Peter Dutton says there’s enough water for nuclear, but a senior frontbencher says it’ll take years to find out

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The Coalition is sending conflicting signals to voters over whether it has properly accounted for the enormous water demands of its proposed nuclear plan, with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton insisting the issue has already been dealt with, while senior Opposition frontbencher - Gippsland MP Darren Chester - says critical assessments are still years away.

During Wednesday night’s ABC Leaders Debate, Dutton insisted water allocations had been analysed for all seven proposed nuclear sites.

“We’re comfortable with the analysis that we’ve done,” he said.

However, earlier that same day, Chester told ABC Gippsland no decisions could be made without a two to two-and-a-half-year investigation to determine whether enough water was available.

“You actually have to do the expert analysis to find out what water is available and what's possible in each of the seven sites” he said.

Chester explained that the Coalition’s nuclear plan has a two step process: the first is to win the election on May 3 so that they can overturn the national moratorium on nuclear energy, and then second “the experts would then do the site analysis around things like seismology and water and the disposal waste and the access to transmission lines”.

The mixed messaging comes just a week after the release of a new report by Professor Andrew Campbell, former head of Land & Water Australia, which found that the proposed reactors would require up to 200 gigalitres of water a year, and that there isn’t sufficient available at six out of seven proposed reactor sites. According to the report, commissioned by Liberals Against Nuclear, if the plan went ahead the reactors would likely have to be slowed down or stopped in dry periods, and may require aggressive water buybacks from farmers in the surrounding region. 

Watch our video explainer on Professor Campbell’s report here: