Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan tried to hose down internal calls to embrace nuclear power yesterday as Labor’s Left faction regarded the campaign as payback for its advocation of a gay marriage policy change.
A group of MPs and senators from the ALP’s Right said they would argue at the party’s national conference in December next year for Labor to change its anti-nuclear energy policy.
”Where people’s energy comes from is more important to them than any issue concerning people’s sexuality,” said the NSW senator Steve Hutchins.
The push for a debate was backed by the Resources and Energy Minister, Martin Ferguson, who is a member of the Left but has long been an advocate of nuclear power. ”While nuclear power is not currently in the Australian government’s energy mix, the party always has the right at national conference to consider alternative policies,” he said
”If people want to debate nuclear power at national conference, they can. It will be for the national conference to deal with. Debate around a range of issues is always healthy for the party.”
Mr Ferguson also supports gay marriage, making him unique in the internal debate between the party’s factions.
But Ms Gillard, who has restated her view that marriage should be between a man and a woman, has enough leadership headaches, and sought to shoot down the nuclear power push yesterday.
She said the Labor conference was free to debate the nuclear issue but, effectively, would be wasting its time.
”I’d have to say to anybody who’s arguing to overturn our long-term policy [they’re] setting themselves up for a pretty tough argument,” she said.
Mr Swan, who belongs to the Right, argued last week against the campaign for gay marriage, saying Labor had nothing to gain from embracing fringe issues on the Left. But the Treasurer declined yesterday to support the nuclear power push, saying, ”I’m not a great supporter of it all - never have been. We are a country which has a plentiful supply of energy - both traditional energy supplies and renewable energy - and that’s what I’d like to exploit to its fullest, in the most environmentally responsible way.”
Nuclear power was expensive, Mr Swan said, and would only become viable if a price was put on carbon, making coal-fired power more expensive.
A Left faction source admitted that nuclear power had been raised by the Right in retaliation against the Left for placing gay marriage on the agenda at the national conference.
”They think they can use this as a bargaining chip to stop the gay marriage debate,” he said. ”They are being silly.”
The Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen, another influential member of the Right, said MPs had every right to campaign for nuclear power at the national conference but he did not think it would be adopted.
The Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, said there was ”civil war” in Labor while the opposition environment spokesman, Greg Hunt, said Ms Gillard’s authority was being eroded from both the Left and the Right.
Mr Abbott stopped short of backing nuclear power, saying there was no need to dramatically change energy sources.
