'No, she's not correct': Littleproud rebuffs deputy over suggestions communities could refuse nuclear power plants — as it happened (2024)

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Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan has vowed to do everything in her power to stop a nuclear power plant being built in her state if Peter Dutton is elected.

She posted the letter on social media a short time ago.

You say you will negotiate with the states. I won’t be negotiating.

I won’t allow a lurch backwards to nuclear power that sends bills skyrocketing, nor will I allow the Latrobe Valley to become your dumping ground.

The federal Nationals MP who represents the Gippsland region, Darren Chester, says the next step is having a conversation with local communities "based on fact".

"We don't need a scare campaign. We need a facts campaign," he says.

"We need to work with the community now about how we can purposely reuse those transmission lines into the future."

Labor's Jess Walsh and Liberal MP Zoe McKenzie are on the pollie panel today.

McKenzie stresses the proposal isn't just "nuclear or bust".

"It is nuclear as part of the energy mix together with renewables to ensure we have affordable, durable, accessible power to power our businesses and our homes," she says.

Meanwhile, Senator Walsh says "this is just such a nonsense plan that is not supported by science at all" and refers to the CSIRO's GenCost report that suggested the best case scenario for a plant to come online would be 2040.

Asked about the ambitious 2035-37 deadline for the first two plants to come online, McKenzie says it's possible.

"The UAE managed to establish a large nuclear reactor in 12 years, including two years delay due to COVID," she says.

What gives you the confidence that most Australians are closed off to nuclear power as an option?

KING:Because no-one has ever raised it with me. I have not met a person that walked up to me in the streets … and many business people I meet and saying 'this is the way'. They simply don't.

I must say I am baffled as to why they are confident of this and I think it is because they are so out of touch.

Next up is Resources Minister Madeleine King.

She's asked how the government will explain why a floating nuclear reactor in a submarine is good, but a nuclear reactor on land is bad.

King accuses Peter Dutton of trying to take people for fools.

A nuclear powered submarine is designed for a specific period of time, to last a specific period of time.

It is designed to support the lives of 130 individuals, crew people, as they go under the sea for months at a time.

That is very, very different to powering a state of nearly 3 million people, over 2.5 million square kilometres.

The two are not comparable.

Nationals leader David Littleproud has rejected suggestions nuclear power plants wouldn't proceed if the local community didn't want them.

But where did that suggestion come from? His deputy, NSW senator Perin Davey.

She told Sky News earlier today people has been "screaming" at the Coalition to name its proposed nuclear sites.

"We are only looking at these seven sites and so if a community is absolutely adamant then we will not proceed but we will not be looking beyond these seven sites," she said.

Greg Jennett put the remarks to Littleproud.

"No, she is not correct," he told Afternoon Briefing.

"We made this very clear. Peter Dutton and David Littleproud as part of a Coalition government is prepared to make the tough decisions in the national interest.

"We will consult and we will get plenty of notice."

Premiers and energy ministers across Australia have expressed their antipathy towards the nuclear plan across the day.

Jennett asks if the Coalition has costed compulsory acquisition into its policy.

"It is costed within the legislation, but that is a last resort," Littleproud says.

"If we get that mandate I think it will be beholden on all premiers to take a deep breath and to look at what the Australian people have said in the direction they are asking us to take," he adds.

The Nationals have been right in the wheelhouse, driving the nuclear agenda and leader David Littleproud is first up on Afternoon Briefing.

Greg Jennett asks him if he has seen, the "preliminary figures that narrow down the costs" for the seven proposed nuclear sites.

"Yes," Litteproud responds.

"We will be upfront and honest but today was the first step in the journey that we want to take the Australian people [on].

"But firstlyit was about showing respect to those communities that, through our initial geotechnical assessment, showed that they were the best sites on which to place these nuclear power plants."

He says the next step will be a 2.5 year journey of "proper consultation".

But Jennett doubles down on the question of how much the plan will cost and whether it was in the ball park of the CSIRO's $8.5 billion and $17 billion estimate.

"Yeah, look, we're not disputing that," Littleproud says.

They've got a cracker planned.

As always, you can watch live onthe ABC News live stream, or follow our live blog here for the highlights.

Former PM Malcolm Turnbull has entered the chat.

Reporting by Bridget McArthur

Several Collie residents said they would rather see the continuation of the coal industry, which has long fuelled the town's economy.

"We've got coal sufficient in Collie here to keep coal-fired [power] going for quite some time," Kerry Roberts, who has worked in the local industry, said.

He said he supported nuclear as an alternative energy source, but it would only be viable "in the distant future".

