Antinuclear

Australian news, and some related international items

Hormuz Dateline

What Iran Actually Understands

Iran does not need to win a naval war in the classical sense. It only needs to make transit uncertain, costly, and politically radioactive. Mines, drones, missiles, fast boats, electronic piracy, and the psychology of fear are enough to turn a chokepoint into a garotte. That is the essence of asymmetry: a state under pressure parlays geography into power. Tehran does not need to dominate the sea. It needs only to make everyone else remember that the sea is not theirs.

The US-Israeli axis has long acted as if the region were a board and its opponents pieces. Hormuz shreds that assumption with the patience of geography.

Australia has a particular stake in this arithmetic that the Albanese government would prefer its citizens not examine too carefully. Australia sends approximately 80 percent of its LNG exports through or near the Gulf corridor. When Hormuz is threatened, Woodside’s share price moves. The war that Albanese insists Australia is not involved in is directly affecting the income of Australian energy companies and, through them, the superannuation balances of ordinary Australians. Pine Gap processes targeting data for the strikes. Australian-made F-35 components are in the payload. And Hormuz is where the bill arrives.

14 April 2026 David Tyler AIM Extra, https://theaimn.net/hormuz-dateline/

The war now has the smell of salt, oil, and old empires trying to defy the tide.

Thirty-three kilometres. That is the width of the Strait of Hormuz at its narrowest navigable point: two shipping lanes, each two miles wide, one in, one out, with a median strip of Iranian territorial water between them. Through those lanes passes approximately 21 million barrels of oil every single day. That is one barrel in every five consumed anywhere on earth. Add the liquefied natural gas, and you have roughly 20 percent of all the LNG traded on global markets squeezing through a corridor you could drive across in less than half an hour. A fifth of the world’s energy supply running through a gap that geography, not American naval doctrine, placed there.This is not a side theatre. This is the throat of the world economy, and in this war it has become the place where the old American order goes from swagger to strain. What was once sold as a system of irresistible reach; US power, Gulf oil, the dollar, the naval umbrella, the client-state arrangement, now looks clapped-out, ruinously costly, and exposed as it is caught, hoist by its own petard, dependent on a choke point that cannot be bullied out of geography.

No aircraft carrier in the world can widen the Strait of Hormuz by a single metre.

The Arithmetic of Vulnerability

The numbers matter because official language exists precisely to hide that fact.

When the Iran-Iraq war threatened these waters in the 1980s, oil prices doubled within months. When Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping began in late 2023, global shipping insurance rates for Gulf-adjacent routes increased by up to 600 percent within weeks. Lloyd’s of London has now quietly tripled war risk premiums for vessels transiting the Gulf. That is not a diplomatic assessment or a Pentagon briefing. That is the financial system’s hard-nosed verdict on what is actually happening, stripped of all the official language about deterrence and security and the rules-based order.

While Trump posts to Truth Social about erasing civilisations and US admirals post to Facebook about historic firsts, the insurance market is pricing the reality that the propaganda is designed to conceal.

Australia has a particular stake in this arithmetic that the Albanese government would prefer its citizens not examine too carefully. Australia sends approximately 80 percent of its LNG exports through or near the Gulf corridor. When Hormuz is threatened, Woodside’s share price moves. The war that Albanese insists Australia is not involved in is directly affecting the income of Australian energy companies and, through them, the superannuation balances of ordinary Australians. Pine Gap processes targeting data for the strikes. Australian-made F-35 components are in the payload. And Hormuz is where the bill arrives.

What Iran Actually Understands

Iran does not need to win a naval war in the classical sense. It only needs to make transit uncertain, costly, and politically radioactive. Mines, drones, missiles, fast boats, electronic piracy, and the psychology of fear are enough to turn a chokepoint into a garotte. That is the essence of asymmetry: a state under pressure parlays geography into power. Tehran does not need to dominate the sea. It needs only to make everyone else remember that the sea is not theirs.

This is a strategic fact Washington cannot deny. Or lie about. The US-Israeli axis has long acted as if the region were a board and its opponents pieces. Hormuz shreds that assumption with the patience of geography. Israel can strike, assassinate, bomb, and escalate, but it cannot turn the Gulf into a risk-free zone. The US can threaten, sanction, and deploy, but it cannot guarantee the one thing the market demands most: confidence. That is the precise point at which imperial force runs into imperial limits. Empires can break things. Claim to rule the world. But it’s not so easy to rebuild trust once the world has called your bluff.

The ruling classes of all three powers; American, Israeli, Iranian are happy to gamble with systems they do not themselves live inside. They talk deterrence but they mean coercion. They may say security but they mean control. They may invoke peace but they build the conditions for the next war. It is the coastal fishermen, the dockworkers, “sea-gulls”, the tanker crews, and the families living with the knowledge that a misfire, a mine, or a drone can change the day in an instant who live inside the system these men are gambling with. That distinction matters. It is, in fact, the only distinction that matters.

The Petrodollar’s Exposed Seam

The petrodollar order was always more fragile than its keepers cared to admit. It rests on a Faustian bargain: Gulf oil will flow, the US will police the sea lanes, the dollar will stay as the world’s reserve currency, and regional rulers will play along so long as the deal suited them. Hormuz is where that bargain begins to fray.

The petrodollar system requires that oil be priced and settled in US dollars. That settlement runs through SWIFT, the global payments network, from which Iran has been excluded as an act of economic warfare. That exclusion has produced a direct, rational, and accelerating response: China, Russia, India, and an expanding coalition of the economically non-aligned are developing alternative settlement systems specifically designed to route around the dollar’s dominance.

This is not ideological posturing. It is financial self-defence against a system that has been openly weaponised. Hormuz is where that process becomes visible to everyone simultaneously.

The dollar’s centrality has depended on the belief that US power could secure the energy arteries while underwriting the financial order that prices global risk. But every threat to Hormuz chips at that belief. Every disruption reminds the world that this system is not floating on neutrality. It is anchored in force. And once force has to be constantly displayed, the myth of effortless supremacy begins to crack along every seam.

This is also why Hormuz looks, feels and even sounds like the end of an era. Not a stagey, Hollywood end of empire, but something slower and more repugnant: the fish rotting from the head, the end of imperial pretension publicly betrayed by the geography it claimed to master. The old style assumed that military reach could substitute for political legitimacy, that sanctions could replace diplomacy, that client regimes could be managed indefinitely, and that publics could be disciplined through spectacle and fear. Hormuz answers all of that with one simple fact: you can command the skies and the seas and still be strategically cornered. You can own the ocean narrative and still depend on a narrow strait you do not fully control.
The Scene Itself

Picture the actual scene, because power loves to use abstraction uses to hide from accountability.

