Nuclear fission
When it comes to nuclear propulsion, the Opposition Leader will soon discover that there is no middle ground between green left ideology and pragmatism. By Nick Cater.
One can only imagine the discussion in the ABC 7.30 production office as the guest list for last Thursday’s program was compiled. Who could they call upon to analyse Australia’s biggest strategic initiative since ANZUS? Who could examine the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines? The ANU’s Hugh White, obviously, with Laura Tingle to provide context. To avoid any suggestion of conservative bias, six minutes should be set aside for an interview with Kevin Rudd.
White told the program’s dwindling audience that forming AUKUS was “a bad decision” and “a negative development”. For Tingle, it had “politics written all over it as something on which to try to wedge Labor and to reposition a politically wounded Prime Minister for a khaki election”. From Rudd we learned the Coalition had bungled the brilliant submarine program begun by his government in 2009. He gave tentative approval to Anthony Albanese’s qualified support for nuclear subs, describing the decision as “probably about right”.
The ABC’s jaded coverage of the birth of AUKUS answered one question at least: why is it only now, 67 years after the launch of the world’s first nuclear-powered sub, we have realised the technology might be handy to defend the largest island nation in the world?
Britain woke up to nuclear propulsion in 1957 when the USS Nautilus was matched against the Royal Navy in Operation Rum Tub. First sea lord Louis Mountbatten described it as “a revolution in naval warfare; in some ways more far-reaching than the transition from sail to steam”.
Overcoming Australia’s peculiar aversion to the N-word required a deal of political courage, not least from Albanese. A 20-year commitment of this size could not have proceeded without bipartisan support.
It is a historic turning point for Labor, which has mounted scare campaigns against nuclear propulsion since Gough Whitlam became leader in the late ’60s. US deployment of nuclear subs in the Pacific in the Cold War protected Australia by denying the Soviet Union control over sea lanes. Yet Labor used the docking of US nuclear submarines in Australian ports to launch opportunistic attacks on the Fraser government.
As a result, the nuclear option was not even in the room, let alone on the table, when planning began for the replacement of the Oberon-class in the late 1970s. The final decision to build the diesel-electric Collins-class was made by the Hawke government, but the Coalition would have been forced to make the same decision had it been in power. Labor pulled the same populist trick in the final term of the Howard government. Albanese’s biggest contribution to the 2007 election campaign was a dishonest attack on a non-existent Coalition policy to introduce nuclear energy. “The fact is that nuclear reactors can be scary,” he told the ABC weeks before the election. “I don’t think that Australians want a nuclear reactor in their neighbourhood. What they want is a solar panel on their roof.”
Not for the first time, the policy options of an incoming government were frustrated by a campaign stunt. We can only imagine how much better would the world have been if Rudd had assuaged his guilt over a warming planet by committing to replace coal with nuclear power.
Instead, Australia faces the challenge of reducing emissions with one hand tied behind its back. Only three of the world’s top 20 economies, Saudi Arabia, Italy and Australia, do not use nuclear generation. Saudi Arabia is about to acquire it and Italy imports nuclear energy from France.
The 2009 defence white paper was another casualty of Labor’s political opportunism. Rudd’s defence minister, Joel Fitzgibbon, nobbled the review by instructing it to avoid canvassing nuclear options, a mistake he has subsequently acknowledged. But the damage was done. Conventional propulsion with all its shortcomings was locked in long before the election of the Abbott government. The entire defence establishment had made up its mind and four decades of disingenuous campaigning by Labor had ensured anything qualified by the adjective nuclear was a dirty word.
Were it not for China, the Australian Navy might have muddled through the next half-century of maritime defence, just as it has since 1969 when HMS Trump, the last British submarine to be based in Sydney, sailed for the knackers yard. Sadly, the Asian Century is not turning out to be the world of peace, love and understanding we had hoped it might be.
A Compass polling survey late last week revealed a dramatic shift in public sentiment toward nuclear propulsion. Support for nuclear submarines has risen to 73 per cent from 39 per cent in March, demonstrating the power of leaders to persuade. While the Prime Minister has been at pains to point out nuclear power is not part of the deal, the distinction is less clear in voters’ minds. Almost seven out of 10 (69 per cent) say nuclear power should be an option, up from 55 per cent in March.
Since Labor voters strongly support both nuclear subs (69 per cent) and the option of nuclear energy (67 per cent), Albanese’s support might look like a no-brainer. Yet it is anything but, as the three conditions he stipulates as the price of Labor’s support make clear: no nuclear power, no nuclear weapons and no breach of our nuclear non-proliferation commitments.
Already, he is facing pressure from the Labor caucus, where MPs such as Ged Kearney in the inner-city Melbourne seat of Cooper fear for their own skin. Greens leader Adam Bandt signalled his intention to outflank Labor from the left with a burst of colourful overstatement. Nuclear propulsion would put every Australian city at risk from a floating Chernobyl. Not since Kim Beazley in the 2001 Tampa election has a Labor leader been placed in such an invidious position. Like Beazley, the Opposition Leader will discover there is no middle ground between green-left ideology and pragmatism.
This time around, the threat to our sovereignty is far greater than in the Tampa crisis. It is a challenge likely to be greater still at the 2025 election and the one after that. Never mind the politics. The times demand a wartime bipartisan spirit, the kind displayed by John Curtin, and it has fallen on Albanese to rise to the challenge.