Mmm. Chocolate Mousse Royale

Peter Dutton going full Oprah is very Nathan For You. Allow me to unpack this memefest for anyone whose head just went boing! Having worked very hard to get himself into a competitive place for the next federal election, Dutts this week decided that what everyone really wanted from him was a nuclear power plant at the end of their street.

And no, it doesn’t matter that for most voters, it wouldn’t actually be at the end of their street, the same way it didn’t matter that The Voice to Parliament wouldn’t actually give rise to any of the apocalyptic nonsense that Dutts said it would.

That’s the thing about apocalyptic nonsense in politics. It might be nonsense, but it still delivers that kickin’ apocalypso beat, and people just can’t help dancing to it.

So why would Dutton stand in front of millions of voters, throwing small modular nuclear reactors at them?

It felt like nothing so much as that infamous episode of Nathan For You in which freakishly off-kilter management consultant Nathan Fielder tries to save a struggling frozen yoghurt business by adding a shit-flavoured dessert offering to their menu.

People can be weird, but honestly, not that weird, and while there is undoubtedly a small, determinedly coprophagic sliver of any sizeable population that would just love to sit in the ruins of Chernobyl or Fukushima gulping down an extra-large tub of highly unusual Chocolate Mousse Royale, it’s probably not that big a demographic.

I don’t think Dutts can get over the line with them, certainly not in the Teal seats.

And no matter how enthusiastic his weirdest supporters might be for scattering nuclear reactors all over the country, he’s gonna struggle to explain the advantages of his plan to anyone but the most ardent of his shit-eating fan base.

The maths haven’t changed since the CSIRO’s last report on the subject, and the maths are brutal.

The estimated cost for nuclear power is between $212 and $353 per megawatt-hour, compared to $69 to $101 per megawatt-hour from wind and solar, prices which are trending rapidly down for the latter and going nowhere good for the former. You might be able to make an economic argument for nuclear in a place without Australia’s comparative advantages – Scotland, say. But we have two things in abundance here – sunlight and space – that means even long-established fuel sources like coal and gas cannot compete on costs with solar and storage.

The politics are, ahem, radioactive, with both federal and state bans on nuclear power in place, meaning that what Dutts wants to do, is literally a crime. His policy is to do some nuclear-powered criming. He’ll have to convince not just the Senate, which he does not and will not control, to lift the ban at the federal level, but then he has to somehow ride over a bunch of state premiers and parliaments waiting for him with baseball bats fashioned from weapons-grade plutonium.

Good luck with that, buddy.

None of this explains why he’s doing it.

If we look at a separate issue this week, the release of the Greens’ housing program, we see another weirdly complex-but-simple policy challenge that might bear comparison. Long story short, the Greens have identified renters as a massive demographic who’ve never been represented at scale in the political process. Landlords, homeowners and the industry around them are all entrenched within the dark satanic mill that churns out what passes for housing policy in Australia. But renters? Yeah, nah, not so much.

So, the Greens are both making a pitch for support while genuinely attempting to remake the structure of the economy. You can think of their proposal to build thousands of homes and sell them ‘at cost’ to those in need, is a fairytale looking for an ogre to tear it apart. (Spoiler, ogres will be provided). But there’s no arguing that their pitch is rational. It should work for them, even if the policy itself doesn’t work.

Partly this is because the Greens can go as wild as they want with policy offers because they’re never getting into government. Not for another twenty years, at least, or until the planet is actually burning, whichever comes first.

But Dutton could be in government by this time next year. And having promised to deliver a small modular nuclear reactor to your backyard, what happens when he turns up with his shovel and starts digging?

This is a weird policy, and even weirder politics. It’s kind of insane when you drill down into it. Almost nobody wants nuclear power. Sure, those who want it, really, really, really want it. But they are one-tenth of one per cent of fuck all of the electorate.

A cynic might imagine that maybe it’s just the mining companies pulling his strings, but solar panels and grid-scale batteries don’t grow in artisanal groves of silicon trees and lithium vines. They get dug out of the earth and manufactured in gigantic industrial plants. The mining companies will do just fine out of renewables.

So why?

Why do this?

Could it be that he actually believes in this stuff?

Because that kind of delusion is enough to ensure a long, long stay in the wilderness.

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And finally, a postscript because I love the obscure details I turn up when researching these columns, and you should, too.

History.com has an entry devoted to Oprah’s famous car giveaway. We all remember the meme. Almost nobody remembers the blowback. Oprah didn’t buy the cars. They were donated by Pontiac as a form of advertising. And they ended up costing the poor recipients thousands of dollars in sales tax.

Federal and state income taxes added up to about $6,000 for most winners. Some people paid the taxes by taking out car loans; others traded their new Pontiacs for cheaper, less souped-up cars. “It’s not really a free car,” one winner said. “It’s more of a 75 percent-off car. Of course, that’s still not such a bad deal.”

Two months later, Oprah hosted another giveaway episode, this one for teachers from around the country. Their gifts were worth about $13,000 and included a $2,249 TV set, a $2,000 laptop, a $2,189 washer/dryer, sets of $38 champagne glasses and a $495 leather duffel bag. This time, the show’s producers had learned their lesson: they also gave each audience member a check for $2,500, which they hoped would cover the tax bill for all the loot. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite—most people in the audience owed the Internal Revenue Service between $4,500 and $6,000—but the PR gimmick worked: Oprah’s giveaways earned some of the highest ratings in the program’s history.