Peter Dutton’s nuclear energy announcement has been totally nuked, so to speak, but Michael Pascoe argues it is nonetheless working just fine.
If a major Australian political party has had a core policy more quickly and comprehensively debunked, destroyed and generally defenestrated than the LNP’s nuclear power play, I can’t remember it. But that’s irrelevant to Peter Dutton and Atomic Ted O’Brien.
Despite the near universal rubbishing of the Coalition’s costings, allegedly supplied gratis by economic modeller Danny Price, the stunt is doing exactly what Dutton’s Trumpy playbook said it would do.
And that is: create massive media coverage of the LNP promising cheaper clean energy avoiding much more expensive and unsightly renewable energy spending by Labor.
That all credible media coverage effectively called that promise bullshit doesn’t matter. The promise was still being broadcast, still being talked about, still being reinforced.
For the votes the LNP is chasing, believing or disbelieving the promise is a matter of choice, political choice. Who do you believe, Labor or LNP?
Weak, faltering Albanese or strong, decisive Dutton?
Experts … who needs ’em?
All the “expert” opinions are merely background noise to that decision. Dutton and the LNP’s media wing have already done the groundwork to undermine those contrary opinions, no matter how numerous or expert.
The CSIRO has a political agenda, the criticism is coming from that “woke” ABC and “left-wing” newspapers, sources not to be trusted, Dutton copying Trump’s very successful “fake news” campaign.
“But, but, but,” you might argue, “these are fake nuclear costings! They have been totally exposed!”
I doesn’t matter. It’s not new that the LNP’s nuclear promise doesn’t add up. All the expert opinions rubbishing last week’s costings had already eviscerated the economics and credibility of the promise since Dutton made it back in May, before the Budget.
The Climate Council’s response back then is as solid an example as any. Dutton’s absolutely false claim that a nuclear reactor’s waste would only fill a Coke can continues to be a joke. Yet, it is unretracted.
Zero difference to Dutton’s polling
That’s seven months of steady, consistent, multifaceted dismissal of the LNP’s core energy and climate policy. Has it made any difference to Dutton’s polling? Well, as his rise in the polls shows, it certainly hasn’t harmed and has probably helped.
Once again, in this age of impressionism politics the detail of a policy being sensible or nonsense doesn’t matter. What counts is the impression it might leave of leadership.
The figures spat out by Danny Price’s modelling aren’t a surprise either. If you search on any issue, you can always find a consultant with a contrary view.
As a leading climate scientist once told me, there is a scientific basis to the three percent of climate scientists who don’t believe in anthropogenic climate change: there will generally be about three per cent of a group that will have a contrary view to overwhelming evidence.
Coalition media in cahoots
The staged-managed LNP/Murdoch costings reveal last week was a demonstration of Steve Bannon’s “flooding the zone”, starting with the Murdoch media simplifying, swallowing and promoting the nonsense in preview and rolling on with the flood of detailed critical analysis elsewhere, analysis that meant little-to-nothing to the voters Dutton is after.
The LNP’s nuclear policy was adopted without concern for costings. It was the vibe, opposition. The perpetrators knew some figures could be found to suit. Mere details.
There was a hint of that in the Saturday Paper’s story on Danny Price. Mike Seccombe quotes Price:
“What happened was I did an interview on the ABC about nuclear, because I was already doing some stuff in this area. And then the Opposition, Ted O’Brien’s office, contacted me and said they’d be interested in talking about my work. That would have been a few months ago.”
The truth does not matter
A “few” months ago? When it comes to months and years and measuring time and such, formulating a major policy in whatever period that would take before the Budget back in May sounds like more than a “few” months to me.
Total opposition. Grab the headlines, look strong and decisive, promise something the eventual failure of which would occur long after you’ve departed the scene, keep promising it, keep opposing whatever the government is doing. Some concurring figures can always be found along the way.
It works. It’s working. The truth does not matter. That’s what the polls are telling Dutton.
That’s what worked and works for Trump. Before the US Presidential election, Trump promised voters he would return prices to pre-COVID levels. It was obviously nonsense, obviously a lie. Doesn’t matter. It was part of Trump’s impression and now that he has been elected, it matters even less as he walks away from the promise.
Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor is promising the LNP nuclear show will lower power bills by 44 per cent.
Yeah, right.
The worry for Australia is that the LNP shows every indication of continuing to follow the Trump path, the next step of which is ever greater lawfare.
Trump is suing a pollster and local newspaper over an incorrect poll in Iowa that had him losing that solidly Republican state, claiming the poll was election interference.
That is a fearsome warning to other media and pollsters.
The American ABC network settled a Trump defamation action over a little careless wording around rape/sexual assault, paying Trump $US15 million. The common view is the case would have been defensible, but ABC doesn’t want to be seen opposing Trump.
Given how small and impoverished independent media is in Australia, Dutton taking that next Trumpy step is frightening. A defamation action doesn’t have to be credible to be very effective. It just has to be started by a party with plenty of resources against a party with few.
Teals will baulk
Peter Dutton has backers with effectively endless resources. With such a frightening prospect, the only good news from the LNP’s nuclear fairytale is that it should make it impossible for the community independents, the Teals, to support a Dutton minority government.
The Teals are not stupid. They are committed to climate policy, a raison d’etre for them.
But if Dutton’s impressionist politics momentum continues, the Teals won’t matter either.
Michael Pascoe is an independent journalist and commentator with five decades of experience here and abroad in print, broadcast and online journalism. His book, The Summertime of Our Dreams, is published by Ultimo Press.