Tankers move slow and dark under a white-hot sky. Naval escorts shadow them like anxious bodyguards. Insurance underwriters in distant offices recalculate exposure in real time. Traders watching screens flicker red. Refineries in South Korea, Japan, and India scramble to secure alternative supply. And in the waters themselves, and on the shores, and in the cities behind those shores, the people who have no choice but to live in the world that distant men are gambling with.That is Hormuz. Not a metaphor first, but a machine for making the abstract painfully concrete. It is thirty-three kilometres of water through which the pretensions of three nuclear-adjacent powers, and the complicities of a dozen client states including our own, are being tested against the oldest and most indifferent judge available: physical reality.

The old imperial language can still speak loudly, but it cannot hide the fact that the world runs through exposed conduits. It can still threaten, but it cannot guarantee outcome. It can still destroy, but it cannot stabilise what it has broken. That is the end-of-era feeling: not the end of power, but the end of the illusion that power can be made clean, automatic, and permanent.

The Narrowness of the Waterway, the Narrowness of Official Thinking

Hormuz is where the lie breaks down. It is where the empire finds the edge of its own reach. It is where the petrodollar shows its dependence, where military supremacy meets strategic vulnerability, and where thirty-three kilometres of salt water becomes a lesson in the catastrophic narrowness of the thinking that brought three powers to this point.

The old order still speaks in the voice of inevitability. Hormuz answers with a counter-argument that has been making the same point since the first trading dhow passed through it: no empire, no doctrine, no naval task force gets to abolish geography.

The market knows it. The insurance actuaries know it. The tanker captains threading those two-mile lanes know it. The fishermen on the Iranian shore know it.

The men ordering the strikes are the last to learn it. They always are.

This article was originally published on URBAN WRONSKI WRITES

April 16, 2026 Posted by | business | Leave a comment

UniSuper members ‘divest from death’ on Palestine Land Day 

by Stephanie Tran | Apr 1, 2026, https://michaelwest.com.au/unisuper-members-divest-from-death-on-palestine-land-day/

UniSuper members have started a mass divestment campaign against the fund, citing investments in weapons companies and organisations complicit in Israel’s ongoing genocide and occupation. Stephanie Tran reports.

UniSuper, which manages approximately $166B on behalf of more than 680,000 members, is the industry superfund for employees in Australia’s higher education and research sector. The ‘Divest from Death‘ campaign is run by a group campaigning against UniSuper’s unwillingness to divest from weapons manufacturers and other companies involved in genocide, war crimes, occupation and apartheid in Palestine.

As of June 2025, the fund holds over $771m worth of investments in companies named in databases compiled by the UN Human Rights Office and the American Friends Service Committee, which track businesses complicit in the illegal occupation of Palestinian territories and the genocide in Gaza.

Analysis of portfolio data shows that UniSuper has significantly expanded these investments in recent years. Its shareholding in Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, has more than tripled over the past two years, based on the number of shares held.

The fund also has hundreds of millions of dollars invested in companies involved in weapons production, including Lockheed Martin and Boeing, and maintains smaller holdings in Israeli financial institutions linked to settlement activity. 


A report by the Australia Institute previously identified UniSuper as one of only four major superannuation funds not to exclude controversial weapons, including nuclear weapons, from its investment screens.

Palestine Land Day

March 30th has been marked Palestine Land Day since the 1976 killing of six Palestinian citizens by Israeli police during protests against the expropriation of thousands of dunams of land in the Galilee.

Alison Gibberd, an organiser of the campaign, said members had raised concerns with the fund over several years, including through petitions, direct correspondence and questions at annual meetings.

“UniSuper has increased its investments in weapons and companies involved in the occupation of the West Bank in the past two years.”

“A large number of members are not happy with these investments – many hundreds of members have petitioned them and written to them in the past few years, and the union has passed pro-BDS motions, driven by members, nationally as well as locally,” Gibberd said.

“Despite this, there does not appear to have been a change in UniSuper’s policy and they state that they are not an ‘activist’ fund. This refusal to act is why members have left in the past for more ethical funds and why a group will leave on 30 March.”

Tamara Kayali Browne, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at Charles Sturt University and Palestinian activist, said the divestment action had been “driven by university staff who will not tolerate their money being invested in genocide”.

“Many of us refuse to have our money invested in companies that are fuelling, or complicit in, the Gaza genocide,” she said. “Since UniSuper has refused to divest from these companies, we are left with little choice but to leave and put our money in more ethical superannuation funds.”

She said the campaign was intended to send a broader message to the superannuation sector.

“A retirement built on blood money cannot possibly be enjoyed,” Browne said. “Even if those who work at UniSuper are not bothered by the fact that they are investing in a genocide, many people are and are happy to put their money elsewhere.”

UniSuper response

In response to questions posed at its annual members’ meeting last year, UniSuper said it held “small investment holdings” in companies identified in the UN database of companies involved in illegal settlements, including Elbit Systems and “a small number of Israeli banks”. The fund said it had no holdings in Israeli government bonds.

“UniSuper is satisfied that our investment holdings are in accordance with law and with the investment strategies and objectives of our investment options,” the fund stated. 

“If their investments are indeed small, then it should not be much trouble to divest from them. And it is not as though a little bit of genocide is okay,” Browne said.

UniSuper was contacted for comment. A spokesperson for UniSuper provided the following response: 

“Our role as a superfund is to manage the life savings of our members and to act in their best financial interests.  We take a risk-based approach to identify and integrate material ESG factors into our investment decisions across our portfolios.

“As at 31 December 2025, UniSuper had small investment holdings relative to the size of our Fund in companies domiciled in Israel (according to our third-party data provider). We offer a wide range of investment options, giving members the flexibility to select options that align with their personal circumstances and preferences including options that don’t hold these investments.

“Members write to us about a number of investment-related issues. We aim to provide timely information to allow our members to make an informed investment choice. Members can access our holdings on our website as well as our How we invest your money document for information about what our options invest in.”

Your money, their rules. Super funds support Israel war machine

Australian industry super funds are investing in companies involved in the Gaza genocide, and unions are not asking them to stop.

April 5, 2026 Posted by | business, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Why The Economics of War in Australia Matter

14 February 2026 AIMN Editorial, By Denis Hay  

Australia’s defence spending is rising at a time when housing stress, health system pressure, and energy transition demands are also intensifying.

Public debate often treats defence and social investment as separate conversations. They are not. Both draw on the same public money, skilled labour, industrial capacity, and political attention.

This article examines how the war economy functions, how Australia’s major defence commitments shape long-term fiscal settings, and what opportunity cost means in practical terms. It does not argue for ending defence. It does not dismiss strategic risk.

Instead, it asks a structured economic question: when public funds are allocated to long-duration military programs, which alternatives are delayed or constrained?

Unlike earlier articles on Monetary Sovereignty that focus on financial capacity, this piece concentrates on real resource allocation and political incentives within defence policy.

The Problem: The Economics of War and Locked-in Spending

Rising Global Military Spending

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reports that global military spending reached US 2.7 trillion in 2024. Australia is part of this global expansion…………………….

