Nuclear policy a ‘fantasy’ that fails at the first hurdle: Bowen (2024)

Australia’s bird-flu outbreak has worsened, with a strain of the disease detected on a NSW egg farm after being found on seven properties in Victoria.

The NSW government confirmed on Wednesday that avian influenza had been picked up in the Hawkesbury district, north of Sydney, although the strain was different to that detected in Victoria.

There, more than one million chickens and ducks will die in an effort to minimise the ultimate destruction caused by multiple outbreaks.

The highly pathogenic strain H7N3 was found at a seventh Victorian farm – already in quarantine – in the Golden Plains Shire in the state’s central west, Agriculture Victoria revealed during the week.

The H7N8 strain found in NSW was believed to be a “spill-over” event, possibly from wild birds.

NSW officials engaged the state’s emergency biosecurity incident plan, sending the farm into quarantine and triggering movement controls in the area.

It noted that the highly pathogenic disease spread quickly and had a high mortality rate among poultry birds, requiring the farm lockdown.

Consumers should not be worried about eggs and poultry from the supermarkets, and the outbreak did not pose a risk to public health, the government said.

“The government will work closely with industry to reduce the risk of spread and minimise any impact on egg supply,” a statement said.

Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke has slammed John Setka’s attacks on the AFL as bullying, thuggery and a personal vendetta and said the construction union leader’s comments motivated the government’s decision to immediately bring in laws to break up the CFMEU.

Burke told reporters the government had been considering legislation to allow the CFMEU’s manufacturing division to split from the union since February but was hopeful the union would sort the issue out itself.

“Once the AFL attack was made, our patience came to an end,” he said. “It became clear when we saw John Setka’s comments about the AFL that the construction division at the moment is not behaving in a way that lends itself towards constructive outcomes.”

He said the government decided that “we were not going to leave the manufacturing division in a situation where they would be expected to remain part of an organisation that was deciding their big public issue was the opposite of what unions normally do”.

“Their [the CFMEU’s] big public issue was about trying to get someone fired rather than trying to provide people with job security. It has been a ridiculous piece of attempted bullying.”

He said, “my frustration is that some people will see this sort of behaviour and think it’s representative of the Australian trade union movement, and it’s not”.

“They [unions] don’t want media statements about vendettas, they don’t want bullying, they don’t want thuggery,” he said. “My message to that organisation is really simple. Keep to what unions are meant to do, which is look after their members, the organisations that promote job security – not organisations that are obsessed with vendettas and personal attacks trying to get someone fired.”

Chris Bowen, ​​​​the minister for climate change and energy, has labelled Peter Dutton’s nuclear plan as a “risky nuclear scam” that raised more questions than answers.

“The Liberal and National parties, having promised an energy policy, released a list of sites with no costs, no details, no modelling, and they couldn’t even release the number of gigawatts or megawatts that would be added to the energy system as a result of this policy, and they can’t even confirm that these details will be released before an election, not after,” Bowen said.

“The only details they’ve released is an admission that even on their own timetable – which is hugely ambitious – they couldn’t get a nuclear reactor up in Australia until 2035 or 2037.

“Now, that would be, in and of itself, the fastest nuclear rollout in the world in a country that doesn’t have a nuclear industry.”

Victoria’s Liberal Opposition Leader John Pesutto has tried to sidestep today’s nuclear debate, repeating that it has no plans for nuclear as a state opposition.

“It may well be that a future federal government initiates a national discussion on nuclear power, noting that there is a moratorium currently in place nationally,” Pesutto said.

“Our focus as a state opposition, as the alternative government, is on addressing the current shortfalls in energy, particularly with gas shortfalls which the ACCC and AEMO have both among others identified as confronting Victorians in the coming years. That’s where our focus will be.”

Tony Wood, ​the director of the energy program at the Grattan Institute, has questioned whether the proposed nuclear power plants will be online before coal is phased out.

Apart from the social licence question, the big challenge facing the Coalition’s proposal is whether it can be achieved between 2035 and 2050, Mr Wood told the ABC.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has pledged to build seven government-owned nuclear power stations by 2050, with the first unit to be operational in just over a decade.

“Can we seriously have them online, given the coal-fired power stations will close between now and 2035?” Mr Wood said.

“The costs look very high. All the numbers we’ve seen so far suggest they will be very high, and higher than the alternative.

