By Tom Frame
(The following is an essay written by Professor Tom Frame AM, Director, UNSW Canberra Public Leadership Research Group and Howard Library, which was published in the handbook for the Submarine Institute of Australia nuclear seminar - held in Canberra in October 2019. Professor Frame was the master of ceremonies/moderator of the seminar)
Preamble
Australians
familiar with maritime matters know that Jervis Bay is integral to the nation’s
naval defence. It has also been the focus of several important public interest
debates that have influenced the evolution of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). The
first of these debates was in 1901, shortly after Federation, arising from
concerns that the New South Wales Government would have excessive influence
over national affairs because of its then unrivalled economic power. To give
the newly established national government access to the seas and a greater role
in coastal and international trade, Jervis Bay was declared the national port
and nearly 68 square kilometres of land was transferred from New South Wales to
the Commonwealth. This was a very early attempt to re-configure Commonwealth-state
relations for the benefit of all Australians. The RAN College at Jervis Bay was
opened in 1915 with subsequent construction of operationally significant amenities
and facilities, including the Jervis Bay Airfield, the Beecroft Weapons Range
and the Shallow Water Sound Range, to support major fleet activities.
The second public interest debate
was prompted by the Gorton Government’s decision in September 1969 to consider
construction of a 500-megawatt nuclear power plant at Murray’s Beach on the
southern shore of Jervis Bay. The plan did not survive the replacement of John
Gorton, a former Minister for the Navy, as prime minister by William McMahon in
March 1971. Based on the conclusion that coal-fired power stations were cheaper
to build and easier to operate, the project was deferred in June 1971 and
eventually cancelled by the Whitlam Government in 1973. This remains the first
and only proposal for nuclear power to have received close consideration in
Australian history. Its practical legacy, a high-quality access road and a
large cleared area of land in the south-east corner of Jervis Bay, is
well-known to most graduates of the RAN College. Its political legacy, that
nuclear power is expensive and potentially injurious to the natural
environment, has continued for just as long.
Introduction
There
are few areas in Australia’s national affairs that have suffered more from a
lack of clear and consistent leadership than deliberations over the possible
provision of nuclear power. There has been some political leadership but
very little public leadership, if the two are differentiated by public
leadership’s commitment to advancing the public interest. Political leaders have
been consistently wary of raising the spectre of nuclear power. The reason is
obvious. Atomic energy is a highly divisive issue within the community eliciting
emotional responses with unpredictable electoral consequences. Those
energetically supporting the exploitation of nuclear power are countered by
those vigorously opposing every aspect of the nuclear industry. Whether this
support and opposition can be mobilised to effect voting behaviour is uncertain,
leaving governments wary of raising the subject for public comment.
The paucity of public leadership is
the focus of this essay which has three parts. The first is an outline of what is
meant by ‘public leadership’ and its relationship with the public interest. The
second examines recent inquiries into nuclear power conducted by Federal and
state governments, and the public interest considerations that have been nominated
by both the proponents and opponents of nuclear power. The third identifies
five factors that have complicated the application of a public interest test to
nuclear power. I close by suggesting a two-stage process for a constructive
discussion of whether Australia might consider the acquisition of
nuclear-powered submarines in the medium future.
Part one - Public leadership and the public interest
A
consistent refrain in Australian history is the lack of good leadership. In his
widely quoted work The Lucky Country published in 1964, Donald Horne
described Australia as ‘a lucky country run by second-rate people who share its
luck’. Fifty years later, media commentators were lamenting debilitating
instability within Australia’s political leadership as the tensions between
Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull began to resemble the turmoil that enveloped
the prime ministerships of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. Was Australia
incapable of producing competent men and women worthy of national leadership and
capable of dealing with existing challenges and emerging opportunities?
The ‘lack of good leadership’
refrain can be interpreted as either a complaint about the political class or a
lament that the country is deeply divided. It is convenient, of course, to
attribute everything that is wrong with society to a handful of people and to
their inability or refusal to give everyone what they want, when they want it.
Just as likely a cause for discontent is the population’s unwillingness to
submit to leadership or their fickle reaction to the leaders producing
compliance when it fulfils self-interest and defiance when it calls for
personal sacrifice.
If asked for a brief description of
what they seek in a leader or if invited to identify the essence of leadership,
I doubt many Australians would have given their answers more than a second
thought, let alone interrogated their own opinions for any bias or prejudice.