Australia’s Major Defence Commitments

Under the Department of Defence strategy and the AUKUS submarine pathway, Australia has committed to multi-decade procurement and sustainment programs………………………………………………………

Systemic Causes

  • Alliance integration priorities
  • Strategic deterrence doctrine
  • Industrial policy embedded within defence
  • Long-term contracting frameworks

Political Incentives

  • Regional job creation promises
  • Perception of strength and security
  • Limited scrutiny of lifecycle costing
  • Concentrated contractor influence

Beneficiaries of the Status Quo

  • Large defence primes
  • Specialist subcontractors
  • Regions hosting major facilities
  • Political actors are able to signal security leadership

This does not imply corruption. It shows structural incentives.

The Economics of War in Australia and Opportunity Cost 

Opportunity cost is not abstract. For example, if $10 billion in defence procurement employs engineers and advanced manufacturers, those same skilled workers are not simultaneously available to expand public housing construction…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Conclusion

The economics of war in Australia are about allocation, not ideology.

Defence commitments such as AUKUS are long-term and capital-intensive. Housing shortages, healthcare strain, and energy transition pressures are immediate and socially destabilising.

Public money reflects political priorities. The central question is whether more military capability delivers greater marginal security than investment in social resilience.

Australia has the institutional capacity to pursue both strategic security and domestic stability. Outcomes depend on policy choice, not inevitability.

The economics of war in Australia are not just about defence budgets or alliance commitments. It is about choices. Every dollar committed to long-term military expansion is a dollar not invested in housing, healthcare, education, and productive industry. A balanced approach to the economics of war in Australia requires transparent costing, clear strategic purpose, and a serious national discussion about opportunity cost. https://theaimn.net/why-the-economics-of-war-in-australia-matter/

February 17, 2026 Posted by | business | Leave a comment

“Make Iran like Gaza”: Chilling insider view from Israel weapons expo

by Michael West and Stephanie Tran | Dec 23, 2025 , https://michaelwest.com.au/make-iran-like-gaza-chilling-insider-view-from-israel-weapons-expo/

How to make ‘Iran like Gaza’ and describing the genocide in Palestine as a weapons testing laboratory. Michael West and Stephanie Tran with the inside story of a weapons expo.

Inside a conference hall at Tel Aviv University, executives, generals and venture capitalists took turns boasting about “combat-proven” Israeli weapons and surveillance systems.

At Defense Tech Week 2025, senior figures from Israel’s defence establishment openly described how the genocide in Gaza has accelerated weapons development, unlocked new export markets and reshaped Israel’s global identity as a defence powerhouse.

Less than 70 kilometres from where the conference was held, Gaza has been reduced to rubble. More than two years of genocide, indiscriminate bombardment and mass displacement have left at least 70,000 Palestinians dead and 90% of the Strip destroyed. 

Gaza weapons lab

Defense Tech Week advertises itself as a forum connecting startups, investors,  defence primes and policymakers. According to its organisers, the event showcases “practical lessons from Israel’s cutting-edge solutions that are addressing global security challenges”.

MWM has obtained the footage with Drop Site News in the US.

The speakers resembled a roll call of Israel’s military-industrial complex with senior Israeli military leadership, officials from the Ministry of Defense, and executives from Israel’s largest arms manufacturers, including Israel Aerospace Industries, Elbit Systems and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.

Speaker after speaker framed the war as a lucrative opportunity for weapons development and sales.

“These are not lab projects or PowerPoint concepts,” said Amir Baram, Director General of Israel’s Ministry of Defense.

“They are combat-proven systems.”

Gili Drob-Heistein, Executive Director at the Blavatnik ICRC and Yuval Ne’eman Workshop for Science, Technology and Security, described defence technology as Israel’s “next big economic engine”.

Israel is known for being the startup nation,” she said. “We all believe that defence tech has the potential to become the next big economic engine for Israel.”

She credited what she called Israel’s “technological leadership” and “out of the box thinking” for results “we’ve seen recently on the battlefield.”

For Boaz Levy, President and CEO of Israel Aerospace Industries, the war has presented an opportunity to showcase the company’s wares with IAI’s weapons being deployed in Gaza, Iran and Yemen.

“The war that we faced in the last two years enabled most of our products to become valid for the rest of the world,” he said.

“Starting with Gaza and moving on to Iran and to Yemen, I would say that many, many products of IAI were there.”

Real-time combat data

Elbit Systems CTO Yehoshua (Shuki) Yehuda spoke about deploying autonomous systems and mass data collection in real-time combat. He showed a video demonstrating how an AI-powered system developed by Elbit is used to select and track targets “less than a pixel.”

“All of it is done by collecting the data,” he said, describing the ability to track “small targets in a very tough background… less than a pixel.”

He explained that these systems were developed in collaboration with the IDF and refined through continuous data collection during military operations.

Profiting from genocide

The speakers were candid about the scale of the financial opportunity presented by genocide.

According to Amir Baram, more than 300 startups are now working with Israel’s military research directorate, MAFAT, with 130 joining during the current war alone. In 2024, he said, the ministry invested 1.2 billion shekels in defence startups.

Baram oriented Israel’s surge within the global boom in defence spending.

“Global defence spending reached $2.7 trillion in 2024,” he said, pointing to the increase in expenditure from NATO countries and US defence spending exceeding $1 trillion. 

“By partnering with Israel, you gain access to our advanced technologies as well as the valuable insights and experience that make our system truly effective. The world has chosen to partner with Israel because trust in defence must be built on credibility, performance, and shared strategic purposes.”

In 2024 alone, Baram said, Israel signed 21 government-to-government defence agreements worth billions, positioning Tel Aviv as the world’s third largest defence tech hub.

At Israel Aerospace Industries, Levy said 80% of the company’s activity is export-oriented.

“IAI as of now has $27 billion of new orders,” he said, with annual sales of around $7 billion.

Elbit Systems reported $8 billion in annual revenue and a $25 billion backlog, with more than 20,000 employees worldwide.

‘Make Iran like Gaza’

The speakers were explicit about how techniques developed and used in Gaza could be deployed in future conflicts.

Dr Daniel Gold, head of Israel’s Directorate of Defense Research and Development, described scenarios in which Israel would replicate Gaza style control in Iran.

“Once we have operational freedom in the air,” he said, “we inject inside… our UAV fleet controlling Tehran and controlling Iran – which means we make Iran like Gaza.”

Gold highlighted the practicality of “dual use” technology which have both civilian and military applications.

“A swarm of drones that control the traffic in Tel Aviv can be the same swarm of drones that control in Gaza,” he said.

During his presentation, video footage was shown of a semi-autonomous drone targeting an individual inside an apartment building, imagery that bears striking resemblance to documented Israeli strikes that have killed civilians in residential homes, including the attack that killed Dr Marwan al-Sultan and his family.

“It is very simple to operate,” Gold explained. “Semi-autonomous.”

Mounting pressure

In her report on the “Economy of Genocide”, UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine, Francesca Albanese stated that “for Israeli companies such as Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries, the ongoing genocide has been a profitable venture.”

the report found.

Two years into Israel’s livestreamed genocide in Gaza, execs appear to be acutely aware of the mounting international pressure.

