Australia’s Liberal/National Coalition Party has one year until the next federal election to replace its leader, Peter Dutton. Dutton has tried everything in the Liberal Party playbook to hold legitimacy as opposition leader. The latest play is a nuclear policy announcement, flooded in decades-long climate change inaction and climate change manipulation by the Coalition. Dutton first spoke about nuclear as the opposition leader in August 2022, though nobody asked for it, he saw this as a necessary topic to add to the energy debate. There is little detail on his nuclear strategy and little pressure on him to provide it. But we know it’s expensive and a distorted policy. So far, businesses (primarily voters of the Liberal Party), regional areas (also Coalition Party voters) and the states have rejected it. So why is Dutton still at it?
The most obvious reason is the next election. Dutton wants to dictate the 2025 federal election terms on climate change as Morrison did in 2019. The Coalition Party’s opposition to climate change action, climate change science, and disregard for international agreements is their means to get back in government. As businesses worldwide have adjusted over the last two decades, Australian companies, led by Coalition governments, have made little progress, making us less competitive and viable to work with. The Coalition has identified climate change inaction as an election-winning strategy and is quite prepared to die on a hill for it. We don’t have to join them.
The media will keep the nuclear debate going until next year’s election. Similar to the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum, the media are kicking the tyres on the Coalition’s discourse. Evidence tells us the Australian public gets most of their climate change-related information from the media. Australia has one of the world’s most highly concentrated media markets, and this media is primarily right-wing (and also anti-climate change). This means we shouldn’t be surprised that climate change isn’t reported that much. This should be alarming for most Australians.
Glance casually at the headlines, and you’ll see the Coalition Party’s usual tropes, none of which are supported by evidence – ‘what if renewables aren’t up to it?’ ‘when the sun doesn’t shine, and the wind doesn’t blow’, and ‘voters won’t put up with blackouts’. The Coalition Party are in the business of declaring non-renewables “renewable”: think “clean coal” and “renewable gas”. Nuclear is the new gas or the new anything that isn’t a renewable. Nuclear is an expensive and unviable resource, which would have little to no impact on Australia’s ability to meet climate targets because it’s still a pipe dream. So, why bother? To get elected, of course. Dutton is free to take up airtime on the topic because it boils down to a common denominator – disregarding climate change.
Politically minded 