Peter Dutton’s nuclear fiction ignores too many legal obstacles

I felt conflicted about treating Peter Dutton’s nuclear “policy” as serious enough to warrant any response at all. 

But then I read an ABC headline uncritically repeating the Coalition’s claim it “could press on ‘in the national interest’ to establish nuclear reactors in seven communities even if locals oppose it”, and I thought, okay, can’t ignore it.

So let’s explore the legal obstacles to his plan that Dutton says either don’t exist or can be overcome with a bucket of money.

Much early attention is focusing on the fact that the premiers of the states in which the reactors will supposedly be built have already said they don’t want them and won’t be changing the law to allow them.