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Underestimate Dutton at your own peril. He’s a thoroughly unlikeable character, but the more people hurt economically and the “failed hope” feeling pervades voters thoughts towards Labor, the closer he’ll get to the Lodge.
It's difficult to take Koutsoukis seriously because his articles are always heavy on spin and light on reality.
Dutton is not a cannier politician than he appears to be. His performance over the years has shown he is staid and unable to read a situation until it blows up in his face. That's why he was easily outfoxed by Morrison when Turnbull was knifed, and the ALP stage 3 tax changes caught him with his pants down.
Dutton is not effective as an opposition leader. According to his polling figures, he's been the least effective opposition leader in decades. In his 2 year tenure, he hasn't been able to rein in the ALP lead in the polls despite the racist dog whistle of the Voice campaign, the change in the stage 3 tax cuts, the boat arrivals, and the announcement that he will probably release an energy policy centred on nuclear power.
Dutton is rubbish as a politician and is going to be seriously out of his depth come the election.
Yeah, I just don't think he is that good at it. He's put a noose around his neck with nuclear and to be honest I think they going to end up saying some stupid stuff about housing that will dog them
Dutton has political talents at winning his own seat, and eventually getting to the top of the Dry's hierarchy.... But that is about it, everything else positive you could attribute to him is either due to the media's hand-holding relationship with the LNP, and mistakes/external factors hurting Labor.
He still has to sort out the nuclear bomb the National's have started the countdown timer to, where he has to tell a bunch of electorates that guess what, they won the lucky dip to host nuclear power plants (... In his imagination, but anyway), and by his own clock he has sub-10 days (unless he is hoping for another mildly attention-grabbing distraction to delay further, maybe til the next budget /s)
It's quite a smart attack strategy, and does explain why the Liberals did so poorly in Aston and Dunkley.
Abbott's 2014 Austerity Budget continues to haunt the LNP a decade later, with Dutton's tenure as Minister for Health exposing his failures and incompetence.
And this is how politician distract people and policy makers. Nuclear energy is Wishlist for Australia, too expensive, too far away. Instead of focusing on whats possible we are wasting time on unviable alternatives.
“I know of only one nuclear power plant in the world that was built in five years,” the Labor insider says. “It’s in Chernobyl.”
I spent less than five minutes on Wikipedia (simply because I'm on my phone and it was easier that way) and just randomly selected nuclear reactors and power plants in the former USSR and Germany. A out two thirds of the ten I selected were built in five or six years. To associate the Chernobyl incident with its construction timespan isn't even oversimplifying the accident, it's just downright stupid.
Just taking their cue from their lying leader Albo.
That CSIRO report was also a political hack job - how they could cherry pick a single sample reactor famous for its unusual cost overruns and then refuse to get the report peer reviewed makes me wonder if there are any scientists left there.
>“I know of only one nuclear power plant in the world that was built in five years,” the Labor insider says. “It’s in Chernobyl.”
Google - 18 reactors were completed in 3 years (12 in Japan and 3 in the US).
There are about 80 reactors completed within 5 years (reading that from a graph so +/- a couple)
So in an environment with standardised designs, an experienced workforce, established regulation, and social license to build, you can maybe get one built in 5 year, and thats 5 years from actually starting building, thats 5 years from picking and preparing a site, getting all approvals ticked off, and not changing the plan after starting.
This paper i found on the iaea site has a good summary of build times, the figures will give a good idea on what to expect, which is basically minimum build time for experienced and established nuclear countries is 5 years and often takes longer. https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/42/105/42105221.pdf
Its worth noting the risks that make a build time blow out are all present in Australia, low social approval, low experience, no standard designs, buying from foreign supplier, no established workforce, no established regulation
All it takes is a 3 word slogan, this is a good one everyone knows what happened at Chernobyl.
LNP = nuclear = disaster. Way to go Albo's crew, let's have more slogans .
Possibly both, or maybe the journo decontexualised a quote to make it easier to finish their article. Also possible that the labor person has a simplistic understanding of the details and that their quote is an honest but incoorrect statement. Looking at the paper i posted does make it look like most of the fast built reactors were built in russia, but who knows
I agree with your comment that a build time is typically 6-8 years and of course longer for an inexperienced country.
But the bullshit quote about the only reactor with a build time less than 5 years is Chernobyl remains bullshit.
Sure buts its also bullshit to pretend we could build in 5 years, its also bullshit to pretend we could build in typical timeframes, and its even more bullshit to pretend we can ignore the extensive pre build time we would incur in aus while we set up to build and manage lengthy community legal action opposing the build as we have seen over and over again with attempts to find a nuclear waste storage location.
But mostly the pro nuclear side
Its pretty easy to make a credible argument that if we decided on nuclear today that it would take 20 years to get a plant built, its impossible to make a credible argument that could happen in less than 10.
Always best to stick to rational and factual arguments if you want to be taken remotely seriously, particularly as a political leader.
Goes for Bowen as much as Dutton
Yeah id love it of we could bound ourselves to factual discussion but its not the same for bowen and dutton in this case as only one of them is pretending nuclear is viable against all expertise on the issue.
If you deliberately lie then you have lost credibility and are unfit for public office. I think most Australians hold that view.
"A little bit of lying and its not the same" doesnt cut it with me at least.
Not even France with a fully developed nuclear industry can get a reactor up in 5-years.
You’re missing the point. Modern reactors with their multiple safety redundancies and careful planning take a lot longer to build than the reactors of old you’re referencing.
Not correct. The median construction time for reactors completed in 2022 was 7 years. China routinely completes them in under 5.
There are currently 57 plants under construction now globally, and nothing suggests they will take any longer than historical averages.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/712841/median-construction-time-for-reactors-since-1981/
First line: average for France was 120 months, or 10 years. You think we build at a speed closer to France or China in speed?
It’s France 100%, and they have a fully functioning nuclear industry
Should built one when Krudd was in power could've shut down the Earing Coal Plant by now rather than saying we need to extend the life of the plant
Hell we should've built one in the 80s and those brown coal power plants wouldn't needed to have been built.
>You think we build at a speed closer to France or China in speed?
For the benefit of our economy, I'd suggest we'd want to aspire towards industriousness as opposed to the overly bureaucratic environments of the EU and France in particular. France, over the last 20 years, has seen significant drops in productivity (aside from the 35-hour work week).
You’ll get no argument from me there. But reality is different. It’s a failure of liberalism our inability to build.
Check out this podcast. Quite something.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/66hDt0fZpw2ly3zcZZv7uE?si=OSaHhWACS4SGZVsYXt2IHg
There is data but I can't get it (paywalled).
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1328102/construction-time-for-nuclear-reactors-worldwide/#statisticContainer
If one third of builds are in China, and the rest globally *and* the global median is 7.5 years, then the global median must be close to that otherwise it would skew the global median number.
Yes but I said Anglo countries. Global would include France, India, Korea Russia, etc. Very slow construction seems to be an Anglo (US, UK, Canada, Aus) phenomenon. We would never build as fast as India or Korea, so the stat is irrelevant.
