- CONTEXT: One of the most central planned actions by those in Australia proposing a move to nuclear energy is the cutting of '36,000 public servant positions in Canberra'. ( David Littleproud, Triple M interview, August 2024) !
PROBLEM: 'A huge new bureaucracy, numbering thousands of EXTRA public servant positions would need to be created to establish and support a nuclear power industry'!!
....'a civil nuclear power program including 'institutional architecture requiring the EXPANSION of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency and CREATION of a new independent nuclear energy co-ordinating authority AND a government business enterprise to be called Affordable Energy Australia.' (O'Brien speaking in 2024): in other words a whole newly created public service department possibly equivalent to the size of the NDIS or Services Australia!
* AND WHERE DO WE FIND THE SKILLS TO ESTABLISH THIS ENLARGED PUBLIC SERVANT WORKFORCE?
'Established nuclear power countries in comparable democracies such as USA have very large public regulatory organisations rigorously covering issues of skills, construction, safety, finance and radioactive waste... no one commercially wanted it'.
'What (Australia would need to do (to build the necessary public servant structures) is almost certainly get people from overseas.... we will have to buy experience from overseas.. and buying experience IS NOT CHEAP!' [ Greg Bourne]
(All paid for of course by Australian taxpayers!)
IN A NUTSHELL! Two more big problems with the nuclear energy proposal -
* First, the need for an INCREASED highly trained and skilled public servant workforce when the promoters of the 'coal-to-nuclear' energy proposal mean to significantly reduce the size of the existing public service!
* Second, the increased number of public servants required to establish a nuclear power industry and everything to support and regulate it will need to be found and brought to, and trained to work in the Australian nuclear energy industry frameworks (which will be different to the systems in which they have worked previously)- THE COSTS OF ALL THIS TO BE BORNE BY AUSTRALIAN TAXPAYERS!
*As every investigation and report shows the transition to RENEWABLE energies are significantly less costly than nuclear - in money, in safety and environmental damage. Australia does not need nuclear energy: it is blessed with more than sufficient sun, wind and waves to give us the energy we need!
[by David Smith for 'Electrifying Bradfield Inc. based on Barlow.K., 'Exclusive: Dutton's nuclear plan requires 'huge' new bureaucracy', The Saturday Paper, February 1-7, 2025, pp1 & 4.