Nuclear power ‘not passing the pub test’, survey authors say
1 May 2025 , By Staff Reporter, https://www.aumanufacturing.com.au/nuclear-power-not-passing-the-pub-test-survey-authors-say
Support among Australians for nuclear power has fallen, according to a survey of more than 4,000 respondents conducted by Griffith University’s Climate Action Beacon in partnership with the Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub.
The National Climate Action Survey was showing that “the logic of investment and risk” didn’t pass most Australians’ pub tests, according to Griffith University Associate Professor Kerrie Foxwell-Norton, a lead collaborator on the survey, which is now in its fourth year.
According to a statement from Monash University, among “key initial findings” were 59 per cent of respondents wanted to keep a ban on nuclear energy in 2024 (up from 51 per cent in 2023), 26 per cent said the risks far outweigh the benefits (up from 21.9 per cent) and over 54.8 per cent “would be very or extremely concerned” if a nuclear power plant was placed near them.
“The survey is a peerless, independent source of information about Australians’ climate actions, attitudes and beliefs as the nation – and the world – embarks upon societal transformations to a sustainable low carbon future,” according to Monash University Professor Libby Lester.”
The survey’s full findings will be released in September. Previous year’s results can be accessed here.
A major point of difference in the current election campaign, which will conclude this weekend, is in the opposition’s pledge to overturn a ban on developing any new nuclear power sites in Australia.
The Coalition plan involves two nuclear reactors beginning operation in the 2030s and, eventually, reactors in each mainland state at the site of retired or retiring coal plants.
Firefighters and nurses call on Coalition to drop nuclear energy plans
Region Canberra, 1 May 2025 | Chris Johnson
Firefighters and healthcare workers have written an open letter to Peter Dutton just a few days out from polling day, asking the Opposition Leader to drop his nuclear energy plan.
Organisations representing more than 350,000 emergency services workers this week called on Mr Dutton to dump the policy in the interests of good health.
The open letter was signed by the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, Emergency Leaders for Climate Action, Climate Action Nurses, Climate and Health Alliance, Doctors for the Environment Australia, and the United Firefighters Union of Australia.
After stressing that doctors, paramedics, nurses, midwives and firefighters are among the hundreds of thousands of people the groups represent, the letter expresses “grave concerns” regarding the potential introduction of nuclear power into Australia.
“As the frontline responders to disasters and emergencies, we are uniquely positioned to assess the risks posed by nuclear energy infrastructure to public safety, worker health, and environmental security,” the letter states.
“Australia’s emergency services do not have the support or resources to respond to nuclear disasters.
“Unlike other nations with established nuclear industries, Australia lacks the necessary infrastructure, resources, and expertise to manage incidents involving nuclear reactors or radioactive waste transportation and storage.
“Furthermore, international examples have shown that populations residing in close proximity to nuclear reactors are at an increased risk of developing severe health complications.
“Existing emergency response and health frameworks would need extensive – and costly – overhauls to address these challenges effectively.
“Nuclear accidents expose emergency responders to ionizing radiation levels far exceeding safe occupational limits.
“International precedents such as Chernobyl and Fukushima demonstrate the devastating health impacts on first responders, including acute radiation sickness and long-term cancer risks.”
The letter then goes on to ask the Coalition to abandon plans for nuclear energy in Australia and prioritise safer energy solutions that “do not endanger” workers or communities, such as solar and wind backed up by storage………………………..
The backlash has been strong enough that Mr Dutton has barely mentioned nuclear energy during the election campaign.
If asked about it, however, he repeats his strong support for the energy plan.
Federal secretary of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, Annie Butler, said she was concerned about the impact that the proposed nuclear plants would have on the health of all people, but particularly nurses, midwives and carers.
“What we are still yet to see are detailed health risk assessments including how the health of nurses, midwives, carers and the community will be protected,” she said…………………..
