Letter: Nationals Gone Nuclear

AT a time of stagnant incomes and soaring power prices, the National Party and Mr Johnsen have a new found interest in nuclear power that they have been asking the community about.

I had hoped they might have been a bit more concerned about kitchen table issues but when you are welded to a bunch of Liberal Party lobbyists in search of a policy it seems you have to take ideas where you can find them.

If you started work tomorrow, the first Watt would come out in 25 years.

I am pretty sure some of the good people of the Upper Hunter and NSW can’t pay their power bills this quarter and had something more immediate in mind than the year 2042.

That’s assuming you could deal with the waste that has to be stored for hundreds of years, training the work force to operate and build the installation, and finding someone to finance the project.

The National Party long ago cashed in their horses and bought Macbooks, BMW’s and headed to Surrey Hills for a latte.

Their lobbyist paymasters at the Liberal Party cant organise themselves to resolve the regulatory framework for coal fired power stations, whose workforce and consumers they have dumped on the side of the road.

How do you think they would go putting a regulatory framework for Nuclear Power together? Not so much.

Constitutional Law may not be Mr Johnsens strong suit, but the Commonwealth might have something to say if you just start flashing enriched uranium around as well.

See how the Senate treats your colleagues in Canberra at the moment.

Nuclear power requires express Commonwealth Legislation.

I am pretty sure the Greens wont be waving that one through.

Mr Johnsen may be well served to put down his latte and check out that black stuff we have just lying around the place called coal.

Feed it into the power stations down the road he is happy to see closed in 2022 and out comes electricity.

Then he can stand up for the fine men and women of the power industry whose jobs he currently wants to see disappear in 2022, and their employers, investors, suppliers and contractors.

I have met them and they are heroes all, doing a dirty and sometimes dangerous job 24 hours a day making the 10 Gigawatts of power this State is using as I write this.

When I am in bed tonight they will be doing their job as always.

I am standing right behind you today, not indulging in a flight of fancy that is 25 years away.

John Preston
Upper Hunter Candidate for
Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party