- At least two Labor MPs want nuclear ban lifted
- But they do not support Peter Dutton’s plan.
At least two Labor MPs believe the Commonwealth’s legislative ban on nuclear power plants should be scrapped, telling Daily Mail Australia the law is “stupid, unnecessary and outdated”.
MPs indicated they would even be willing to cross the floor and support a Coalition move to lift the ban, if Prime Minister Anthony Albanese guaranteed they would not face sanctions for breaking party rules by doing so.
‘If it’s okay for her (WA Labor senator Fatima Payman) to do it, why wouldn’t it be okay for the rest of us to exercise our conscience on other issues too?’ one of the MPs told Daily Mail Australia.
The reference is to Senator Payman crossing the floor last night to side with the Greens in recognizing Palestine as a state. The Prime Minister decided not to sanction his WA senator.
But they insist they do not support Peter Dutton’s policy of building state-funded nuclear reactors.
‘We should not be afraid to lift the nuclear ban. Doing so would expose why (Peter) Dutton’s policy is not financially viable,” says one MP.
Their argument is that by lifting the ban, companies would have the right to invest commercially in nuclear energy, “but they will never do so,” the MPs say, “because there are no commercial arguments to do so.”
Nuclear power was banned at Commonwealth level in 1998 as part of a negotiating agreement between the then coalition government led by John Howard.
Calls within the Labor Party for the nuclear power ban to be lifted come in the wake of several Labor MPs tweeting youthful images of three-eyed fish and koalas.
Labor MPs would consider crossing the floor on the issue if Anthony Albanese guaranteed they would not face censure.
Needing the support of the Australian Greens and Democrats to pass changes to laws affecting the current Lucas Heights nuclear reactor, the Howard government agreed to a blanket ban on further nuclear reactors across the country.
The ban is now enshrined in Section 140A(1)(b) of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. ‘The Minister must not approve an action which consists of or involves the construction or operation of: b) a nuclear power plant.’
The law could be changed simply by amending part B of the law, but it would need the support of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Lucas Heights is a scientific research reactor, not a nuclear power reactor. Australia is one of the few rich developed countries not to adopt nuclear energy.
The Howard government’s decision to give up any future nuclear power potential for Australia came in the wake of French nuclear tests in the Pacific, which led to a rise in opposition to nuclear power in Australia.
Australia’s national nuclear ban is the result of haggling between the Howard government and Bob Brown’s Greens in 1998.
While Labor MPs are convinced that lifting the ban two and a half decades later would prove their case against Dutton’s policies, “including the fact that we are the party of the free market”, they are unwilling to be told Those who want to do so do so because they believe that if they did so, there would be retaliation.
Calls within the Labor Party for the nuclear power ban to be lifted come in the wake of several Labor MPs tweeting youthful images of three-eyed fish and koalas affected by nuclear waste.
“We have totally opposed Dutton’s policy and demonized even the concept of nuclear power,” says one, adding that in Australia one can oppose nuclear power on economic grounds without attributing to it the hysteria surrounding the environmental risks it entails.
“Advocating for lifting the ban would be political suicide, so no thanks,” was one MP’s response when asked if he would put his name to the story.
