Bowen attacks Dutton as ‘alternative PM from the alt-right’

Brisbane Times
July 17, 2023


Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen will denounce Peter Dutton as the “alternative prime minister from the alt-right” in a major speech to an energy summit, which the opposition has condemned as childish, while attacking his support for nuclear power and accusing him of accommodating climate deniers and vaccine sceptics within the party’s ranks.

In an address to the Australian Clean Energy Summit on Tuesday, Bowen will accuse the opposition leader of presiding over a “cabal of climate denial that runs policy in the federal opposition”.

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen will accuse Opposition Leader Peter Dutton of being the “alternative prime minister from the alt-right”.


“In 2023, the alternative government of Australia is replete with climate change deniers,” Bowen will say, according to a draft extract of the speech.

The minister’s attack on Dutton, linking him to extremists, comes after Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney in June charged campaigners against the Voice referendum of spreading misinformation by “importing American-style Trump politics”.

Bowen will accuse Dutton of condoning fringe “alt-right” views within his ranks, highlighting the letter of endorsement he wrote for controversial Liberal Queensland Senator Gerard Rennick who was dumped by party preselectors earlier this month.

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“The man who wants to be considered as the alternative prime minister of Australia strongly endorsed the candidacy of a man who engages daily in blatant conspiracy theory propagation and disinformation when it comes to climate and vaccines,” Bowen will say.

“He is the alternative prime minister from the alt-right.”

The term “alt-right” was originally associated with the resurgence of far-right white nationalist groups during the Trump era, but has since been used by some commentators to refer more generally to extreme right-wing ideologies and the crossover with conspiracy movements, particularly during the pandemic.



Dutton is on leave, but acting Opposition Leader Sussan Ley responded on his behalf, saying Bowen was “more focused on insults than solutions” and was diminishing the character of the Albanese government.

“It is time for Chris Bowen to grow up. It is time for him to take responsibility for the energy crisis that is spinning out of control on his watch and get on with the job,” Ley said.

Sussan Ley called Bowen’s accusations “juvenile” and said the energy crisis was “spinning out of control on his watch”.


“We are committed to strong action on climate change and to net zero and I reject Chris Bowen’s juvenile commentary.”

Bowen will name Coalition MPs Barnaby Joyce, Keith Pitt, Colin Boyce and Nationals Leader David Littleproud as the vanguard of the Coalition’s attack on renewables, but will single out Rennick and South Australian Liberal senator Alex Antic as revellers “in the climate-denying, vaccine-decrying, World Economic Forum-fearing, Putin-loving dark nether regions of the kooky right”.

“The fact that the Coalition is perfectly happy to accommodate these denizens of denial should fill anyone concerned about climate change with dread,” Bowen will say.

“The existence of this bloc in the Liberal National Party is a handbrake on sensible policy from the conservative side of the aisle and an indication that a conservative government, should one be elected, would be even worse than a return to the ten years of delay we so recently emerged from.”

Rennick, who argued in the past that COVID vaccines were unsafe and ineffective and that “climate change is junk science”, said Bowen’s comments were a “slur” and “childish” while Antic said the minister should “try turning his mind to the damage his policies have done to Australians’ power prices”.

Bowen will also use his speech to step up the government’s attack on Dutton’s push for nuclear power to be part of Australia’s energy mix, accusing him of failing to understand how renewables work and deriding nuclear as a “fantasy story”.

Dutton used his budget reply speech last year to call for a debate on nuclear power, and in a speech earlier this month proposed that Australia’s energy demands could be met cost-effectively by building small nuclear reactors on the site of ageing coal-fired power stations.


Dutton goes nuclear with budget attack on energy and appeal to women
Bowen will tell the conference that using nuclear to power Australian homes would be expensive, slow to build, unproven, not flexible, and produces enormous waste.

whiteknight wrote on Jul 18^th, 2023 at 8:18am:


So what if it produces enormous waste?? Why is that lying hypocrite Bowen suddenly pretending to be concerned about that?

I am not against nuclear power but it is not a panacea for our needs.

We have lots of coastline—off shore wind energy, tide and wave energy too can be harnessed

We have lots of drylands in the N, NW of the country—idea for solar.

Well - what a surprise!

I think we're all more interested in hearing how the bills will come down... alongside how many of these pricks and their families actually hold shares in power provider companies.

Now then - giving the peons temporary relief with a cash grant lasts one bill - NEXT!!

I'll go radical and say resume the bloody lot and tell 'em all to get stuffed.

whiteknight wrote on Jul 18^th, 2023 at 8:18am:



So what is the amount of this "enormous waste"?

New designs mean they are producing far less waste.

"The generation of electricity from a typical 1,000-megawatt nuclear power station, which would supply the needs of more than a million people, produces only three cubic metres of vitrified high-level waste per year, if the used fuel is recycled."

https://www.world-nuclear.org/nuclear-essentials/what-is-nuclear-waste-and-what-...

How much nuclear fuel is recycled?

[quote author=leeforward link=1689632307/11#11 date=1689668458][quote author=John_Smith link=1689632307/9#9 date=1689668006]Given that it takes that waste thousands of years before it's safe again,  what happens when that 3m2 builds up to 300000m2?[/quote]

Cubic metres. ::)

So if it were 300,000 cu metres it would take 100,000 years. And planet earth may not last that long. But it can be recycled.[/quote]

Planet earth definitely won't last that long if idiots keep pushing nuclear . Are you saying it's 100% recyclable?

lee wrote on Jul 18^th, 2023 at 6:20pm:


A good visual for this is a shipping container, which is about 30m3. A very large container ship can carry about 20000 TEU so that's about 15 container ships, but we're talking 100k years of waste. Next the retard will hold his pinky to his mouth and say, 1 million years.

Lets not forget, that is total waste and some has a half life of 30 years.

Future designs are also much more efficient at using recycled material so it's just no where near as big an issue as people make out.