Perhaps, leadership is like art: people know what they like and what they do not
like but they cannot quite explain their likes or their dislikes. Consequently,
potential national leaders come and go, including among them viceroys,
parliamentarians, heads of institutions, entrepreneurs, lawyers, academics,
media personalities and sport stars until one captures the public’s attention
for reasons that may not be obvious. If their appeal is based on personality,
as it often is, their influence might last a little longer before they say or
do something effectively aligning them with an unpopular cause or an unfashionable
mindset. Their standing then begins to decline.
The rise of identity politics, the
suspicion of institutions and the spread of postmodernist angst have made it
difficult for leaders to exert influence beyond the communities in which they
themselves were nurtured and from which they initially acquired an authority to
speak publicly. Attempts by leaders to refashion the nation or to reshape
popular culture are resisted, if not resented, with the usual litany of
objections ranging from the leader’s failure to speak on behalf of every
sub-group, to the leader’s inability to understand the struggles of people who
are unlike them or who might seek different things from life. Leadership is difficult
in a society which seems to have perennially low regard for those who are
elected or appointed to leadership positions. As the nation potentially dis-integrates
into tribes and factions that are not coincident with the geographic boundaries
of a state or local government area, the notion of public leadership becomes
increasingly more problematic as the things that divide gain greater prominence
than the things that unite.
Unlike the current
fixation with what I would call popular leadership, public
leadership is differentiated from other forms of leadership in that its focus is
pursuing the public interest, a concept
similar to but distinct from the common good and social capital.
Public leadership does not seek to preference or prejudice the needs or wants
of any group at the expense of others nor does it advance personal or private
aspirations and objectives to the detriment of the wellbeing of the whole
population. Effective public leadership is indifferent to polemical agendas and
partisan goals and transcends the practical preoccupations of administration
and management. If the
point and purpose of an activity is to further the interests (however these are
understood) of private individuals or specific organisations rather than the
entire nation, it should not be considered an exercise of public leadership.
Nuclear
power involves a wide range of public interest issues whose balanced and conscientious
consideration requires the exercise of firm public leadership to ensure the discussion
of any proposal’s merits does not drift beyond what will serve the interests of
the Australian people, individually and collectively. Articulating these interests
and clarifying their relative importance and priority are public leadership
tasks.
Part two - The public interest and nuclear power
In
contrast to its principal friends and allies, Australia has never relied on
nuclear power as a foundation for national prosperity nor depended upon nuclear
weapons as a bulwark of national security. As a country with a small population
and a limited industrial base, economic modelling of nuclear power’s benefits has
proved a complicated exercise. As a well-connected medium power, there has been
no pressing need for a locally developed nuclear weapons although the
advantages flowing from their possession have been canvassed from time-to-time.
Australian governments in the 1950s and the 1960s occasionally considered the
possibility of nuclear power and nuclear weapons but neither was pursued to acquisition.
In the early 1970s, an anti-nuclear
movement gained momentum in Australia with candidates from the Nuclear
Disarmament Party (NDP) elected to several parliaments in the 1980s, propelled
by the Hawke Labor Government’s support for uranium mining and endorsement of
the United States’ nuclear weapons program. Although the NDP was de-registered
in 1992 and anti-nuclear rallies faded from view, it was not until the latter
years of the Howard Government (2004-2007) that publicly declared attitudes toward
nuclear power among legislators in Federal and state parliaments began to
change.
Conscious that its electoral appeal
was steadily declining throughout 2005, the Coalition needed to address the effects
of climate change and the impact of rising energy costs. The 2006 report of the
House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry and Resources, Australia’s
uranium – Greenhouse friendly fuel for an energy hungry world, and the 2007
report of the Uranium Mining, Processing and Nuclear Energy Review Taskforce headed
by former Telstra CEO, Ziggy Switkowski, provided impetus for a fresh
consideration of nuclear energy in the context of mitigating Australia’s greenhouse
gas emissions.
Both inquiries recognised two
things: first, every country with an economy larger than Australia’s relied on
nuclear energy; and second, Australia was the only country among the world’s 25
leading economies that had excluded nuclear energy from its baseload power supply.
While the Standing Committee’s report could be dismissed as a partisan document
reflecting the Coalition’s position on nuclear energy, the report of the Switkowski-led
taskforce, consisting of well-regarded scientists and academics without
political affiliations, was disparaged by some critics as little more than a
‘roadmap for Australia to go nuclear’. This was unfair and unjustified
commentary. Precluded by its initial brief from making formal recommendations,
the taskforce thought ‘nuclear should be on the table’ as it provided an
important option for policymakers to consider. The Howard Government was
emboldened to act by both the report and its reception.