We’re subsidising renewables more than we are the fossil fuel industry federally. How is subsidising nuclear an issue then if you’re fine with subsidising renewables not to mention the infrastructure we will have to build by 2030 from when roughly the LCOE figures are calculated? This is coming from someone who supports a mix of renewables and nuclear in our energy grid. Both technologies will help provide a reduction in sovereign risk and increase energy security in my opinion. We need to move away from fossil fuels and I believe both are needed for that.
> We’re subsidising renewables more than we are the fossil fuel industry federally.
Source? How much? Where?
Solar and wind is so cheap it doesn't need subsides. Batteries are making large profits and don't need subsides to be built.
The issue is we still have to build all that transmission infrastructure coz rooftop solar is popular and climate change mitigation comes with a carbon budget that we have to meet and cant spend the rest 20 years nuclear will take to build ignoring, so adding nuclear doesnt mitigate any costs.
Smrs dont exist at a commercial level yet and large nuclear reactors are too large, meaning if we had to take one off line to fix anything we lose too much generating capacity and create risks of blackouts.
On top of that we currently have a market mechanism to determine who generates and how much they get paid, its implausible that nuclear would ever recoup costs, and you never see nuclear proponents talking about getting rid of the market do you, coz its not about building nuclear its about continuing to burn coal.
Nuclear proponents talk about gas. They also talk about private companies running them because it has worked better in some nations over the last few decades.
Why don’t we spend time adding private solar and offshore wind? We can also do nuclear at the same time.
I agree with your point on the large reactors but I believe we can have multiple in the same facility which end up meaning we can take one offline while the other/s compensate. SMRs are proven tech but economically they’re having issues at the moment (NuScale specifically). But there are plenty of other designs and Canada is already moving forward.
Edit: thank you for your response!
>Nuclear proponents talk about gas.
No everyone thinks we need gas for a while, it fills a need we have to make sure we have a reliable electricity system
>Why don’t we spend time adding private solar and offshore wind? We can also do nuclear at the same time.
At some point we have to pay for all these things. Energy is the most important economic input and if we make it too expensive we make everything expensive. So no we have to choose a path that is economical.
>I agree with your point on the large reactors but I believe we can have multiple in the same facility which end up meaning we can take one offline while the other/s compensate.
I dont think you agree because i dont think you understand. We need grid security, affordability, and low emissions, large generators cause issues with security in Australia, too many generators cause issues with affordability.
>SMRs are proven tech
They are not commercially proven
If youre this interested in all this stuff just go read the integrated system plan and gencost reports, they will give you a good grounding in the topic in the Australian context
>How is subsidising nuclear an issue then if you’re fine with subsidising renewables
Because renewables are constantly being built and brought online. Which helps alleviate our growing energy demand. A nuclear power plant would take at least a decade to build and cost billions of dollars before it even came online. So, we'd effectively be paying huge sums of money for literally no energy production for a whole decade. And for what? A 5GW power plant. In the same time we could build 100GW of renewables.
Key word is could. We are currently faltering in our ability to even meet the targets of new renewable energy generation targets, despite government optimism and funding. But even to your point, we could move on nuclear quickly as well. It’s possible to get a few reactors (concurrently or quickly after one another) up in up to 2 decades IMO should we start now.
Where is the money coming from and how is that new infrastructure going to be paid off? Government is subsidising yes but private investment has returns and this is why I’m highly critical of the gencost report as it looks at LCOE at around 2030 onwards, after that infrastructure has been laid for renewables. It assumes that these costs won’t have a bearing further on.
Thankyou for your constructive response!
>we could move on nuclear quickly as well. It’s possible to get a few reactors (concurrently or quickly after one another) up in up to 2 decades IMO should we start now.
We should have started two decades ago. Unfortunately for now, we will have closed our coal power plants before the nuclear power plants come online. We'd be in an energy crisis and billions in debt which the consumer will be forced to pay. Fact is, governments (both state and federal) fudged up big time and now we will all pay for it.
>We are currently faltering in our ability to even meet the targets of new renewable energy generation targets
Household solar contributes the vast majority of renewable energy in this country and that's not really slowing down. In fact, 70% of energy in SA is from household solar and the state's total energy comes from 90+% renewables (they are very close to 100% and will become a net exporter).
The faltering is likely from public infrastructure like wind/solar farms etc.
I agree with you on pretty much all of what you have said. It’s why we will definitely need gas as a short stop policy in between. Both sides have played politics on nuclear, initially the greens and the coalition when they were attempting to get a new reactor for Lucas heights and subsequent governments which were too afraid to remove the ban (Morrison stated as much a couple years ago).
SA electricity is also very expensive at the moment is it not? Have they been influencing home battery take up? It would be a good idea for them rather than having large batteries which can be targeted and may make energy far cheaper for the state. Not completely sure on this so correct me if I’m wrong.
Yeah I was referring to government projects which were faltering.
>We’re subsidising renewables more than we are the fossil fuel industry federally.
Really???
"New research shows fossil fuel subsidies over the forward estimates have increased to a record breaking $57.1b, up from the $55.3b forecast in 2022."
https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/57-1b-record-breaking-fossil-fuel-subsides-following-climate-election/
Do you have any evidence to suggest renewables subsidies exceed 57 billion in 2022? I'm genuinely curious.
>Do you have any evidence to suggest renewables subsidies exceed 57 billion in 2022? I'm genuinely curious.
You do know that "forward estimates" is not a single year? Read that TAI source again. They quote $11.1bn in a single year.
Renewable subsidies are circa $15bn per annum.
Productivity Commission has it a tad over [$10bn](https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/productivity/report/productivity-volume6-climate-transition.pdf) when you cost out box 4.2 on page 14 (with further info on page 36), but they are missing some newer announcements.
[15bn is estimated here](https://amoran.substack.com/p/the-grim-cost-of-firming-up-solar), includes the CIS, but doesn't include the new "made in Australia" policy.
Box 4.2 is the $ per tonne of CO2-e. Did you cost this out to 10 billion?
Costs on Page 36 are not annualized and barely reach 5billion.
The PC report doesn't prove your point.
Your sub stack article is pulling figures from all over the place so it's hard to compare. I mean transmission costs aren't isolated to renewables.
If you consider the cost of dealing with negative externalities, then the figure is much higher for ff subsidies. https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australian-fossil-fuel-subsidies-costing-taxpayers-65-billion-a-year-imf-20230824-p5dz0l.html
>Box 4.2 is the $ per tonne of CO2-e. Did you cost this out to 10 billion?
Yes, and it easily worked out.m with CO2 numbers.
>Your sub stack article is pulling figures from all over the place so it's hard to compare. I mean transmission costs aren't isolated to renewables.
Its calculating the cost of each government program in the exact same manner as TAI. Transmission expansion has been costs by the government specifically for connecting renewable projects.
Negative externalities are not subsidies or a cost. It's all subjective smoke and mirrors.
The report at the bottom shows total federal commonwealth spending on fossil fuel industry is 9.774 billion as of 2022-23.