"We have the infrastructure to be able to accommodate that sort of thing," he said.

"It's not going to happen in my life time or your life time but it will happen... It's got to be part of our energy mix for Australia as a progressive country."

Dom Italiano said he felt the promise of nuclear was hollow and would not address the most pressing concerns facing the town.

"There's 2,000 odd people out there [who are] going to lose their jobs. They've told us that," he said.

"But they haven't started an industry that's going to take these people on. Nuclear is not going to do that because nuclear is way down the track.

"These little bits and pieces we're getting around the town are just trying to get votes."

Peter Dutton's nuclear energy plan is one of the riskiest gambits from opposition in many moons, Annabel Crabb writes.

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.

You can read the full analysis, which includes a fun little tidbit from John Hewson, below.

Robert Parker from the Australian Nuclear Association is satisfied with the Coalition’s choice of seven sites for nuclear power plants.

From ABC Gippsland's Anne Simmons:

Mr Parker has no problem living nearby one of these plants either.

"I would set up my bed and live there 100 per cent of the time," Parker said.

He told the ABC Victorian Statewide Mornings program the Latrobe Valley is an "excellent spot" thanks to the existing transmission infrastructure from coal power.

"You've got these monumental connections straight through to metropolitan Melbourne," he said.

"In Latrobe, you've got an excellent workforce, you've got great country down there to build these plants, you've got the existing cooling water that comes from coal plants that can service the nuclear plant."

He urged people to look into the emissions profile of nuclear power.

Energy giant AGL owns the Loy Yang site where one of the seven proposed nuclear sites could be built.

It doesn't back nuclear. Instead it plans to turn the site into a "low-emissions industrial energy hub".

"There is no viable schedule for the regulation or development of nuclear energy in Australia, and the cost, build time and public opinion are all prohibitive," chief executive Damien Nicks said earlier this year.

The company says the position has not changed.

The Climate Council has slammed the Coalition's proposed nuclear power plan.

In a statement, chief executive Amanda McKenziedescribed it as a "smokescreen" that would lead to more "climate pollution".

"Communities are being pummelled by heatwaves and dangerous bushfires one week, and extreme rainfall and flooding the next.

"Dutton's scheme is: let the climate burn, let the mega fires burn, let the sea levels rise, let the heat become unbearable.

"Later is too late — we need clean energy now to slash climate pollution and keep our kids safe. With no workforce, no industry and no waste facilities, nuclear is a generation away in Australia.

"Nuclear reactors are a dangerous delay tactic that would mean climate pollution explodes in the next two decades."

Reporting by Adelaide reporter Joshua Boscaini

SA's Premier Peter Malinauskas says while he's not opposed to nuclear power he's concerned about how much it will cost.

Port Augusta, in SA's far north, is among seven places Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said would host a nuclear power plant if the Coalition was elected.

Malinauskas — citing the CSIRO's GenCost report — said the cheapest form of power in Australia was renewable energy supported by gas.

I am fine with nuclear power as long as it doesn't make [electricity] bills more expensive, and what we know from report after report is that, in the Australian context, it will make power more expensive.

So why on Earth would we pursuit it?

Peter Dutton has announced that he intends to build seven nuclear power stations in Australia but isn't telling the Australian people how much it is going to cost.

From ABC Capricornia reporter Scout Wallen:

Glenn Butcher, the Queensland state Labor MP for Gladstone, said the proposal by the federal opposition to build a nuclear power plant at Callide Power Station was "fanciful".

"It is absolutely ridiculous, what they are coming up with," Mr Butcher said.

"The costs associated with these precincts are certainly way more than what anyone could expect to say."

He said he does not believe Central Queenslanders want a nuclear reactor in proximity to their homes.

"Where we sit today in Rockhampton, and where I am from in Gladstone, in a couple-of-hundred-kilometres radius of one of the nuclear reactors, I just don't think the people of central Queensland want this," he said.

From the ABC's Nate Woodall:

Jeff Bourman, an MP for the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party in the Latrobe Valley in Victoria (where one of seven proposed nuclear reactor sites would be built) told ABC Radio Melbourne that he is pro-nuclear — but is still having conversations with locals in the area.

"If it were to happen, it's a stride I don't think I'd ever expected to see in this country," he said.

"So you can't just take it glibly and say, 'Well, I'm pro-nuclear, of course I would [back a project in my area].'

"But I'd go and talk to the people — the people that would live near it, the people that would live away from it, the for, the against, the scientists.

"I just don't want to talk to activists. I want to talk to real people."