Former NSW Fire and Rescue Commissioner Greg Mullins, who went on to found the group Emergency Leaders for Climate Action, said the Coalition’s nuclear scheme “gives rise to far more questions than answers” and in the “unlikely event it is ever actually delivered” it would result in massive amounts of dangerous, additional climate pollution.
“Firefighters and other first responders will be expected to deal with situations for which they have no training, equipment or experience, and like in Chernobyl, possibly lose their lives,” he said.
“Costs for protection from nuclear accidents were not factored into the Coalition’s vague modelling, and nobody should be fooled – this is nothing more than a ruse to continue generating profits for the fossil fuel industry who are funding the Coalition’s election campaign.”
Greg McConville, national secretary of the United Firefighters Union of Australia, said: “Much has been said about the cost of living in this election, but we should not forget the cost of lives………..
The open letter points out that current federal guidelines allow firefighters, emergency services, essential services and health workers to be exposed to radiation doses up to 500 times higher than civilian safety limits during catastrophic events.
“This is an unacceptable risk,” the letter states. https://region.com.au/firefighters-and-nurses-call-on-coalition-to-drop-nuclear-energy-plans/865191/
Dutton promises $40b debt cut as nuclear questions grow
The Age, By Shane Wright and Mike Foley, April 30, 2025
The Coalition will pledge to slash at least $10 billion out of budget deficits over the next four years while bringing down government debt by $40 billion amid suggestions the cost of its signature nuclear power policy will be far more expensive than it has promised.
Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor and finance spokeswoman Jane Hume will on Thursday reveal the Coalition’s full costings, which will confirm cuts to several high-profile Labor programs, including its pledge to wipe $16 billion in student debts.
But even with its promises, both the Coalition and government will go to voters on Saturday with the budget facing deficits over the rest of the decade and gross debt soaring through the $1 trillion mark.
This week, ratings’ agency S&P Global warned Australia’s AAA credit rating could be put at risk if either of the major parties’ election promises resulted in larger structural deficits and more debt than expected.
On Monday, Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher released the government’s own costings, which showed total budget deficits would be $1.1 billion lower than forecast in the March 25 budget.
Despite the modest improvement, the budget would show cumulative deficits of $150 billion over the next four years.
Taylor and Hume will outline cuts that will bring down the cumulative deficits by a double-digit level, with one of the biggest savings expected to come from axing up to 41,000 public servants based in Canberra. They will be reduced through natural attrition over the next five years.
It will scrap the government’s $14 billion Made in Australia production tax credits for the mining and green hydrogen sector.
The write-off of student debt, affecting both tertiary and vocational education students that the government estimates saves affected people about $5000, is due to start from June 1. But the Coalition would not go ahead with the proposal………………………………………….
Taylor and Hume will promise to bring gross debt down by $40 billion. That will be partly achieved by axing the government’s Rewiring the Nation Fund and stopping the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund.
The Coalition’s costings will have to include the impact of its 25¢-a-litre cut in fuel excise for the next 12 months, worth $6 billion, and its one-off $1200 tax offset to low- and middle-income earners that is estimated to cost $10 billion.
Chalmers accused the Coalition of being sneaky by holding back its costings, including key details about its nuclear policy, until the second-last day of the campaign. Chalmers did not release Labor’s 2022 election costings until the Thursday before polling day.
He said there were already black holes around the Coalition’s mortgage interest deductibility, petrol excise and small-business fringe benefits tax reduction policies while it would attempt to use heroic assumptions around productivity growth to make its numbers add up.
“They want to skate through all the way to the election, or as close as possible, without coming clean. I think that speaks volumes about the approach that they’re taking,” Chalmers said.
A key issue remains the Coalition’s nuclear policy. Peter Dutton has slammed as a lie the government’s claim that it will cost $600 billion, arguing CSIRO research shows it would cost $116 billion to deliver its planned five large-scale and two small modular reactors at seven sites across the country.
