cost “hundreds of billions of dollars”, take decades to build, and would “turn our back as a country on the big renewable energy opportunity before us”.
NZ prime minister’s Asean arrival delayed by plane breakdown
The New Zealand prime minister, Chris Luxon, is scrambling to make his way to Melbourne on commercial flights after a breakdown of his Defence Force plane, AAP reports.
Luxon is attending his first international gathering of leaders today after accepting an invitation from prime minister Anthony Albanese. However, his plans to take a NZDF 757 from Wellington airport went awry when maintenance issues grounded the plane.
Radio NZ reports Luxon scrambled to get from the Rongotai defence force base to Wellington airport, where he caught an Air New Zealand flight to Auckland before transferring to a trans-Tasman flight to the Victorian capital.
The delay means the Kiwi prime minister will miss a few of his bilateral meetings at the summit, where he is meeting southeast Asian leaders back-to-back all day.
A number of accompanying staff and media were left at Rongotai base, hoping to attend the Melbourne talks if the plane is deemed flight-worthy.
The recurrent faults are an ongoing issue for New Zealand leaders, which Luxon has previously labelled “incredibly embarrassing”. Unlike Albanese, who has a similar plane at his disposal, New Zealand leaders must borrow the plane from NZDF duty when they seek to undertake international travel.
Dunkley byelection shows voters reject ‘politics of fear and loathing’: Daniel
Turning to domestic issues, Zoe Daniel said the Dunkley byelection demonstrated that the “politics of fear and loathing” is not landing with voters.
Daniel said she was pleased to see another woman elected in Dunkley, and that the women’s vote should not be underestimated:
I can’t tell you how many women walked out of the polling booth (in 2022) and gave me a wink and a little thumbs up on election day last time and I think both the government and the opposition need to pay heed to that.
There were two lessons to be gained from Dunkley, she argued: not to take anything for granted, and that the “politics of fear and loathing” did not land. She said:
I don’t think it would land in my electorate (either). I think people see straight through that kind of rhetoric and people are interested in reasoned conversations about the issues affecting our nation, as well as cost of living and how pressure on families can be alleviated.
Zoe Daniel says Asean has not done enough on crisis in Myanmar
The independent MP for Goldstein, Zoe Daniel, was just on ABC RN to discuss the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Myanmar. She argued that Asean hasn’t done enough on the issue, and needs to do more.
Daniel acknowledged that the situation is “tricky” but said she is “quite mystified” about the “lack of attention this gets in Australia, given the amount of attention that we give to other conflicts in the world”.
Daniel said she has been exerting pressure on the government since she was elected to impose sanctions, but Australia is still “way behind our allies in the US, the EU and Canada” in sanctioning “particularly state-owned enterprises to prevent that financial flow that is, in effect, funding a war by the junta against its own people”.
Q: Why has Asean been slow to take action on Myanmar?
Daniel said there was an economic element, and that countries in Asean view it as difficult to impose anything on the junta:
There’s also I think, a desire within Asean for economic cooperation and to try to take that route with the junta as a form of leverage … My concern though is that, I think, that we might be heading down the path of a form of normalisation with the junta and you’ve currently got a situation where about 30% of the country is in stable control of rebel ethnic groups, and the junta is really only holding the major cities.
Any form of normalisation with the junta that is pushed by Asean, and I think will be raised with the Australian government for support this week, could backfire because it could in effect allow the junta to enter some of those areas that are reasonably stable and are actually managing themselves.
Dutton outlines Coalition energy policy featuring large and small nuclear reactors
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has this morning outlined the Coalition’s pre-election energy policy, which would include large-scale nuclear power plants and small modular reactors.
He was spruiking nuclear energy on Sunrise, and argued that nuclear plants could be built at retiring coal assets:
So (if) there’s a coal fired generator that’s already got an existing distribution network, (it has) wires and poles there to distribute the energy across the network to homes and businesses, (and) that’s what we’re interested in.
Sunrise host:
Australia is starting from ground zero on this. Why didn’t the Coalition get the ball rolling on nuclear while in government for 11 years?
Dutton argued the technology of today “doesn’t resemble anything that you have seen in the past”, and the technology is “unbelievable” compared to what it was 50 or 70 years ago. He wouldn’t name a specific suburb where these plants would be located, instead pointing to any suburb with an existing coal-fired power generator.
Last October, centre-right thinktank Blueprint Institute was calling for a “drastically accelerated deployment” of renewable energy, batteries and electricity transmission infrastructure and argued there is no prospect of nuclear energy playing a role in Australia before 2040. You can read the full story from our climate and environment editor Adam Morton below:
‘Two-way investment’ with south-east Asia central to trade fund, treasurer says
As Daniel Hurst reported, the federal government will set up a $2bn fund to “turbocharge” trade and investment in south-east Asia, with a focus on clean energy and infrastructure.
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, was asked how the funding would work while on ABC News Breakfast just earlier:
What this new investment facility is all about is making sure that we can turbocharge that two-way investment, which is so important to the region, but also to our country, its employers and workers as well.
