Controversy stirred: The question of whether to introduce nuclear power in Australia has become a subject of increasing debate in the nation. The debate was spurred by the creation in 2023 of the Australian Submarine Agency to manage AUKUS. AUKUS is a partnership among Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States established in 2021 that gives Australia a mandate to own, operate, and staff a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines by 2040.
Controversy was further stirred this past June when Peter Dutton, Liberal Party leader of the opposition to the Labor-led government, proposed building five large nuclear reactors and two small modular reactors by 2050. A recent poll suggests that the Dutton-led coalition is on track to win a majority of parliamentary seats in the 2025 federal election.
Sharp divide: DemosAu polled about 6,000 Australian adults for the nuclear energy survey. The results show that 51 percent of surveyed men believe that “nuclear energy would be good for Australia,” compared with only 26 percent of women. George Hasanakos, DemosAu’s director of research, observed that this 25-point gender gap is “the sharpest divide in attitudes between men and women” that the firm had ever found for any issue. Furthermore, the wide nuclear gender gap exists regardless of age.
Additional findings: Only 38 percent of men responded that they would support the location of a nuclear power plant near their city of residence, compared with an even smaller 18 percent of women. Regarding the transportation of nuclear waste, 43 percent of men responded that it would not be worth the safety risk, compared with 57 percent of women.
Details: A report with the findings of the DemosAu survey—as well as an associated survey conducted by climate advocacy organization 1 Million Women—can be downloaded from the Australian Conservation Foundation website.
American attitudes: The slim majority of men who supported nuclear energy in the DemosAu survey is far less than their American counterparts, who have a much more pronuclear attitude. The 2024 National Nuclear Energy Public Opinion Survey, conducted by Bisconti Research, revealed that 86 percent of men in the United States somewhat or strongly favor the use of nuclear energy, compared with 70 percent of U.S. women. Details of the latest Bisconti survey were the topic of an article in the September 2024 issue of Nuclear News.
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