FLINDERS MP Zoe McKenzie wants voters to “please consider” Australia’s use of nuclear power.
In support of the Liberal Party’s federal opposition leader Peter Dutton, McKenzie says cheaper, cleaner and consistent electricity “involves the exploration of nuclear energy in Australia … the most uranium rich country on the planet”.
McKenzie aired her views on nuclear energy on her Facebook page and Sky News, but did not respond when asked by The News to respond to comments by Labor MP for South East Victoria, Tom McIntosh. He said Dutton and McKenzie “must come clean” and provide the cost of nuclear reactors, the cost of storing nuclear waste, insurance and effects on land values. McIntosh said Dutton had “announced a nuclear power plant for Victoria, again with no detail about costs or answers to key questions”.
CSIRO and Australian Energy Market Operator had put the cost of a single nuclear plant as high as $16 billion.
“How big an exclusion zone would be implemented in the event of an accident and how will they compensate communities?” McIntosh said hundreds of signatures had been added to his No Nuclear Reactors in our Communities petition (his website showed 482 on Sunday 14 July). “One in four Victorian homes have installed solar on their roof and wholesale prices in our state are amongst the cheapest in the country,” he said. “Renewables are the cheapest form of electricity generation, nearly 40 per cent of electricity in Victoria’s grid is renewable and by 2035 it will be 95 per cent.”
McKenzie told Sky News that shortly after being elected in 2022 she went to the COP27 United Nations climate change conference in Egypt and was told by politicians from other countries that their baseload power was provided by nuclear and backed up by gas. McKenzie has told Sky News that Dutton’s advocacy for nuclear power showed “enormous courage, conviction and a good vision for this country”. She has made no mention about where a nuclear power station could be located in Victoria.
In 1967, the then Liberal Premier of Victoria Sir Henry Bolte called on the State Electricity Commission to plan for a nuclear power station on a 162 hectare site on French Island, in Western Port. The plan was later abandoned and in 1982 the then Labor government led by John Cain legislated to ban the building of nuclear power plants in the state.
McIntosh says there is no federal regulatory framework for approving nuclear power plants in Australia, no nuclear waste storage sites in Australia and “the state Liberal and National parties are divided on whether to repeal nuclear prohibition to enable nuclear power in Victoria”.
First published in the Mornington News – 16 July 2024
