Matt Kean says suggestion Coalition could sack him if it wins election is ‘concerning threat’

Climate Change Authority chair Matt Kean says he will not ‘be bullied or silenced for standing up for the science and the evidence’. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

The chair of the Climate Change Authority, Matt Kean, has hit back over an opposition suggestion that his criticism of its nuclear energy proposal could lead to him being sacked if the Coalition wins government.

Kean said the shadow climate change and energy minister, Ted O’Brien, should explain if a Peter Dutton-led government would seek retribution on the authority’s expert staff that prepared the nuclear report.