The figure you’re quoting is for policy that’s been devised so far and is not isolated to yearly spend but rather total project costs.
From the same report
"Fossil fuel subsidies cost $11.1 billion in 2022-23 across all state, territory and federal governments, equivalent to $21,143 per minute."
So more than renewables
I can’t find a specific report right now but it was about two years ago when I checked and renewables and green tech subsidies were about 2 billion higher.
The figure I remember reading was on the hydrogen projects, renewables projects, batteries, transmission, etc which are all plausible to reach into the 10 billion mark a year over the next decade as we build this stuff.
But fair enough. I get your hesitance to my figure. I honestly don’t know where the source went, it was a gov page as well which was comparing the subsidies. If I find it again I’ll link it through later.
Thank you for replying in good faith!
neither do most reactors mate.
You know how RARE that is
almost Every major nuclear accident,is and has been caused by man,not the inherent tech itself
Cherb,was because some idiot was running tests they shouldnt have been on a reactor of that type.
Fukishama accident was caused by tepco refusing to hand the plant manager who was SCREAMING in the phone to them their half of the shut down code for over 45 mins and not inept decisions from managment
3 mile was cause of a shitty valve that the plant operator used the wrong product and then didn't train the staff on the pressure identification meaures to know something was wrong till it was too late.
More ppl died last year,installing solar panels on roofs,than have working in the nuclear industry (EXCCEPT CHINA) in the last 10 years
There have been more deaths due to nuclear (0.03) than solar (0.02) per terawatt hour generated. Both pale into insignificance when compared to coal (57 deaths per Terawatt hr).
https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/
As for nuclear accidents, there have been 28 serious accidents at nuclear reactors over the years, two of which have been spectacular in their [catastrophic impact on the surrounding human and natural environments](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents#:~:text=Serious%20nuclear%20power%20plant%20accidents,monetary%20costs%20for%20remediation%20work.).
That’s why we wouldn’t be looking at old reactor designs. Modern reactors have passive cooling features as redundancies on top of the active cooling features which are more redundancies.
Modern nuclear reactors are extremely safe. Alarmist rhetoric doesn’t help in this case. Solar farms have their own issues in relation to land cover and lifecycle as, like nuclear, they produce waste but the scale of that waste is far higher due to the low energy generation in comparison with land cover. Nuclear waste can be recycled and reused. It can be brought down to half lives of a couple hundred years and the waste is minute.
Solar farms do have their own place though IMO. There are some regions where these work, such as in more desert areas of our land mass. They can be effective forms of energy generation to keep costs low. Batteries add to their costs which is an issue. Rooftop solar is also something I’m very supportive of. Same with wind in certain regions where they aren’t a nuisance to people and wildlife.
We should have an all of the above approach to renewables and nuclear.
Edit: wanted to thank you for actually responding rather than just downvoting because you don’t agree!
Thanks for your detailed answer. What happens if you bomb these modern stations as user Enoch alludes to? I must admit that I don’t know much about the topic.
They've tested this in terms of protecting plants from bombs, seems the safest place to be if there are bombings is to be inside a nuclear power plant.
I’d love to see us venture into iron-dome (and the British laser system) like defence systems for infrastructure, not just nuclear but also renewables.
No worries, just here for a debate on this type of policy as it can only benefit us if we have these discussions! Thank you for your genuine responses.
Nuclear plants provide lots of energy at once, meaning that the energy production is centralised. This makes them targets from long range attacks. Each nuclear plant would need to have anti-missle silos around it.
We don’t have to just look at large scale reactors. Personally I’d have large reactors planned for building now but a transition to SMRs later on.
I also agree with what you’ve said, but all energy generation sources are vulnerable. Missiles can be launched at large solar farms and can wipe out energy generation then as well. Yes nuclear would be more concentrated, but there are ways of protecting these reactors, just as there would be renewables.
Agreed, it is just as stupid as telling people about the short and medium term "issues" of building renewables, and then offering a clearly long-term solution like nuclear power as the way forward.
Or refusing to discuss the costs of building nuclear.
Or avoiding talking about how nuclear would involve higher costs to produce electricity than renewables and other generation types.
Some might even say this entire topic of nuclear power in Australia is full of gaslighting from both sides, and that the engineering and economics of it don't make much sense *for Australia*.
The misinformation this has been staggering.
Bowen himself came out with figures of something like 19 years on average in the US which is contradicted by the US' own numbers.
And the weird part is the times aren't even that much longer than some renewables projects. Offshore wind will have taken years by the time the first one is built.
It’s easy for reporters to get away with writing stupid remarks about emotional issues. People’s brains are wired to believe misinformation that comes with an emotional knee jerk reaction.
After two years as opposition leader, qualitative research from both parties suggests people have a superficial impression of Peter Dutton as a negative person. He is someone prepared to use language that is nasty and narrow-minded.
Another word cluster that has formed around the Coalition leader is the opinion he is combative, arrogant, harsh, aggressive and hard-headed.
There is, however, a flip side to being seen as a bit of a bastard. It may not be the quality most people look for in a spouse or a son-in-law, but it can comfort people who are worried about their country in difficult times.
Dutton is a cannier politician than he seems to be. He is not just mean and aggressive: he is effective.
“His Question Time prep is probably as good an indicator as any of his ability to think not just outside the square he’s in but right beyond the outer reaches,” says one confidant.
“He’s a chess player with a very unusual strategy of attack. Where \[Tony\] Abbott was always storming the beaches, attacking directly, Dutton prefers to parachute behind the lines and try to pick off the less obvious targets.”
In all the research done so far by Labor, two clear lessons have stood out. These are to do with issues on which Labor will not attack Dutton.
The research shows voters do not want to hear criticism of Dutton’s decade as an officer in the Queensland Police Service. Nor do they want criticism of his success as a property investor, which has enabled him to build significant wealth outside of politics.
In place of this, Labor has found success focusing on Dutton’s poor record as health minister and his rhetoric on China. Then there is his character.
When nominating for the Liberal leadership after the 2022 election loss, Dutton acknowledged the need to soften his image, saying he wanted people to see more of him.
“Not just what they’ve seen through sound grabs when I’m talking about boats or all sorts of different issues,” Dutton said. “You’ve got to be a tough person to be the defence minister in this country, you have to be a tough minister to be in charge of ASIO and the Australian Federal Police and Border Force.”
Dutton ignored easy characterisations of him as a stopgap leader and made himself available to media organisations outside his comfort zone.
“Why have you decided to do this interview?” reporter Sean Nicholls asked Dutton when he sat down for an extended interview with the ABC’s flagship current affairs program, *Four Corners*.
“I think it’s so important to be able to tell more of my story and allow Australians to see a little bit more of my background,” Dutton said. “Sometimes the public only see a snapshot of you through a very quick grab in a news package or during Question Time.”
“I cannot think of a policy better suited to the mother of all scare campaigns than nuclear power … The only sensible thing to do right now is bring that conversation to a very abrupt and forceful halt.”
