Australians choose batteries over nuclear after election fought on energy

Australia Broadcast Center

05-05-2025

When Peter Dutton unveiled his party's nuclear energy plan last year, it opened up a seismic difference between the two major parties.
It offered a real choice for Australian voters over the future of the country's energy policy.
"I'm very happy for the election to be a referendum on energy, on nuclear, on power prices, on lights going out, on who has a sustainable pathway for our country going forward," he said.
Taken on those terms, Saturday's election outcome was an endorsement of renewable energy over nuclear.
"It's clearly a referendum on energy policy, given the prominence of energy throughout the entire election campaign," the Clean Energy Council's CEO Kane Thornton said.
"
I think it's an emphatic victory for Australia's transition to clean energy.
"
Australia's energy market operator estimates nearly 80 per cent of homes will be powered by rooftop solar by 2050.
(
ABC News: Briana Shepherd
)
At a household level, Labor offered a significant discount on home batteries to accompany the booming solar on rooftops all across the country, aiming to get 1 million batteries installed under the scheme by 2030.
The last election saw a new generation of independents join the parliament, riding a wave of climate concern. Any expectation that the "teals" were a single-election trend has been dispelled, with most of them set to be returned, and new ones joining their ranks.
Photo shows
An illustration of climate change for the Australian Federal Election 2025.
While Labor policies have made some progress to decarbonise, the Coalition threatens to scrap or weaken them.
While the Greens have an anxious wait ahead to see how many lower seats they'll win, they recorded their highest-ever primary vote and will hold the balance of power in the Senate with 11 senators.
After losing Liberal heartland to the teals last election, the Coalition decided to pitch instead to the outer suburbs.
But the decision to campaign against renewables, and scrap climate policies such as the EV tax breaks, seems to mismatch the views of middle Australia.
Outer suburbs embrace solar
Dutton set out to make up gains in the outer suburbs by offering a discount on the fuel excise. But the data for solar uptake and electric cars paints a very different picture to the caricature of solar and batteries as a plaything for the inner-city.
While energy may not have been a top concern for voters, it's the outer suburbs where our love for rooftop solar is at its highest, especially in Queensland and Western Australia.
In Dutton's former electorate of Dickson, some 60 per cent of households have a solar system, double the national average, according to data from the Clean Energy Regulator.
It's these same areas where the uptake of household batteries is likely to be highest, with one-third of new household solar installations now including a battery, according to data from the Clean Energy Council.
Photo shows
A man leaning on a car.
Nanda, who lives about 60km from Melbourne's CBD, says he's saved up to $6,000 a year thanks to switching to an electric car.
Labor offered these households, and others looking to invest in solar, a discount of 30 per cent for home batteries.
Despite the data on solar uptake, Dutton characterised Labor's battery plan as a subsidy for wealthy households.
Similarly, the Coalition's attacks on support for electric cars could have hurt them more in the outer suburbs, where EV uptake is the highest as drivers look to pocket savings on their commute.
Anti-renewables rhetoric didn't flip seats
Beyond the suburbs, the Coalition also swung behind anti-renewables campaigners in an attempt to pick up regional seats where offshore wind farms are being proposed
But this tactic also appears to have fallen flat.
The issue doesn't look to have flipped any seats, with the majority of electorates with offshore wind proposals actually seeing a swing away from Liberal and National Party candidates opposing projects.
Along the New South Wales coast, those seats included Newcastle, Paterson and the ultra-marginal seat of Gilmore.
The swing wasn't uniform — Liberal MP Dan Tehan held off a strong independent to hold onto his seat of Wannon in south-west Victoria, with both candidates expressing concerns over community consultation of an offshore wind project.
And in the seat of Whitlam, which takes in the coastal city of Wollongong, Labor saw a swing of about 3 per cent against it, not enough to make a dent in the safe seat, and possibly due to long-serving MP Stephen Jones retiring.
Despite years of mis- and disinformation in these areas, Thornton says voters saw through these campaigns.
"Clearly there was some pretty ferocious, anti-renewables campaigning in different parts of the country.
"A lot of that was built on some really dodgy misinformation and disinformation campaigns.
