One Nation chose Victoria's largest coal plant as the stage for its formal energy-policy launch on Monday, pledging at Loy Yang A in the Latrobe Valley that the station would not be allowed to close in 2035 as planned — and that a One Nation government would repeal the state's 1983 ban on building nuclear power.
Leader Pauline Hanson and Victorian leader Warren Pickering delivered the launch two days after previewing the policy to 1,000 supporters at Marnoo, where the detail had been promised. The full platform goes further than the preview did: scrap the renewable energy zones in the state's west, scrap a coastal zone for offshore wind, and abandon Victoria's commitment to net zero emissions.
The concession at the heart of it
The centrepiece pledge arrived un-negotiated. Mr Pickering conceded the party had not spoken to Loy Yang A's owner about keeping the plant open, nor established what it would cost the state. "Those figures haven't been discussed just yet," he said. "The intent would be to encourage the industry through industry future security to tip into the capital expenditure required themselves." The party blames coal's decline on government policy, which it says has discouraged owners from maintaining their plants.
The owner answered the same day: a spokesperson for AGL said it was aware of the announcement — and reiterated Loy Yang A's planned 2035 closure date.
Nuclear, thorium and the eastern seaboard
On nuclear, Mr Pickering said Victorians "deserve an opportunity to partake in the future of nuclear technology — whether that be through new technological innovations in thorium nuclear micro-reactor technology or in accordance with our federal policy position to develop a nuclear facility on the eastern seaboard with Victoria being a beneficiary." The pledge echoes the party's federal push, with Ms Hanson calling for two nuclear plants on the east coast.
"No matter how much money you throw at them"
The expert reception was cold. Grattan Institute energy program director Tony Wood said the suite of policies could bring "huge implications" for Victoria, including risks to energy reliability and higher prices. "Coal-fired power stations are aging, like any piece of equipment," he said. "Even just throwing more money at it … that power station and the other one, Loy Yang A, will become less reliable no matter how much money you throw at them. And that puts the reliability of the grid at risk."
On nuclear, Mr Wood's objection was practical rather than ideological: cost. "None of the companies that I know of would be particularly interested in building a nuclear power station anytime soon," he said. "We don't even have a nuclear power industry. We don't have people, very many people at all doing nuclear science at university. And we don't have any regulatory structures around building nuclear."
Victoria University's Victoria Energy Policy Centre director Bruce Mountain shrugged at the renewable-zone pledge altogether: "I don't think that means terribly much," he said, describing REZs as "broad labels that the government department attaches to things" that confer no rights or permits.
The coastal offshore wind zone One Nation wants scrapped is the same one where Australia's first offshore wind auction opened this week, seeking two gigawatts to help cover the coal exits already scheduled. Victorian energy policy now has its election-season poles marked out — and both of them, this week, were planted in Gippsland.
