Keating nukes Dutton over the Coalition's energy plan

Paul Keating has launched a scathing attack on Peter Dutton, calling him a charlatan, a peddler of damage and an inveterate climate change denier.

The former Labor prime minister held little back in attacking the current Leader of the Opposition over the Coalition’s plan for seven nuclear power stations to be located across the country.

Last week, Mr Dutton named the sites where he wants to establish nuclear reactors as a way to secure Australia’s energy future.

He provided no costings for the plan and gave few details of how it would roll out or how he envisioned the nuclear stations would operate.

Mr Dutton ridiculed the Federal Government’s path to net-zero emissions, saying Labor’s over-reliance on renewable energy would not deliver that outcome.

But in a statement issued by the former Labor PM on Sunday (23 June) under the heading ‘Peter Dutton: Climate Denialist – Peddler of Danger’, Mr Dutton was ridiculed in one of the most severe Keating rebukes.

“Peter Dutton is a charlatan – an inveterate climate change denialist,” Mr Keating wrote.

“A denialist now seeking to camouflage his long-held denialism in an industrial fantasy – resort to the most dangerous and expensive energy source on the face of the earth – nuclear power.”

The Labor stalwart also took a strong swipe at former Liberal prime minister Tony Abbott, who scrapped the carbon tax introduced by the Gillard government.

Keating said that in advocating for nuclear energy, Dutton was continuing his party’s “manic denialism, first articulated by Tony Abbott over a decade ago” and was turning his back on the “most debated, most discussed problem of the Industrial Age”, that being carbon and carbon sequestration.

“Dutton, like Abbott, will do everything he can do to de-legitimise renewables and stand in the way of their use as the remedy nature has given us to underwrite our life on earth,” Keating wrote.

“Only the most wicked and cynical of individuals would foist such a blight on an earnest community like Australia. A community which fundamentally believes in truth and decency and which relies on its political system to advance those ideals.

“Dutton, in his low rent opportunism, mocks the decency and earnestness which recognises that carbon must be abated and with all urgency.

“As bad as that, by his blatant opposition to renewables, Dutton calls into question and deprecates all the government has done to provide Australian business with a reliable and dependable framework for investment in renewables – the one thing, however late in the piece, the country needs to rely upon to lift the carbon menace off its back.”

Keating labelled nuclear energy technology as belonging to another world era and urged no one to listen to the Opposition Leader’s suggestion that renewable energy was an idea solely embraced and endorsed by leftwing advocates.

“No person interested in public policy – regardless of their affiliations or beliefs, should consider, let alone endorse Dutton’s backwardness, his unreal world view that the most lethal technology of another age is a contemporary substitute for nature’s own remedy,” he wrote.

“Dutton’s policy, of its essence, is that human-induced climate change is a fraudulent concept propagated by environmentalists and left-leaning fellow travellers – a concept he believes should be deplored and opposed.”

Mr Dutton has responded with a statement of his own, which in turn didn’t treat the former PM with kid gloves – describing the Keating statement as a “petulant outburst”.

He also took the opportunity to again condemn Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s push for renewable energy.

“There is zero chance of reaching net zero by 2050 without zero-emission nuclear power. Mr Keating should know this,” Mr Dutton wrote.

“Under Labor’s ‘renewables only’ approach, it will cost $1.3 trillion to rewire our nation. If you think you’re paying a lot now, wait until these costs are reflected in your energy bills.

“I’ll stand up for Australian families and small businesses for cheaper, cleaner, and consistent power.

“Mr Keating can continue to be a sad and despondent character, doing Mr Albanese’s bidding, while Australian families suffer under Labor’s energy trainwreck.

“If only we had Labor leaders like the late great Bob Hawke who embraced nuclear power as being ‘a win for the environment and an essential part of the attacking that must be made on this grievous and dangerous global warming. It would be a win for the global environment and a win for Australia’.”