As Gough Whitlam said in 1972, “it’s time”. It’s time we put ideology and 1980s-style scare campaigns aside and had a genuine look at nuclear energy. Our energy transition commitments are sending us into penury, and our security environment is the worst it’s been since World War II. Nuclear energy is the kind of nation-building policy we need when our lucky country’s luck is running out.

It was after World War II when our political leaders last had a sensible debate about nuclear energy. In the years immediately after the War, the Chifley then Menzies governments were intent on shoring up Australia’s energy and resource security. Australian leaders back then were visionary. They had high hopes for the potential of Australia. They wanted to develop the nation into a significant middle power.

To do this, Australia needed energy and resources. The Chifley government in 1948 offered a £25,000 reward for the discovery of uranium in Australia, with the first deposits discovered in 1951 at Rum Jungle in the Northern Territory. Prime Minister Robert Menzies opened the uranium ore processing plant there in 1954, followed by Australia’s first nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights in 1958.

While the availability of thermal coal and its simplicity as a source of power generation meant our civil nuclear industry failed to go beyond these baby steps, neither Chifley nor his successor Menzies were preoccupied with ideological debates around the use of civil nuclear energy. Their aim was to find solutions that met Australia’s energy and security needs in the febrile Cold War environment. In fact, Menzies for some time sought nuclear weapons for Australia, concerned as he was about Australia’s ability to deter the threat of global communism.

There were some voices in Australia opposed to any form of nuclear technology, but these views didn’t penetrate the mainstream of Australian politics until much later. To the contrary, Menzies envisaged that as Australia’s energy needs would increase with its rapidly growing population, nuclear power would one day become part of Australia’s energy mix just as coal and hydroelectricity had done earlier.

Unlike Australia, countries such as Japan, France, Germany and the United Kingdom were not blessed with significant reserves of coal and gas, and so developed civil nuclear industries in the post-War period.

Critics of nuclear energy in Australia would do well to look at our partners and allies’ experiences here in the face of puerile domestic scare campaigns. Almost 65 per cent of France’s energy comes from nuclear, with the US host to 93 nuclear reactors, the UK nine, and Sweden 10.

It was only last year that the COP28 meeting committed to a tripling of nuclear energy as part of the global effort to reduce carbon emissions.

Why is it that our key democratic allies accept nuclear power has a large role to play in current and future energy generation needs when certain Australian political parties have such a fundamental hatred of it?

The 1980s saw concerns around nuclear safety rise, and the Hawke government’s royal commission into British nuclear testing in Australia, as well as the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, raised the public consciousness of the potential dangers of radiation. More recently, nuclear naysayers point to Fukushima. However, the facts on that disaster need to be better understood.

Australia has been lucky with its access to cheap domestically supplied energy and food. But our shift away from fossil fuels means Australia’s competitive advantage as a cheap and self-sufficient energy superpower is whittled away, while other developing countries in our neighbourhood such as China, India and Indonesia continue to use coal and gas to generate baseload energy. We cannot possibly maintain our quality of life and position as the twelfth-largest economy without considering addressing the impact of the energy transition.

Cheap, reliable and home-grown baseload power is key to all aspects of Australia’s economy, from manufacturing to data centres. National security matters here too. While renewable energy comes with many advantages, those who advocate for 100 per cent renewables must be honest about the total costs, including the new infrastructure required for transmission and ongoing replacement of solar panels, wind turbines and batteries that are manufactured overseas. They must also explain how it is in Australia’s national interests to rely entirely on imported renewable energy components from countries such as China.

Having an energy system that is diversified and includes home-grown elements is not only good for local jobs, but it also secures our sovereignty.

Lucas Heights matters here too. The facility has given us a small but continuous thread of nuclear expertise since the 1950s. If we are serious that AUKUS is vital for our future security needs, then we must expand that expertise. Nuclear energy opens potential here.

Peter Dutton’s proposal to establish nuclear power generation in Australia offers a genuine policy contest. He will need to answer questions around cost, technology, safety and skills, but it is refreshing to have an opposition approaching their task as Robert Menzies envisaged an opposition should do, acting as a “hammer and anvil”, improving the policy choices offered to the Australian people.

In contrast, ideological opposition to a source of energy that is used by most large economies around the world represents a depressing lack of belief in Australia’s future. Even Labor hero Bob Hawke could see this. History and experience should guide our approach to the nuclear energy debate, not ideology and pipe dreams.

By Georgina Downer. Originally published in Australian Financial Review 3 July 2024