Peter Dutton’s nuclear plan is crazy bold but if Albo keeps calling it a joke he’s setting himself up to fail

Labor has known for months that the Coalition was getting ready to launch a nuclear attack. So there is absolutely no excuse for Wednesday’s vapid reaction to Peter Dutton’s unveiling of his plan to create seven reactors in retired coal fired plants across five Australian states.

Dumb, insanity. A fantasy, a joke.

These were the words used by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his frontbenchers to decry the Opposition Leader’s pitch. In other words, this idea is not worth serious consideration and anyone who wants to have this discussion is a krank.

If you think this dismissive tone sounds a little familiar that’s because it is.

It’s the same highbrow, disdainful treatment that was handed out in the earliest days to people who had questions about the Indigenous Voice to Parliament and the same kind of sneer that Hillary Clinton delivered back in 2016 to describe as a “basket of deplorables” the supporters of Donald Trump.

In other words, and to paraphrase the ultimate victor in Trump: It’s a strategy for losers.

Peter Dutton may be taking the gamble of his life with his crazy bold plan to transform Australia’s power supply by 2035 with an as-yet uncosted transition to nuclear energy and the odds right now are certainly not in his favour that this will win the next election. Or even perhaps the one that comes after.

But in ignoring the increasing public support for nuclear that’s reflected in a series of recent polls and by trying again to tell people what to think, Anthony Albanese is taking an equally big political wager.

There is much to flesh out in the Coalition’s energy plans and the battlelines were drawn early Wednesday.

State leaders in WA, Victoria, Queensland and NSW lined up to vow they wouldn’t overturn their nuclear bans.

“We’ve got $30-odd billion of private capital invested in renewable energy,” said NSW Premier Chris Minns.

“If all of a sudden you were to introduce nuclear power, that investment is at real risk.”

And in Queensland, even the LNP leader who is all but certain to become the State’s next premier said he’d fight the proposal.

“We’ve been very consistent, it’s not part of our plan,” said David Crisafulli of turning Tarong and Callide power stations nuclear.

“Peter knows my position on it and there’s no secret about that.”

Legislation to overturn Australia’s current moratorium on nuclear energy would also need to pass a potentially hostile senate and the not-small question of what exactly we’re talking about here is also one that needs some pretty serious discussion.

Mr Dutton leaned hard into the international experience in Wednesday’s initial pitch, referring to moves in Poland and Canada towards similar technology to what he’s proposing. But the fact is that the small modular reactors that polling shows many young Australians would support being used in Australia are not yet in commercial use.

“Green hydrogen doesn’t exist in the world,” said Mr Dutton when this was pointed out.

“At the moment, here in our country, the Prime Minister’s proposing that that will be a replacement. At the moment, the AUKUS submarine doesn’t exist, but we know that the technology is there.

“That’s why you look at the 2035 and not 2028... So you give yourself plenty of room.”

And that’s not to mention the issue of cost, which Mr Dutton would not commit on Wednesday to revealing ahead of the upcoming election.

He faces a monumental challenge and Australians are staring down the barrel of a long and fraught debate that will feature plenty of scare campaign tactics featuring three-eyed fish and HAZMAT suits.

But the reality is that this is a discussion that Australia needs to have.

As Mr Dutton pointed out repeatedly on Wednesday, we are the only country among the world’s 20 biggest that hasn’t made the move toward putting nuclear energy in our mix.

Asked why it has taken so long for it to be started, Mr Dutton said improvements in technology and the AUKUS treaty had helped inure Australians to the debate.

“The Labor Party essentially is saying that they don’t have any concerns about safety, they don’t have concerns about disposal of waste,” he said of AUKUS.

“When you look at some of the polling results, in Lowy or in Newspoll, probably two of the most authoritative, almost two-thirds of people aged between 18 and 34 support nuclear because they’re well read.

“They’re passionate about reducing emissions. And as I say, when you look at the Greens and the Democrats in the United States, they’re all strongly in favour of nuclear because they know of the impact and why it can help drive down emissions and drive down cost.

“So we’re latecomers as a country. There’s no question about that. But the time for this discussion is now.”