During the 2007 federal election campaign, Labor ran a TV scare ad in Queensland about the then prime minister’s plan to introduce nuclear power.
“John Howard says a nuclear industry is a solution to climate change but he won’t say where the reactors should go,” the voiceover says, to golden waterfront scenes and a lazily twanging guitar. “He refuses to talk about a list of possible sites for reactors that includes Rockhampton, Bundaberg, Mackay, Townsville, the Sunshine Coast – even Bribie Island.”
Those last words come over an image of backlit birds and nuclear cooling towers superimposed against the evening sky. The ad’s kicker plays on Queensland’s “perfect” climate and best-known tourism slogan.
“Queensland. Beautiful one day. Nuclear the next?”
Of the five winnable federal seats covering those sites, Labor gained four. Fear of nuclear fallout was far from the only thing that swept Kevin Rudd and Labor to power in 07. But it played its part.
Opinion polls suggest Australians now are much more ready to countenance low-emissions nuclear power in the nation’s energy mix than they were then. That’s one of the reasons Peter Dutton decided it make it central to the Coalition’s energy policy.
Dutton says he’ll soon unveil his own list of proposed sites for future reactors. He’s been saying that, off and on, since March. Suddenly, a month ago, the timeline got fuzzy. And Queensland’s at the heart of things again.
It seems the pause came after Dutton and the Nationals leader, David Littleproud, were mugged by some Queensland reality. It wasn’t so much that the state Liberal National leader, David Crisafulli, didn’t support their nuclear option. It was why.
With his own election looming, Crisafulli had argued nuclear power’s high cost and long lead times meant there was no point pursuing it until it had bipartisan support. But in the background, it had become clear that attitudes to nuclear power haven’t changed quite as much since 2007 as the federal Coalition leadership believed.
People may support the concept of Australia introducing nuclear power but they still don’t want to live near it. And their support is soft, meaning they’re open to persuasion either way. This started to show up in internal state polling.
It’s important here to understand that Queensland is the backbone of the federal Coalition in 2024. It’s home to both the Liberal and Nationals leaders – both nuclear-power enthusiasts – and there are 21 Queensland LNP MPs in the House of Representatives. New South Wales and Victoria have nine conservatives each.
But the Coalition’s tricky nuclear politics are internal too, so it’s also important to understand how we got to here. That goes back to 2021.
Facing an election, Scott Morrison wanted to commit his government to the goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 to have a shot at surviving the teal juggernaut. He bought the Nationals’ support by agreeing to fund a wishlist of infrastructure projects worth an eye-watering $32bn.
Despite their efforts, in 2022 government became opposition and the promises went from purse strings to paper as Dutton replaced Morrison and Nationals’ leader Barnaby Joyce made way for Littleproud.
When colleagues in Littleproud’s party room inquired after the rest of the infrastructure funding, he assured them the promised projects were still Coalition policy, to be pursued on return to government. But some aren’t so sure.
The most visible concession to the Nationals has been the nuclear power decision, which Dutton announced in August 2022. It was a way for him to unify the Coalition behind him and engage in the emissions reduction debate without alienating those either strongly for or against fossil fuels.
Handily, the time it will take to install nuclear power – up to 20 years – means other baseload power sources will be required in the meantime and Coalition coal supporters are taking that as a quiet nod. Some are saying privately that nuclear’s greatest upside is they won’t need it online until 2049.
But others are worried. Already concerned about those earlier promises, Nationals want assurances there will be money for affected communities – not just the cut-price or free power they’re being promised. Beyond that, across the Coalition, people are asking why when Labor is struggling to address the cost-of-living crisis, they’ve made themselves such a big target. It’s got a touch of the negative gearings about it.
Compounding all that, Dutton and Littleproud did not prepare the ground, either in the joint party room or further afield. They started talking up nuclear power armed only with the research showing generally positive public sentiment.
