Vikki Campion: Dutton breathes hope into beleaguered bush
Coalition supporters are invigorated for the first time in what feels like an age.
Following Opposition leader Peter Dutton and shadow energy spokesman Ted O’Brien’s nuclear press conference, those whose land is taken for transmission lines, whose homes will lose value as industrial intermittent power encroaches upon them, were given back something they had long lost with the Liberal National Coalition, a buoyed sense of hope.
Peter Dutton’s old coal-to-nuclear conversion is a game-changer that could shape Australia’s future.
This is why he must be Australia’s next prime minister.
No one since John Howard has been as bold or as underestimated.
With firm baseload power, carpeting the country with subsidy-mining wind and solar factories is unnecessary.
Finally, party supporters have a point of difference. Reliable, affordable energy is everything: cost of living, manufacturing, jobs, and small businesses.
It is crucial to acknowledge the pivotal role of Dr David Gillespie, the architect of this policy.
The Member for Lyne founded the parliamentary bipartisan friendship group Friends of Nuclear Industries in 2021, laying the foundation for our nuclear future, and beforehand was trying to educate his colleagues. It is a shame he was not at the podium on Wednesday.
His efforts, from bussing his colleagues from across the political spectrum to ANSTO in Lucas Heights to see nuclear in action, to introducing them to the pro-nuclear Nordic Greens leaders, and drawing international nuclear physicists with lived experience operating nuclear in other nations into the parliament, paved those first baby steps towards nuclear acceptance.
The enemy have us surrounded. Good! Now we know where to find the bastards! -various