Shlomo Toaff, an executive at RAFAEL Advanced Defense Systems, lamented that “Israel is experiencing a boycott.”

“I think Israel is experiencing a boycott,” he said, citing the company’s exclusion from the Paris Air Show last year. “This is something that we have to take into account when we’re talking about what we’re doing here in the industry.”

December 26, 2025 Posted by | business, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

‘Inadequate’: Audit call on $368bn AUKUS cost estimate.

COMMENT. Even the Australian is being critical of AUKUS.

They don’t mention that the $368 billion doesn’t cover a high level nuclear waste dump and associated transport, or upgrades needed for the LeFevre peninsula to host a sub building facility at Osborne.

Some of Australia’s top naval experts have cast doubt on the government’s $368bn AUKUS price tag, warning that the cost will be ‘significantly more’.

Ben Packham   The Australian 17.11.25

Some of Australia’s top naval experts have cast doubt on the government’s $368bn AUKUS price tag, saying the program to acquire two classes of nuclear-powered submarines will cost “significantly more” than originally thought, with higher upfront outlays.

UNSW Canberra’s naval studies group has called for an urgent and comprehensive audit of AUKUS costs “to provide a realistic financial baseline” for the program, which is already cannibalising the wider defence budget.

Labor argues it can fund the program without a major increase in defence funding beyond its currently planned outlays, which are set to rise from about 2 per cent of GDP to 2.33 per cent by 2033-34.

UNSW Canberra’s new Maritime Strategy for Australia warns the proposed expenditure “will likely be inadequate” to deliver on the government’s naval ambitions. “This is already evidenced by cuts to lower priority projects and sustainment,” the strategy says.

It argues the AUKUS ‘Pillar I’ submarine program “was not comprehensively costed at the outset and its full demand on the Defence budget is still to be fully quantified”.

The paper says a substantial increase to defence funding will be needed, urging the government to “conduct a comprehensive, independently verified costing of AUKUS Pillar I as a matter of urgency to allow for re-baselining of Defence financial requirements and recalculation of required overall Defence funding”.

The strategy also sounds the alarm over the navy’s “long-neglected” mine counter­measures and undersea mapping capabilities, saying they pose “a critical gap that must be regenerated to guarantee maritime access to ports and littoral (coastal) waters”.

It comes amid a Defence-wide cost-cutting drive, revealed by The Australian, that has forced service chiefs to slash sustainment budgets, reduce “rates of effort”, and look at axing some capabilities.

Former RSL president Greg Melick took aim at the funding issue last week, using his Remembrance Day speech to warn hat the nation’s military preparedness was being undermined. The speech earned him a rebuke from Paul Keating, who branded him a “dope” and accused him of seeking a war with China.

But retired Vice-Admiral Peter Jones endorsed Major General Melick’s warning, saying the stretched defence budget was “the elephant in the room at the moment”.

Admiral Jones, the lead author of the maritime strategy and head of the Australian Naval Institute, told The Australian: “It appears the cost (of AUKUS) is significantly more than what was originally thought, including greater upfront costs before submarine construction.”

The paper comes as the government finalises its updated defence strategy and capability investment program, both of which will be released ahead of next year’s federal budget.

Labor announced a $12bn upgrade to Western Australia’s shipbuilding precinct in recent weeks as a downpayment on AUKUS infrastructure in the state, which is likely to cost more than twice that figure.

Workforce costs are also soaring as hundreds of Australian sailors take up training places on US and British submarines, and Australian tradespeople are deployed to shipyards in both countries to gain experience building nuclear boats.

Defence Minister Richard Marles revealed the government’s $368bn AUKUS cost estimate two years ago when he announced the program’s “optimal pathway” to obtain three to five Virginia-class submarines from the US and a new class of AUKUS submarines to be built in Adelaide. He said this was equivalent to about “0.15 per cent of GDP for the life of the program”.

The Australian asked the minister’s office how the figure was arrived at, whether it had any statistical measure of its likely accuracy, and whether it would seek an independent assessment of the program’s cost. It declined to respond to all three questions.

A spokeswoman for Mr Marles instead issued a boilerplate statement repeating the government’s case for acquiring nuclear submarines.

“The acquisition of conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines for the Australian Defence Force is a multi-decade opportunity, representing the single biggest capability acquisition in our nation’s history and creating around 20,000 direct jobs over the next 30 years,” she said.

“Working with our AUKUS partners, Australia is not just acquiring world-leading submarine technology but building a new sovereign production line, supply chain and sustainment capability here in Australia. This includes growing the capabilities, capacity and resilience of business – particularly small and medium-sized enterprises.

November 18, 2025 Posted by | business, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Unlocking Asia: CPA Australia urges bold action to boost national capability.

12 November 2025 AIMN Editorial, https://theaimn.net/unlocking-asia-cpa-australia-urges-bold-action-to-boost-national-capability/


  • Australian businesses are missing significant investment and innovation opportunities in Asia.
  • Education, business and professional exchange programs must be expanded.
  • Speaking from experience – CPA Australia has nearly 50,000 members in the region.

One of the world’s leading accounting bodies, CPA Australia, is urging the Federal government to take bold steps to strengthen Australia’s Asia capability, warning that Australian businesses are missing out on significant opportunities in the region.

In a submission to the government’s inquiry into building Australia’s Asia capability, CPA Australia provides four key recommendations aimed at deepening Australia’s engagement with Asia through education, business and cultural exchange.

Rebecca Keppel-Jones, Chief Member Operations Officer at CPA Australia, says many Australian businesses, particularly SMEs, remain domestically focused and are not capitalising on opportunities in Asia.

“Asia is central to Australia’s future prosperity. To remain competitive, we must build Asia capability from the classroom to the boardroom,” Ms Keppel Jones said.

“With Asia home to some of the world’s fastest-growing economies, Australia risks falling behind unless it invests in Asia capability now. We need more investment into existing programs, such as the New Colombo Plan, to improve Australians’ understanding of Asia.”

CPA Australia is proud to have maintained a strong presence in Asia for more than 70 years. It now represents nearly 50,000 members in mainland China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and the UAE.

“Australia must better leverage its people-to-people connections and professional networks to unlock economic potential,” Ms Keppel-Jones said.

CPA Australia’s four key recommendations:

  1. Expanding Asia-focused training for SMEs to improve business readiness and regional engagement.
  2. Showcasing Australian success stories in Asia through a government-supported case study library to inspire and educate.
  3. Increasing scholarships and professional placements for young Australians to study and work in Asia.
  4. Revitalising Asian language and cultural education in schools and universities to reverse declining enrolments and build long-term regional literacy.

“As global dynamics shift, our ability to engage with Asia is more critical than ever. We need to ensure Australia’s workforce is globally competitive,” Ms Keppel-Jones said. “We are ready to work with government, educators and industry to turn these recommendations into action.”

The submission highlights CPA Australia’s active contributions to regional policy development, education and professional exchange, including a reciprocal work placement exchange program with Malaysia.

