Victorian One Nation leader Warren Pickering has promised to wind back one of the state’s most controversial property taxes and identified the Latrobe Valley as a potential home for future nuclear reactors, using his first major housing debate of the state election campaign to pitch a radically different approach to development, taxation and energy.

Pickering told an industry audience in Melbourne that One Nation wanted to reduce the tax burden on property owners and developers, including changes to Victoria’s windfall gains tax and a substantial increase in the threshold at which ordinary land tax begins to apply.

He also expanded on the party’s emerging nuclear energy policy, floating the existing Loy Yang power station precinct and nearby Yallourn North as possible locations for small modular nuclear reactors if the legal prohibitions on nuclear electricity generation were eventually removed.

The proposals came during the Victorian Housing Policy Debate hosted by the Australian Property Developers Association at Crown Palladium on Wednesday, September 2.

The event brought together senior representatives from across Victorian politics as housing supply, planning costs and property taxation become major battlegrounds ahead of the November 28 state election.

Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny represented the Labor government, Deputy Opposition Leader and housing spokesman David Southwick represented the Liberals, while Pickering appeared for One Nation. Family First’s Alex van der End also participated after the Greens withdrew from the event.

For Pickering, who is also One Nation’s candidate for Pakenham, the debate offered an opportunity to link two themes the party has increasingly placed at the centre of its Victorian campaign: the cost of doing business and the reliability and price of energy.

One Nation argues both have been made worse by government decisions.

On property, Pickering signalled that a One Nation administration would seek to lift Victoria’s general land tax threshold to $300,000.

The current threshold is $50,000 for most non-exempt landowners and $25,000 for trusts. A person’s principal place of residence is generally exempt, meaning the tax primarily affects investment properties, commercial property, holiday homes and other non-exempt land.

Victoria previously had a substantially higher threshold, but temporary COVID Debt Repayment Plan changes brought the general threshold down to $50,000 from the 2024 land tax year.

Those changes have drawn sustained criticism from property owners and business groups, particularly as rising land valuations have brought more owners into the tax system.

The opposition Liberals have also promised to progressively lift the threshold back to $300,000, meaning land tax relief is developing into an important area of competition between parties seeking votes from landlords, small businesses and the property industry.

Pickering went further by targeting the windfall gains tax.

The tax has applied in Victoria since July 1, 2023 and is triggered when government rezoning increases the value of land by more than $100,000.

For value uplifts between $100,000 and $500,000, the taxable component above the first $100,000 is charged at 62.5 per cent. For an uplift of $500,000 or more, a 50 per cent tax applies to the entire uplift.

There are exemptions, including for some residential land of up to two hectares, charitable land and certain rezoning categories.

The government’s rationale is that when a planning decision dramatically increases private land values, part of that unearned gain should return to the community that created it through rezoning.

Developers and landowners have long argued the opposite: that such a large upfront tax can make development financially unviable, increase the price developers have to pay for land and ultimately discourage the creation of new housing.

That dispute has become increasingly important as governments at both state and federal level insist Australia needs substantially more homes.

Pickering’s argument is that Victoria cannot claim to be tackling a housing shortage while imposing taxes that One Nation believes reduce the financial viability of bringing new land and projects to market.

Labor is pursuing a different strategy.

Kilkenny used the same property debate to announce another expansion of the government’s fast-track planning reforms.

Under the proposal, developments of up to four homes on a single block that comply with Victoria’s townhouse code would be able to go through a 10-day planning process, with councils unable to object to qualifying applications.

Labor says quicker approvals are essential if Victoria is to increase housing supply, particularly in established suburbs close to jobs, public transport and services.

The competing policies illustrate one of the major arguments shaping the election.

Labor is focusing heavily on planning reform and faster approvals. Its opponents are placing greater emphasis on the financial cost of development, arguing that faster approval means less if taxes, charges and construction expenses leave projects commercially unviable.

Pickering then broadened that argument to energy.

One Nation has already pledged to keep Victoria’s Loy Yang A coal-fired power station operating beyond its scheduled 2035 closure and to seek the repeal of the state’s longstanding prohibition on nuclear power.

