Peter Dutton met by anti-nuclear protesters in WA regional town

Peter Dutton was met by a small band of protesters as he visited WA regional town Collie for a meeting to brief the local shire about his nuclear plans.

Collie is one of seven places across the country where he plans to build nuclear power stations.

It is the first time he has been to Collie since making his nuclear policy announcement in June.

Mr Dutton spent about 90 minutes meeting with the shire president and chief executive as anti-nuclear activists gathered outside the Shire of Collie’s council chambers.

They raised concerns about the removal of nuclear waste on sacred Indigenous land.

Local Indigenous woman Stevie Anderson spoke to Nuclear Free WA for a video posted to social media on Thursday night after she was barred from entering a pro-nuclear event in Collie.

“I’ve come here tonight to learn about nuclear, a proposal that’s coming to Collie from Peter Dutton and I wasn’t allowed in,” she said.

“I actually want to learn about nuclear. I’m young, I don’t know this stuff and I want to be able to help my elders understand this stuff.

“And really, I don’t think I want this crap in Collie, especially when they’re not going to let me learn about it.”

The event, billed as a “special information evening in Collie”, featured speeches from Nuclear for Australia’s chair Adi Paterson, ANU professor Tony Irwin and nuclear engineer Jasmin Diab.

Ms Anderson was back at the Collie shire offices on Friday while Mr Dutton visited, alongside Noongar elder Phillip Ugle who declared he is “totally” against the nuclear proposal.

“They don’t come and talk to us,” he said. “We don’t want nuclear, we’ve got a registered sacred site ... we don’t want them destroyed.

“We’re worried about the future for our grandchildren and our great grandchildren.”

During a blitz of WA in August, Mr Dutton promised a Perth radio station he would go “up to Collie” before the end of the year.

Anthony Albanese toured the nearby big battery construction site in September, the first Prime Minister to visit Collie in four decades.

The town is home to one of seven coal-fired power stations across the country where the Coalition wants to build nuclear power stations between 2035 and 2050.

But he has yet to say how much it would cost or how it would get around Federal and State legal barriers.

There is also doubt on whether the nuclear plants would go ahead if they struck opposition from local communities.

Analysis from the Government suggests if the nuclear plant used the same water licenses currently available to the Muja power station — in line with the Coalition’s policy — it would only be able to produce 747MW of power.

By contrast, 1.3GW of large-scale renewables and rooftop solar has been added to the WA grid over the past two-and-a-half years.

Mr Dutton is scheduled to visit Busselton later on Friday.