Labor slams Peter Dutton’s vow to scrap offshore wind zone

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has accused Peter Dutton of “economic insanity” after the Opposition Leader doubled down on his mission to rip up offshore wind farms.

As the pre-election energy battle heats up, Mr Dutton on Thursday announced that a Coalition Government would rescind the Port Stephens Offshore Wind Zone, vowing to “act in the country’s best interests.”

He blasted the Prime Minister for his “ideological pursuit of 100 per cent renewables” and accused the Government of ignoring the economic, environmental and social concerns of local communities.

“If there is a change of government at the next election, then we can give an assurance to this local community that this project will not proceed, this zone will not proceed, and we will make sure that the environment and the local community comes first. There’s been no regard, scant regard, for the impact on the local environment,” he said.

“There’s been a sham consultation process where the Government has tried to steamroll the community view, hasn’t provided reasonably-asked questions with anything that resembles a coherent answer.

“It’s obvious that... Tanya Plibersek and Anthony Albanese are more interested in saving their own seats than they are in saving this community.”

The pledge was the latest in a nationwide campaign to scrap offshore wind farms, and follows Mr Dutton’s announcement last month he would take similar action in Western Australia.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers lambasted Mr Dutton’s wind farm announcement, saying it would put thousands of jobs at risk and lead to energy instability.

“So we’re talking about a very substantial opportunity to generate clean air, and Peter Dutton in the usual destructive and risky way wants to put those thousands of jobs and all of that renewable energy at risk,” he said.

Mr Dutton argues that nuclear power reactors have an estimated lifespan of 80 years - although the world’s oldest nuclear power plan has only been in operation for 55 years - and is therefore more cost efficient than wind turbines, which need replacing every 19 years.

The Coalition plans to build seven government-owned nuclear power plants on the sites of retiring coal-fired stations across the country between 2035 and 2050, although it has not yet provided the costings for doing so.

Mr Dutton has said the details would be released before the end of the month, and said Labor’s disastrous last few months had been behind the delay.

On Thursday, Mr Dutton said he Coalition’s decisions would be made on the basis of what was best for communities and pricing.

“What the Coalition is about is delivering lower-cost electricity and gas to consumers and small businesses,” Mr Dutton said.

“Anthony Albanese is about an ideological pursuit of 100 per cent renewables in the system, which will drive up the power prices of ordinary Australians and will destroy small businesses.”

Mr Chalmers called for Mr Dutton to release his nuclear policy details.

“(Then) people will understand that nuclear energy is the most expensive form of new energy. It will push up people‘s energy bills, it won’t come in for 20 years, and even in the best-case scenario it will only provide four per cent of the power that Australia needs. So his nuclear policy is economic insanity,” Mr Chalmers said.

“It is economic madness, what he’s proposing, and that’s why it has taken them so long to come clean on the costs, the impact on bills, how long it would take and what a little sliver of power that it would provide.”