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ASHLYNNE:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ashlynne McGhee. This is 7am.

A small mystery of Australian politics this year has been why Peter Dutton’s first major policy commitment since becoming leader of the opposition was to promise nuclear power plants.

On the surface, it just doesn’t seem like an obvious vote winner, and early polling shows most Australians are yet to be convinced.

But this may be less about votes, and more about holding the Coalition together, with the help of a lobby group most of us have never heard of.

Today, investigative journalist and contributor to The Monthly Marian Wilkinson, on the Coalition for Conservation lobby, and their links to Peter Dutton’s nuclear promises.

It’s Tuesday, May 7.

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ASHLYNNE:

Marian, take me back to August last year. The sun set on Sydney and there's this pretty unusual tour underway at Taronga Zoo.

MARIAN:

Yeah, a very interesting night it was all around. So, an environmental charity that has been a bit under the radar, it's called the Coalition for Conservation, was having a very big night at the function centre at Taronga Zoo in Sydney. There was National Party leader David Littleproud, there was the opposition spokesperson Ted O'Brien, who's their energy spokesman, and a guy called Larry Anthony, who is chair of a well known lobbying company called SAS.

Audio excerpt – Larry Anthony:

“My name’s Larry Anthony and I’m the chairman of the Coalition for Conservation. We brought seven MPs here to the UAE. Not only to COP28, but to come out and…”

MARIAN:

And he was better known up until a few years ago for lobbying on behalf of fossil fuel interests. But the whole idea of this charity is to get Coalition people, who are interested in backing net zero emissions, into the big fold.

Audio excerpt – Larry Anthony:

“In Australia as we look forward to how do we meet the challenges of getting to zero carbon or to net zero in 2050, then nuclear is certainly something we should consider, particularly as Australia…”

MARIAN:

But something else was also happening. For a lot of environmentalists who were there that night, it was one of the first times they began to see that the charity was pivoting to a, sort of, pro-nuclear position. And the charity, I guess, most influential patron I'd probably call him, Trevor St Baker, he’s a very well-known figure in Australian energy circles, but especially in Queensland energy circles, he was very big into coal fired power for many years. He's now involved in the energy transition, very forward looking. But he's got a particular passion about nuclear energy.

ASHLYNNE:

So let's talk a little more about Trevor St Baker, because he's a really key character in this story, isn't he?

MARIAN:

Yeah. He's a very well known businessman, as I said, in energy circles.

Audio excerpt – Trevor St Baker:

“If Australians want to seriously reduce CO2 emissions, then nuclear power generation needs to be part of that mix.”

MARIAN:

Trevor St Baker and a number of his colleagues have got a company called SMR Technology, which has been very strongly advocating for Australia to reopen the nuclear debate for some years.

Audio excerpt – Trevor St Baker:

“And as Bob said, my SMR Technology Proprietary Limited, which has been batting away quietly for about six years now, is breaking new ground in getting the nuclear ban in Australia removed.”

MARIAN:

Australia has federal and state laws prohibiting civilian nuclear power in Australia. And one of the key things that they're advocating is the overturning of those laws and this includes the idea, and it's not unique to them, I have to say that, that you can or should be looking at putting small nuclear reactors into coal plants, old coal generation plants, so that they can act as backup power, noting the fact that these plants are already, you know, have the connection lines because they were, of course, the center's of power generation in the states.

ASHLYNNE:

So this nuclear plan that Trevor St Baker and the Coalition for Conservation has been spruiking for the past couple of years, it's sounding eerily familiar to something that we're now hearing in Canberra.

MARIAN:

Well, what I found really interesting is I went back to look what their submissions to the parliamentary inquiries in 2022, 2023, and going back and looking at their submissions to the New South Wales Parliament, and a lot of the things that Peter Dutton and Ted O'Brien are now talking about in their nuclear policy are all set out in the submissions that SMR Technology, the company associated with Trevor St Baker and his colleagues, were making.

Audio excerpt – Ted O'Brien:

“We are looking at all possible advanced nuclear technologies, micro reactors, small modular reactors, and also next generation large ones.”

