DEAR News Of The Area,

LAST week the Nationals Leader, David Littleproud, snuck into Nelson Bay to lobby for his constituency – the mining and resources industry.

He put the case for nuclear energy.

Littleproud and the Liberals leader, Peter Dutton, have been advocating for nuclear energy because they know it will take 15 -20 years to develop and will also require a change in the law thus further delaying its implementation.

Nuclear energy has been banned in Australia since 1998.

Note that this was never a proposal of the previous government when the Liberal/Nationals were in power.

Dutton and Littleproud have both been challenged to show where in the world their proposals for small modular nuclear reactors (SMNR) have been successfully used.

There are none, and many projects have been abandoned in the USA and the UK because of cost blowouts.

The most recent CSIRO report into Australian energy costs estimated that even if the SMNR technology existed it would provide the most expensive form of energy.

Despite Littleproud’s opinion that Australia is falling behind in comparison to other G20 countries, nuclear makes up only ten percent of world energy production.

He and the Coalition had almost ten years in government to secure a sustainable energy future for Australia.

They failed.

The coalition has never supported the move to renewable energy, indeed denied the existence of climate change and are now proposing nuclear to delay yet again, the phase out of fossil fuels.

Matt Kean, former NSW state Liberal Minister commented, “I was state energy minister for five years.

“If nuclear power was a viable pathway to net zero, I would have done it.

“But it did not stack up – economically, environmentally or engineering-wise.”

Kean believes that advocacy for nuclear power is “an attempt to delay and defer responsible and decisive action on climate change in a way that seems to drive up power prices in NSW by delaying renewables”.

Backing up Matt Kean is Professor Lesley Hughes, a director of the Climate Council and a former lead author with the UN’s chief scientific advisory panel, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change who now sits on the federal government’s Climate Change Authority advising on its emissions reduction targets.

“In my opinion, given the lack of any economic rationale for nuclear, one can only conclude that it’s a distraction to allow the fossil fuel industry to keep operating with business as usual,” she says (The Monthly, May 2024).

David Littleproud does not come to Port Stephens to advocate for better protections for our waterways, marine or bird life, the major arguments against wind farms.

He comes to prolong the profits of the resource companies that fill his party’s coffers.

Regards,
Kathy BROWN,
Secretary,
Port Stephens Greens.