Nuclear power is shaping up as an election loser, and the Murdoch media is not happy

Whatever happens on election day, it’s certain that the Coalition’s promotion of nuclear power will cost it votes. It will probably cost the Coalition seats. It may cost the Coalition the election. And if the Coalition does unexpectedly well, it will be despite and not because of the nuclear policy.

The Murdoch press released polling results on April 19 showing that Labor’s campaign against the Coalition’s nuclear power policy is “driving a collapse in the Coalition’s primary vote in marginal seats across Australia.”

The RedBridge-Accent poll of 20 marginal seats found that Labor’s opposition to the Coalition’s nuclear plan is “a clear winner with a ‘net agree’ rating of 43.” Fifty-six per cent of poll respondents agreed with Labor’s claim that the Coalition’s plan will cost $600 billion and require spending cuts to pay for it, while only 13 per cent disagreed.

RedBridge’s Tony Barry, a former deputy director of the Victorian Liberal Party, said Labor’s message linking the costs of the Coalition’s nuclear power plan to cuts to Medicare was “smashing the Liberal brand and Dutton’s personal numbers and that’s atomising the primary vote.”

Murdoch political editor James Campbell offered this explanation for the Coalition’s apparent loss of public support:

“The question obviously is why? And here it’s hard to go past the decision to try to win an election from opposition by promising nuclear power. The brilliance of Labor’s decision to attack Dutton’s nuclear plan on the grounds of cost instead of safety is only now becoming clear. Focusing on cost has allowed the government to use nuclear to highlight its other charge against the Coalition – that given a chance, the conservatives will cut whatever they can get away with.”

The Murdoch press reported on May 1 that 41 per cent of 1011 respondents to a Redbridge-Accent national poll ranked concerns that Peter Dutton’s nuclear plan will cost $600 billion and will require cuts to pay for it among their top five reasons for deciding to oppose a particular party.

Only one issue topped nuclear power as a vote-changing turn-off. The article was titled ‘Where the Libs went off track: Inside the Coalition’s disastrous campaign’ and it ran alongside another titled ‘Coalition nuked by nervous electors.’

In March 2024, James Campbell warned that the Coalition’s nuclear power policy is “stark raving mad.” In the same month, Tony Barry described the nuclear policy as “the longest suicide note in Australian political history.”

Meanwhile, the Coalition’s attempt to go quiet on its unpopular nuclear policy has only drawn further attention to it.

Costings

The Coalition’s decision not to release nuclear costings until December left a void which Labor filled with the $600 billion figure. Furious responses to the $600 billion figure have only served to focus attention on the expansive cost of Dutton’s taxpayer-funded nuclear frolic.

Just in the past couple of days, the Sky News Youtube channel has featured these videos:

‘Don’t listen to their lies’: Barnaby Joyce slams Labor’s nuclear costings 

Labor’s $600 billion anti-nuclear lie given them lots of ‘traction’ in the election

‘Absolute balderdash’: Labor clings to ‘fictitious numbers’ of Coalition’s nuclear pricings

Labor’s anti-nuclear and power bill lies a ‘low point’ for Australia

A frustrated Barnaby Joyce told Andrew Bolt on Sky News:

“What they’ve done, ladies and gentlemen, is they’ve come up with this fantastic number. … The nuclear power stations are going to cost $600 billion. It’s like Dr Evil off one of those movies, you know coming out and saying ‘Oh you know 600 billion dollars’. BS. What they did, ladies and gentlemen, it’s like they got a turbo-charged Porsche and multiplied it by seven and said that is the price of every car in Australia.”

None of which comports with reality. Multiply the Coalition’s nuclear cost estimate by 2.5 and you’ll get the actual cost of recent reactor construction projects in the US, the UK and France. The Coalition assumes that reactors can be built in Australia for less than half the cost of recent projects in countries with vastly more experience and expertise. And much more quickly.

Liberals Against Nuclear

Polling commissioned by the Liberals Against Nuclear group provides further evidence of the political poison of the Coalition’s nuclear policy. The group said in an April 28 media release:

“A new uComms poll shows leading Liberal frontbencher Michael Sukkar could lose his seat at the coming election if the Party persists with its unpopular nuclear plan.

“The poll, commissioned by Liberals Against Nuclear, shows Labor and the Coalition tied at 50-50 in two-party preferred terms in Deakin. However, the same polling reveals that if the Liberals dumped their nuclear policy, they would surge to a commanding 53-47 lead.

“The polling follows a broader survey across 12 marginal seats that showed the Liberal Party would gain 2.8 percentage points in primary vote if it abandoned the nuclear energy policy.

“An earlier poll in the seat of Brisbane found the nuclear policy was a significant drag on Liberal candidate Trevor Evans’ support.

“The Deakin polling showed women voters are particularly opposed to the nuclear policy, with 53.2% of women saying it makes them less likely to vote Liberal compared to 41.3% of men. Overall, 47.5% of Deakin voters are less likely to support the Coalition because of the nuclear policy.

“The data also revealed that 56.1% of respondents don’t support nuclear power at all, with concerns about renewable energy investment reductions (19.0%), nuclear waste management (15.9%), and high build costs (13.0%) being the primary objections.

