Peter Dutton has broken every single rule when it comes to unveiling radical policy as opposition leader, tearing up the script and gambling with his party's chances at the next election with his nuclear policy.

If he can pull it off and convince enough voters that his blueprint for an Australian nuclear future is feasible and preferable, it will be the most unorthodox approach we've seen from an opposition leader in recent memory. It will rewrite our understanding of how modern politics works and reshape Australia.

Dutton has just placed a target on his back — and many of his state and even federal colleagues are scratching their heads trying to work out what the larger strategy here is. Is it cunning genius or the longest political self-destruction?

But what will it cost?

For months, journalists have been inquiring about when and why the nuclear policy announcement was being delayed. Senior Coalition figures informed me that the opposition — knowing full well that Labor and others would throw everything at pulling it apart — were doing their most comprehensive piece of work to deliver a "bulletproof" policy that could withstand dissection and sustained attack.

Yet when Dutton and his colleagues stood up before the media yesterday, they outlined a policy with many questions unanswered — including, most crucially, the actual cost of their nuclear rollout. The Coalition says it will reveal the cost down the track. But to leave unanswered such a crucial detail when the entire debate is centred around the cost of energy leaves the policy vulnerable and impossible to critically assess.