When she was elected to replace Dutton, Ley said she would not make any captain’s calls – unlike her predecessor – and tasked Tehan with leading a review of the Liberal’s commitment to net zero.
Debate in the Liberal and Nationals party rooms will be heated, with Nationals Barnaby Joyce and Matt Canavan, as well as Liberals Andrew Hastie and Jacinta Price, advocating to ditch the policy, which is a prerequisite of Australia’s commitment to the Paris Agreement.
Dutton promised to use taxpayer funds to build nuclear power plants across the country, including large-scale plants as well as small modular reactors that are in development but yet to be commercialised.
The Coalition cited modelling that costed its nuclear plan at $330 billion, but Labor claimed it would be $600 billion. “The disinformation, misinformation campaign that was run by the Labor Party … put a fear on our costings,” Tehan said.
Tehan has not confirmed whether his policy would include public funds or large-scale reactors, but has promoted the potential of modular reactors to feed power-hungry data centres and complement renewables, which are the bedrock of the Albanese government’s energy policy.
“Energy abundance is going to become the keyword, or keywords, going forward, and we’re going to have to be able to provide for that energy abundance otherwise Australia is going to be left behind,” Tehan said.
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NSW senator Maria Kovacic, a leading moderate, called in the wake of the election loss for the party to dump Dutton’s nuclear policy. She backed Tehan’s stance today, saying she supported lifting the nuclear moratorium and backed potential use of small modular reactors.
“I believe we should allow markets to make a determination about any emerging technology or opportunity, and in that sense, if the market sees there’s some viable emerging technologies in relation to nuclear, then that’s something we would look at,” Kovacic told the ABC.
Australian Conservation Foundation nuclear policy analyst Dave Sweeney said the Coalition would face similar backlash from anti-nuclear protesters if it continued to push for the technology.
“The Australian people rejected Dutton’s policy right across the country, and if the Coalition goes down this path it will be strongly opposed by environment organisations and the energy industry,” Sweeney said.
Ahead of the past election state premiers, except for South Australia, as well as energy companies that own the sites where Dutton planned his reactors, said they would not co-operate with plans for nuclear energy.
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