The $116 billion figure is based on construction costs for a specific type of reactor – Westinghouse’s AP1000, which is one of the most common and cheapest designs in use around the world.
Coalition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien and Nationals Leader David Littleproud have promised not to use the AP1000 if it would reduce irrigation water to local farmers.
The AP1000 requires significant amounts of water to cool its reactor.
Former Land and Water Australia chief executive Andrew Campbell found there is not enough water at least five of the seven sites nominated by the Coalition for nuclear reactors, in his recent report commissioned by the Liberals Against Nuclear lobby group.
Littleproud and O’Brien have separately raised the prospect of building what are known as dry cool reactors.
However, according to the World Nuclear Association, they cost up to four times more than a typical water-cooled reactor such as the AP1000.
Dry cooled reactors, which use air rather than water to dissipate heat from the plant’s core, are not in commercial use at large-scale nuclear plants.
Dutton confirmed on Wednesday that the Coalition had not finalised which reactors would be used.
“We will take advice from the experts on what is the best fit for those seven sites,” he said.
Littleproud told the National Press Club on April 24 that he had promised to farmers “there is nothing extra coming out of the consumptive pool” of water available to irrigators, and models would be selected based on their water consumption.
“There are other technologies in terms of dry cooling,” he said.
O’Brien in February said, “the nuclear technology for Australia is yet to be selected”………. https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/dutton-promises-40b-debt-cut-as-nuclear-questions-grow-20250430-p5lvei.html?ref=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss_feed
Australian nuclear news items 28 April – 5 May
Headlines as they come in:
- Nuclear fallout: Coalition’s nuclear energy policy proved toxic to voters.
- Pie in the sky? After the Coalition’s stinging loss, nuclear should be dead. Here’s why it might live on.
- Nationals MPs ‘100 per cent’ back nuclear being kept as Coalition dissects loss
- A resounding win for the world’s nuclear-free clean energy movement.
- Coalition’s nuclear power policy must be nuked.
- Nuclear free voices have an important role to play in the days following the federal election.
- Coalition power plan ‘nuked’ at poll: climate groups.
- Coalition to put nuclear plan on the chopping block.
- Australia lays out red carpet for rapid green energy transition. Can Labor seize the moment?
- Australia Islamic Caliphate? Dark money and the 11th hour Election propaganda blitzkrieg.
- Nuclear power is shaping up as an election loser, and the Murdoch media is not happy.
- As Dutton champions nuclear power, Indigenous artists recall the profound loss of land and life that came from it.
- Australians once feared the health impacts of nuclear. Now nobody’s talking about it
- Dutton’s ‘independent’ nuclear modelling was created by a pro-nuclear think tank .
- Australians’ support for nuclear power ban rises despite Dutton’s best efforts to sell atomic future, survey finds.
- Australia’s arms escalation is in the interest of no one but death
- Malcolm Turnbull hasn’t drunk the Kool-Aid on AUKUS | ABC NEWS – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccQCTLhF1Do
- Firefighters and nurses call on Coalition to drop nuclear energy plans.
- Nuclear power ‘not passing the pub test’, survey authors say
- Traditional owner says “over my dead body” to the Coalition’s nuclear policy.
- Dutton promises $40b debt cut as nuclear questions grow.
- Nuclear support falls since becoming Coalition policy
- What Australians really think of nuclear power
- Government ignores AUKUS ‘very high risk’ warning from the Admiral in charge.
- Aboriginal group from Port Augusta joins experts in explaining the impact of the nuclear industry.
- Why Military Neutrality is a Must for Australia. Renewables, coal or nuclear?
- This election, your generation’s energy preference may play a surprising role
- Coalition says its energy plan is climate approved. Here’s what the IPCC really says about nuclear.
What Australians really think of nuclear power.
May 1, 2025 AIMN Editorial, Monash University, https://theaimn.net/what-australians-really-think-of-nuclear-power/
Support for nuclear power among Australians has fallen, with the numbers of people wanting to maintain Australia’s ban growing since Opposition leader Peter Dutton announced his nuclear power policy in 2024, the latest National Climate Action Survey shows.
