Dear Editor,

Federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, on behalf of the Liberals and Zoe McKenzie, has announced a nuclear power plant for Victoria, again with no detail about costs or answers to key questions.

My petition already has hundreds of local signatures telling the Coalition “No Nuclear Reactors in our Communities”.

Our community is benefitting from consistent investment in renewable power - but the Coalition wants to jeopardise all of that.

The energy industry doesn't support nuclear, businesses don’t want to invest, it doesn’t stack up economically, and it will lead to higher power prices. 

Peter Dutton and Zoe McKenzie must come clean on these questions:

1. Given the taxpayers will have to foot the bill - how much will Australians pay per nuclear reactor?

2. How much will consumers pay to store waste and to insure the multinational energy company in the event of a meltdown? 

3. What will a nuclear reactor do to the value of properties, including key agricultural land?

4. How will farmers' water supply be impacted due to water demand and whose water supply will be prioritised in periods of drought?

5. How will the community be protected in the event of fire and flood, or earthquakes?

6. How big an exclusion zone would be implemented in the event of an accident and how will they compensate communities? 

One in four Victorian homes have installed solar on their roof and wholesale prices in our state are amongst the cheapest in the country.

Renewables are the cheapest form of electricity generation, nearly 40 per cent of electricity in Victoria’s grid is renewable and by 2035 it will be 95 per cent.

CSIRO and Australian Energy Market Operator figures show that the cost of a single nuclear plant is as high as $16 Billion. 

Labor has a well planned energy agenda – which has resulted in tens of billions of dollars of planned investment off our coastline – we’re getting on with building renewable energy projects by using proven technologies that lower our emissions, and deliver cheap and reliable power to Victorians.

Renewables investment stands ready to deliver thousands of construction jobs followed by generations of operations and maintenance jobs offshore. 

Peter Dutton is now the single biggest threat to these jobs and investment. 

There is currently no federal regulatory framework for approving nuclear power plants in Australia, there are no nuclear waste storage sites in Australia and the state Liberal and National parties are divided on whether to repeal nuclear prohibition to enable nuclear power in Victoria.