If there were no valid charges against him the US couldn't be seeking extradition That isn't how extradition works (The article says there are in fact 18 charges the US would like to see him face). Before extraditing someone you need a treaty that says we recognise your laws and what crime they committed generally has to exist in both countries for extradition to be sought.
He didn't step foot in the US is a bad faith argument. Plenty of online crimes happen when people are different countries, do you think online scams shouldn't be prosecuted because the perps are overseas? He interacted with people in the US and is accused of causing things to happen there giving the US jurisdiction.
Julian Assange has draped him self in the journalistic flag to pretend what he did was journalism and claim his behaviour is above approach. You might believe that, I don't, and guess what, I get to have my opinion as much as you get to have yours; I specifically said while a court must assume his innocents i don't have to, I see him pick and choose evidence to craft a one sided story then to flee to a foreign embassy to avoid having to see consequences for his actions and I judge him off that, you get to disagree and that is fine.
The US isn't desperate to get access to him; if it were they'd have already secured access to him. The US is following the process to prosecute what they believe are crimes that he has committed. I'd be surprised if basically anyone in the US outside of this actually is paying any attention. This is an argument to obscure the topic which is about the actions of Julian Assange. I'm a fan of the if you fuck round you need to find out school of view. And I don't think anyone doesn't think Julian didn't fuck round (And we've ignored the two cases of rape that he was first charged with)
Little bits of evidence do add up and intelligence leaks that are connected to foreign adversaries who are currently engaged in an invasion of their neighbours are not parking fines but big red warning signs that mean action needs to be taken.
I'm not saying he should be locked up because he's guilty (though i do personally believe from what i've seen he probably he is guilty, I'm clearly stating my biases) I'm saying there is a good case against him and I see no reason why he shouldn't stand trial for his actions. A court with a jury will be able to look at the evidence and make a judgement.
Dutton's position here as many have pointed out is to stall and not actually to build nuclear.
I think nuclear has a place as we need to move the world off carbon ASAP (That place basically being India and China where there is a lot of dirty coal that needs to be shutdown ASAP).
If we really wanted to do something nuclear I'd suggest working on building modular reactors that we can build in factories and deploy to places where its harder for renewables to make sense, that said i'd wager a better financial proposition would be to invest in alternative renewables, say more tidal technology. If we want to support the pacific being able to provide tidal power generation seems like an easy win, that also provides significant political influence (which waned under the last conservative government).
Now if i was a National i'd be pushing for lots of renewables in the country, all that construction and those jobs supporting the new infrastructure, and yet they don't...