Dutton’s ‘independent’ modelling created by pro-nuclear think tank 

The Coalition’s much-vaunted nuclear modelling was — despite Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s insistence it was “independent” analysis — created by a pro-nuclear think tank that has a cosy relationship with Nuclear for Australia, a lobby group with its own links to the Liberal Party.

Frontier Economics was the economic advisory firm responsible for the Coalition’s nuclear modelling and projected that the policy would cost an estimated $331 billion and involve the commissioning of seven nuclear reactors.

While Dutton said that Frontier “refused to take any money” when asked to model the plan by the Coalition, and Frontier in the report states that it was funded and directed solely by Frontier Economics, the issue of whether the work constitutes a “gift”, and the actual independence of the work, is still live.

In January this year, Frontier managing director Danny Price gave an extended interview to pro-nuclear lobby group Nuclear for Australia, where Frontier is described as a “non-partisan” and “pro-nuclear” organisation.

Nuclear for Australia has recently been reminded by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) of its legal obligations to authorise its electoral material after running thousands of dollars worth of online advertising in support of policies promoted by the Coalition. Teenage founder Will Shackel has previously denied that the Liberal Party is backing the group, despite a number of reported links to the organisation.

Crikey contacted the Coalition, Frontier Economics and the AEC about the status of the work as a gift and whether the work had been disclosed.

The AEC said it had nothing to add to the answers given in front of Senate estimates in late February, where Greens Senator for Queensland Larissa Waters raised the issue of whether the work constituted a donation to the Liberal Party’s campaign in the finance and public administration legislation committee.

“Disclosures for the 2024-25 financial year will be published in February,” a spokesperson for the commission said.

In estimates, Waters asked the acting electoral commissioner Jeff Pope whether the advice constituted an “in-kind” donation of the type normally required to be disclosed by political parties to the Electoral Commission.

Pope said that “subject to the circumstances, [the modelling] may well be a gift that needs to be disclosed at the appropriate time”, but stressed that it “really does depend on the circumstances, what the legal advice or advice is being procured for and who has obtained the advice”.

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“A political party has to disclose all gifts,” he said.

Neither the Coalition nor Frontier Economics responded for comment.

The specifics of the modelling (in particular the assumptions it rests on) have been criticised since it was released in December 2024. However, the issue of the actual independence of the advice has not been raised, except by Senator Waters in front of Senate estimates.

Waters told Crikey she would be “very interested to know if the LNP has declared this modelling, from a firm with links to a pro-nuclear lobby, as an in-kind gift”.

“However, the lag in donation disclosure means we won’t know until next year.

“If this modelling is a Coalition policy costing, it should have been done by the independent Parliamentary Budget Office,” she said.

In an interview with The Saturday Paper in December 2024, Price is described as a competent modeller generally respected by his peers and the industry, and states that he doesn’t see his work or his organisation as necessarily aligned with the Coalition ideologically.

“Planning for nuclear doesn’t mean that you stop building renewables,” he told the paper.

“There’s no reason to think that. In fact, it’s wrong to think that because you’re planning to put nuclear in place, it means that there’s, you know, a discontinued investment in renewables.”

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