In opening a new research reactor
at Lucas Heights late in April 2007, Prime Minister Howard spoke of nuclear
power as ‘a source of hope’ that ought to be ‘part of Australia’s future’.[i]
The Government declared its intention to launch a comprehensive nuclear power
program with the prospect of more than 50 generation plants being built
throughout the country. In response to the Howard Government’s newly acquired enthusiasm
for nuclear power, the Tasmanian Labor Government led by Paul Lennon and the Queensland
Labor Government led by Peter Beattie considered legislation to ban nuclear
power generation. The aim was ending any discussion of nuclear power before a
debate had even begun. A representative of the Queensland Nuclear Free
Alliance, Robin Taubenfeld, was surprised by the Howard Government’s ‘highly
irresponsible’ policy announcement which she described as ‘political suicide’. As
there was a Labor government in every state and territory, the Federal Coalition
explored a series of legal routes to override state objections should their
governments stand in the way of Canberra’s plans. This was a less than
satisfactory basis on which to conduct a discussion that required the goodwill
of parliamentarians and the people throughout the country. In this context, discerning
the public interest had already been displaced as the foremost consideration
for legislators.
The Federal Labor Opposition led by
Kevin Rudd campaigned strongly against nuclear power ahead of the 2007
election. Rudd described the Howard Government’s plans as being ‘too expensive,
too dangerous, too slow, when it comes to impact on greenhouse gas emissions’.[ii]
During the campaign a number of Liberal candidates sensed the electoral
unpopularity of the Coalition’s support for nuclear power and distanced themselves
from the policy. After nearly 12 years in power and the electorate eager for
change, the Coalition was defeated at the November 2007 election with a large
swing to Labor. But within 12 months of taking office, there were signs the
Rudd Government was more open to nuclear power than the electorate had been led
to believe. Switkowski thought Labor could be persuaded as to its merits and
told a business forum:
We will get there. I’m sure we will
get there, whether it happens in the next term of government or the one after …
The attitude in Australia, I think, will move from concern to grudging
acceptance, to enormous relief that we have this very efficient technology and
these vast reserves that will give us … the lowest cost, safest, cleanest form
of base load electricity.
Despite Switkowski’s optimism,
Federal Labor maintained its opposition to expanding the nuclear industry
although the Gillard Government eventually agreed to sell Australian uranium to
India and senior ministers, Martin Ferguson and Gary Gray, were known to support
closer consideration of nuclear power. Elsewhere, Labor’s stance was
inconsistent.
The Weatherill Government in South
Australia announced it would hold a royal commission into the Nuclear Fuel
Cycle in March 2015. The inquiry would be conducted by former state governor
and retired naval officer, Rear Admiral Kevin Scarce. Despite being accused of
personal bias towards the nuclear power industry when appointed, Scarce
asserted his openness to all points of view. This openness was implicit in the
findings and recommendations of his report which was completed in May 2016. He supported
establishment of a nuclear waste facility and expansion of mining and export
activities. Although the processing of uranium and the generation of nuclear
power were unlikely to be financially viable within South Australia, Scarce
recommended repealing Federal and state prohibitions on expanding the nation’s
nuclear industry. By the end of 2016, however, the Weatherill Government
appeared to have lost interest in the report it had commissioned. A change of
government following the March 2018 state election did not lead to a revival of
interest in either the inquiry’s findings or recommendations. The new premier,
Steve Marshall, said nuclear power was not on his ‘short term’ radar although
it could ‘come back on the agenda down the track’ if needed to achieve cheaper
electricity prices.
