Victorian Liberal leader distances state party from Peter Dutton’s nuclear proposal: ‘Our focus is gas’

The Victorian Liberal leader, Brad Battin, says he has told Peter Dutton that nuclear power is ‘your campaign at the moment’. Photograph: Christopher Hopkins/The Guardian

The Victorian opposition leader says he discussed the language he would use to distance the state party from the federal Coalition’s campaign to build a nuclear reactor in the Latrobe Valley, telling Peter Dutton “it’s your campaign”.

The Loy Yang coal-fired power station in the Latrobe Valley east of Melbourne is one of seven proposed sites for the federal Coalition’s proposal to build nuclear reactors, the centrepiece energy policy the federal Liberal leader will be taking to the 3 May poll.