Tim Wilson’s clawback win against independent Zoe Daniel in the Melbourne seat of Goldstein was the first piece of good news the humiliated Liberal Party received this week.
Wilson is an energetic and articulate Liberal moderate, who has shown it is possible for the party to win back a metropolitan seat.
He choked back emotion as he declared victory in front of what must surely be the only Liberal volunteers able to manage a smile since Saturday’s election drubbing.
After thanking supporters, Wilson made clear he didn’t want to wade into debates about leadership or policy directions just yet. Except on one front.
“I, in my core sense of belief, believe in the role of nuclear power.”
Without nuclear, Wilson declared, Australia would either be “going back to coal, or we as a nation are going to de-industrialise.” It’s as fundamental as that, apparently.
Tim Wilson is determined to keep up the fight for nuclear. (ABC News: ABC News)
A curious flag to plant
Core beliefs are, of course, hard to shake. But declaring the Liberal Party should stick with nuclear power was a curious flag to plant for the returning MP.
There’s never one issue that explains an election outcome. Many factors are in the mix. But most voters were clearly aware when they entered polling booths on Saturday that the Coalition wanted Australia to adopt nuclear power. Labor made sure no one was in any doubt.
Peter Dutton last year said he was happy for the election to be a referendum on nuclear energy. Whether that’s what this election turned out to be or not, voters hardly embraced the idea.
Through their verdict on Saturday, voters instead opted to stick with the energy course we’re on for at least the next three years, and quite possibly longer, given the slim prospects of the Coalition returning to government at the next election.
The roll-out of more renewables, transmission lines, and storage, will now continue. Indeed, the pace of the roll-out could accelerate given investors now have greater certainty they won’t face competition from government-owned nuclear power plants entering the market any time soon.
Peter Dutton last year said he was happy for the election to be a referendum on nuclear energy. (ABC News: Brendan Esposito)
The Coalition’s election pitch
Under the plan Dutton took to the election, the first taxpayer-funded nuclear plant was due to be operational by 2035-37, with all seven up and running just in time to achieve the target of net-zero emissions by 2050. This was the best case scenario.
A delay of at least three years, and more likely six, blows this plan apart. As more renewables and transmission lines enter the system, and as more coal-fired power is retired, nuclear becomes even less viable.
As the Grattan Institute’s energy expert Tony Wood puts it, “nuclear itself remains a potentially long-term option, but right now the plan they took to the election is dead”.
Wood isn’t closed to the idea of adopting small modular reactors, should they ever become viable. They may play a role one day.
But the idea of Australia relying on nuclear to meet its net-zero commitments or to sustain its energy system and industrial base, he argues, is over.
The Nationals, however, remain largely wedded to nuclear. They didn’t do as badly as the Liberals on Saturday and most want to keep up the fight against large-scale renewable projects and transmission lines in the regions.
Liberals are more divided. Some want to walk away from nuclear altogether. Others would happily settle for a policy to simply remove the ban on nuclear power in Australia, without committing to a fleet of taxpayer-funded reactors.
But even this “remove the ban” option would carry big political risk. If the Coalition can’t say who would build the reactors, how would it convince younger voters who’ve just deserted the party that it has a credible net-zero plan?
Labor would relish another campaign fought on nuclear.
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What did the polls say?
There were swings against the Coalition in nearly every seat where it proposed a nuclear plant (except Flynn in Queensland). The biggest was a thumping 17 per cent swing in the NSW seat of Calare towards the independent MP Andrew Gee.
Arguably, these swings could have been due to a range of factors. But look at what happened in the town of Lithgow, which would have been home to a nuclear plant. Huge swings against the Nationals were recorded in Lithgow booths of more than 22 per cent and 26 per cent.
The Nationals also lost the NSW Senate seat of deputy leader Perin Davey.
By contrast, there were swings to Labor in every seat where offshore wind projects are planned.
Labor would relish another campaign fought on nuclear. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)
According to a national exit poll of more than 2,000 voters conducted by research firm Glow, 60 per cent of those surveyed weren’t bothered by the nuclear policy. More than a third of those surveyed, however, said it did influence their vote. Twenty-six per cent said they would have been more likely to vote for the Coalition if they did not have a nuclear energy policy. That’s a large chunk of voters.
The Nationals, however, are defiant. They remain determined to keep up the fight for nuclear. So does Tim Wilson.
“We must fight vehemently, passionately”, he said yesterday, “to build an alternative vision for this nation”.
On both the financial viability, and the raw politics, that fight has now become much harder.
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David Speers is national political lead and host of Insiders, which airs on ABC TV at 9am on Sunday or on iview.
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