If the Liberal-National coalition takes power after the next election, and goes ahead with this plan, it will be Australia's Brexit. The owners of the coal fir

If the Liberal-National coalition takes power after the next election, and goes ahead with this plan, it will be Australia's Brexit. The owners of the coal fired plants that the Coalition wants to replace have their own plans for reusing those sites, and the Coalition didn't bother consulting them before announcing this plan. Australia is a federation of states like the US, and the Australian Constitution assigns responsibility for land use planning to the states. The Coalition have said they'll overrule the states, but there's no way for them to do that. It is a long-standing arrangement that the cleverest and most talented Australians live outside Australia. Consequently, there will be great difficulty in staffing nuclear power plants. The ANSTO reactor at Lucas Heights is for research and medical isotope production; I gather that power-generating plants require different skillsets. But like David Cameron's Brexit referendum, this isn't a serious plan - it's just a way to introduce uncertainty into the Australian energy market, to discourage investment into renewable energy. The Liberals may likely talk about free markets and the Nationals might like to wear Akubra hats like their constituents, but when it comes to policy, the Coalition is becoming to the Australian Minerals Council what Sinn Fein was to the IRA. Renewable energy is a threat to the Coalition's donors, so anything that maintains the coal-fired status quo - such as a multi-decade nuclear white elephant - is in their interest.