Eligible CPA Australia members can enjoy temporary work placements in Malaysia as part of a broader Young Professionals Exchange Program organised by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The exchange program is designed to enhance business engagement between Australia and its Southeast Asia partners and is available in Malaysia first, before being rolled out to other Southeast Asian markets.

CPA Australia’s thought leadership initiatives across Asian nations include its annual Asia-Pacific Small Business Survey and Business Technology Report.

November 13, 2025 Posted by | business, politics | Leave a comment

Cheaper, greener power is on the way.

Cheaper, greener power is on the way. As long as anti-net zero populists
don’t throttle it in the cradle. Not that long ago, Mark Purcell, a retired
rear admiral in the Australian navy, was paying about A$250 a month for
electricity in his roomy family home on the Queensland coast.

Today, he says he makes as much as A$300 a month, or nearly $200, from the
electricity he makes, stores and sells with his solar panels and batteries.
“This is the future,” he told me. “This is what the energy transition
could look like for a lot of folks.” Purcell is one of the 58,000-plus
customers of Amber Electric, an eight-year-old Melbourne business that
gives householders access to real-time wholesale power prices so they can
use power when it’s cheap and sell what is stored in their batteries when
it’s expensive.

The company is adding 5,000 customers a month, putting it
among a new generation of fast-growing energy tech start-ups aiming to make
electricity cheaper and greener, and not just in Australia. Amber’s dynamic
pricing technology is due to launch soon in the UK, where the company has
done licensing deals with the energy suppliers Ecotricity and E.On.

Norway’s Tibber offers similar services to the 1mn customers it has gained
since launching in 2016 and expanding to Germany, Sweden and the
Netherlands. In Germany, the market share of companies including Tibber,
Octopus Energy and Rabot Charge has grown from 0.1 per cent in 2023 to 2.4
per cent in 2025, says the Kreutzer Consulting group. Between them they
have more than 1mn customers, 77 per cent of whom are particularly or very
happy with their provider, far more than the industry-wide figure of 57 per
cent.

Remember those figures the next time you hear a rightwing populist
condemn allegedly unaffordable net zero policies. In fact, this new class
of energy tech entrepreneurs is showing how electricity can become more
affordable precisely because of the renewables, batteries and electric cars
that net zero efforts drive.

It is no accident Amber Electric began in
Australia, long a world leader in rooftop solar systems that sit atop more
than 4mn of its homes and small businesses. Its population of 28mn is now
undergoing a home battery boom, following the July launch of a A$2.3bn
government subsidy scheme. Industry estimates show rooftop solar can save
households up to A$1,500 a year on energy bills, a figure that nearly
doubles if you add a battery, and rises further with dynamic pricing. Is
there a catch?

Right now, the upfront costs of green tech can be
considerable. Queensland’s Purcell is a superuser who has spent tens of
thousands of dollars on solar panels, batteries and a home energy
management system that makes everything from his pool heater to his air
conditioners price-responsive. His family also has two Teslas with even
bigger batteries.

This is clearly unaffordable for many, but maybe not for
long. Big home hardware retailers have begun to launch financing plans that
let people pay monthly fees of less than A$150 for solar and battery
packages rather than a big initial outlay.

FT 29th Oct 2025, https://www.ft.com/content/8bf14af2-8c22-4731-ad06-4a36277dff74

November 3, 2025 Posted by | business, energy | Leave a comment

Coalition’s nuclear gambit will cost Australia trillions – and permanently gut its industry

 The modelling cited extensively by the federal Coalition to defend its
nuclear power fantasies is predicated on a massive hollowing out of
Australian industry.

Climate Energy Finance (CEF) published a report on
Thursday examining the economic implications of the nuclear pathway
modelled by Frontier Economics for Australia’s energy transition.
Frontier concludes its $A331 billion costed nuclear scenario is somehow
better than the Australian Energy Market Operator’s Integrated System
Plan’s (ISP) Step Change scenario cost, which they calculate at $594
billion by bizarrely ignoring the massive cost of the resulting cumulative
$3.5 trillion reduction in Australian gross domestic product (GDP) by 2050.

 Renew Economy 24th April 2025 https://reneweconomy.com.au/coalitions-nuclear-gambit-will-cost-australia-trillions-and-permanently-gut-its-industry/

April 24, 2025 Posted by | business | Leave a comment

New report: Coalition’s nuclear folly would cost Australian economy at least $4.3 trillion by 2050

Climate Energy Finance Media April 24, 2025, https://theaimn.net/new-report-coalitions-nuclear-folly-would-cost-australian-economy-at-least-4-3-trillion-by-2050/

New analysis by independent public interest think tank Climate Energy Finance (CEF) looks at the economic implications of the nuclear pathway modelled by Frontier Economics for Australia’s energy transition – cited extensively by the Federal Coalition to defend its nuclear plan. The analysis reveals a massive hollowing out of Australian industry, permanently higher total energy costs, uncosted and unabated carbon pollution, and trillions of dollars in lost GDP.

The CEF analysis exposes damaging flow-on costs to the economy for which the Frontier modelling fails to account.

Combined with Frontier’s extreme underestimation of the capital costs of building nuclear reactors, these costs accumulate to $4.3 – 5.2 trillion by 2050, 13-16 times the $331bn price tag for a nuclear Australia assumed by Frontier Economics.

These costs include an estimated:

  • $3.5 trillion in cumulative undiscounted lost GDP through to 2050;
  • An $111-332bn in nuclear capex costs, which the Frontier modelling erases all but $13.5bn of by failing to both amortise nuclear’s capital investment costs incurred after 2050 and account for inevitable expensive retrofits;
  • $234bn in higher fuel costs due to slower electrification meaning consumers and businesses are forced to rely on higher cost fossil fuels for longer;
  • $72-720bn in economic damage from up to 2.0bn of additional tonnes of CO2 emissions;
  • $100bn in lost export revenue from the aluminium industry alone, likely to collapse under the drastically reduced industrial electricity demand in the nuclear scenario.

Report author Tim Buckley, CEF Director and a former Managing Director of global investment bank Citigroup, said:

“It strains credulity that the Frontier Economics nuclear report is riddled with shortcomings which completely undermine its credibility as a work of serious energy transition analysis, given this is the central modelling being relied upon by the Opposition for its key energy and climate policy offering of the 2025 Federal election.

“The largest share of the Frontier-modelled ‘savings’ in energy transition investment comes at the cost of delivering much weaker outcomes for Australia, including an assumption the Australian economy’s GDP is $300bn lower annually by 2051. This represents an astonishing $3.5 trillion in cumulative GDP forgone.

“This is as weak as the Opposition Leader recently declining to accept the settled climate science because he is ‘not a scientist’.

It beggars belief that this is the best the party representing itself as alternative federal government can come up with, as the nation stands on the brink of an immense generational opportunity to remake itself as a global renewables superpower and green energy trade and export leader in a rapidly decarbonising world.”

