Dutton’s nuclear lights are out and no one’s home
But none of this matters to Dutton. The reason he is pushing for nuclear is plain: since any nuclear energy plan is unattainable for at least 20 years, it ensures his coal and gas mining mates can continue destroying our natural environment for a long, long time to come.
By Michelle Pini Independent Australia, 20 June 2024
Dutton’s alternative facts on nuclear energy demonstrate that the Coalition is no longer fit for purpose as a credible opposition, let alone a serious government contender. Michelle Pini reports.
APART from frequently changing leaders, nothing has changed about the Liberal-National Party Opposition for a very long time, certainly not since the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison retrograde regime.
Put simply, since the whole point of an opposition party in a two-party system is to provide credible alternative policies – not to recycle the ideas and innovations of a bygone era – today’s Coalition is simply no longer fit for purpose.
This is perhaps best illustrated by Dutton’s most recent set of alternative facts masquerading as policies, the recycled 1950s nuclear power plan.
Sure, the Liberals/Nationals are the parties of the status quo but the fact is, they have taken this concept well past its natural use-by date. Basically, if this was the age of the telephone invention, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and his band of unmerry naysayers would be advocating to keep tin cans and string because phones would put can and string manufacturers out of business — not to mention the plight of carrier pigeon trainers.
Wait, that is actually the same reasoning that led to over a decade of third-world-standard NBN, but we digress.
Carrier pigeons and tin cans notwithstanding, today, the Coalition want us to get behind a leader who, if elected, would catapult us back to an age before science, before technology and before we worked out the Earth wasn’t flat — in every facet of our lives.
A word is needed about the role of the entire mainstream media, here, including the national broadcaster – yet again – in providing a framework where Dutton’s idiotic ramblings are given prominence — nay, are exalted as if they came from the Heavens.
There are so many subtle ways in which his party’s every brain fart is reported in the media as a credible idea and Alan Austin’s latest analysis provides a more detailed explanation of how the ABC’s news coverage, in particular, subtly facilitates this Liberal Party agenda. (You can read more here.)
So, to summarise the Dutton Coalition “policy platform”, it goes something like this:
Finding it hard to keep up with the changing world? Need a scapegoat for your woes?
Then, has Dutton got an idiotic plan, a minority group and a few gaslights, courtesy of the establishment media, for you?!
It is the exploitation of these core fears – the primal fears of change and of “others” – that form the basis of Dutton’s Coalition “policy structure”. It is the reason he does not provide any substantial “detail” in support of his claims. And it provides ongoing ammunition for the climate and culture wars he favours. It’s really no more complicated than that.
Let’s take a close look at Dutton’s banal nuclear “power plan”, which has been presented as a legitimate argument in the legacy media.
A NUCLEAR NIGHTMARE
Dutton – or at least the Coalition’s expert advisers, assuming they still have any – is abundantly aware of the following:
- nuclear energy is not safe by any stretch of the imagination;
- it is not clean;
- it is prohibitively expensive; and
- a nuclear energy industry is unachievable, certainly in the foreseeable future.
But none of this matters to Dutton. The reason he is pushing for nuclear is plain: since any nuclear energy plan is unattainable for at least 20 years, it ensures his coal and gas mining mates can continue destroying our natural environment for a long, long time to come.
With the main game already established, it is only necessary to deflect and obfuscate, providing no “details”, such as properly calculated costs or a realistic timeline. Even his claim that the first seven reactors would be built in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland was debunked by the state premiers, who have unanimously rejected the idea. According to one ABC report, even some state Liberal and National MPs have ‘distanced themselves from nuclear’.
It’s fine, though, according to Dutton, who may eventually give us the details after his party is elected.
NO RENEWABLES FOR US!
Because the efficiency of renewable energies poses a real and imminent threat to fossil fuels, Dutton also plans to ensure any further great strides in this sector will die a quick and unceremonious death by imposing a cap on renewable energy investment.
And because Dutton’s plan is only about fear, he harnesses the fear of running out of power, or of exorbitant energy prices with idiotic statements like, “We can’t allow the lights to go out.”………………………………………………….. https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/duttons-nuclear-lights-are-out-and-no-ones-home,18701
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