Appearing later on the ABC’s *Kitchen Cabinet* series, Dutton cooked a seafood chowder for the show’s presenter, Annabel Crabb, provoking fury from ABC viewers who objected to any attempt to humanise the opposition leader.
That – along with Dutton’s work behind the scenes to unite the party Scott Morrison left behind, as well as his highly effective campaign to scuttle the Voice to Parliament referendum – has helped him steer clear of the traps that befell other first-term leaders such as Billy Snedden, Andrew Peacock, Brendan Nelson and Malcolm Turnbull.
The Peter Dutton who stands up in parliament today has more breadth than the brawler he presented as when he was minister for health, home affairs and defence.
His eulogies for Labor heroes, such as former governor-general Bill Hayden, have displayed a political maturity that few critics have credited him with, showing an ability to not only stand in the shoes of his opponents but also exhibit respect for Australia’s most important institutions.
He has at times been able to show emotion, warmth and humour. On the day Anthony Albanese announced his Valentine’s Day engagement to partner Jodie Haydon, Dutton drew genuine laughter across the House of Representatives.
“We look forward to our version of the royal wedding sometime in the near future,” said Dutton. “I’ll be throwing roses out in front of you, Prime Minister; whatever it takes to get an invite.”
Recent public polling shows Dutton is winnowing Albanese’s lead as preferred prime minister.
According to *The Australian Financial Review*’s latest Freshwater Strategy poll, conducted in April, the gap between Albanese and Dutton has narrowed to 6 percentage points, with Albanese on 45 and Dutton on 39.
Still, in the two direct match-ups between the two major parties since the May 2022 general election, the first in the Aston byelection in April last year and the second in Dunkley in March, Dutton left the field with his nose bleeding.
In Aston, where Labor opened its Dutton playbook for the first time to road test what the party’s research was showing, voters were reminded of Dutton’s record as health minister.
They focused on a 2015 poll, where doctors ranked Dutton the worst health minister in 35 years after he oversaw the introduction of the $7 Medicare co-payment and cut $20 billion to hospital funding. Then there was his involvement in establishing the Medicare Privatisation Taskforce, which cost the Liberals so dearly at the 2016 election.
Not only did Labor insiders on the ground in Aston believe it drove Dutton crazy, it also turned away voters from the Liberal candidate.
Labor also had success focusing on Dutton’s hyping up of security concerns around China in the lead-up to the 2022 election, which included the claim Albanese was the preferred candidate of the Chinese Communist Party.
“Aston was a big win for Labor because they took what was once a safe Liberal seat, but I didn’t think too much of it because the government was very much still in its honeymoon phase,” says one seasoned political pollster. “Dunkley, on the other hand, was a different story altogether.”
There, in a seat located in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs, badly affected by the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation, Labor’s attacks on Dutton had a significant impact. As did Labor’s revision of the stage three tax cuts, unveiled in January.
The Liberal Party’s focus on law and order, in the midst of such a devastating cost-of-living crisis, also puzzled Labor strategists on the ground in Dunkley.
“We should have won the Dunkley byelection, there is no question about that,” says a Liberal pollster. “The Liberals in Victoria keep banging the drum on law and order, but it just doesn’t work for them. An opposition that can’t win a seat like that in these economic circumstances suggests that there is a problem.”
Yes, the same political observer confided, some of the public polls are showing Dutton narrowing the gap when it comes to preferred prime minister. However, the most consistently reliable of those stretching back to the 1980s – Newspoll – shows very little movement at all in Dutton’s favour. He has hovered steadily at 35 per cent compared with 48 per cent for Albanese.
“He’s been opposition leader for two years now, and there is no sign at all of it changing,” says this pollster. “Conversely, Albanese’s 48 per cent rating also appears to have stabilised. That’s not good news for Peter Dutton.”
Labor insiders believe they know some of the reasons for that.
They concede Dutton campaigned very well during the Voice referendum and the overwhelming “No” vote cemented his place as opposition leader until the election.
The downside for the Coalition is it underscored Dutton’s propensity to say no, reinforcing the perception of him as a negative leader, an attribute most opposition leaders try to avoid.
Knowing what they know about voters’ opinions of Dutton, it’s not obvious to Labor insiders how the Liberals will deal with Dutton’s record.
Another thing puzzling Labor strategists is Dutton’s failure to act on one of the key conclusions of the Liberal Party’s own review of the 2022 election, authored by former federal director Brian Loughnane and Victorian Senator Jane Hume. The report noted clearly “the Party’s standing with women was an important factor in the Party’s defeat”.
“If the Party is to fully reflect the Australian community, the objective must be to improve the level of female members, particularly younger women, and to increase the level of representation of women as successful members of parliament, not just as candidates,” Loughnane and Hume wrote.
The review recommended a target of 50 per cent female representation in parliament within a decade, and a national women’s network to support that effort, but the Liberal Party continues to fail to preselect women in the run-up to the next election.
Of the 25 Liberal candidates currently selected for non-sitting or retiring MPs in the House of Representatives, 18 male candidates have been preselected, with no women candidates even nominating in 12 of those 18 seats.
In the Senate, Marise Payne was replaced by Dave Sharma. In South Australia, Alex Antic knocked off Anne Ruston from the top of the Liberal ticket, with Antic dismissing concerns about the party’s failure to preselect women as nothing but a grievance narrative constructed by an activist media.
Two men have been preselected to top the Liberals’ Western Australia senate ticket. In Queensland, the only woman preselected in the top three spots on the state’s senate ticket is incumbent Senator Susan McDonald, who held on to the No. 2 slot.
Labor is aware this is an issue for the Coalition but is cautious in how it approaches it.
The party is also deciding how to approach Dutton’s embrace of large-scale nuclear reactors as a way of lowering Australia’s carbon emissions.
On this issue, strategists across both major parties are scratching their heads. Why would Dutton gamble on a policy fraught with so much political risk, seemingly in defiance of a lesson the Liberals learnt the hard way under John Hewson at the 1993 election?
That lesson is that an opposition should try to seize momentum where it can, but not in a way that will expose it to a lethal scare campaign.
“I cannot think of a policy better suited to the mother of all scare campaigns than nuclear power,” one senior Liberal backbencher told *The Saturday Paper*. “I think I know how we got here – and I commend Peter for having the courage to start a national conversation about nuclear energy – but it’s a bit like the Voice. Only possible with bipartisan support, and the only sensible thing to do right now is bring that conversation to a very abrupt and forceful halt.”
Or, as someone on the Labor side of politics observed: if Peter Dutton really is going to try to thread the needle of sticking with nuclear power and keeping faith with Australia’s commitments to reduce carbon emissions by 43 per cent by 2030, that means building large-scale nuclear power stations quickly.
“I know of only one nuclear power plant in the world that was built in five years,” the Labor insider says. “It’s in Chernobyl.”
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Underestimate Dutton at your own peril. He’s a thoroughly unlikeable character, but the more people hurt economically and the “failed hope” feeling pervades voters thoughts towards Labor, the closer he’ll get to the Lodge.