What you’ll hear from us today is really a big focus on investment, trying to get that two-way investment and trade as good as it can be, because we recognise that when the region is more secure and more prosperous, our people here in Australia are more secure and prosperous as well.
And how can Australian companies gain access to this funding? Chalmers said the government would “make clear all of those arrangements”, and added:
For the purposes of explaining to your viewers today, it’s a $2bn facility, it’s all about making sure that we can make this two-way investment more attractive to people, to investors, also de-risk it where we can. It’s in the interests of every Australian we get this two-way investment (and trade) happening the best it can be.
Women take up surf training amid spike in regional drownings
A grant provided to Surfing NSW has helped 150 women receive their coaching certificates, as almost 100 people drowned during summer, AAP reports.
Through the grant – one of 22 under the state government’s Investing In Women program – Surfing NSW targeted regional and remote areas that accounted for 60% of drownings along the coast, up 9% over the previous year.
Programs support officer Kathy Walton said:
Beaches aren’t patrolled all the time … we’re giving those skills to regional areas and surfers, then they’re able to use those skills when it’s an unpatrolled beach … It’s very beneficial to the community.
Gendered perceptions of surfing are improving on the back of Australian champions such as Layne Beachley, Stephanie Gilmore and Tyler Wright.
The grants also helped local businesses, with some participants filling roles at understaffed surf schools.
As Martin flagged earlier, the Liberal party overnight selected management consultant Simon Kennedy to contest the Cook byelection created by the resignation of Scott Morrison.
You can read the full story on this from Paul Karp and Amy Remeikis below for all the details:
As we begin the second day of the Asean summit, foreign affairs minister Penny Wong has shared these images of meeting with her Malaysian counterpart, Mohamad Hasan.
Wong wrote on X:
Australia and Malaysia will work even more closely together on shared challenges and opportunities including cyber security, higher education, sports, and nuclear non-proliferation.
Emily Wind
Good morning, Emily Wind here reporting for blogging duties. Many thanks to Martin for kicking things off! I’ll be bringing you our rolling coverage today.
See something that needs attention on the blog? You can get in touch via X, @emilywindwrites, or you can send me an email: [email protected].
Let’s get started.
Australian program to eradicate red fire ants is a ‘shambles’, Senate inquiry told
Our reporter Daisy Dumas watched yesterday as senators were given the shocking truth about the government’s national program to eradicate red imported fire ants.
It has received more than $1.2bn of federal and state funding taking it through to 2027 but the parliamentarians were told that the scheme was an “absolute shambles” beset by a lack of transparency and waste.
The eradication objective is so large, said Richard Shannon, who formerly worked on the program, that “it’s the equivalent of putting man on the moon”.
“We are further away from eradication than we were five or six years ago when I was part of the program,” he said, adding that it was “too clandestine”.
Read Daisy’s full story here:
Trade push to south-east Asia
Daniel Hurst
Australia will set up a $2bn fund to “turbocharge” trade and investment in south-east Asia, with a focus on clean energy and infrastructure.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, will announce the fund in Melbourne on Tuesday when he addresses a gathering of 100 chief executives from Australia and south-east Asia.
Albanese will say in a speech that he is pursuing “the most significant upgrade of Australia’s economic engagement with Asean for a generation”, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
He will also promise to improve access to longer term visas for south-east Asian travellers, saying this “demonstrates unequivocally that Australia is open for business, tourism, and trade”.
The $2bn south-east Asia investment financing facility is to be managed by Export Finance Australia. It is expected to provide loans, guarantees, equity and insurance to increase Australian trade and investment in south-east Asia.
“The government I lead has made it clear: more than any other region, south-east Asia is where Australia’s future lies,” Albanese will tell business leaders, according to speech notes distributed to media in advance.
Read Daniel Hurst’s full story here:
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our rolling news blog. I’m Martin Farrer, bringing you the overnight headlines before Emily Wind takes the helm.
The Liberal party last night chose management consultant Simon Kennedy to contest the Cook byelection created by the resignation of Scott Morrison. Kennedy beat off competition from the mayor of Sutherland shire, Carmelo Pesce, and war widow and veteran family advocate commissioner, Gwen Cherne. But installing Kennedy, who failed to win Bennelong in 2022, means the party won’t boost its small number of women MPs.
Anthony Albanese will today focus on foreign and trade policy as he announces a $2bn plan to boost trade with south-east Asia with a speech to business figures at today’s session of the Asean summit in Melbourne. Improved visa access, better finance opportunities to boost trade and investment, and on-the-ground support for businesses in Indonesia and Vietnam have all been flagged to strengthen Australia’s standing in the region. More coming up.
And there was some shocking testimony at a Senate hearing last night into the government’s program to eradicate fire ants. Senators heard the plan had descended into “absolute shambles” and the country was further from getting rid of the destructive and potentially lethal insects than it was five years ago. The committee heard the impact of the invasive species could be worse than rabbits, cane toads, foxes, camels, wild dogs and feral cats combined.