A nuclear fantasy?

Dec 19, 2024
Nuclear towers and industrial pollution. Conceptual global warming with buildings isolated on white background. Image: iStock/ karelnoppe

There is an air of unreality, and a substantial quantity of pie in the sky, about the nuclear power policy unveiled on Friday the 13th of December by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. And as for costs and practicability, voters are faced with the Liberals’ reliance on economic modelling by a Canberra consultant versus scientific modelling by the CSIRO.

What is unreal about the proposal is that Dutton admits his proposal is dependent on there being bipartisan support for it. He wants Labor to ‘follow the leadership that we’ve given’.

This dependency flows from the fact that the very first hurdle he must clear is changing the law – or rather two laws of the Commonwealth – together with laws of the States where he wants the Commonwealth to build his nuclear reactors.

It was Liberal Prime Minister John Howard who imposed the ban on nuclear power in Australia a quarter of a century ago when Parliament passed the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Act and the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act  to protect people and the environment  from radiation by regulating activities that the Commonwealth and its entities undertakes and then by prohibiting the construction or operations of nuclear power plants, enrichment plants, reprocessing facilities and nuclear fuel fabrication.

The States and Territories have also banned the construction of nuclear power plants, but the Commonwealth could probably over-ride those laws, provided it had the requisite constitutional power. That is a very big proviso.

A Coalition Government headed by Dutton would need to repeal the relevant provision of those Howard laws if it was to build any nuclear power plants. He would need Labor support, or the support of the Greens and most independents in the Senate, for that to happen. The chances of that happening are currently minute, and likely to get even smaller as independents trying to win Senate seats seek election based on their opposition to nuclear.

Then there are the States, all of which where reactors are to be based, are opposed to nuclear power – even Queensland with its new Liberal National Party Government. It is not certain that Dutton would be able to have the government in his home state change its position, or that he could provide sufficient financial incentives – that is, bribe – the relevant states to allow nuclear plants within their respective jurisdictions.

If not, he would have to rely on section 109 of the Constitution, allowing Commonwealth laws to override inconsistent state laws, to build his reactors.

But it is not at all certain that Dutton has the power under the Constitution to build nuclear power plants.

The last time any government proposed building a nuclear power station was more than half a century ago, when Prime Minister John Gorton and his Cabinet decided to build one at Jervis Bay (though this decision was rescinded by Gorton’s successor, Sir William McMahon). This location was chosen because it is within the jurisdiction of the Australian Capital Territory. The powers the Commonwealth has under the Constitution over the ACT and other territories are not subject to the same restrictions as its ordinary legislative powers.

The constitutional power that the Howard government used to ban nuclear power cannot be used to authorise a future government to spend money to build a nuclear power plant. The ban made use of a law bringing into force in Australia an international treaty to protect the environment. That law was made under the constitutional power to make laws concerning external affairs – that is, a treaty made under the external affairs power.

A Dutton Government would probably find it difficult to persuade the High Court that building nuclear power plants fell within the terms of environmental protection legislation covered by the terms of the Treaty.

Leaving constitutional and legal issues aside, it is surely surreal to have a Liberal National Coalition proposing to spend an enormous sum of money to get the Commonwealth Government to build and own power generating stations and transmission lines when over many decades it has been the ambition (mostly realised) of Liberal and coalition governments in the states to sell off every piece of electricity generation equipment that they inherited from previous Labor governments.

But of course the only way nuclear power stations could be built in Australia is by government. Private industry is not interested partly because of the huge financial commitment required, but mainly because nuclear would be an enormous loss-making enterprise. Dutton’s proposal is viable financially only because the government can transfer the cost and the ongoing losses to taxpayers through the Commonwealth budget and to consumers through higher prices.

His plan also requires that consumers will be prevented from reducing their power bills by switching to roof-top solar and batteries.

And the economic modelling suggests that the Dutton scheme is only viable in economic terms if the economy grows significantly less rapidly than the current government anticipates.

It is difficult to see just what benefits, financial and otherwise, Dutton’s nuclear plans are intended to deliver to consumers – that is, to voters. Perhaps all will be explained after the holiday break.

Share and Enjoy !