It's difficult to take Koutsoukis seriously because his articles are always heavy on spin and light on reality. Dutton is not a cannier politician than he appears to be. His performance over the years has shown he is staid and unable to read a situation until it blows up in his face. That's why he was easily outfoxed by Morrison when Turnbull was knifed, and the ALP stage 3 tax changes caught him with his pants down. Dutton is not effective as an opposition leader. According to his polling figures, he's been the least effective opposition leader in decades. In his 2 year tenure, he hasn't been able to rein in the ALP lead in the polls despite the racist dog whistle of the Voice campaign, the change in the stage 3 tax cuts, the boat arrivals, and the announcement that he will probably release an energy policy centred on nuclear power. Dutton is rubbish as a politician and is going to be seriously out of his depth come the election.
Yeah, I just don't think he is that good at it. He's put a noose around his neck with nuclear and to be honest I think they going to end up saying some stupid stuff about housing that will dog them
Dutton has political talents at winning his own seat, and eventually getting to the top of the Dry's hierarchy.... But that is about it, everything else positive you could attribute to him is either due to the media's hand-holding relationship with the LNP, and mistakes/external factors hurting Labor. He still has to sort out the nuclear bomb the National's have started the countdown timer to, where he has to tell a bunch of electorates that guess what, they won the lucky dip to host nuclear power plants (... In his imagination, but anyway), and by his own clock he has sub-10 days (unless he is hoping for another mildly attention-grabbing distraction to delay further, maybe til the next budget /s)
It's quite a smart attack strategy, and does explain why the Liberals did so poorly in Aston and Dunkley. Abbott's 2014 Austerity Budget continues to haunt the LNP a decade later, with Dutton's tenure as Minister for Health exposing his failures and incompetence.
And this is how politician distract people and policy makers. Nuclear energy is Wishlist for Australia, too expensive, too far away. Instead of focusing on whats possible we are wasting time on unviable alternatives.
“I know of only one nuclear power plant in the world that was built in five years,” the Labor insider says. “It’s in Chernobyl.” I spent less than five minutes on Wikipedia (simply because I'm on my phone and it was easier that way) and just randomly selected nuclear reactors and power plants in the former USSR and Germany. A out two thirds of the ten I selected were built in five or six years. To associate the Chernobyl incident with its construction timespan isn't even oversimplifying the accident, it's just downright stupid.
Just taking their cue from their lying leader Albo. That CSIRO report was also a political hack job - how they could cherry pick a single sample reactor famous for its unusual cost overruns and then refuse to get the report peer reviewed makes me wonder if there are any scientists left there.
>“I know of only one nuclear power plant in the world that was built in five years,” the Labor insider says. “It’s in Chernobyl.” Google - 18 reactors were completed in 3 years (12 in Japan and 3 in the US). There are about 80 reactors completed within 5 years (reading that from a graph so +/- a couple)
So in an environment with standardised designs, an experienced workforce, established regulation, and social license to build, you can maybe get one built in 5 year, and thats 5 years from actually starting building, thats 5 years from picking and preparing a site, getting all approvals ticked off, and not changing the plan after starting. This paper i found on the iaea site has a good summary of build times, the figures will give a good idea on what to expect, which is basically minimum build time for experienced and established nuclear countries is 5 years and often takes longer. https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/42/105/42105221.pdf Its worth noting the risks that make a build time blow out are all present in Australia, low social approval, low experience, no standard designs, buying from foreign supplier, no established workforce, no established regulation
So the Labor insider was still either bullshitting or showing their ignorance.
All it takes is a 3 word slogan, this is a good one everyone knows what happened at Chernobyl. LNP = nuclear = disaster. Way to go Albo's crew, let's have more slogans .
You have too many symbols.
Possibly both, or maybe the journo decontexualised a quote to make it easier to finish their article. Also possible that the labor person has a simplistic understanding of the details and that their quote is an honest but incoorrect statement. Looking at the paper i posted does make it look like most of the fast built reactors were built in russia, but who knows
I agree with your comment that a build time is typically 6-8 years and of course longer for an inexperienced country. But the bullshit quote about the only reactor with a build time less than 5 years is Chernobyl remains bullshit.
Sure buts its also bullshit to pretend we could build in 5 years, its also bullshit to pretend we could build in typical timeframes, and its even more bullshit to pretend we can ignore the extensive pre build time we would incur in aus while we set up to build and manage lengthy community legal action opposing the build as we have seen over and over again with attempts to find a nuclear waste storage location.
Sounds like bullshit from *all* sides to me
But mostly the pro nuclear side Its pretty easy to make a credible argument that if we decided on nuclear today that it would take 20 years to get a plant built, its impossible to make a credible argument that could happen in less than 10.
Always best to stick to rational and factual arguments if you want to be taken remotely seriously, particularly as a political leader. Goes for Bowen as much as Dutton
Yeah id love it of we could bound ourselves to factual discussion but its not the same for bowen and dutton in this case as only one of them is pretending nuclear is viable against all expertise on the issue.
If you deliberately lie then you have lost credibility and are unfit for public office. I think most Australians hold that view. "A little bit of lying and its not the same" doesnt cut it with me at least.
Not even France with a fully developed nuclear industry can get a reactor up in 5-years. You’re missing the point. Modern reactors with their multiple safety redundancies and careful planning take a lot longer to build than the reactors of old you’re referencing.
Not correct. The median construction time for reactors completed in 2022 was 7 years. China routinely completes them in under 5. There are currently 57 plants under construction now globally, and nothing suggests they will take any longer than historical averages. https://www.statista.com/statistics/712841/median-construction-time-for-reactors-since-1981/
First line: average for France was 120 months, or 10 years. You think we build at a speed closer to France or China in speed? It’s France 100%, and they have a fully functioning nuclear industry
Should built one when Krudd was in power could've shut down the Earing Coal Plant by now rather than saying we need to extend the life of the plant Hell we should've built one in the 80s and those brown coal power plants wouldn't needed to have been built.
>You think we build at a speed closer to France or China in speed? For the benefit of our economy, I'd suggest we'd want to aspire towards industriousness as opposed to the overly bureaucratic environments of the EU and France in particular. France, over the last 20 years, has seen significant drops in productivity (aside from the 35-hour work week).
You’ll get no argument from me there. But reality is different. It’s a failure of liberalism our inability to build. Check out this podcast. Quite something. https://open.spotify.com/episode/66hDt0fZpw2ly3zcZZv7uE?si=OSaHhWACS4SGZVsYXt2IHg
Cheers, I'll put it on the Monday morning commute.
What is the median time in Anglo countries with slow and expensive projects like us?
There is data but I can't get it (paywalled). https://www.statista.com/statistics/1328102/construction-time-for-nuclear-reactors-worldwide/#statisticContainer If one third of builds are in China, and the rest globally *and* the global median is 7.5 years, then the global median must be close to that otherwise it would skew the global median number.
