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November 24, 2010
Janet Albrechtson in The Australian is offering free policy advice (free for how long with Murdoch's shift to paywalls?) to the Gillard Government. She says in her PM, blow apart the Greens op-ed that:
Julia Gillard's leadership is flat-lining.....What Gillard really needs is a big idea, one that demonstrably works from the reforming centre...Gillard can take control of a real reform agenda by championing the nuclear option...power as a rational part of the solution to climate change....
Isn't the national broadband network NBN a big idea from the reforming centre? Oh, that doesn't blow apart The Greens.
Albrechtson goes to say that that the political advantage of nuclear opower as a rational part of the solution to climate change is that it splits:
rational climate change voters from the Greens, and driving them back to the ALP. A credible energy policy will drive a wedge between the two strands of Green voters without sacrificing support from the centre. The die-hard anti-nuclear rump of the Greens will limp away into irrelevance, leaving more sensible, realistic Green voters who recognise the need for carbon-free power to vote for "a credible response to the imperative of climate change".The impact for Labor is equally instant. It will signal bold leadership where at present there is only nervous reserve. It will take the sting out of climate change scepticism within the opposition.
This will rebrand modern Labor as a centrist party and do something good for the nation.
Gee, all that toxic radioactive waste, big public subsidy since the private sector is not going to take an unacceptable level of risk. Its corporate welfare for the Big Miners who talk about the need for Australia having its own nuclear energy industry. No mention of the long lead times (10-15 years) or the need for financing guarantees, minimum power prices, and / or government-backed power off-take agreements if the nuclear power stations are to be built for base load power.
Clearly Albrechtson's advice is designed to wedge the right and left factions of the ALP and get the ALP to cannibalize itself. Why so? Because Albrechtson's talk about carbon-free power doesn't make any policy sense given her opposition to human cause global warming.
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Typical example of the irredeemable cynicism that afflicts contemporary MSM pundits. No concern for whether nuclear power is good public policy; it's all about securing temporary tactical advantage in the endless electoral campaign, as scored by Newspoll.
Of course US presidents invade small countries for domestic political advantage so it's no surprise someone like Albrechtson would think up a tactic like this. Discrediting the Greens must be about the most important goal of both major parties at the moment.
Unfortunately for Albrechtson this is a pretty silly suggestion. It would take 20 years to bring a new nuclear power station online, even if Gillard announced approval in principle tomorrow. Hardly an issue that will sway voters any time soon ... unless the government was stupid enough to nominate some possible sites, which could well see some more Green MPs in the lower house.