Disappointed his report was
effectively ‘shelved’, Scarce remarked in July 2019 that:
we have to find a way to restart
this discussion. Whether the answer ends up being for or against, you can trust
the Australian people to have a mature discussion. At the moment we can’t even
have the discussion because it’s not politically acceptable. The longer we go
without having the debate, the less options we have for the future. We are not
giving ourselves the options we need and we only have a limited time to do so.[iii]
His judgment that the Australian people
could be trusted to participate in a mature debate curiously overlooked the ‘verdict’
of the ‘citizens’ jury’ convened by the Weatherill Government to consider his
recommendations. Although this form of ‘deliberative democracy’ was widely criticised
as a flawed approach for assessing complex public interest claims,[iv]
earlier expressions of bi-partisan support rapidly evaporated when the jury
rejected Scarce’s recommendations citing a ‘lack of trust’ in regulators and
regulations. Lamenting that ‘the citizens’ jury cut the legs out from under
[his report]’, Scarce wanted discussion to continue. Had it continued, he
remarked, ‘we would have had an answer one way or another, and at the moment we
don’t’. He pointed to Australia’s ‘terrific nuclear record’ and the capacity to
‘develop a regulatory system that would be the best in the world’. Plainly, he
was in favour of expanding Australia’s nuclear industry. There remained,
however, a requirement for ‘the social will to do it, and that’s the thing that
worries the politicians’. In essence, could the public overcome its anxiety if a
policy were shown to serve their interests?
The challenge for those who were
undecided within the parliament and among the people was sifting the available
evidence and evaluating competing claims when discussion of nuclear power was highly
emotive and obviously polarised. Those in favour of nuclear power characterised
their opponents as ‘primitivists’ living in the distant past and ‘alarmists’
who exploited ignorance to exaggerate community fear of catastrophic accidents
resembling the system failures at Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in
1986, and following a natural disaster, such as at Fukushima in 2011.
Some anti-nuclear activists portrayed
their opponents as people ‘so far to the right of the political spectrum that
right-wing ideologues think they are right wing ideologues’. In an article
claiming the nuclear power debate had become the new frontline in the nation’s
culture wars, a spokesman for Friends of the Earth Australia, Jim Green,
claimed the ‘far-right supports nuclear power if only because the ‘green left’
opposes it’. Green asserted that ‘support for nuclear power is increasingly
marginalised to the far-right. Indeed support for nuclear power has become a
sign of tribal loyalty: you support nuclear power (and coal) or you’re a
cultural Marxist, and you oppose renewables and climate change action or you’re
a cultural Marxist’. In portraying supporters of nuclear power as an
‘extremist’ cabal, Green included the Minerals Council of Australia, the
Institute of Public Affairs and The Australian newspaper as part of a
concerted attempt to ‘wedge’ the Labor Party and the Green Left. He quoted
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young:
Talk of overturning the ban on
nuclear power in Australia is crackpot stuff. Aside from being a dangerous
technology, nuclear power is wildly expensive and would take a decade or more
to build. It would be a funny joke if it wasn’t so embarrassing to have the
Nationals, who are in government and who sit around the cabinet table, pushing
for this. These people are meant to be in charge, and they’re running around
like a bunch of lunatic cowboys.
Intentionally polarising the debate
was not restricted to activists and politicians. In January 2019, the Climate
Council, which consisted of academics and administrators, issued a media
release contending that nuclear power plants:
are not appropriate for Australia –
and probably never will be. Nuclear power stations are highly controversial,
can’t be built under existing law in any Australian state or territory, are a
more expensive source of power than renewable energy, and present significant
challenges in terms of the storage and transport of nuclear waste, and use of
water.
There
were two notable things in the statement. The first was the word ‘appropriate’.
It was a curious choice implying conflicting values rather than objective
calculations of cost and benefit. The second was the observation that nuclear
power plants were ‘controversial’, implying that being controversial made them
inadvisable.
The Climate Council was formed by
members of the Climate Commission, a body established and funded by the Gillard
Government but later disbanded by the Abbott Government on the grounds of
administrative efficiency (the Council’s functions were transferred to the
Department of Environment). The Council has been accused of polemical bias but
stands by its independence and autonomy as a non-for-profit organisation funded
by community donations. Perhaps unwisely given its apolitical aspirations, its
CEO lamented the re-election of the Morrison Government in May 2019 and
applauded the failure of Tony Abbott, the Coalition’s foremost climate change
sceptic, to retain his seat in the House of Representatives. Comments of this
kind cast the Coalition parties as adversaries to be defeated rather than
public leaders to be persuaded.