“In the crucial 35-50 age demographic that makes up many families in Deakin, 48.4% are less likely to vote Liberal due to the nuclear policy.”

Another UComms poll found that Dutton could be vulnerable in the seat of Dickson because of the nuclear policy. Forty-six per cent of those surveyed said they were less likely to vote for Dutton because of the policy.

National Climate Action Survey

The latest National Climate Action 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 found that support for nuclear power has fallen since the Coalition announced some details of its policy in June 2024.

The survey found that:

* 59 percent of respondents wanted to keep a legal ban on nuclear power in 2024 (up from 51 percent in 2023), while the number opposing the ban fell from 34 percent in 2023 to 30 percent in 2024.

* Only 18 percent of women were in favour of lifting the ban compared to 36 per cent of men. Two-thirds (66 per cent) of women want the ban to stay, 51 per cent of men want it to stay.

* Those who said the benefits of nuclear power far outweighed the risks fell from 24.5 per 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.

* 54.8 per cent of respondents would be very or extremely concerned if a nuclear power plant was built near them while only 11 percent would be comfortable.

Local opposition

The Coalition claims to have a social licence to build nuclear power reactors in the seven selected regions, and uses that as an excuse for the paucity of visits to those regions during the election campaign – by Peter Dutton in particular.

But polling in March 2025 by research firm 89 Degrees East for the Renew Australia for All campaign found just 27 per cent support for “developing large-scale nuclear energy infrastructure” in Gladstone, 24 per cent in the rest of Central Queensland, 24 per cent in Bunbury, 22 per cent in Central West NSW which includes Lithgow, 32 per cent in Hunter, and 31 per cent in Gippsland. 

The poll also found that just 13 per cent of people polled thought nuclear reactors would bring down their bills the fastest compared to 72 per cent for renewables.

RE-Alliance National Director Andrew Bray said: 

“RE-Alliance stands by the principle that all energy developments in regional Australia need broad community support – whether it’s for solar, wind, batteries, coal, coal seam gas or nuclear reactors.

“Support for nuclear reactors seems to be melting down in the regions who’ve been told they are hosting them. These communities weren’t asked if they want nuclear reactors in their backyard, and have been told it’s happening whether they like it or not.

“Community engagement is by no means easy, but you’ve got to at least try. It’s no surprise support is so low,” Bray said.

“We see multiple polls from Porter Novelli, CSIRO, 89 Degrees East and more showing strong support for renewable energy on local farmland, between 66 per cent and 71 per cent.

“Now the polling shows us support for nuclear reactors in these regions is between 22 percent and 32 percent. Regional communities have enough uncertainty already. Let’s stop with the whiplash and stay the course on a shift to renewable energy which is already almost halfway done.”

Other polls

ABC Vote Compass poll results reported on April 12 found that 47 per cent of respondents strongly disagreed or somewhat disagreed with building nuclear power plants, while 38 per cent were somewhat or strongly supportive.

The poll found 44 per cent support for nuclear power reactors among those who intend to vote for the Coalition but far less support from those planning to vote for independents (7.5 per cent in strong agreement), Labor (5 per cent in strong agreement) and the Greens (4 per cent in strong agreement).

A Resolve poll for Nine newspapers in April found that 31 per cent of respondents cited nuclear power as one of their biggest concerns about voting for the Coalition, up five per cent from the previous poll.

In October 2024, nuclear power regained its status as Australian’s least popular energy source. The Australian Financial Review reported:

“As the election draws closer, the latest The Australian Financial Review/Freshwater Strategy poll shows nuclear energy is failing to gain traction with voters. After seven months, it has fallen behind coal to seize back the mantle as the nation’s least favoured method of generating electricity.

“While 34 per cent support nuclear power, 36 per cent oppose it, giving it a net approval rating of minus 2, putting it in last place behind coal which has a net approval of plus 5.

“The most popular power source is rooftop solar (plus 80), followed by solar farms (plus 60), natural gas (plus 46), offshore wind and onshore wind (both plus 37) and hydrogen (plus 32).”

Internal opposition

The existence of the Liberals Against Nuclear campaign group suggests that all is not well inside the Coalition.

The nuclear power policy has been sharply attacked by former Liberal leaders Malcolm Turnbull and John Hewson. Turnbull says Dutton is a “thug” who says “stupid things” about nuclear power and that nuclear power’s only utility is “as another culture war issue for the right-wing angertainment ecosystem.”

Dutton’s nuclear power policy is opposed by state governments in the five states being targeted. Outside of South Australia, it is opposed by Liberal / LNP leaders in the states being targeted.

Current federal MPs have told the Murdoch press and the Financial Review that the nuclear policy is “madness on steroids” and “bonkers”, and that the Liberal and National Party rooms are “in a panic” about the policy.

Queensland LNP Senator Matt Canavan says that nuclear power “fixes a political issue” for the Coalition but “it ain’t the cheapest form of power.”

If the Coalition loses the election on Saturday, the promotion of nuclear power will likely be ditched as it was immediately after the Coalition’s loss in the November 2007 election.

Dr. Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia and a member of the EnergyScience Coalition.