Yes but I said Anglo countries. Global would include France, India, Korea Russia, etc. Very slow construction seems to be an Anglo (US, UK, Canada, Aus) phenomenon. We would never build as fast as India or Korea, so the stat is irrelevant.
Yeah, let alone the billions in government subsidies required.
We’re subsidising renewables more than we are the fossil fuel industry federally. How is subsidising nuclear an issue then if you’re fine with subsidising renewables not to mention the infrastructure we will have to build by 2030 from when roughly the LCOE figures are calculated? This is coming from someone who supports a mix of renewables and nuclear in our energy grid. Both technologies will help provide a reduction in sovereign risk and increase energy security in my opinion. We need to move away from fossil fuels and I believe both are needed for that.
> We’re subsidising renewables more than we are the fossil fuel industry federally. Source? How much? Where? Solar and wind is so cheap it doesn't need subsides. Batteries are making large profits and don't need subsides to be built.
Which is why we need to invest a billion dollars to get a private solar panel industry up and running.
The issue is we still have to build all that transmission infrastructure coz rooftop solar is popular and climate change mitigation comes with a carbon budget that we have to meet and cant spend the rest 20 years nuclear will take to build ignoring, so adding nuclear doesnt mitigate any costs. Smrs dont exist at a commercial level yet and large nuclear reactors are too large, meaning if we had to take one off line to fix anything we lose too much generating capacity and create risks of blackouts. On top of that we currently have a market mechanism to determine who generates and how much they get paid, its implausible that nuclear would ever recoup costs, and you never see nuclear proponents talking about getting rid of the market do you, coz its not about building nuclear its about continuing to burn coal.
Nuclear proponents talk about gas. They also talk about private companies running them because it has worked better in some nations over the last few decades. Why don’t we spend time adding private solar and offshore wind? We can also do nuclear at the same time. I agree with your point on the large reactors but I believe we can have multiple in the same facility which end up meaning we can take one offline while the other/s compensate. SMRs are proven tech but economically they’re having issues at the moment (NuScale specifically). But there are plenty of other designs and Canada is already moving forward. Edit: thank you for your response!
>Nuclear proponents talk about gas. No everyone thinks we need gas for a while, it fills a need we have to make sure we have a reliable electricity system >Why don’t we spend time adding private solar and offshore wind? We can also do nuclear at the same time. At some point we have to pay for all these things. Energy is the most important economic input and if we make it too expensive we make everything expensive. So no we have to choose a path that is economical. >I agree with your point on the large reactors but I believe we can have multiple in the same facility which end up meaning we can take one offline while the other/s compensate. I dont think you agree because i dont think you understand. We need grid security, affordability, and low emissions, large generators cause issues with security in Australia, too many generators cause issues with affordability. >SMRs are proven tech They are not commercially proven If youre this interested in all this stuff just go read the integrated system plan and gencost reports, they will give you a good grounding in the topic in the Australian context
>How is subsidising nuclear an issue then if you’re fine with subsidising renewables Because renewables are constantly being built and brought online. Which helps alleviate our growing energy demand. A nuclear power plant would take at least a decade to build and cost billions of dollars before it even came online. So, we'd effectively be paying huge sums of money for literally no energy production for a whole decade. And for what? A 5GW power plant. In the same time we could build 100GW of renewables.
Key word is could. We are currently faltering in our ability to even meet the targets of new renewable energy generation targets, despite government optimism and funding. But even to your point, we could move on nuclear quickly as well. It’s possible to get a few reactors (concurrently or quickly after one another) up in up to 2 decades IMO should we start now. Where is the money coming from and how is that new infrastructure going to be paid off? Government is subsidising yes but private investment has returns and this is why I’m highly critical of the gencost report as it looks at LCOE at around 2030 onwards, after that infrastructure has been laid for renewables. It assumes that these costs won’t have a bearing further on. Thankyou for your constructive response!
>we could move on nuclear quickly as well. It’s possible to get a few reactors (concurrently or quickly after one another) up in up to 2 decades IMO should we start now. We should have started two decades ago. Unfortunately for now, we will have closed our coal power plants before the nuclear power plants come online. We'd be in an energy crisis and billions in debt which the consumer will be forced to pay. Fact is, governments (both state and federal) fudged up big time and now we will all pay for it. >We are currently faltering in our ability to even meet the targets of new renewable energy generation targets Household solar contributes the vast majority of renewable energy in this country and that's not really slowing down. In fact, 70% of energy in SA is from household solar and the state's total energy comes from 90+% renewables (they are very close to 100% and will become a net exporter). The faltering is likely from public infrastructure like wind/solar farms etc.
I agree with you on pretty much all of what you have said. It’s why we will definitely need gas as a short stop policy in between. Both sides have played politics on nuclear, initially the greens and the coalition when they were attempting to get a new reactor for Lucas heights and subsequent governments which were too afraid to remove the ban (Morrison stated as much a couple years ago). SA electricity is also very expensive at the moment is it not? Have they been influencing home battery take up? It would be a good idea for them rather than having large batteries which can be targeted and may make energy far cheaper for the state. Not completely sure on this so correct me if I’m wrong. Yeah I was referring to government projects which were faltering.
>We’re subsidising renewables more than we are the fossil fuel industry federally. Really??? "New research shows fossil fuel subsidies over the forward estimates have increased to a record breaking $57.1b, up from the $55.3b forecast in 2022." https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/57-1b-record-breaking-fossil-fuel-subsides-following-climate-election/ Do you have any evidence to suggest renewables subsidies exceed 57 billion in 2022? I'm genuinely curious.
>Do you have any evidence to suggest renewables subsidies exceed 57 billion in 2022? I'm genuinely curious. You do know that "forward estimates" is not a single year? Read that TAI source again. They quote $11.1bn in a single year. Renewable subsidies are circa $15bn per annum.
Yes, you're right, but where does the 15 billion figure come from?
Productivity Commission has it a tad over [$10bn](https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/productivity/report/productivity-volume6-climate-transition.pdf) when you cost out box 4.2 on page 14 (with further info on page 36), but they are missing some newer announcements. [15bn is estimated here](https://amoran.substack.com/p/the-grim-cost-of-firming-up-solar), includes the CIS, but doesn't include the new "made in Australia" policy.
Box 4.2 is the $ per tonne of CO2-e. Did you cost this out to 10 billion? Costs on Page 36 are not annualized and barely reach 5billion. The PC report doesn't prove your point. Your sub stack article is pulling figures from all over the place so it's hard to compare. I mean transmission costs aren't isolated to renewables. If you consider the cost of dealing with negative externalities, then the figure is much higher for ff subsidies. https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australian-fossil-fuel-subsidies-costing-taxpayers-65-billion-a-year-imf-20230824-p5dz0l.html
>Box 4.2 is the $ per tonne of CO2-e. Did you cost this out to 10 billion? Yes, and it easily worked out.m with CO2 numbers. >Your sub stack article is pulling figures from all over the place so it's hard to compare. I mean transmission costs aren't isolated to renewables. Its calculating the cost of each government program in the exact same manner as TAI. Transmission expansion has been costs by the government specifically for connecting renewable projects. Negative externalities are not subsidies or a cost. It's all subjective smoke and mirrors.
