SENATORS SCEPTICAL OF DUTTON’S PLAN
Peter Dutton’s nuclear power proposition is likely to face tough opposition in the Senate, Guardian Australia reports. Nearly all parties except for the Coalition appear to be in agreement: the proposal would be too expensive, too risky, and take too much time.
“In addition to Labor and the Greens, independent Senators Lidia Thorpe and David Pocock have voiced major criticisms of the policy, while Jacqui Lambie, who has previously expressed support for nuclear to be part of the mix, is investigating the Coalition’s proposal and is concerned nuclear plants are ‘incredibly expensive’,” the story says.
Before nuclear power could be harnessed in Australia, a federal ban would need to be repealed.
Dutton’s plan has been savaged by his political rivals, state premiers, experts and commentators this week. The ABC’s political correspondent Brett Worthington is among those who have pointed out that the Coalition, as recently as last year, told Voice to Parliament referendum voters: “If you don’t know, vote no” — yet the nuclear announcement came with no costings and scant details.
“The death of shame in Australian politics isn’t new, but the brazen nature of the Coalition’s efforts to prosecute its plans for a nuclear age take boldness to new levels,” Worthington writes.
A rare voice that expressed positivity about the idea belongs to Ziggy Switkowski, a nuclear physicist who advised John Howard’s government on the issue. Switkowski told The Sydney Morning Herald: “I think nuclear will be more favoured than it has been in the last 20 years. At one level, it may not be the least-cost option, but at another level, it would be the most valuable option.”
ICAC PROBES COUNCIL WORKERS
In NSW, a former council employee has denied suggestions by corruption investigators he accepted more than $230,000 from a friend in return for helping a company win government contracts, the SMH reports.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) is investigating whether Benjamin Webb, who managed the works and projects unit at Canterbury Bankstown Council in Sydney, and Pietro Cossu, a former council contractor, used a company to undertake recruitment subcontractor services through the council while failing to disclose their own financial interest.
ICAC heard “Cossu had paid Webb hundreds of thousands of dollars while Webb worked at the council. Webb said the money was a payment for a 25% equity share — worth about $350,000 — Cossu had taken in a project management software program his family was developing,” according to the SMH.
Webb told the commission he hadn’t disclosed the payments because he “was so busy at the time it never entered my mind”.
He accepted a suggestion under cross-examination he should have disclosed the payments, but denied the transactions were “an attempt to hide the fact that [he was] receiving payments from Mr Cossu in return for giving him valuable work at the council”.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
What are all these weird monoliths that keep popping up in remote places? Police in Las Vegas were flabbergasted this week by the emergence of a shiny pillar on a desert hiking trail outside the city, posting a picture of the object on Facebook. “We see a lot of weird things when people go hiking like not being prepared for the weather, not bringing enough water… but check this out,” the department wrote.
Since 2020, when a helicopter crew flying over a Utah desert found a 10-foot silver monolith, similar objects have been found in California, Romania, the Isle of Wight, and other places, CNN reports.
Say What?
I have no doubt it will become a driving force accelerating the creation of a new multipolar world.
Kim Jong-un
Kim hosted Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Pyongyang this week, a rare visit capped by the signing of a mutual defence assistance agreement that will require North Korea and Russia to provide immediate military help to each other in the event of war. South Korea condemned the deal and said it would have to rethink its policy of only providing Ukraine, which is under assault by Russian forces, with non-lethal supplies, the Associated Press reported. According to The Guardian, Kim hailed the agreement as “significant and historic”.
CRIKEY RECAP
“For all the acres of words being written about Peter Dutton’s fantasy of seven nuclear plants, no such plants will ever be built in Australia. Yesterday’s announcement by Dutton — so devoid of substance that even the press gallery’s fence-sitters derided its lack of detail — was really about creating a cover for the one solid Coalition energy policy that currently exists.
That policy is to sabotage investment in large-scale renewable energy — or to ‘cap’ it, as Nationals leader (and putative deputy prime minister in a Coalition government) David Littleproud put it this week.”
“When the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) announced last Friday that the electorate of North Sydney, currently held by independent MP Kylea Tink, would be abolished, social media was awash with Hard Solo memes — a reference to Tink’s role in the push to prevent the alcoholic soft drink being sold under that name.
Hard Solo, it seemed, had taken its revenge. Soft (or hard) drink jokes aside, Tink says she is ‘gutted’ at Friday’s announcement, adding that her community is experiencing a ‘sense of grief’ at being split in thirds. The former charity CEO was the first of 2022’s teal crop to announce a run, arguably inspiring some of the others. If she does not end up finding another seat, she’ll be first to go.”
“Setting aside the numerous other criticisms of Peter Dutton’s one-page, uncosted nuclear plan, it’s worth pointing out that it completely relies on a crucial, non-renewable resource: time.
The Coalition’s plan is to get one nuclear power plant up and running by 2035, with more to come soon after. Experts say this timeline is implausible. But even if we take the word of a politician promising to deliver an enormous and technically challenging project far in the future over the expertise of subject matter authorities, 2035 is still more than a decade away.
Funnily enough, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that same decade is also crucial when it comes to mitigating climate catastrophe.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Philippines accuses China of using bladed weapons in major South China Sea escalation (CNN)
Thailand eyes BRICS membership at October summit, begins OECD application (Reuters)
New faces of protest — Kenya’s Gen Z anti-tax revolutionaries (BBC)
Mbappe injury compels France to rethink Euro 2024 game plan (France 24)
Tories facing wipeout as new poll suggests they will have just 53 MPs and Rishi Sunak will lose his seat (The Independent)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Europe’s progressives must reclaim ‘security’ and ‘freedom’ from the populist right — Florian Ranft (The Guardian): “We live in uncertain times. Economic shocks, technological changes, pandemics, the climate emergency and conflict after conflict have combined to create a widespread mood of insecurity.
“This might seem to be the natural realm of the political right: a politics oriented around the protection of the status quo and rooted in the appeal of hierarchy and tradition. In recent years we have seen how it can fuel the populist right in particular, with its politics of stratification, coercion and isolation. The European Parliament elections and the prospect of a far-right prime minister in France are just the latest demonstration of the appeal of ‘build the wall’ messaging in an age of insecurity.
For progressives whose political project draws on optimism about the future, and faith in the power of common endeavour, it makes for a challenging political environment. We might assume it is necessarily barren ground for progressives. But should we?”
No freezing or raging: How Biden, Trump should front first debate — Karl Rove (The Wall Street Journal): “Joe Biden and Donald Trump will enter CNN’s Atlanta studio next Thursday for the most important 90 minutes of this election season. What they say, the impressions they leave, their confrontations, mistakes and humanising moments could determine who wins in November.
If one candidate has a particularly bad night, undecided and otherwise up-for-grabs voters could lock in for his opponent. Since the next debate comes nearly 11 weeks later, it’ll be difficult to rehabilitate a damaged campaign.
To understand what each camp faces, I talked with five Republicans and three Democrats who have helped presidential candidates with debates, from role-playing opponents and critiquing prep sessions to spinning the press after the studio lights were cut.”