“I’ve got no problem with nuclear technology per se. I’ve travelled to many countries where nuclear is used and I’ve never been worried about it, and I think the idea that you could build nuclear fundamentally is not stupid by any means.”

The attack on federal Labor MP Josh Burns’ Melbourne electoral office is a distressing escalation that needs to be dialled back down, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.

“This has got to be seen as an attack on someone who’s a Jewish MP, someone who is running an office that looks after people’s interests,” he told ABC Radio Melbourne.

“How people think that they advance their cause through activities like this is beyond me. It does nothing. It undermines the cause that people purport to represent.”

Vandals overnight smashed windows and graffitied the walls in red paint with slogans that read “Zionism is fascism”.

Anti-Defamation Commission chair Dr Dvir Abramovich said the vandalism of a Jewish MP’s office was an “assault on our democracy and our sense of safety”.

Victorian Greens leader Ellen Sandell condemned the violence and property damage but said the movement calling for the end to the war in Gaza was largely peaceful.

Federal Labor minister Katy Gallagher said attacks on politicians’ offices are “not the way we do politics in Australia”.

“This type of criminal activity – vandalism – is outrageous, and we need to make sure the community understands this is just not on,” she told ABC TV.

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in North Korea early on Wednesday, after saying the two countries want to co-operate closely to overcome US-led sanctions in the face of intensifying confrontations with Washington.

Putin was met at Pyongyang’s airport by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. They shook hands and embraced, and Kim later joined Putin in his car to personally guide him to Pyongyang’s ku*msusan State Guest House, North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said. The agency described their meeting as a historic event that demonstrates the “invincibility and durability” of the two nations’ friendship and unity.

Putin, making his first trip to North Korea in 24 years, said in comments that appeared in its state media hours before he landed that he appreciates the country’s firm support of his military actions in Ukraine. The Kremlin launched a full-scale invasion of the neighbouring country in 2022.

He said the countries would continue to “resolutely oppose” what he described as Western ambitions “to hinder the establishment of a multipolar world order based on justice, mutual respect for sovereignty, and considering each other’s interests”.

Putin’s visit comes amid growing concerns about an arms arrangement in which Pyongyang provides Moscow with badly needed munitions to fuel Russia’s war in Ukraine in exchange for economic assistance and technology transfers that would enhance the threat posed by Kim’s nuclear weapons and missile program.

Read more here.

The Climate Council has accused Peter Dutton’s Coalition of engaging in a “radioactive greenwash”, suggesting the policy for a shift to nuclear power in Australia is designed to hide its commitment to coal and gas.

Chief executive Amanda McKenzie says Dutton’s plans will also delay an urgently needed shift to renewable energy in the economy.

“The winners from this scheme are the multinational coal and gas corporations who will keep polluting until well past mid-century. On the other hand, as a result of this scheme, Australians will suffer from worsening unnatural disasters due to climate pollution,” McKenzie says.

“Communities are being pummelled by heatwaves and dangerous bushfires one week, and extreme rainfall and flooding the next.

“Dutton’s scheme is: let the climate burn, let the mega-fires burn, let the sea levels rise, let the heat become unbearable.”

McKenzie warned that Australia has no nuclear workforce and no waste facilities.

“Nuclear reactors are a dangerous delay tactic that would mean climate pollution explodes in the next two decades.”

Tania Constable, chief executive of lobby group the Minerals Council of Australia, has strongly backed Peter Dutton’s nuclear announcement.

She says the policy provides a pathway for Australia’s industries to reduce emissions cost-effectively while maintaining access to reliable baseload power.

“Building a diverse energy mix that meets both environmental and economic goals is essential for keeping vital industries competitive amidst significant cost pressures and ambitious emissions targets.

“High future demand for reliable and clean energy means that all energy types, including nuclear power, will be indispensable in meeting Australia’s future energy needs.

“A technology-neutral approach to energy solutions is necessary to tackle the substantial challenge of decarbonising the economy while maintaining its competitiveness and productivity.”

Constable points to high reliance on nuclear across the G20 group of leading economies, including construction of new reactors.

“Australia must look at the sensible option, as demonstrated by the United States, which has recently identified 120 locations for new reactors without succumbing to fearmongering and misinformation.

“Nuclear plants have a lifespan of 60 to 100 years, far exceeding some current assumptions of just 30 years.

“This longer time frame provides substantial benefits for consumers, offering affordable, clean, and reliable power for decades.”