Protesters gathered at Parliament House in Canberra last year for the Reckless Renewables rally.
(
ABC News: Jessica Davis
)
ANU associate professor Rebecca Colvin says the election results backed a growing body of research that shows support for renewable energy is high in both regional and metro areas.
But she said that many Australians believed support in regional parts of the country was much lower than the reality.
"There is heaps of evidence that most people in Australia, whether they're in the city or the country areas, want to see action on climate change and are supportive of renewable energy," she says.
"And that, in general, most people also underestimate those levels of support."
Many of the 30,000 Your Say respondents highlighted nuclear power and the Coalition's anti-renewables stance as a vote changer.
Despite the overwhelming support for renewables the election results seems to indicate, Colvin said concerns from communities impacted shouldn't be dismissed.
"There is potentially rhetoric that emerges, in spaces of public commentary or amongst advocates that say this election is a mandate for renewables, that's probably reasonable," she said.
"But to not allow that to become, dismissive … we still need to grapple with how to do this the right way and how to work respectfully with the people who are needing to host the infrastructure."
Community concerns about renewable energy projects should not be dismissed.
(
ABC News: Jessica Davis
)
Colvin says the more constructive debate now is how to get the transition to renewables right and support communities impacted.
"
If we're no longer debating is it renewables or is it nuclear, for instance, it might open up the basis for a debate about how to do renewables well.
"
Transition to renewables locked in
The debate over Australia's energy future hasn't just confused voters, it also threatened to dampen investor confidence in the renewables sector.
Photo shows
A chart shows the breakdown of energy generation over the course of a day, including coal, gas and renewables
Our energy system is evolving at breakneck speed. Here we look at how our power grid works, what more renewables mean for energy prices, how nuclear fits into the picture, and how we might build a grid fit for the future.
Whereas the Labor Party had introduced a number of policies intended to bolster renewables investment, the Coalition's nuclear pathway would have cut that support and effectively limited the overall amount of renewable energy required in the grid.
"It provides a lot of certainty for investors … what it means is continuity of policies that the government put in place over the past three years," Thornton said.
"
I think that gives investors some longer-term confidence that some of the policy wars and the silly politics we've had on clean energy over many years, that hopefully we're putting that behind us.
"
The Clean Energy Council's Kane Thornton.
Labor has set the target of 82 per cent renewable energy by 2030, compared to the current rate of 40 per cent. The challenge will now be for the government to ensure those targets are met and capacity is added as the country's coal-fired power stations are decommissioned.
More ambitious policy going forward
Frank Jotzo, the director of the ANU's Centre for Climate and Energy Policy, believes Labor's overwhelming majority could pave the way for more ambitious policies.
"With Labor having won this election in a landslide, there is every opportunity and arguably also a mandate for comprehensive and ambitious climate change policy in in this period of government," Jotzo says.
By not locking in a 2035 emissions target before the election, Jotzo says the government has given itself wriggle room to embrace stronger policy settings.
ANU's Centre for Climate and Energy Policy Professor Frank Jotzo.
"The Climate Change Authority has indicatively suggested a range of 65 to 75 per cent emissions reduction by 2035," he says.
"That would be a very significant ramp up from the rates of reduction inherent in the existing 43 per cent target for 2030."
Now that the election is over, Jotzo expects a "minor flood of climate related documents" to be released by various federal government departments, including a much-anticipated national climate risk assessment.
While the federal government's focus in its first term was on transitioning the electricity sector, Jotzo says it's important it starts targeting other industries as well.
"More needs to be done to accelerate the building of public transport and electrification of transport," he said.
"Meaningful action will need to be taken in agriculture, there is tremendous opportunity for Australia to build up clean green low emissions agriculture production."
With a record majority, a large climate-focused crossbench and the Greens holding the balance of power in the Senate, there'll likely be no shortage of scrutiny on the government's climate agenda.
The election may pave the way for more ambitious climate targets.
(
Reuters: Jason Lee
)