Only in January,Toole was staunchly pro-nuclear. “Need Feds (both sides of politics) to provide nuclear energy so all Australian residents and businesses have cheap and affordable power”,he posted on his social media. This month Toole had a change of heart.
He has broken ranks with his federal Nationals leader,David Littleproud,who last year said he would welcome a nuclear power plant in his south-west Queensland seat of Maranoa. Toole last week told his NSW Nationals party room that,on second thoughts,he does not back nuclear. Aside from taking a contrarian position to most things supported by Dugald Saunders,his successor as state Nationals leader,this is a big one.
Toole’s seat is home to the Mount Piper coal-fired power station. It is NSW’s youngest plant (if you call its 32 years in operation young). And Mount Piper,25 kilometres from Lithgow,is considered a likely Coalition pick for a nuclear site.
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Toole’s electorate,which had been Labor heartland (and the birthplace of train driver turned ALP prime minister Ben Chifley) until the great NSW Coalition landslide of 2011,also has the decommissioned Wallerawang power station.
The federal Coalition has made it clear that its proposed nuclear plants – whether new-age small modular reactors or traditional large-scale ones – would be near old coal sites to cheaply hook them into existing transmission lines. The group Nuclear for Climate Australia has identified Mount Piper and Wallerawang on its list as “probables” for such nuclear plants.
The now-shuttered Liddell power station in the Upper Hunter is also on the list,along with its neighbour Bayswater,although AGL – the biggest owner of coal-fired power stations in Australia – has already told Dutton that it wants no part in his nuclear push.