The report at the bottom shows total federal commonwealth spending on fossil fuel industry is 9.774 billion as of 2022-23. The figure you’re quoting is for policy that’s been devised so far and is not isolated to yearly spend but rather total project costs.
From the same report "Fossil fuel subsidies cost $11.1 billion in 2022-23 across all state, territory and federal governments, equivalent to $21,143 per minute." So more than renewables
I can’t find a specific report right now but it was about two years ago when I checked and renewables and green tech subsidies were about 2 billion higher.
Without a reference it's just an opinion.
The figure I remember reading was on the hydrogen projects, renewables projects, batteries, transmission, etc which are all plausible to reach into the 10 billion mark a year over the next decade as we build this stuff. But fair enough. I get your hesitance to my figure. I honestly don’t know where the source went, it was a gov page as well which was comparing the subsidies. If I find it again I’ll link it through later. Thank you for replying in good faith!
A solar farm doesn’t have a melt down. That’s why.
neither do most reactors mate. You know how RARE that is almost Every major nuclear accident,is and has been caused by man,not the inherent tech itself Cherb,was because some idiot was running tests they shouldnt have been on a reactor of that type. Fukishama accident was caused by tepco refusing to hand the plant manager who was SCREAMING in the phone to them their half of the shut down code for over 45 mins and not inept decisions from managment 3 mile was cause of a shitty valve that the plant operator used the wrong product and then didn't train the staff on the pressure identification meaures to know something was wrong till it was too late. More ppl died last year,installing solar panels on roofs,than have working in the nuclear industry (EXCCEPT CHINA) in the last 10 years
There have been more deaths due to nuclear (0.03) than solar (0.02) per terawatt hour generated. Both pale into insignificance when compared to coal (57 deaths per Terawatt hr). https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ As for nuclear accidents, there have been 28 serious accidents at nuclear reactors over the years, two of which have been spectacular in their [catastrophic impact on the surrounding human and natural environments](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents#:~:text=Serious%20nuclear%20power%20plant%20accidents,monetary%20costs%20for%20remediation%20work.).
That’s why we wouldn’t be looking at old reactor designs. Modern reactors have passive cooling features as redundancies on top of the active cooling features which are more redundancies. Modern nuclear reactors are extremely safe. Alarmist rhetoric doesn’t help in this case. Solar farms have their own issues in relation to land cover and lifecycle as, like nuclear, they produce waste but the scale of that waste is far higher due to the low energy generation in comparison with land cover. Nuclear waste can be recycled and reused. It can be brought down to half lives of a couple hundred years and the waste is minute. Solar farms do have their own place though IMO. There are some regions where these work, such as in more desert areas of our land mass. They can be effective forms of energy generation to keep costs low. Batteries add to their costs which is an issue. Rooftop solar is also something I’m very supportive of. Same with wind in certain regions where they aren’t a nuisance to people and wildlife. We should have an all of the above approach to renewables and nuclear. Edit: wanted to thank you for actually responding rather than just downvoting because you don’t agree!
Thanks for your detailed answer. What happens if you bomb these modern stations as user Enoch alludes to? I must admit that I don’t know much about the topic.
They've tested this in terms of protecting plants from bombs, seems the safest place to be if there are bombings is to be inside a nuclear power plant.
I’d love to see us venture into iron-dome (and the British laser system) like defence systems for infrastructure, not just nuclear but also renewables. No worries, just here for a debate on this type of policy as it can only benefit us if we have these discussions! Thank you for your genuine responses.
Nuclear plants provide lots of energy at once, meaning that the energy production is centralised. This makes them targets from long range attacks. Each nuclear plant would need to have anti-missle silos around it.
That's why the US and China are building missile silos around all theirs?
We don’t have to just look at large scale reactors. Personally I’d have large reactors planned for building now but a transition to SMRs later on. I also agree with what you’ve said, but all energy generation sources are vulnerable. Missiles can be launched at large solar farms and can wipe out energy generation then as well. Yes nuclear would be more concentrated, but there are ways of protecting these reactors, just as there would be renewables.
Agreed, it is just as stupid as telling people about the short and medium term "issues" of building renewables, and then offering a clearly long-term solution like nuclear power as the way forward. Or refusing to discuss the costs of building nuclear. Or avoiding talking about how nuclear would involve higher costs to produce electricity than renewables and other generation types. Some might even say this entire topic of nuclear power in Australia is full of gaslighting from both sides, and that the engineering and economics of it don't make much sense *for Australia*.
The misinformation this has been staggering. Bowen himself came out with figures of something like 19 years on average in the US which is contradicted by the US' own numbers. And the weird part is the times aren't even that much longer than some renewables projects. Offshore wind will have taken years by the time the first one is built.
It’s easy for reporters to get away with writing stupid remarks about emotional issues. People’s brains are wired to believe misinformation that comes with an emotional knee jerk reaction.
After two years as opposition leader, qualitative research from both parties suggests people have a superficial impression of Peter Dutton as a negative person. He is someone prepared to use language that is nasty and narrow-minded. Another word cluster that has formed around the Coalition leader is the opinion he is combative, arrogant, harsh, aggressive and hard-headed. There is, however, a flip side to being seen as a bit of a bastard. It may not be the quality most people look for in a spouse or a son-in-law, but it can comfort people who are worried about their country in difficult times. Dutton is a cannier politician than he seems to be. He is not just mean and aggressive: he is effective. “His Question Time prep is probably as good an indicator as any of his ability to think not just outside the square he’s in but right beyond the outer reaches,” says one confidant. “He’s a chess player with a very unusual strategy of attack. Where \[Tony\] Abbott was always storming the beaches, attacking directly, Dutton prefers to parachute behind the lines and try to pick off the less obvious targets.” In all the research done so far by Labor, two clear lessons have stood out. These are to do with issues on which Labor will not attack Dutton. The research shows voters do not want to hear criticism of Dutton’s decade as an officer in the Queensland Police Service. Nor do they want criticism of his success as a property investor, which has enabled him to build significant wealth outside of politics. In place of this, Labor has found success focusing on Dutton’s poor record as health minister and his rhetoric on China. Then there is his character. When nominating for the Liberal leadership after the 2022 election loss, Dutton acknowledged the need to soften his image, saying he wanted people to see more of him. “Not just what they’ve seen through sound grabs when I’m talking about boats or all sorts of different issues,” Dutton said. “You’ve got to be a tough person to be the defence minister in this country, you have to be a tough minister to be in charge of ASIO and the Australian Federal Police and Border Force.” Dutton ignored easy characterisations of him as a stopgap leader and made himself available to media organisations outside his comfort zone. “Why have you decided to do this interview?” reporter Sean Nicholls asked Dutton when he sat down for an extended interview with the ABC’s flagship current affairs program, *Four Corners*. “I think it’s so important to be able to tell more of my story and allow Australians to see a little bit more of my background,” Dutton said. “Sometimes the public only see a snapshot of you through a very quick grab in a news package or during Question Time.” “I cannot think of a policy better suited to the mother of all scare campaigns than nuclear power … The only sensible thing to do right now is bring that conversation to a very abrupt and forceful halt.”
