Lidia Thorpe has stormed into American pro-nuclear energy activist Grace Stanke’s press conference at Parliament and heckled her.
Thorpe shouted, ‘you have no consent for nuclear in Australia,’ and ‘you’re poisoning your children’s children’ during the American’s visit on Wednesday morning.
Ms Stanke is a nuclear engineer, model, and beauty queen who won Miss America 2023.
The 22-year-old studied nuclear engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is touring Australia advocating nuclear energy, in a trip partly funded by Dick Smith.
Mr Smith told Daily Mail Australia that Ms Stanke is ‘obviously very capable’ and he will meet her at a dinner in Sydney on Wednesday night.
In reaction to Thorpe’s outburst, Mr Smith said: ‘That’s going to create some publicity for this important issue, I think it’s good.
‘I’m very concerned about climate change for our grandchildren and we need as much discussion as possible.
‘My strong view is that the only way we can reduce carbon to very low levels is nuclear.’
Lidia Thorpe stormed into American pro-nuclear energy activist Grace Stanke’s press conference at Parliament and began heckling her
Grace Stanke is an American nuclear engineer, model, and beauty queen who won Miss America 2023
Dick Smith, who partly funded Ms Stanke’s tour, said he was pleased Thorpe was providing publicity to the nuclear issue
He added that he had a ‘lot of Leftie friends that are completely and utterly opposed to nuclear and it’s like a religion with them’.
‘I’m pro-renewables but I think it’s delusional to run the country on them.’
The veteran businessman has previously come out in support of Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s nuclear plan.
Last year Dutton pledged to build seven publicly-owned nuclear power plants in Australia, with predictions the first will come online from the mid-to-late 2030s.
He has argued nuclear will be crucial to stopping blackouts and lowering electricity bills.
He also said his $331billion plan will be 44 per cent cheaper than Labor’s program to almost replace coal and gas power with solar and wind energy within 15 years.
Labor’s plan is for renewable energy to comprise 82 per cent of Australia’s energy generation by 2030, rising to 98 per cent by 2040 based on solar and wind.
Both sides of politics support a net zero by 2050 goal, but the Coalition sees nuclear making up 38 per cent of Australia’s electricity generation by that time, with solar and wind energy making up 49 per cent.
