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

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.But in his first interview with Guardian Australia since becoming the state Liberal leader in December, Brad Battin was clear to separate his team from the proposal, saying: “Our focus is gas, let the feds get on with what they’ve got to get on with.”He confirmed he had not spoken to anyone in the federal Coalition about its two-and-a-half-year consultation plan for each proposed nuclear site, with the issue “barely raised” at all on the campaign trail.However, Battin said a conversation had taken...