April 24, 2025 Posted by | business, politics | Leave a comment

Federal election 2025: Economists send open letter opposing Coalition nuclear plan

The economists said all the outlined [clean renewable energy] benefits would be delivered much faster and at a fraction of the cost of nuclear energy.

economists said the $330 billion price tag for the nuclear plan was likely to go much higher and was based on questionable modelling for the coalition.

“Major Australian firms are increasingly signing agreements to purchase electricity from solar and wind farms – recent examples include Rio Tinto, BHP Mitsubishi, Telstra, Woolworths, Coles.”

Lloyd Jones, 20 Apr 2025, https://thenightly.com.au/politics/federal-election-2025/federal-election-2025-economists-send-open-letter-opposing-coalition-nuclear-plan-c-18427749

An open letter from 60 Australian economists has rejected the coalition’s nuclear energy plan, promoting instead the subsidising of household clean energy policies, including incentives for home battery storage.

The organiser of the letter, Gareth Bryant, an associate professor in political economy at the University of Sydney, says the letter is intended as an intervention in the election campaign.

“As economists, energy analysts and policy specialists we strongly support government investment in household clean energy and industrial electrification and not in nuclear energy,” the letter says.

It says simple household clean energy upgrades can deliver immediate cost-of-living benefits and reductions in carbon emissions, and electrification can safeguard the future of industrial jobs and the communities that rely on them.

The economists, from a range of Australian universities and other tertiary institutions, said the construction of nuclear power plants would take at least 15 years at a cost of at least $330 billion.

“It would result in higher household energy costs, drain investment away from renewable energy and energy-intensive manufacturing, and leave the Australian economy precariously over-dependent on increasingly automated mineral extraction,” the letter says.

The economists said they support a nationwide program to upgrade homes and industry with clean renewable energy.

They said the technologies to fund should include large-scale home electrification with smart appliances to deliver bill savings, energy-efficiency upgrades and battery storage, which can save surplus solar for night-time use, and hot water retrofits for more efficient water heating.

“An extensive number of studies have found household electrification and energy upgrades would generate immediate household savings, helping to address cost-of-living pressures,” the letter says.

It says modelling for ACOSS found that with energy efficiency upgrades the average household would save almost $3500 a year.

The economists said their pathway would be anti-inflationary, due to less reliance on volatile international gas markets and it would benefit Australian manufacturing which requires low-cost, secure electricity.

“Major Australian firms are increasingly signing agreements to purchase electricity from solar and wind farms – recent examples include Rio Tinto, BHP Mitsubishi, Telstra, Woolworths, Coles.”

The economists said all the outlined benefits would be delivered much faster and at a fraction of the cost of nuclear energy.

The coalition’s nuclear plan proposes to build seven nuclear reactors with the first of these not operational until 2035.

The coalition plan had a number of flaws, the economists said, including higher household energy costs.

“Independent modelling by the Institute of Energy Economics and Finance found it would increase the electricity bill of an average household by $665 per year.”

The coalition nuclear plan would have detrimental impacts on the Australian economy, the economists said.

It would decrease bank and investor certainty, which will in turn increase the cost of renewable energy.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has defended his nuclear plan, saying it would help reduce carbon emissions and deliver lower cost electricity and gas, and reliable energy.

But the open letter economists said the $330 billion price tag for the plan was likely to go much higher and was based on questionable modelling for the coalition.

Investing in nuclear power would take away money that could be invested in more cost-effective household clean energy, they said.

“Today, with rising geopolitical tensions, trade wars, and accelerating climate breakdown, sovereign capability is even more critical,” the economists said.

“Renewables enable Australia to maintain this capability – nuclear does not.”

April 23, 2025 Posted by | business, politics | Leave a comment

Dutton’s nuclear push will cost renewable jobs

 by Charlie Joyce, https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/duttons-nuclear-push-will-cost-renewable-jobs/

As Australia’s federal election campaign has finally begun, opposition leader Peter Dutton’s proposal to spend hundreds of billions in public money to build seven nuclear power plants across the country has been carefully scrutinized.

The technological unfeasibility, staggering cost, and scant detail of the Coalition’s nuclear proposal have brought criticism from federal and state governments, the CSIRO, the Climate Council, the Electrical Trade Union (ETU), the Climate Change Authority, the Australia Institute, and independent energy experts.


The CSIRO, among others, has refuted the Coalition’s claim that nuclear will be cheaper than renewables; instead, they have shown the energy produced by Australian reactors would cost approximately eight times more than the same amount of energy produced by renewables. If this cost is passed on to consumers, the average household would pay $590 per year more on their power bill. Unsurprisingly, Australia Institute polling has found that fewer than one in twenty Australians (4%) are prepared to pay this nuclear premium.

The cost alone should be enough to bury this nuclear proposal. But it is also important to recognise how the Coalition’s plan will impact – and fail – workers.

False promises

The Coalition has proposed that large nuclear reactors would be built on the sites of five operational or recently decommissioned coal fired power stations: Liddell and Mount Piper in New South Wales, Tarong and Callide in Queensland, and Loy Yang in Victoria. In doing so, the Coalition has promised that nuclear energy would be a source of stable and plentiful work for the communities where coal-fired power plants are phasing down.

This is a false promise. Six coal fired power stations have already closed in the past decade, with 90% of Australia’s remaining coal-fired power stations set to close in the next decade. These communities are already undergoing structural adjustment, and they need new sources of employment now. But this is not what the Coalition’s plan delivers. The Coalition outlines that the first two nuclear reactors would not come online until the mid-2030s – more than a decade from now – while the remainder would be completed by 2050.

And energy and technology experts agree that even this timeline is impossible. On average, a nuclear reactor takes 9.4 years just to build in countries with established and capable nuclear industries. Former Australian Chief Scientist Alan Finkel has estimated that it would take until the mid-2040s at the earliest for Australia to build an operational nuclear reactor. Moreover, analysis from the Institute for Energy, Economic & Financial Analysis (IEEFA) has found that, in economies comparable to Australia’s, every single nuclear reactor project experienced multi-year delays and cost blowouts of up to three and a half times over budget. It is hard to see how Australia, which lacks the experienced workforce, training and research base, or regulatory framework, would buck this trend.

Lost jobs

While the Coalition’s nuclear plan would not bring jobs to the communities that need them, it might have the real effect of depressing investment in renewables.

Renewable energy already generates approximately 40% of Australia’s energy and is by far the cheapest form of electricity. Renewable energy industries already account for the employment of tens of thousands of workers, and Jobs and Skills Australia estimates that approximately 240,000 new workers will be required in industries associated with clean energy by 2030.

But this requires ongoing and expanding investment in renewables, which the Coalition’s nuclear policy is likely to derail. The Clean Energy Council has estimated that by capping renewable energy to 54% of total use (as the Coalition’s modelling has assumed), 29GW of renewable energy generation projects would not be built – squandering an expected 37,700 full-time-equivalent construction jobs and 5,000 ongoing jobs in operations and maintenance. By limiting renewables investment, prolonging fossil fuel usage, and diverting investment towards nuclear energy, the full employment opportunities of the renewable energy transition are lost.