The unexpected Coalition election victory
in May 2019 revealed that opinion polling had become a fraught activity producing
unreliable ‘results’. Most pollsters had tipped a substantial swing against the
Coalition and the election of a major Labor government citing environmental
concerns as an important vote-driver. Among the lessons to be learned from the
polls’ failure to depict the electorate’s mood accurately, it became clear that
what an individual voter thinks about a particular issue considered in
isolation will not necessarily determine how he or she will cast their vote at
the ballot box. There are many and diverse reasons shaping a voter’s decision
to preference one party or one candidate above and before another. There are also
far fewer ‘rusted on’ voters. The once predictable tribal loyalties associated
with Australian politics are rapidly dissolving. With more ‘undecided’ voters than
ever before, the major parties are experiencing rapid and substantial swings
for and against both their candidates and their policies. It also seems that growing
concerns about climate change and energy security have made voters less likely
to punish parties willing to put all options ‘on the table’, including the
nuclear option, to contain energy costs and guarantee energy supply.
Evidence of greater community
openness to considering nuclear power is behind the inquiry into the nuclear
fuel cycle established in August 2019 to be conducted by the House of
Representatives Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy. It is addressing
a number of issues: waste management and storage; health and safety;
environmental impacts; energy affordability and reliability; economic
feasibility; community engagement; workforce capability; security implications;
and, national consensus. Openness to considering nuclear power should not, of
course, be mistaken for endorsing the construction of reactors. Considering is
not deciding. Nonetheless, the inquiry chair, Liberal member for Fairfax, Ted O’Brien,
thought concerns about climate change and advances in nuclear technology were
‘game changers’: ‘you can’t contend there’s an existential threat to life as we
know it due to climate change and then oppose the cleanest form of
industrial-scale energy generation the world has seen’[v].
He was optimistic that ‘we have a national debate ahead of us on a major energy
issue – nuclear, no less – without the hysterics and hyperbole that has dogged
energy policy in this country for far too long’.
O’Brien’s words were echoed by the
New South Wales Treasurer, Dominic Perrottet, who deemed energy security ‘the
biggest challenge of our time’. He thinks Federal legislators should consider
nuclear power ‘and not just putting it off the table for ideological reasons
from the past’.[vi]
The state’s One Nation leader, Mark Latham, echoed Perrottet’s concern that the
economy rested precariously on energy security. But this concern does not mean
the public will, or necessarily should, support nuclear power.
Residual anxieties about the
expense and safety of nuclear power continue to fuel political opposition to
its introduction in Australia with claims of distortion and even deceit on the
part of nuclear advocates. My UNSW Canberra colleague, Associate Professor
Heiko Timmers, is an experimental physicist. He thinks the cost of replacing
coal-generated electricity with renewables ‘could be huge. These costs may possibly
exceed those of building nuclear power stations’.[vii]
While the business case for nuclear power was ‘shaky’, he thinks ‘a much
stronger argument can be made for the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle:
storing nuclear waste’. In reply, Paul Richards, an American seismologist,
claims that storing nuclear waste was a ‘trojan horse’ that obscured a desire
to introduce nuclear power and nuclear weapons.[viii]
In essence, Richards argues, any expansion of the nuclear industry will increase
the possibility of nuclear weapons proliferation. Is this a reasonable
observation or an objectionable tactic?
Notably, 30 years after his
government looked seriously at nuclear power, John Gorton told a Sydney
newspaper that ‘we were interested in this thing because it could provide
electricity to everybody and … if you decided later on, it could make an atomic
bomb’. The Gorton Government signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty the
following year (1970) but the prime minister had no intention of ratifying it,
a task which was left to the Whitlam Government. Gorton’s foremost advisor on
nuclear policy was the first Vice-Chancellor of the University of New South
Wales, Professor Sir Philip Baxter. A chemical engineer and a vigorous advocate
of nuclear power, Baxter chaired the Australian Atomic Energy Commission from
1957 until 1972. He also believed the advent of nuclear power had military
applications, declaring in 1975:
Over the years I have initially advocated that we
should create the necessary technology and industrial background to enable us
to move into a nuclear armament quickly. More recently things have changed
internationally. I'm now of the opinion that we should begin actively to create
nuclear weapons for the defence of Australia.[ix]
Baxter was an unashamed intellectual
elitist. He argued that in the provision of energy, ‘only experts understand
the problems and can advise governments on what they should do’.[x]
He cited the analogy of aircraft pilots: because public safety depends on them
being experts, only those who understand the possibilities and potential of
nuclear power can advise governments on energy policy and provision. He was
largely unconcerned with the political, economic, social and ethical issues
associated with nuclear power. Baxter fully supported the Gorton Government’s
Jervis Bay proposal but was ill-equipped to consider the environmental objections
to its location which would only have increased with time. The site’s most
significant virtue, that it was owned by the Commonwealth, meant state
government approval to proceed with the project was not required. Baxter knew
that developing nuclear weapons was far more problematic politically than
providing nuclear power. He was ultimately unable to present a politically
acceptable case for either.