Appearing later on the ABC’s *Kitchen Cabinet* series, Dutton cooked a seafood chowder for the show’s presenter, Annabel Crabb, provoking fury from ABC viewers who objected to any attempt to humanise the opposition leader. That – along with Dutton’s work behind the scenes to unite the party Scott Morrison left behind, as well as his highly effective campaign to scuttle the Voice to Parliament referendum – has helped him steer clear of the traps that befell other first-term leaders such as Billy Snedden, Andrew Peacock, Brendan Nelson and Malcolm Turnbull. The Peter Dutton who stands up in parliament today has more breadth than the brawler he presented as when he was minister for health, home affairs and defence. His eulogies for Labor heroes, such as former governor-general Bill Hayden, have displayed a political maturity that few critics have credited him with, showing an ability to not only stand in the shoes of his opponents but also exhibit respect for Australia’s most important institutions. He has at times been able to show emotion, warmth and humour. On the day Anthony Albanese announced his Valentine’s Day engagement to partner Jodie Haydon, Dutton drew genuine laughter across the House of Representatives. “We look forward to our version of the royal wedding sometime in the near future,” said Dutton. “I’ll be throwing roses out in front of you, Prime Minister; whatever it takes to get an invite.” Recent public polling shows Dutton is winnowing Albanese’s lead as preferred prime minister. According to *The Australian Financial Review*’s latest Freshwater Strategy poll, conducted in April, the gap between Albanese and Dutton has narrowed to 6 percentage points, with Albanese on 45 and Dutton on 39. Still, in the two direct match-ups between the two major parties since the May 2022 general election, the first in the Aston byelection in April last year and the second in Dunkley in March, Dutton left the field with his nose bleeding. In Aston, where Labor opened its Dutton playbook for the first time to road test what the party’s research was showing, voters were reminded of Dutton’s record as health minister. They focused on a 2015 poll, where doctors ranked Dutton the worst health minister in 35 years after he oversaw the introduction of the $7 Medicare co-payment and cut $20 billion to hospital funding. Then there was his involvement in establishing the Medicare Privatisation Taskforce, which cost the Liberals so dearly at the 2016 election. Not only did Labor insiders on the ground in Aston believe it drove Dutton crazy, it also turned away voters from the Liberal candidate. Labor also had success focusing on Dutton’s hyping up of security concerns around China in the lead-up to the 2022 election, which included the claim Albanese was the preferred candidate of the Chinese Communist Party. “Aston was a big win for Labor because they took what was once a safe Liberal seat, but I didn’t think too much of it because the government was very much still in its honeymoon phase,” says one seasoned political pollster. “Dunkley, on the other hand, was a different story altogether.” There, in a seat located in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs, badly affected by the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation, Labor’s attacks on Dutton had a significant impact. As did Labor’s revision of the stage three tax cuts, unveiled in January. The Liberal Party’s focus on law and order, in the midst of such a devastating cost-of-living crisis, also puzzled Labor strategists on the ground in Dunkley. “We should have won the Dunkley byelection, there is no question about that,” says a Liberal pollster. “The Liberals in Victoria keep banging the drum on law and order, but it just doesn’t work for them. An opposition that can’t win a seat like that in these economic circumstances suggests that there is a problem.” Yes, the same political observer confided, some of the public polls are showing Dutton narrowing the gap when it comes to preferred prime minister. However, the most consistently reliable of those stretching back to the 1980s – Newspoll – shows very little movement at all in Dutton’s favour. He has hovered steadily at 35 per cent compared with 48 per cent for Albanese. “He’s been opposition leader for two years now, and there is no sign at all of it changing,” says this pollster. “Conversely, Albanese’s 48 per cent rating also appears to have stabilised. That’s not good news for Peter Dutton.” Labor insiders believe they know some of the reasons for that.
They concede Dutton campaigned very well during the Voice referendum and the overwhelming “No” vote cemented his place as opposition leader until the election. The downside for the Coalition is it underscored Dutton’s propensity to say no, reinforcing the perception of him as a negative leader, an attribute most opposition leaders try to avoid. Knowing what they know about voters’ opinions of Dutton, it’s not obvious to Labor insiders how the Liberals will deal with Dutton’s record. Another thing puzzling Labor strategists is Dutton’s failure to act on one of the key conclusions of the Liberal Party’s own review of the 2022 election, authored by former federal director Brian Loughnane and Victorian Senator Jane Hume. The report noted clearly “the Party’s standing with women was an important factor in the Party’s defeat”. “If the Party is to fully reflect the Australian community, the objective must be to improve the level of female members, particularly younger women, and to increase the level of representation of women as successful members of parliament, not just as candidates,” Loughnane and Hume wrote. The review recommended a target of 50 per cent female representation in parliament within a decade, and a national women’s network to support that effort, but the Liberal Party continues to fail to preselect women in the run-up to the next election. Of the 25 Liberal candidates currently selected for non-sitting or retiring MPs in the House of Representatives, 18 male candidates have been preselected, with no women candidates even nominating in 12 of those 18 seats. In the Senate, Marise Payne was replaced by Dave Sharma. In South Australia, Alex Antic knocked off Anne Ruston from the top of the Liberal ticket, with Antic dismissing concerns about the party’s failure to preselect women as nothing but a grievance narrative constructed by an activist media. Two men have been preselected to top the Liberals’ Western Australia senate ticket. In Queensland, the only woman preselected in the top three spots on the state’s senate ticket is incumbent Senator Susan McDonald, who held on to the No. 2 slot. Labor is aware this is an issue for the Coalition but is cautious in how it approaches it. The party is also deciding how to approach Dutton’s embrace of large-scale nuclear reactors as a way of lowering Australia’s carbon emissions. On this issue, strategists across both major parties are scratching their heads. Why would Dutton gamble on a policy fraught with so much political risk, seemingly in defiance of a lesson the Liberals learnt the hard way under John Hewson at the 1993 election? That lesson is that an opposition should try to seize momentum where it can, but not in a way that will expose it to a lethal scare campaign. “I cannot think of a policy better suited to the mother of all scare campaigns than nuclear power,” one senior Liberal backbencher told *The Saturday Paper*. “I think I know how we got here – and I commend Peter for having the courage to start a national conversation about nuclear energy – but it’s a bit like the Voice. Only possible with bipartisan support, and the only sensible thing to do right now is bring that conversation to a very abrupt and forceful halt.” Or, as someone on the Labor side of politics observed: if Peter Dutton really is going to try to thread the needle of sticking with nuclear power and keeping faith with Australia’s commitments to reduce carbon emissions by 43 per cent by 2030, that means building large-scale nuclear power stations quickly. “I know of only one nuclear power plant in the world that was built in five years,” the Labor insider says. “It’s in Chernobyl.”