Scarce and dangerous work

If the Coalition’s nuclear plan does come to fruition it will hardly create any ongoing jobs for the communities that have undergone structural readjustment. According to analysis from the Nuclear Energy Agency, while the peak period of construction of the average 1GW nuclear power plant can demand up to 3,500 workers, ongoing operations and maintenance will only require about 400 workers – with only a quarter of these being onsite blue-collar jobs that might provide work for the people who will have lost jobs with the closure of coal-fired power stations. Most jobs will be in administration, regulatory compliance, energy, marketing, sales, science and emergency personnel – and many of them are likely to be located away from the nuclear facility itself.

Disturbingly, any jobs on-site may put the health of workers at risk. Recent analysis of multiple studies of the health impacts of nuclear power plant employment across multiple countries found that workers have a significantly higher risk of mesothelioma and circulatory disease due to exposure to radiation. Nearby residents also exhibit a significantly higher risks of cancer, with children under the age of five at particular risk. And this does not even factor in the risk of sudden plant failure and reactor meltdown on workers and communities – a risk sharpened by the Coalition’s plan for these reactors to be built on geological fault lines with heightened earthquake risk.

Australian workers have much to gain from the renewable energy transition, including cheaper power, new clean technology industries, and hundreds of thousands of new jobs. The Coalition’s nuclear plan only brings false promises, lost jobs, and – if the plan comes to fruition – few jobs and potentially dangerous work.

April 15, 2025 Posted by | employment | Leave a comment

Going nuclear will decimate jobs in regions first, stop billions in new investment.

Cancelling new transmission projects will decimate opportunities for electrical workers and apprentices in exactly the regional areas where opportunities are needed, says ETU national secretary Michael Wright

Rachel Williamson, Apr 10, 2025 https://reneweconomy.com.au/going-nuclear-will-decimate-jobs-in-regions-first-stop-billions-in-new-investment/

Regional areas will suffer the most from job and investment losses stemming from the Coalition’s energy promises, according to analyses from alarmed energy sector stakeholders. 

The Coalition’s push for nuclear, a policy that was announced with much fanfare in December but has largely disappeared from the election hustings, will result in the loss of $58 billion in direct investment in renewable and storage, and cause the loss of 42,000 full time jobs, the Clean Energy Council says.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s Budget reply promised to abolish the $19 billion Rewiring the Nation fund will also cause the immediate loss of jobs, the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) says. 

The ETU analysis suggests 2000 electrical worker jobs will disappear this year if work stops on major network projects, rising to 7000 job losses in 2029 when building work on new transmission is expected to peak.

The costs are the direct impact from the Coalition’s promise to build seven nuclear reactors across Australia.

In December, it outlined a vision of small modular reactors becoming operational by a hugely ambitious timeline 2035 – notwithstanding the fact that these do not exist as commercial technology yet – and predicted the first large reactor operational by 2037. 

But that vision requires renewable generation taking up no more than54 per cent of the total energy supply in 2050 – compared to Labor’s target of 82 per cent by 2030 – and cutting funding for new transmission by 79 per cent to allow room both in the grid and budget, according to modelling by think tank Frontier Economics.

At what cost? 

The overall cost of abruptly changing the country’s energy course will be high, according to numbers crunched in a Clean Energy Council analysis. 

Their data shows the size of the loss in the years before 2030 alone, and the size and longevity of the damage to investment decision making. 

“The energy sector doesn’t plan based on three-to-four-year election cycles. These are 30–40-year investment decisions and investors need to see continued confidence in the sector through stable, long-term policy settings to keep investing in Australia,” says CEC CEO Kane Thornton.

“We need the right policy settings in place and both government and industry working together to accelerate the delivery of cheap, reliable and modern clean energy that works for Australia.”

Renewable generation is set to reach 54 per cent of the National Energy Market (NEM) by 2028 from projects that are being built or have financial backing today. 

Preventing renewable energy generation from growing past that level would mean cancelling almost 29 gigawatts (GW) of large scale solar and wind currently proposed or in planning and the $58 billion of capital investment they will need. 

Some 37,7000 construction jobs per annum won’t happen, nor will 5000 jobs annually in operations and maintenance, just between 2026 and 2030. 

Regional areas will miss out on $68 billion of economic activity and landholders will miss out on $2.7-3.4 billion in payments over a 25-year project life cycle.

Communities will lose a further $696 million in direct contributions from renewable energy projects.

And to top it off, household bills will be $449 higher, according to the Clean Energy Council NEM bill analysis in March of the impact of going nuclear. 

Regions will hurt the most

While the nuclear proposal is seen by many analysts as a smokescreen for keeping decrepit coal plants running longer, the immediate ramifications will hit hardest and immediately in the regions.

Renewable energy projects are delivering jobs and financial investment in country areas long neglected by national and state budgets, says Renew Economy‘s David Leitch.

“This is the greatest economic opportunity the regions will ever face in Australia, at least in the last 100 years, and probably in the next 100 years,” he said during a Smart Energy Conference talk on Wednesday. 

Cancelling new transmission projects will decimate opportunities for electrical workers and apprentices in exactly the regional areas where opportunities are needed, says ETU national secretary Michael Wright.

“Peter Dutton is planning a jobs bloodbath for the electrical industry,” he said in a statement. 

“Cancelling new transmission construction] deprives nearly 12,000 electrical workers, their communities and their families of a living across the country.”

Its analysis suggests that staying the course under the Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO) Step Change plan would lead to almost 43,000 new jobs by 2050. Dutton’s energy plan would lead to an aggregate of almost 25,000 job cuts.

Other jobs that will disappear include construction workers and truck drivers, due to halting new renewable projects in order to meet the 54 per cent cap, says Thornton.

Capping renewables at 54 per cent would not only see Australia miss out on billions of dollars of capital investment and economic growth, but thousands of jobs… and billions of dollars in community benefits would be left on the table,” he said in a statement. 

“We need all sides of politics to embrace this private-sector investment into regional Australia and the thousands of well-paid jobs this industry generates every year.

“These are real dollars for farmers, real dollars for country towns and real blue-collar jobs that pay Australians’ bills.”

April 13, 2025 Posted by | employment | Leave a comment

Littleproud’s great pretence on nuclear insurance, as sparkies attack Coalition nuke proposals

Ketan Joshi, Apr 2, 2025, https://reneweconomy.com.au/littleprouds-great-pretence-on-nuclear-insurance-as-sparkies-attack-coalition-nuke-proposals/

Just prior to the election being called, Nationals leader David Littleproud was pressed on ABC’s Radio National breakfast on whether insurance costs were included in the modelling exercise putting a dollar figure on the Coalition’s nuclear plans.

It has been tough for the Coalition: nuclear power is notoriously expensive, and so trying to present a narrative of it being cheap has been tricky. Littleproud had a confident answer in response to being challenged about insuring nukes:

“Well, as many countries around the world do that is actually factored in and in fact, self insurance is normally what they undertake. So it’s not a significant amount of anything that goes into the running cost”.

