Dutton defends lack of detail in nuclear plan

Donning the campaign khaki and the chill of a Tasmanian winter, here we are. As the contest over how to keep the lights and heaters on ratchets up a gear. A plan that had no costs attached can't be taken seriously. A day after releasing proposed sites for nuclear reactors across the country, Peter Dutton's defending not detailing the cost just yet. We want the information out there in bite sized bits if you like. Will it be before the election? Of course, of course. I don't think people should get themselves tied up in knots about the cost. One MP representing a region where one of the seven reactors might be placed candid in explaining a reason for limited community consultation before yesterday's announcement. Everything will leak virtually instantly and then it becomes this. This huge public bun fight before you even get started. Others furious about being kept in the dark on the Coalition's policy. With the few paragraphs on their press release. It kind of looks like it was done on the back of a beer coast. We are beginning that engagement with communities and that was what yesterday's announcement was about. The Opposition leader remains confident about his ambitious time frame. Somewhere between 2035 and 37 we can get the first two projects off the ground and then there's a gradual roll out through the twenty 40s. A nuclear industry currently banned under Commonwealth law and nuclear energy prohibited in a number of states, but a proposal which may well stand up to legal challenge if a future coalition government wants to push ahead without the cooperation of state premiers. The Commonwealth actually has pretty broad powers in this area, so it seems to me that in the end this is gonna be a matter of politics rather than law and the constitution. Just last month, the CSIRO crunched the numbers and found it would cost at least 8 1/2 billion dollars to construct a large scale reactor in Australia and it would produce energy at roughly twice the cost of renewables. Now, the Coalition disputes that latter point in making its pitch to voters on cheaper power. But Peter Dutton's plan currently rings hollow because there isn't any detail on the table.