The survey, in its fourth year and conducted by Griffith University’s Climate Action Beacon in partnership with the Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub (MCCCRH), asked more than 4,000 respondents a wide range of questions on their attitudes to climate change, extreme weather and different energy options.
Griffith University Associate Professor Kerrie Foxwell-Norton and Monash University Professor Libby Lester were lead collaborators on the survey.
“The survey reveals that the logic of investment and risk in nuclear power is not passing most Australians’ pub tests. And according to the most recent CSIRO calculations, nor should it,” Associate Professor Foxwell-Norton said.
According to Professor Lester, the Director of MCCCRH, “The survey is a peerless, independent source of information about Australians’ climate actions, attitudes and beliefs as the nation – and the world – embarks upon societal transformations to a sustainable low carbon future.”
Among the key initial findings:
- More Australians want the existing ban on nuclear power to remain
In 2023, 51 per cent wanted to keep Australia’s ban on nuclear energy. In 2024, that had risen to 59 per cent. The numbers who were against bans on nuclear power fell from 34 per cent in 2023 to 30 percent in 2024.
- Women are more likely to want to keep the current ban on nuclear
When asked about keeping the existing Australian ban on using nuclear power, only 18 per cent of women were in favour of lifting the ban. In contrast, twice as many men (35.9 per cent) wanted the ban lifted. Two-thirds (66 per cent) of women wanted the ban to stay, as opposed to just 51 per cent of men.
- More people say risks of nuclear power far outweigh the benefits
Those who said the benefits of nuclear power far outweighed the risks fell from 24.5per cent support in 2023 to 22 per cent in 2024. Those who said the risks of nuclear power far outweighed the benefits rose from 21.9 per cent in 2023 to 26 per cent in 2024.
- Most respondents would not want a nuclear power station in their area
More than half (54.8 per cent) of respondents would be very or extremely concerned if a nuclear power plant was placed near them. Only 11 per cent said they’d be comfortable with a nuclear power plant nearby. Even fewer wanted a coal mine near them (10.8 percent). Conversely, people felt more comfortable with solar or wind in their area, with 54 per cent having no concerns with wind farms. This rose to 65 per cent for solar farms.
Most Australians back financial assistance for coal mining communities to transition and for rural landowners to host clean energy infrastructure
Eighty-one per cent of respondents said they would support assistance to communities relying on coal mining, and 84 per cent supported the distribution of financial incentives to rural landowners for hosting clean energy structures.
- Support to phase out gas for all new homes and public buildings is increasing
Sixty per cent of respondents said they would support a requirement that all new homes, residential divisions and public buildings be powered by electricity, thereby phasing out gas appliances and heating, up from 59 per cent in 2023.
“Australians’ support for renewable energy sources like solar and wind show a nation ready to tackle carbon emissions and move away from fossil fuels,’’ said Associate Professor Foxwell-Norton.
She said the support for communities to transition away from coal mining was significant.
“The oft cited divide between urban centre and regional and rural areas where these coal mines are located is politically expedient, wedge politics. It is a politics that overlooks Australians and their relationship between places,” she said.
“With a reliance on land and seasons for productivity and livelihoods, changes in weather patterns and disaster events are felt acutely in regional and rural areas. Regional voters are more supportive of climate action because it is literally, their everyday experience.’’
The National Climate Action Survey samples 4,000 Australians each year and is the only climate survey in Australia that collects longitudinal data. The full results of the 2024 survey will be released in September. Previous reports are available here.
Australian Government ignores AUKUS ‘very high risk’ warning from the Admiral in charge
Admiral Mead sought to bell the cat while Defence Minister Marles has not been straight with the Australian people about the very high risks of AUKUS, even though he has been briefed on and appears to have informed Cabinet of those risks.
