Entrepreneur Dick Smith is backing Peter Dutton's plan to build the first of seven nuclear reactors in little more than a decade - describing it as good leadership.
The 80-year-old philanthropist and adventurer has likened the Opposition Leader's plan to have nuclear power in Australia by 2035 to former Liberal prime minister John Howard's successful re-election campaign for the GST in 1998.
'I've never used the word risk at all,I think it's just leadership,' he told Daily Mail Australia from the remote Birdsville Track in South Australia.
'It will be like John Howard's successful GST entry,that's what I compare it with and that's why I think Peter Dutton is showing showing some really good leadership.'
The Liberal Party leader is proposing to have Australia's first nuclear reactor by 2035 with a second one operating by 2037,and has announced seven possible sites in every mainland state.
Mr Smith predicted the ALP federally and at state level would come around to backing nuclear power - arguing Prime Minister Anthony Albanese now supported nuclear-powered submarines as part of the AUKUS deal.
Mr Dutton on Wednesday tweeted an image of a Rolls-Royce small nuclear reactor concept. But no country in the world has yet operated small modular reactors that produce 300 megawatts,or 300million watts of power
'A nuclear power station means probably 2,000 less wind turbines so all of those people will be supporting nuclear.
'The wind farms are intermittent and unpredictable so you could never run a country,especially now that Anthony Albanese is saying that we are going to industrialise more and make things like solar cells. You need an incredible lot of energy and that's impossible without nuclear power.'
Australia banned nuclear power in 1998 after the Howard government agreed to a Greens amendment to get support for a new research reactor for nuclear medicine at Lucas Heights in Sydney's south.
When it came to storing nuclear waste,Mr Smith suggested Olympic Dam in South Australia,which is also a known deposit for uranium.
'I've been down in the mine at Olympic Dam - there's huge,great cavities where we took uranium out,that's where we should store the uranium,' he said.
Mr Smith was unsure if Mr Dutton would win the next election with a nuclear power policy.
'I don't know that - I think he'll make a good prime minister,' he said.
'I think we have a good prime minister now and I'm hoping,before the next election,that Labor will change its view and support nuclear power.'
Anthony AlbanesePeter DuttonQueensland
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