MARIAN:

They've also been doing forums in energy think tanks. They've been putting a lot of work into this and that's why when I saw what Peter Dutton and Ted O'Brien were advocating, it was interesting to see how they lined up.

Audio excerpt – Peter Dutton:

“It's the latest technology that has zero emissions and it can firm up renewables in the system.”

MARIAN:

And indeed, I interviewed Bob Pritchard, the chair of the SMR Technology Company, and he would not take credit for influencing the opposition policy, but he did concede that people would see a remarkable similarity in their submissions and big parts of the Coalition policy.

ASHLYNNE:

Let's just pause for a moment, cause we've talked a little bit about these small or micro modular reactors, but what actually are they? What do they do?

MARIAN:

Well, the idea is that they can make nuclear energy essentially cheaper and more flexible. This is where all the thinking is going now on nuclear, in part because whenever you read a story about nuclear power plants, they're either ageing and there's questions over their safety and their longevity, or there's questions over the cost blow-outs with the new ones, many of which have had cost blow-outs over the last few years.

The idea with these ones is they're about a fifth of the size maybe, they're a lot more flexible. They call them modular because you can build them in sections and then assemble them on site, they're more transportable and their advocates argue they're safer. It's really taken off in places like France, the UK and the US. People like Bill Gates, the former Microsoft chief.

Audio excerpt – Bill Gates:

“I hope people take a hard look, and understand that the record, you know, per unit of energy generated, is relatively quite good.”

MARIAN:

He is a massive advocate of what's being called next generation nuclear power.

Audio excerpt – Bill Gates:

“It’s a challenge but I think the world is up to this challenge.”

MARIAN:

The critics say that's all well and good, this is all really interesting. And there are a lot of climate scientists who support nuclear power to deal with the climate change crisis and to get to net zero. But what the critics say is Australia has no civilian nuclear power industry, we're starting from scratch. And as yet, the commercial viability of these small reactors has not been proven. There is not yet one commercially operating in the world.

ASHLYNNE:

After the break, will the nuclear promise hold the Coalition together, or just divide it further?

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ASHLYNNE:

Marian it sounds like this charity, the Coalition for Conservation or C4C Charity, it sounds like it's been working behind the scenes for a while now, pushing its nuclear agenda.

MARIAN:

Well, the interesting thing with the Coalition for Conservation, I was told by a number of people including some of their former board members, that the charity was not at all interested in touching nuclear for quite some time because they thought it was too divisive within the environment movement, and also there was no bipartisan support for it. What changed was there was a trip that Ted O'Brien did in early 2023 where he first went to Japan, but then he went to the US, where he spoke to a number of business people and government officials involved in this next wave of nuclear power. One of them was one in Idaho that had been heavily pushed in the media.

Audio excerpt – US News Reporter:

“Nuclear energy has been a staple in Idaho for decades, and that legacy continues today. New developments in nuclear could soon be making the energy more sustainable and accessible for Idahoans, and the rest of the country.”

MARIAN:

But ultimately, within months of the trip that Ted O'Brien and the C4C chief executive had done to the US, this project was kaput.

Audio excerpt – Robert Bryce:

“Hi everyone, about a minute on bad news in the US nuclear power sector. Yesterday, new scale power and the Utah Association of Municipal Power Systems announced they were cancelling plans to build a new scale reactor or set of reactors at a site in Idaho.”

MARIAN:

And the reason it was kaput was that, It was considered not commercially viable. I was reading an account from Bloomberg, and the response of the former head of that project was, this is a dead horse and we've got to get off it. But now, this did not deter the advocates. The charity C4C had paid for all these key Coalition people to go to the big UN climate summit last November in Dubai. According to Ted O'Brien, he was there because he'd had an invitation from the World Nuclear Association to speak at the conference and C4C was the host of the meeting where he spoke there. So that coming together of this, what had been a sort of rather obscure environmental charity in Australia with the Coalition nuclear policy, I think it said a lot. And it said to me the Coalition knows they need advocates out there pushing the nuclear policy, because at the moment in Australia there is no real social licence for it.

ASHLYNNE:

And what about inside the charity C4C, how’s it playing out there?