Marles should front up about this concealment without delay.
Labor not blameless
by Rex Patrick | Apr 29, 2025, https://michaelwest.com.au/government-ignores-aukus-high-risk-warning-from-the-admiral-in-charge/
The AUKUS submarine project faces huge risks, and Cabinet knows. But as the Government ships $2B of taxpayers’ money to the US this year, with much more to follow, the taxpayer is not being told. Rex Patrick reports.
On 26 February this year, Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead, the man in charge of AUKUS, advised the Senate that the AUKUS submarine program was “very high risk”. He said, “We’ve made that clear to government, and the government has made that clear to the public.”
However, it has not.
I follow AUKUS closely and had not heard that publicly before. Whilst it is absolutely the case, and something MWM has reported on extensively, this was the first public admission of the very high risk nature of the project from the Australian Submarine Agency.
Concerns about US submarine production rates and the weakness of the UK’s submarine industrial base have generated grave doubts about whether the $368B AUKUS scheme will deliver nuclear-powered submarines for Australia.
Moreover, former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has revealed, after conversations with insiders, that there is no Plan B.
“Plan B is that we will not get any submarines.”
FOI ahoy
I was somewhat surprised by Admiral Mead’s unusual candour, so on 27 February, I moved to test the veracity of his remarks with an FOI application directed at the Australian Submarine Agency (ASA) seeking access to “any ministerial submission or briefing provided by ASA to the Minister for Defence … that refers to the AUKUS nuclear submarine program as involving ‘high risk’ or ‘very high risk’.”
I also sought access to ‘any statement made by the Minister for Defence or the Minister for Defence Industry and Capability Delivery that refers to the AUKUS nuclear submarine program as involving ‘high risk’ or ‘very high risk’.”
A decision on those was made this week. FOI applications can reveal the truth by what is disclosed, by what is withheld, and by confirming what doesn’t exist.
ASA confirmed the existence of a ministerial briefing characterising the AUKUS submarine program as involving ‘high risk’ or ‘very high risk’, but refused access to that briefing on national security and Cabinet secrecy grounds. Significantly, ASA’s refusal decision confirmed this document was produced for the dominant purpose of briefing a Minister on an attached Cabinet submission.
In effect, the Submarine Agency confirmed Admiral Mead’s statement that ASA has briefed the government on the ‘high risk’ or ‘very high risk’ nature of the AUKUS project, and that briefing was submitted to the Defence Minister for Cabinet consideration.
“That high-risk assessment has gone to the very top of the Government.”
Alarm bells should be ringing.
Misleading the public
But the FOI decision also reveals that Defence Minister Richard Marles has not been forthcoming with the Australian public about the full hazards of AUKUS.
In relation to statements the minister has made to the public on the risk status of the project, the Australian Submarine Agency advised that ‘no in scope documents were identified’ that show the Defence Minister has made any public statement that acknowledges the ‘high’ or ‘very high’ risk of the AUKUS scheme.
The agency was able to find only a handful of statements referring to risk management in general and assertions that the United Kingdom will carry the primary risks of the AUKUS-SSN construction.
Admiral Mead was not correct in his statement to the Senate, but more importantly, the Government has been caught red-handed fudging the risks associated with the AUKUS scheme. The public has been misled.
Admiral Mead sought to bell the cat while Defence Minister Marles has not been straight with the Australian people about the very high risks of AUKUS, even though he has been briefed on and appears to have informed Cabinet of those risks.
Marles should front up about this concealment without delay.
Labor not blameless
Last week, at a pre-polling booth, I was standing next to a Labor volunteer who was handing out how-to-vote cards for the seat of Adelaide. An elderly gentleman stuck out his hand and asked the volunteer for a how-to-vote card.
“We have to stop the Liberals getting in”, he said. “We don’t need nuclear power”.