The policy detail had not been nutted out. There was no campaign strategy, no detailed messaging for MPs and, crucially, no focus-group research on how the voters might feel.
Then came the signs from Queensland. Temporarily, they hit the brakes.
Now they’re moving forward again and talk has resumed of an imminent site list, with Dutton confirming it will focus on current coal-production centres with facilities due to close.
This week, the Nine newspapers speculated about six possible sites: the NSW Hunter Valley; Anglesea and the Latrobe Valley in Victoria; Port Augusta in South Australia; Collie in Western Australia; and somewhere in central Queensland within Littleproud’s Maranoa electorate. He has said he’s happy to have one.
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The Nationals MP for coal-producing Gippsland, Darren Chester, had already made his view clear, both publicly and in the replies he’s sent to those who ask what’s going on. They’re as much a message to the Coalition leadership as they are to curious constituents.
“It is premature to rule regions in or out as potential locations for a nuclear power station because there’s no proposal on the table,” Chester writes to one.
“But I would expect a detailed process would need to be established, including a plan to overturn existing legislation, an opportunity for potential host communities to vote in a local plebiscite, and an extensive package of social and economic support measures.”
Then his message to Dutton and Littleproud gets very blunt.
“As a matter of principle, you would need to be able to demonstrate to a potential host community, including Gippsland, that any safety concerns could be ameliorated,” he writes to the constituent, “and there were direct and enduring social and economic benefits to our community.”
In other words, convince people this will be OK, and show them the money.
After this week’s Nine newspaper report appeared, fellow frontbencher Dan Tehan took to social media site X, formerly Twitter, saying suggestions Anglesea was a Coalition site were wrong, and pointing to an interview he gave Torquay’s Surf Coast Times on 22 March.
“The former Anglesea coalmine, which closed in 2015, has no transmission infrastructure,” Tehan told the local paper. “Attempts to suggest the Coalition has any sort of nuclear plan are irresponsible and incorrect.”
By Friday, Tehan’s tweet had disappeared – though not before a delighted climate change minister, Chris Bowen, posted a screenshot.
“Thanks for clearing that up Dan,” Bowen wrote. “If the LNP can rule out a nuclear power plant in Anglesea, that means you know where the plants will and won’t be. So how about you clarify it for every Australian and every community, by releasing your policy. With locations, costings and timelines. Enough talk. Where’s your policy?”
Bowen is now suggesting Dutton hasn’t been within 40km of any of the speculated sites since he became leader. Even without own-goal social media posts, Labor has plenty to work with.
The Queensland sites included in its 2007 TV ad appear to have come from a research paper published in January, 2007 by Andrew Macintosh, now a professor at the Australian National University, for progressive thinktank the Australia Institute.
The 2007 report lays out the complex web of necessary considerations involved in choosing sites. They cross-match proximity to centres of demand with access to water and transport corridors, security from attack, distance from vulnerable infrastructure and populations, and geological and seismic stability. That last one might now be described as the Fukushima clause.
The report’s list of possibilities includes a seventh Queensland site – Gladstone. It has five in NSW – Port Stephens, the Central Coast, Sydney’s Botany Bay and Port Kembla and Sussex Inlet on the south coast– along with the ACT coastal outpost of Jervis Bay.
In Victoria, it’s South Gippsland – in the seat of Monash, now held by the ex-Liberal turned independent Russell Broadbent and which Labor has in its sights – plus Western Port, Port Phillip, and Portland. And in South Australia, it’s Mount Gambier, Millicent, Port Adelaide, Port Augusta and Port Pirie. The 2007 report lists no sites in Western Australia, Tasmania or the Northern Territory.
The cost of introducing nuclear power may have changed slightly – though not enough to make it an easy sell – but the conditions determining best locations have not. Whether the Coalition includes any of these or not, expect to hear them repeated. A lot.
So the Coalition has, ahem, a power of work ahead to make all this electorally appealing.
Labor can’t wait for the fight.
