Antinuclear

Dutton’s seat a target in $2m union war against nuclear

David Marin-Guzman, AFR, 24 Mar 25

Unions will spend more than $2 million on an anti-nuclear energy campaign targeting the Coalition in key electorates ahead of the federal election, including Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s own marginal Queensland seat.

The Electrical Trades Union is leading the campaign, involving television, FM radio and digital ads, with $1.5 million funding and is backed by the Maritime Union of Australia and the plumbers’ union, which are spending $400,000 and $200,000, respectively.

The campaign is one of the most significant union spends in the election and will attack the huge cost and time involved in building nuclear plants and question nuclear as the fix to energy concerns.

It will target a dozen Liberal and Labor seats in play across the east coast, including Hunter, Reid and Banks in NSW – the latter held by opposition foreign affairs spokesman David Coleman – and McEwen, Hawke, Dunkley and Bruce in Victoria.

In Queensland, the ads will focus on Capricornia, held by Liberal MP Michelle Landry, the inner-Brisbane seat of Bonner held by Liberal MP Ross Vasta, the regional seat of Flynn held by Nationals MP Colin Boyce, Labor’s working-class Brisbane seat of Blair, and Dutton’s seat, Dickson, which he holds by a margin of 1.7 per cent.

This is not a fear campaign’

The unions will also campaign in Moore in Western Australia, which the Liberals held by less than 1 per cent in the 2022 election. Electrician turned lawyer and ETU member Tom French is challenging for the seat on behalf of Labor after Liberal MP Ian Goodenough was ousted in pre-selection last year.

ETU national secretary Michael Wright, whose union holds a historic opposition to nuclear, said the ads ask: “How does a nuclear reactor built in 2045 keep the lights on in 2025?”

“Nuclear is too little energy for too much money coming too late,” he said. “This is not a fear campaign. It’s grounded in science and where this country is. If you can engage people with the facts you don’t need to scare people. Nuclear just doesn’t make sense.”

Plumbing and Pipe Trades Employees Union national secretary Earl Setches said Dutton was peddling a “nuclear fantasy”.

“We will not support a plan that costs out at, best guess, $600 billion to power only 4 per cent of the grid and will take over 20 years to become reality,” he said.

“Australian workers need a real secure plan for their future and this nuclear scheme will not provide that security. It will, in fact, kill jobs.”

MUA national secretary Paddy Crumlin said maritime workers were already working on offshore energy projects that promised jobs for “generations of Australian seafarers and wharfies”.

“A sudden shift to nuclear energy will bring that work to a standstill,” he warned.

Building trust in renewables

Dutton has said “nuclear energy will set us up for the next century” and criticised Labor’s early scare campaign as “childish” and “embarrassing”.

However, the advertisements, which run the slogan “Dutton’s Nuclear Plan: Why?” and feature experts, electricians and farmers, avoid the memes of three-eyed fish initially shared by Labor MPs when the opposition leader announced his plans……………………..

In WA, the union campaign would focus on water concerns in the state by emphasising that nuclear power consumes about 1.4 times more water than coal to produce the same amount of electricity.

Wright said the ETU had a particular interest because Dutton’s nuclear plans and opposition to renewables were “already delaying projects and that costs my members jobs”……………………………  https://www.afr.com/politics/dutton-s-seat-a-target-in-2m-union-war-against-nuclear-20250321-p5llh8

March 24, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics