The Coalition is working hard to sell Australia on its nuclear plan, but expert reports like the one issued by the CSIRO this week don’t exactly help.
The boffins at the national science agency found powering Australia with nuclear power would be roughly twice as costly as renewables, it would take 15 years to deliver and a single plant would cost at least $8.5 billion to build.
When this was put to Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie on The Project last night, she questioned the “assumptions” made by CSIRO and ended up in a heated back-and-forth with host Waleed Aly.
“This is not some random, tinpot think tank we’re talking about, it’s the nation’s leading scientific organisation, this is an independent organisation, their stuff is peer-reviewed,” he said.
McKenzie responded: “I have a science degree, I understand how the CSIRO works. There are a number of assumptions … any research, as you know, is only as good as the assumptions underpinning it.”
McKenzie’s degree was a double major from Deakin in applied science, specialising in human movement, and teaching, specialising in mathematics. Later, she conducted research into women’s physical activity in rural settings and had a stint as an education lecturer at Monash University.
Not quite nuclear science, but fair enough — the scientific method is what it is. Careful observation and healthy scepticism are at the core of it, whatever the topic of study may be.
It’s not the first time McKenzie has touted her science credentials — in 2019, during the Black Summer bushfires, she responded to criticism of the Morrison government’s climate policies from NSW environment minister and Liberal colleague Matt Kean by reminding reporters of her degrees.
“I actually have a science degree — I am one of the few in Parliament that does. That’s what gets me a little frustrated about the irrational conversation we’re having on this topic,” she said then, according to the AAP.
“It doesn’t always suit certain people’s narratives of who the National Party is, who I may be as a minister, who the government may be, and their sort of perceptions of what we want to do around climate change and reducing emissions.”
As the article noted, the minister acknowledged her degree was skewed towards mathematics rather than environmental science.
“But I do understand and appreciate the methodology of scientific thought and writing,” she said.
“I accept the science of climate change. But do we need to shut down everything, turn off the lights and go back to grass huts? No.”
As the Australian Financial Review reported earlier this year, only 20 of Australia’s federal politicians — or 9% — are qualified in science or engineering.
It’s also not the first time the Coalition has attacked the CSIRO’s credibility in its efforts to promote nuclear energy.
In March, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton (who has a business degree and a past as a police officer, but no science credentials) claimed a similar report from CSIRO was “discredited”, claiming: “It’s not relied on. It’s not a genuine piece of work.”
That prompted a rare intervention from the agency’s chief executive Doug Hilton, who, without naming Dutton, defended CSIRO’s work as “creditable science” that “can be trusted by all our elected representatives, irrespective of whether they are advocating for electricity generation by renewables, coal, gas or nuclear energy”.
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