MARIAN:

It has blown up inside the charity. There have been a couple who have made their differences very, very well known. And one of them, of course, is the former New South Wales energy minister, Matt Kean. He is furious about what happened inside the charity, of which he was an ambassador.

Audio excerpt – News Reporter:

“Matt Kean says supporting nuclear is an attempt to delay and defer responsible and decisive action on climate change. It's an attack on his federal counterparts, who've made nuclear power a key part of their energy plan.”

MARIAN:

More interestingly, the deputy chair of the board of C4C resigned earlier this year. The deputy chair of the C4C Charity is in fact a prominent New South Wales solar scientist currently working on Adani's solar energy program in India. He wrote this scathing op-ed piece in the Financial Review, attacking the National Party position for their nuclear pivot, which again said he believed would most likely slow down the transition. And I'm told that very shortly after that, there was quite a furious disagreement between him, the chair
and the CEO and the deputy chair then resigned as well. So there's a lot of internal ructions in the charity, and I think they reflect the internal ructions that are going to keep coming in the Coalition and particularly in the Liberal Party over the nuclear policy.

ASHLYNNE:

So approaching the next election, how does Peter Dutton and the Coalition for Conservation actually try to sell this to the public? What's their messaging going to be?

MARIAN:

The messaging from the charity, which I think is reflected in some of the messaging being put even by moderate liberals, is that nuclear energy is a way to get to net zero. But, there's very few climate scientists in Australia who have put their hands up and said it's a good idea. Now, the $64,000 question is, will it convince the voters, especially the voters in marginal seats? And that is going to be a tough one. For Peter Dutton and Ted O'Brien, they have to make this a cogent policy by the time of the election, and people will be asking, Labor will be asking, the Greens will be asking, the independents will be asking, where do you want to site these things? And we all remember that we haven't even been able to get a permanent nuclear waste dump in Australia, the last effort in South Australia fell over. So if we can't do that, how are we going to decide whether we can site a small nuclear reactor, on which former coal plant in New South Wales, in Queensland or in Victoria. I think it's going to be hard.

ASHLYNNE:

Marian, you've been reporting this story, and indeed reported in this space for quite a while now. If you can just zoom out for a moment, why is the Coalition pushing so hard on nuclear? Why nuclear?

MARIAN:

I think it is a way, quite simply, of trying to hold the Coalition together on energy and climate policy. I think the idea was that if we put forward nuclear power, we can pull in the climate denialist, because we can keep gas and coal until late in the 2030s or 2040s and then whack in nuclear. On the other hand, with the moderates it'd appeal to them on two basics. One is that, hey, if we say we're putting nuclear into the mix, we can keep our commitment that we will get to net zero by 2050. And of course, to give Dutton and O'Brien a platform to savage Labor on their, what they call, their reckless renewable policy. And that, is we must decarbonise the electricity system really quickly, 82% by 2030.

So when Dutton and O'Brien think about it, by pushing nuclear, it gives them a platform to say we're going to defend farmers from reckless renewable developments across the farmlands, offshore from their regional communities, and we are going to stop the nation facing blackouts, facing uncertainty, facing higher electricity prices, facing deindustrialisation, which is all going to come from the reckless renewable policy of Chris Bowen and Anthony Albanese. The slight flaw in the project is, will it hold that Coalition together, because there's a lot of individual national and Liberal members, I think, quite worried about how a push for civilian nuclear power is going to go down in their electorates.

ASHLYNNE:

Marion, thanks so much for your time today.

MARIAN:

Thanks.

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ASHLYNNE:

Also in the news today…

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has said a surplus at next week’s budget is within reach, signalling the government may once again take in more revenue than it spends, allowing it to pay down some debt.

But he promised the budget also would not be full of harsh cuts, and would include new spending measures, saying we're charting a responsible middle path.

And,

Qantas will pay a $100 million penalty for misleading customers, after reaching an agreement with the consumer watchdog, the ACCC.

The penalty comes after Qantas admitted to selling tickets to flights that had already been cancelled. As well as the penalty, it'll have to compensate affected travellers, paying them up to 450 dollars each.

I’m Ashlynne McGhee, this is 7am. Thanks for your company. We'll see you again tomorrow.

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