I couldn’t resist. “But you’re taking a Labor how-to-vote”, I said. He gave me a strange look. “What about the eight naval reactors?” I queried. “A naval reactor is a reactor, and naval nuclear waste is nuclear waste”.
Many in the Labor camp think AUKUS is Morrison’s (and Peter Dutton’s) baby. But for Labor, that’s just a convenient mistruth. In September 2021, Morrison announced AUKUS. But he only announced a study. It was Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the March 2023 San Diego “kabuki show” (as described by Paul Keating) that turned it into a formal Defence project behemoth with a projected cost of $368 billion.
Pre-polling booths are a good place to hang out for political gossip. I also held a discussion with a long-standing grassroots Labor Party member who proceeded to tell me how he had been sidelined for his opposition to AUKUS.
There’s no doubt the Labor rank-and-file have been cut out of the party’s decision-making with the Labor leadership ramming an AUKUS endorsement through the party’s 2023 national conference. Since then, the dissenting views of many, perhaps even a majority of Labor members, have been marginalised and suppressed.
AUKUS to be torpedoed
Politics aside, any project manager worth their salt would put an end to AUKUS. It’s a looming procurement shipwreck.
The US will not be able to supply the Virginia Class submarines to the Royal Australian Navy. The US Congressional Research Service has calculated a US build rate of 2.3 boats per annum is necessary to enable the US to provide boats to Australia without harming US undersea warfare capability. The current build rate is somewhere between 1.1 and 1.3 boats per annum.
The British submarine industry is one big cluster fiasco. Fruit that will flow from that program will be late, possibly rotten, and far more expensive than planned.
Meeting delivery obligations by the US and UK under the program will be really hard. And the fact that the Australian Government can’t even be up front and honest about the program
“suggests there is no chance of success.”
But Albanese need not worry, nor Marles. By the time all of this sinks in, they’ll be out of the system. It will be our children who suffer from the tens of billions wasted and the massive hole in our national security capability.
Rex Patrick
Rex Patrick is a former Senator for South Australia and earlier a submariner in the armed forces. Best known as an anti-corruption and transparency crusader, Rex is running for the Senate on the Lambie Network ticket next year – www.transparencywarrior.com.au.
Renewables, coal or nuclear? This election, your generation’s energy preference may play a surprising role
The Conversation, Magnus Söderberg, Professor & Director, Centre for Applied Energy Economics and Policy Research, Griffith University April 30, 2025
In an otherwise unremarkable election campaign, the major parties are promising sharply different energy blueprints for Australia. Labor is pitching a high-renewables future powered largely by wind, solar, hydroelectricity and batteries. The Coalition wants more gas and coal now, and would build nuclear power later.
So how might these two competing visions play out as Australia goes to the polls this Saturday?
Research shows clear generational preferences when it comes to producing electricity. Younger Australians prefer renewables while older people favour coal and gas. The one exception is nuclear power, which is split much more on gender lines than age – 51% of Australian men support it, but just 26% of women.
Coal, renewables or nuclear?
About half of young Australians (18–34) want the country powered by renewables by 2030, according to a 2023 survey of energy consumers. Only 13% of the youngest (18–24) group think there’s no need to change or that it’s impossible. But resistance increases directly with age. From retirement age and up, 29% favour a renewable grid by 2030 while 44% think there’s no need or that it’s impossible.
On nuclear, the divide is less clear. The Coalition has promised to build Australia’s first nuclear reactors if elected, and Coalition leader Peter Dutton has claimed young people back nuclear. That’s based on a Newspoll survey showing almost two-thirds (65%) of Australians aged 18–34 supported nuclear power.
But other polls give a quite different story: 46% support for nuclear by younger Australians in an Essential poll compared to 56% support by older Australians. A Savanta poll put young support at just 36%.
There’s a gender component too. The demographic most opposed to nuclear are women over 55………………………………………………………………….. https://theconversation.com/renewables-coal-or-nuclear-this-election-your-generations-energy-preference-may-play-a-surprising-role-253832
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 