Former Queensland Premier Campbell Newman slams South Australian MPs on nuclear energy stance
In an explosive interview that aired on Flow on Friday, Queensland Liberal Democrats senate candidate and former Queensland Premier Campbell Newman declared “the time for nuclear has now come.”
Speaking in relation to current MPs Rowan Ramsey and Alex Antic, who have both personally endorsed nuclear energy but blamed a lack of interest from the federal Labor party for a lack of progress., Newman said it was time for the politicians to stop “wimping out.”
“They are wimping out and I just say to them if they’re listening today – show some courage, the time for nuclear has now come.”
Speaking to Flow on the cusp of a likely Coalition deal between the National and Liberal coalition partners to take to the Glasgow climate talks, Mr Newman said:
“If the Prime Minister's going to go overseas to this conference and actually come up with an agreement, which I believe could be of huge concern to people in regional Australia...the very least they [Ramsey and Antic] should be doing is actually backing nuclear.”
Newman went on to assert that Australia is in the midst of being challenged by European diplomats and that he believes it is a critical time for Prime Minister Scott Morrison to show leadership abroad:
“If he [Morrison] would actually himself get behind nuclear, I’d feel a lot more comfortable about what’s about to happen.”
“Australia’s being dictated to by people in the UK, the United States and indeed Europe who frankly are being quite fraudulent about this.”
“What they’ve done is they’ve exported their emissions to China and other parts of the developing world and so that gets it off their balance sheet but meanwhile they’re lecturing Australia.”
Mr Newman also laid into his former National party stablemates, saying their slow deliberations on the federal government's 'net zero' carbon emissions position was all for show:
"What we're seeing from the Nationals is a pantomime. It is a performance. They carry on and make a lot of noise but at the end of the day, the deal will be done."
Listen to the full interview here on the FlowNews24 podcast:
In a wide-ranging tirade, Newman claimed he left the Liberal Party as it no longer represented the traditions of Sir Robert Menzies:
“Australia has to stand up and defend itself, we really do and that’s one of the complaints I’ve got about our PM and this current coalition government, that’s one of the reasons I left – they’re not actually backing Australia strongly and vigorously, frankly, I think they’re going to sell us out and particularly sell-out regional Australia.”
However, Mr Newman declared he was a progressive that supported drug law reform and voluntary euthanasia.