‘Rational debate’ needed on nuclear energy: Peta Credlin [Video]

Sky News host Peta Credlin has called for a “rational debate” on nuclear energy as the ABC tries to “howl down” those arguing Australia must adopt nuclear power on land.

“On the ABC’s flagship current affairs programme last night, 7:30 Report host Sarah Ferguson didn’t so much interview the Coalition’s energy spokesman, Ted O’Brien, as she engaged in poisonous sniping.

“Few witnesses in a court case have been treated as roughly as O’Brien, with every answer interrupted by the so-called interviewer.”

Ms Credlin said it wasn’t so much a hostile cross-examination as a “Soviet-style interrogation”.

“O’Brien was trying to make the reasonable point that Australia could go from decision, to operational nuclear power, within three to five years, using small modular nuclear reactors – or within six to 12 years, with a large nuclear plant, like the one just built in the Emirates.

“But Ferguson would have none of that – she kept insisting that what O’Brien said was impossible because Australia was coming off a standing start.”