Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has brushed off claims Labor acted "pretty juvenile" by mocking the Coalition's nuclear power plan using memes, saying critics should "lighten up".
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan and federal frontbencher Andrew Leigh are among federal and state MPs who have shared the memes, including of a three-eyed Blinky Bill and three-eyed fish.
On Friday morning, the prime minister was asked by ABC News Breakfast if the whole thing was a bit juvenile.
Mr Albanese told News Breakfast host Michael Rowland five times to "lighten up". However, he stopped short of endorsing the posts altogether.
"We're not going to take lectures from a mob who said that an Advisory Committee for Indigenous Australians on matters that affected them would lead to everyone lose their house and their private property," he responded.
The Coalition has panned Labor for using references to The Simpsons and three-eyed fish to mock the nuclear policy it unveiled on Wednesday.
Nationals leader David Littleproud described the behaviour as "childish" when asked by the ABC.
"They're going to put our Australian submariners [on nuclear-powered submarines], they're going to sleep them next to the technology we're going to put in these towns," he said.
"Are they saying they're going to come out with three eyes?
"This is a serious conversation we're trying to have with the prime minister."
Under the plan, seven nuclear reactors would be built on the sites of retiring, or retired, coal-fired power plants across five states.
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They would be government owned, and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has declared the first site can be operational between 2035 and 2037 – several years earlier than the timeframe the CSIRO and other experts believe is feasible.
But the Coalition delayed the reveal of the cost of the plan, which would also include the compulsory acquisition of the sites.
The sites are:
- Tarong in Queensland, north-west of Brisbane
- Callide in Queensland, west of Gladstone
- Liddell in NSW, in the Hunter Valley
- Mount Piper in NSW, near Lithgow
- Port Augusta in SA
- Loy Yang in Victoria, in the Latrobe Valley
- Muja in WA, near Collie
Mr Albanese described it as a "recipe for further denial and delay" which was designed to "scare off investment" and called on the Coalition to release its yet-to-be-revealed cost for the plan.
Speaking on Nine, Mr Dutton said Australians could expect the costs to be released "very soon".
"I think people will be pleasantly surprised. It's a lot of money, there's no question about that. But this is an investment for 80 years," the opposition leader said.
The CSIRO's recent GenCost study found it would cost at least $8.5 billion to build a large-scale nuclear power reactor in Australia.
Nuclear physicist Ziggy Switkowski advised the Howard government on nuclear power and is the former chair of NBN Co.
He agreed the CSIRO "guesstimate" was in the "ball park" of what a nuclear reactor would cost but said the return on investment would make the price tag worth it.
"It'll be high up-front costs, high capital costs. It'll take some time to stabilise the network and then you'll find that the nuclear component component of an integrated energy network is a very, very valuable asset," he told Afternoon Briefing