Peter Dutton is defending his decision not to release details of what his nuclear power plan will cost. He says he wants information out in ‘bite-sized bits’. But the Prime Minister has blasted the approach, saying the Coalition can not be taken seriously.
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00:00Donning the campaign khaki in the chill of a Tasmanian winter, as the contest over how
00:07to keep the lights and heaters on ratchets up a gear.
00:10A plan that had no costs attached, can't be taken seriously.
00:16A day after releasing proposed sites for nuclear reactors across the country, Peter Dutton's
00:21defending not detailing the cost just yet.
00:24We want the information out there in bite sized bits if you like.
00:27Will it be before the election?
00:28Of course.
00:29Of course.
00:30I don't think people should get themselves tied up in knots about the cost.
00:33One MP representing a region where one of the seven reactors might be placed, candid
00:38in explaining a reason for limited community consultation before yesterday's announcement.
00:43Everything will leak virtually instantly and then it becomes this huge public bun fight
00:49before you even get started.
00:50Others furious about being kept in the dark on the Coalition's policy.
00:54With a few paragraphs on their press release, it kind of looks like it was done on the back
00:59of a beer coaster.
01:00We are beginning that engagement with communities and that was what yesterday's announcement
01:04was about.
01:05The opposition leader remains confident about his ambitious time frame.
01:08Somewhere between 2035 and 37 we can get the first two projects off the ground and then
01:13there's a gradual roll out through the 2040s.
01:16A nuclear industry currently banned under Commonwealth law and nuclear energy prohibited
01:21in a number of states.
01:22But a proposal which may well stand up to legal challenge if a future Coalition government
01:27wants to push ahead without the cooperation of state premiers.
01:30The Commonwealth actually has pretty broad powers in this area so it seems to me that
01:35in the end this is going to be a matter of politics rather than law and the constitution.
01:40Just last month the CSIRO crunched the numbers and found it would cost at least $8.5 billion
01:46to construct a large scale reactor in Australia and it would produce energy at roughly
01:50twice the cost of renewables.
01:53Now the Coalition disputes that latter point in making its pitch to voters on cheaper power
01:57but Peter Dutton's plan currently rings hollow because there isn't any detail on the table.