Peter Dutton claims there’s enough water for nuclear – but Gippsland MP Darren Chester says expert review still needed

The Coalition is sending conflicting signals to voters over whether it has properly accounted for the enormous water demands of its proposed nuclear plan, with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton insisting the issue has already been dealt with, while senior Opposition frontbencher - Gippsland MP Darren Chester - says critical assessments are still years away.

During Wednesday night’s ABC Leaders Debate, Dutton insisted water allocations had been analysed for all seven proposed nuclear sites.

“We’re comfortable with the analysis that we’ve done,” he said.

However, earlier that same day, Chester told ABC Gippsland no decisions could be made without a two to two-and-a-half-year investigation to determine whether enough water was available.

“You actually have to do the expert analysis to find out what water is available and what's possible in each of the seven sites” he said.

Chester explained that the Coalition’s nuclear plan has a two step process: the first is to win the election on May 3 so that they can overturn the national moratorium on nuclear energy, and then second “the experts would then do the site analysis around things like seismology and water and the disposal waste and the access to transmission lines”. 

The mixed messaging comes just a week after the release of a new report by Professor Andrew Campbell, former head of Land & Water Australia, which found the proposed reactors would require up to 200 gigalitres of water a year. The report, commissioned by Liberals Against Nuclear, concluded that running the proposed five AP1000 reactors at Loy Yang would need roughly double the water currently used by the Valley’s three coal-fired plants, and may necessitate aggressive water buybacks from farmers in the region.

Local concerns are showing in Gippsland, where a protest on Tuesday in Traralgon saw residents and union officials deliver a petition to Chester’s office to object to nuclear reactors being built in their backyard. On the same day, former Liberal MP for Monash Russell Broadbent - now running as an independent - acknowledged local concerns in a conversation with The Gippsland Monitor. While supportive of exploring nuclear technology in principle, Broadbent said current proposals should not go ahead without community backing.

 “If the community doesn’t want it, I think they should have a say in how they’re planning for these issues,” he said.

Watch our video explainer on Professor Campbell’s report here:

Thumbnail: Nuclear power cooling towers. Credit: Lee Lawson on Unsplash