The majority of the Coalition’s claims regarding nuclear power come from a December 2024 report published by Frontier Economics, which itself has been widely criticised by experts.

It pulls off the trick of presenting an expensive approach to energy transition as cheap by a variety of accounting tricks, previously covered at RenewEconomy. But what it doesn’t seem to do is actually incorporate the costs of insurance, as claimed by Littleproud.

In fact, the Frontier Economics modelling does not mention insurance at all. Not in any context, or even in passing, or in footnotes (nor is it mentioned in the Coalition’s ‘blueprint‘). The Frontier report simply declares an assumption about the capital costs of nuclear power ($10,000 per kilowatt). RenewEconomy emailed Frontier asking for more details, but received no response.

The 2024-25 CSIRO GenCost consultation draft does contain an assumption around the insurance costs of nuclear, and ultimately concludes that “nuclear power does not currently provide the most cost competitive solution for low emission electricity in Australia”, and that “while nuclear technologies have a long operational life, this factor provides no unique cost advantage over shorter-lived technologies”. Notably, GenCost actually assumes a problematically low cost for nuclear power, as discussed here recently.

It is bad enough that Littleproud seems to be making a false claim about it being ‘factored in’ to the modelling, but insuring extremely risky technologies prone to massive cost blowouts and very vulnerable to worsening climate disasters is not going to be cheap.

April 2, 2025 Posted by | business | Leave a comment

Campaign against nuclear heats up with attack ads aiming at hip pocket

Rachel Williamson, Mar 27, 2025  https://reneweconomy.com.au/campaign-against-nuclear-heats-up-with-attack-ads-aiming-at-hip-pocket/

The 2025 federal election will be all about cost of living pressures, and that is exactly where the Smart Energy Council is aiming with a $1 million spend to tell Australians how much their power bills will go up if Dutton’s nuclear dreams come to fruition. 

If the Coalition’s price tag of $600 billion for seven reactors is correct – and there are plenty who dispute it – then in today’s money that comes to $30,000 per Australian taxpayer, Smart Energy Council CEO John Grimes said in a statement. 

That figure doesn’t take into account the higher power bills Australians will need to pay in order to fund the reactor rollout, he says.  

Their accounting suggests that households without rooftop solar will see a potential power bill increase of an average of $665 a year, while households with rooftop solar can expect a bill increase as high as $1400 a year.

Last year, the Smart Energy Council estimated rooftop solar would need to be off for about 67 per cent of the year to make room for the proposed 14 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear power, a fact the nuclear lobby has already accepted. 

In June last year Robert Barr, a member of the lobby group Nuclear for Climate, told the ABC that rooftop solar would need to make way for nuclear.

“I think what will happen is that nuclear will just tend to push out solar,” he said. 

“I think it wouldn’t be that difficult to build control systems to stop export of power at the domestic level. It’d be difficult for all the existing ones but for new ones, it just might require a little bit of smarts in them to achieve that particular end — it can be managed.”

Given the “white hot rage” of consumers faced with the introduction of emergency stop buttons in South Australia, Victoria, Queensland and now New South Wales (NSW), it’s fair to say the nuclear lobby has underestimated how attached Australians are to their rooftop solar systems.

To give an idea of what they’re up against, the nuclear lobby is today pitting itself against the little over a third of Australia households who already have rooftop solar. 

Slightly more than half of houses in Queensland have rooftop solar, the highest penetration in Australia. In South Australia it’s almost half, Western Australia has 45 per cent of homes topped by solar and in NSW it’s 35 per cent, according to a Climate Council report last year.

“Australians will be outraged to know that despite investing thousands of dollars to increase their energy independence and slash power bills, they’ll be forced to pay for their panels to be switched through nuclear power,” Grimes says. 

This election is a sliding door moment for millions of Australians that have invested in renewable energy.”

Grimes points out that under the Coalition’s proposal nuclear power plants would be commercially protected, while there is no such law for Australians who’ve invested in rooftop solar systems. 

Dutton’s nuclear plan would see large scale renewables capped at 54 per cent of the grid, compared to the minimum-82 per cent target currently in place under the Labor government.

But that would do harm to all Australians, regardless of whether they have been able to install their own solar system, says a report today from the Clean Energy Investor Group.

It found that in 2024, without wind, solar and battery storage, Australian households and businesses would have faced wholesale electricity prices up to between $30/MWh and $80/MWh higher than they actually were in 2024, and paid an estimated $155 – $417 more for household electricity bills.

But it also found that without rooftop solar the 2024 cost of electricity would have increased by a whopping $400-$3,000/MWh.

March 28, 2025 Posted by | business | Leave a comment

Investors take aim at Coalition as nuclear debate hits boiling point

The Age, By Nick Toscano, March 19, 2025

Major investors have clashed with the Coalition ahead of the federal election, warning that slowing the rollout of renewable energy will push up electricity bills by increasing the need to call on failure-prone coal plants and expensive gas-fired generators.

Debate about Australia’s clean energy shift has been thrust to centre stage as Opposition Leader Peter Dutton campaigns to limit renewables to 54 per cent of the electricity grid and build a fleet of government-owned nuclear generators across the mainland.

If it wins the election, the Coalition would roll back Labor’s 2030 climate commitments, including its target for renewables to make up 82 per cent of the grid by 2030, which experts believe is unlikely to be met.

However, in a significant intervention, a group of large investors including US asset giant BlackRock, France’s Neoen, Australia’s Macquarie Bank and the Andrew Forrest-backed Squadron Energy has ramped up its push against policies that would restrict the expansion of wind and solar and keep the grid heavily tied to fossil fuels for longer.

“Australia needs more renewables, not less, to achieve sustained power price reductions,” said the Clean Energy Investor Group, which represents 18 global and local investors with a portfolio value of $38 billion across Australian renewable projects.

Households have been hit with double-digit power bill increases since 2022, the year that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine unleashed a global energy crunch. Another power price rise, partly due to recent stretches of low wind and rain limiting renewables’ output, is set to take effect in Queensland, NSW and South Australia from July this year.

But bills would be up to $417 a year higher if not for renewable energy and batteries, the investor group’s analysis shows, as utilities would be forced to more frequently fire up their gas-powered generators, which are among the most expensive suppliers to the grid.

Separate industry modelling released last week by the Clean Energy Council suggests the Coalition’s push to limit renewables would require at least a three-fold increase in gas-powered electricity costs by 2030.

Investors have also expressed concern at the Coalition’s proposal to extend the lives of ageing coal-fired power stations beyond their closure dates in the 2030s and 2040s until nuclear plants were ready to replace them, which could raise risks of sudden breakdowns, power shortages and price spikes.

“Running a grid using fossil fuels rather than renewables would increase total system costs, weaken energy security, and place greater strain on ageing coal and gas infrastructure,” the investor group said………………………………..more https://www.theage.com.au/business/companies/investors-take-aim-at-coalition-as-nuclear-debate-hits-boiling-point-20250318-p5lkg8.html

March 19, 2025 Posted by | business | Leave a comment

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