The party has also attacked renewable-energy projects and subsidies, arguing Victoria needs reliable coal, gas and eventually nuclear generation rather than depending increasingly on wind, solar, batteries and transmission infrastructure.

During the latest debate, Pickering went further by identifying possible areas for future reactors.

The Loy Yang precinct and Yallourn North, both in the Latrobe Valley, were raised as locations that could potentially accommodate small modular reactors.

The suggestion is not the same as a formal site selection.

No approved nuclear development exists for either location, and One Nation has not released the detailed engineering, environmental, financing or community-consultation work that would be required before any project could proceed.

There are also major legal obstacles.

Victoria’s Nuclear Activities (Prohibitions) Act 1983 remains in force and prevents key nuclear activities within the state. One Nation says it would seek to repeal that prohibition if it gained sufficient parliamentary support.

But changing Victorian law alone would not clear the way for a reactor.

Commonwealth legislation also prevents approval of a nuclear power plant. The federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act specifically states that the federal environment minister must not approve construction or operation of a nuclear power plant, apart from the limited exception covering naval nuclear propulsion connected with conventionally armed nuclear-powered submarines.

The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Act contains a related federal prohibition.

That means any serious nuclear program in Victoria would require changes in Canberra as well as Spring Street, along with the development of regulatory institutions, workforce capability, waste arrangements and a financing model.

The economics would also be fiercely contested.

One Nation argues nuclear could provide reliable, low-emissions electricity and allow Victoria to make use of areas that already have a long history of large-scale power generation and transmission infrastructure.

Small modular reactors, or SMRs, are promoted by supporters as potentially easier to manufacture and deploy than traditional gigawatt-scale reactors because individual units are smaller and components can be standardised.

But the technology remains commercially immature compared with established generation sources.

CSIRO’s latest GenCost work continues to describe SMRs as a comparatively expensive option for new electricity generation in Australia and estimates that establishing nuclear power domestically would involve development periods measured in many years.

CSIRO says the total development time for nuclear power in Australia, whether large-scale reactors or SMRs, would be at least 15 years under current conditions.

One Nation disputes the broader political conclusion that nuclear should therefore be excluded from Australia’s future energy mix.

The party argues that governments planning an electricity system decades ahead should not reject a technology simply because it requires substantial upfront preparation.

Its Victorian policy also places nuclear alongside continued coal generation rather than proposing an immediate replacement of existing fossil-fuel plants.

That was apparent when Pickering and federal One Nation leader Pauline Hanson visited the Latrobe Valley at the end of August to release the party’s energy platform.

Pickering said One Nation would not allow Loy Yang A to close in 2035 as currently planned.

However, he acknowledged at the time that the party had not spoken to the plant’s owner about the proposal and had not established what financial support, if any, the Victorian government might need to provide to keep the station operating.

Energy Minister Jaclyn Symes has rejected One Nation’s nuclear strategy, arguing that reactors would take too long to build and impose higher costs on taxpayers and electricity consumers.

Labor instead remains committed to its transition towards renewable generation, storage and transmission, while planning for the retirement of Victoria’s ageing coal fleet.

The competing approaches could become one of the clearest policy divides of the election campaign.

For Labor, Victoria’s challenge is to accelerate renewable investment and new housing while reforming planning systems that have historically slowed construction.

For One Nation, the problem is more fundamental: the party argues Victoria is taxing development too heavily while simultaneously abandoning dependable electricity generation before replacement capacity can be guaranteed.

Both positions ultimately converge on the same economic question.

Building homes requires land, finance, approvals, construction workers and reliable energy. If any of those elements becomes prohibitively expensive, the final cost is eventually reflected in what households and businesses pay.

That is why a housing debate ended up encompassing nuclear reactors.

Pickering is attempting to present property taxation and energy policy as different parts of the same argument about Victoria’s cost base.

Whether voters accept that connection — and whether One Nation can convert increasing attention into seats in the Victorian parliament — will become clearer when almost 4.7 million Victorians are expected to vote on November 28.

For now, the party has placed two significant proposals on the table: reduce the taxes it says are holding back property development, and reopen a nuclear debate that Victoria legislated to close more than four decades ago.