To counteract continuing suspicion
that the advent of nuclear power will increase the likelihood of Australia
developing nuclear weapons, the case for nuclear power, and nuclear-powered
submarines in particular, will need to assure the electorate that nuclear
weapons are not, and will not, be part of an expanded nuclear industry in
Australia.
Part three - A way ahead
There
are five factors that could complicate the application of a public interest
consideration of the issues associated with nuclear power. They can be briefly
summarised: a short-term electoral cycle;
a fractured political system; conflicted Commonwealth-State relations; a
partisan media; and, a self-interested electorate.
Recent Australian governments have
tended to be in permanent campaigning mode. With the period between elections being
no more than three years, the party winning office has a window of between 24
and 30 months to implement its policies before facing the people. As Australian
electorates usually give first-term governments a second term (the last
one-term administration was the Scullin Labor Government which was elected in
1929 and defeated in 1931), the party forming government can usually rely on five
to six years in power although few seem to have an agenda extending beyond one
term (noting that only three administrations since Federation have actually
complete their entitlement to a full three-year term). As any decision on
nuclear power will require substantial investment capital and will not produce
any community benefit for at least 15 years, the party making the decision to
proceed with nuclear power will absorb all the political pain without
experiencing any political gain during its term in office. Such a decision
would need to be politically selfless.
Australia’s adversarial political
system, which sets a government against an opposition, can obscure rather than
clarify the public interest. The two-party system has a role in testing and
tempering the assumptions and claims associated with government policy
development and decision-making. It can also divert attention from close
consideration of the public interest when an opposition deliberately takes a
contrary view – irrespective of whether it can be reconciled with a fair-minded
assessment of the public interest – for the purposes of denying the government
supremacy in parliament and credibility in the electorate. As all parties are
committed to broadening their support base and neutralising their opposition,
the government is also susceptible to choosing the politically most palatable policy
option and the least confrontational administrative action rather than
committing itself to the policy and the decision that most effectively and
efficiently advances the public interest. While politics is essentially a
contest of ideas, willingness to engage in compromise for political purposes
might assist the ruling party to make a decision but comes at the expense of a
single-minded pursuit of the public’s interests.
The evolution of Commonwealth-State
relations also works against an even-handed consideration of nuclear power.
Since Federation in 1901, the Commonwealth has expanded its capacity to govern
because of its enlarged revenue raising capacity. After 1910 when the
Commonwealth was no longer obliged to return three-quarters of customs revenues
to the states and 1942 when the High Court ruled that the states could not tax income,
the Commonwealth has regularly used its economic power to impose its political
will on the states. The limits of the Commonwealth’s legal powers and the
states’ rights to resist the exercise of those powers has been the subject of
several High Court cases concerning the Commonwealth’s desire to act in what it
considers the national interest and the determination of a state government to
oppose such action within its territory. In several instances, a state government
has opposed the exercise of Commonwealth power to demonstrate its commitment in
defending the rights the state and the interests of its people. Conversely, the
Commonwealth has opposed the decision of a state government which it deems
contrary to the national interest or a violation of Australia’s international
obligations. A Commonwealth decision relating to nuclear power would require action
on the part of a state government, action which could be thwarted by a power
struggle between one or more jurisdictions especially in circumstances in which
a decisive electoral advantage was apparent.
The media are vital to the flow of
public information and crucial to interpretations of its significance. Aside
from organisations and publications that represent a particular segment of the
electorate or appeal to a certain body of opinion, the mainstream media –
television, radio and newspapers – continue to ‘frame’ conversations about
matters of public interest. Aside from concerns about the influence of media
ownership on editorial policy, the narrowing of opinion and the increase in
polemical commentary is likely to shape public discussion of nuclear power and
the potential exploitation of this issue for partisan purposes that may not
serve to elucidate the relevant public interests.
Finally, a popular culture that
emphasises individual wants ahead of collective needs can distort the
consideration of the public interest by elected and appointed officials.
