The Federal Opposition's nuclear policy is dangerously misguided

My LinkedIn post the same week was short and frank, with a picture that I think helped tell the story. I don't have a problem with nuclear technology, properly implemented. The big problem I have is with wrecking the world's most advanced implementation of a distributed, householder-owned energy system. Tony Feb 2026

The Federal Opposition’s nuclear policy is dangerously misguided. For decades, conservative governments championed the privatisation of the energy sector, creating a real-time market that balances supply and demand across coal, gas, wind, solar, and hydro. Australia now boasts the world’s highest penetration of rooftop solar—a truly decentralised and democratically owned generating resource.

Price patterns in the National Electricity Market—ultra-low daytime prices and evening peaks over $10,000/MWh—are not market failures but signals to install more storage. These signals are being heeded, with storage rolling out at record rates to time-shift renewable energy and ease evening peaks. Dismantling this system for outdated, centralised control under a re-nationalised generating sector would be a colossal mistake.

If nuclear power is truly viable, the market will fund it. But the market has no appetite for 1950s nuclear technology and obsolete centralised models. The Liberals’ abandonment of free-market principles is both staggering and absurd, betraying the very framework that has driven innovation and empowered Australians.