Steve Price: Australia Correspondent on Peter Dutton's vow to end nuclear ban

Australia’s opposition leader Peter Dutton has vowed to override the nuclear power ban. 

Dutton made the comments during a federal Liberal party council meeting in Sydney, where he called Prime Minister Anthony Albanese a “fraud” and a “child in a man’s body”. 

Australia Correspondent Steve Price told Mike Hosking “I expect there’ll be some more fireworks today.” 

Price said “If we don’t have a mature debate about it – we're going to end up with no energy.” 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
In Australia's Monday Morning See Price, Very good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hello there, how's the.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Dutton nuclear of the elban EASi. There's an election coming.
Debate going well.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Got very ugly at the weekend, particularly from Peter Dutton's side,
and then the old war horse Paul Keating lobbed a
couple of grenades overnight to Ward Dutton, calling him a
climate change deniron. But with Paul you just got to
you know, he just does that every now and then
to keep everybody happy. But Peter Dutton was at the
Liberal Party Federal Council Mirke on Saturday. He outlined how

(00:33):
he thought the party could beat Anthony alban EASi the
first term labor government. He believes that can win. He
urged them all to get out there. It must get
back into government. And then things got really nasty. He
said in an offscript moment that the Prime Minister is
a quote nasty and week accused him of telling people

(00:54):
what they want to hear. And then this he said,
he as in Anthony Abneasy. Our prime minister is a
man with a mind still captured in his university years.
He's a child in a man's body. I think mister
Albinizi is a decent man who cares deeply about his country,
but I believe he's completely out of his depth as
Prime Minister. So that's set up the week. You've got

(01:17):
a week of parliament coming up. Now there's two weeks
of sitting into the winter break, and so I expect
there'll be some more fireworks later during the rest of today.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Is the subtlety or nuance of the Deate being captured
when he talks about a climate change deny. It's not
about that. It's about the gap between what you got
in renewables and the day you can turn the renewables
on in a reliable fashion and the lights go on
each and every time. In other words, you need something
in between that's going to solve your problem long term.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah. Look, I'm a naive optimistist called last week on
the fact that we need to have a mature, adult
debate about this, because I'm about to tell you what's
going to happen. Because if we don't have a mature
debate about it, and we keep throwing rocks at each
other with the country that has extraordinary amount of resources
is going to be up with no energy. It's just ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Precisely, So where are you at in terms of because
we've only just gone back to the gas thing. So
the previous government here they banned exploration on oil and gas.
New government here has just suddenly sort of re energized
that and said you can get some licenses. And the
debate around here is whether or not there's anyone internationally
he wants to come back to the country. You at
least have all of those resources, don't you.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, we do. You'd want to hope that they do
come back because without gas, certainly in Australia, industries in
big trouble. The Australian's reporting this morning we've got a
crisis on two fronts. Victoria's main storage plant is set
to run out of gas or the end of winter,
and one of the biggest manufacturers said, look, if we
don't get some reliable gas supplies, we're going to slash
jobs and closed factories. Now. It can't get any more

(02:45):
grim than that. The Australian reveals today that the Energy
regulator place Mob called AEMO caution the industry that the
largest supplier of gas storage on the East Coast of Australia,
Lockhart Energy, at a place called Iona Facility in northeast
Victoria could run out of gas before the end of winter,
so that's a month and a half away. Aimo said

(03:06):
to gas uses on Thursday, you need to have what
you're taking out of that facility from four hundred terror
duels down to two hundred to avoid it running dry.
And Oraca, one of Australia's biggest gas uses they make
explosives for the mining industry. They said, look, we're going
to have to cut production and we're going to have
to look at sacking people. So there's the reality of

(03:26):
what happens when you don't take advantage of all of
the resources that you have at you at your disposal.
It's crazy exactly.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
So Charles, and I mean be grateful he's actually coming,
because he's canceled us. You realize he's going to summer
in Australia but not us. So at least you've got
your debate between the horse races. At least he's turning up.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
I wonder how that's gone down to New Zealand. King
Charles the Third obviously battling cancer and these doctors have
told him he's got to slim this trip down The
bigger debate in Australia was whether he was going to
go to the Melbourne Cup or whether he's going to
turn up at this thing at Randwick in Sydney called
the Everest where they have a cheeky boss in charge

(04:05):
of racing and rugby league voc called Peter Landi's And
what he's done is he's named a race after Charles
at the Everest on that day. The King happens to
be in the country when that race meeting's on. And
guess what, He's not going to go to the Melbourne Cup.
He's going to go to the King Charles the Third
Stakes at Randwick instead.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Pretty clever.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Hey.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
By the way, given you're from Adelaide, do you know
the Westfield Marion shopping center.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
I certainly do. My mother goes there most weeks.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Okay ninety, Well yesterday thrown into lockdown after a mass
brawl involving up to twenty youth one at least wielding
a machete. Is that sort of thing unusual in Australia?

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Well, I hope you hope that it's unusual. I mean, obviously,
is it a copycat of what took place at Bondi junction.
You'd hope not where six people of course lost their lives,
but the scenes and you would have seen on TV
news last night of those US rampaging through that challenge.
It's a massive west field. I think it's either the
first or second largest in the country. And to shut

(05:08):
that down on the Sunday, a huge number of people
locked in behind security bars. It's just horrendous.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Exactly see Wednesday. Make appreciate a Verty much See Price
Out of Australia.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
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Speaker 1 (05:21):
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