Long-term investments frequently have long-term consequences. The decision to
expand Australia’s nuclear industry will require investment in infrastructure
and impose a continuing burden on the nation’s finances. One generation may be
unwilling to fund benefits accruing to the next. Future generations may lament the
debts left by their forebears. Conversely, the cost of research into renewable
energy development might ultimately exceed expenditure on nuclear power but ultimately
prove better for the natural environment. In such circumstances, electricity
prices might continue to rise but the nation is freed from the burden of nuclear
waste management. Decisions about public investment in energy sector research
and development involve more than economic imperatives although a
self-interested electorate might be drawn to a solution that serves individual
financial interests narrowly conceived rather than public social interests
broadly considered.
Given the existence of so many
complex issues, a two-stage process would assist a public interest
consideration of nuclear power. The first stage is identifying all of the
relevant considerations that bear upon the public interest and determining, on
the basis of those considerations, whether the public’s interests are advanced
by nuclear power. The current inquiry has identified some but not all of the
relevant public interest considerations. The second is contingent on the first.
If a public interest case can be made for nuclear power, as much of the public
as possible need to be convinced that nuclear power indeed serves their
interests and that consensus is needed to support the immediate costs incurred
to pursue long-term benefits.
If the case for nuclear power
cannot survive a rigorous public interest examination, the matter is settled.
But if a case can be made, the government will need to embark on a journey with
the Australian people. Their support is contingent on gaining and maintaining their
trust, an important point made by Michael Angwin, former chief executive of the
Australian Uranium Association. He argued that trust is indispensable to the
establishment of an Australian nuclear industry and building trust rather than
reactors is the foremost task for its advocates. Angwin thinks that fears of
nuclear power are rational but that trust is the ‘antidote to fear’. Such trust
is not the outcome of promises but actions. He suggests that ‘bipartisan political support is one
of the starting points for building trust’. Such trust would be built on a
series of commitments which he suggests might include:
We will not create the conditions for
a nuclear industry unless Australians trust it and support it.
We will not proceed from one stage to
another unless there is trust and support.
We will not force any nuclear
facility on any community.
Any nuclear development must not
foreclose on any other community, industry, economic or infrastructure
development.
Such an approach will
enable people to make up their own
minds. Clearly, this approach anticipates that people may well make up their
minds to oppose nuclear power. Those with a strong belief in the energy and
climate change benefits of nuclear power may find this a challenging
possibility. But unless the trust-building task is approached in that way, it
will likely fail. The overarching demeanour of the government that embarks upon
this path should be sceptical, disinterested and open-minded.
Angwin’s
contention is built on broad agreement that nuclear power advances the public
interest. It assumes the exercise of public leadership.
The challenge of public leadership in
this context is two-fold. The first is creating an environment in which
individuals are encouraged to overcome their own self-interest in the
expectation that the public of which they are members will be enriched by the
collective pursuit of interests that are common to all. The second is building
public confidence in the handling of evidence and the sifting of argument to
identify the most efficient and effective means of fulfilling a shared aspiration
– cheaper and more reliable energy. Both of these tasks transcend the formal
remit of parliamentarians and administrators. Organisations like the Submarine
Institute of Australia are essential to hosting a wide-ranging discussion and
encouraging a genuine contest of ideas. In the absence of community goodwill
and consensus that the public interest is being served, any policy is liable to
provoke resentment and resistance. Without individuals in the community
believing their destiny is better served by working with rather than against
others, the public interest will be little more than an empty political slogan.
Leaders are key players and their leadership is decisive.
[i] Richard Macey, ‘Nation’s energy future is nuclear:
Howard’, Sydney Morning Herald, 21 April 2007, p. 1.
[ii] Katharine Murphy, ‘PM puts faith in nuclear power’, The
Age, 30 December 2006, p. 1.
[iii] David Penberthy, ‘It’s time to push nuclear option’, The
Australian, 25 July 2019.
[iv]
https://indaily.com.au/opinion/2016/11/11/inside-the-chaos-and-bias-of-the-citizens-jury/
[v]
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/nuclear-debate-without-hysterics/news-story/d8c0fb92c54697b1aa439ca8f3dc34b8
[vi]
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/biggest-challenge-of-our-time-perrottet-s-warning-on-energy-security-20190829-p52m6c.html
[vii]
https://theconversation.com/australia-should-explore-nuclear-waste-before-we-try-domestic-nuclear-power-121361
[viii]
See
https://antinuclear.net/2019/08/06/paul-richards-refutes-heiko-timmers-push-for-australia-to-import-nuclear-wastes/
[ix]
Christine M Leah, Australia and the Bomb, Palgrave
MacMillan, New York, 2004. p. 83.
[x] Philip Baxter, Canberra Times, 27 June 1979.
