It's not unions that are the trouble: it's the people running (ruining) them. A bit like governments, really.

98% SB agree that Labor luminaries are totally ignorant on nuclear energy and the abundance of uranium and thorium in Oz! And I add, by deliberate design as we hurtle toward bankrupting power prices exceeding 45 cents PKWH.

When with thorium and MSR technology it could be as low or lower than 1 cent PKWH. And all but free if we but allowed ourselves to become a repository for the nuclear waste of the world. As such earn annual millions for a product, we can use in MSR technology where it is just mostly unspent fuel! (90 to 95%) and the final waste product, just 5-10% with a half-life of just 300 years. A product that we can use in long life space batteries?

Their plan is to rollout battery backed renewables and dot the landscape with eyesore poles, wires and transmission lines. For which there will need to be massive land resumption! And all the above at taxpayer expense. And costing billions that would pay for many multiples of MSR thorium and or MSR waste burners and a massive energy surplus we could export to anywhere economically, using undersea, graphene cored cables. And earn much more than we ever did with coal (annual trillions?) and at prices that never ever go down but go up.

But a no can do as long as we have the dismally ignorant bird brains running the country into the ground and toward another Great Depression and a manufacturing sector limping to anywhere else with competitive energy prices and sane administrations!

Sitting on hands waiting for things to get well by themselves, not any part of a credible response, when what we need is really big ideas and polies not too timid to roll them out, Thorium reactors, surplus energy exports big time, rapid rail and the drought-proofing of OZ! TBC.
Alan B.

If it is true that "96% recommend immediate re-introduction of national service" then this suggests it is an unrepresentative sample and should not be taken seriously. Likewise with the 98% unaware that nuclear power is an expensive option: something they'd know if they really were paying close attention to the UK.

Uranium is as rare as expensive platinum, then needs enrichment to extract U235 from U238 and U239, given only U235 is fissile.

Thorium is four times more abundant and as common as lead. Costs about the same. The refined metal can be used as is without enrichment, but after spending around a fortnight in the blanket of a reactor. Where it absorbs neutrons to become fissile U233.

And suitable as a fuel in a molten salt (lithium/fluoride/thorium reactor) LFTR. And the fuel is continually reprocessed in the adjacent plant to continue to be useable in said MSR technology. Ditto nuclear waste and weapons grade plutonium.

The final waste product from MSR thorium is eminently suitable as long-life space batteries. One of the decay products is miracle cancer cure, the alpha particle, bismuth 213. And would seem to have produced remission in some very nasty death sentence cancers, including stage four ovarian cancers.

Have seen before and 66 minutes after, scans of a cancer riddled liver. After treatment with bismuth 213 a liver showing three tumor was completely clear in just 66 minutes with no apparent damage to surrounding healthy tissues.

If we rolled out thorium reactors along with microgrids we would all but eliminate the 75% transmission and distribution losses. Losses the mug consumer pays for.

My model for the rollout is reliant on government funded and facilitated tendering local regional and rural co-ops. Co-ops that would be allowed to compete for the consumer energy dollar and export contracts. This would ensure two things, low prices and employee owner returns that were vastly superior to wages/salaries and decided by them without needing to arbitrate or strike or the need of any union involvement!

Cling wrap thin underlay under roadways would replace all eyesore, poles, wires and transmission lines or the need to resume any private land. Unless it was for essential roadworks!

The upside of bismuth213 is a huge regional and rural, unending, massive medical tourism and overfull motels and hotels! there are simply no real downsides, albeit, many anti-nuclear bigrade, imaginary or deliberately invented one?
Alan B.

Cling wrap thin underlay Graphene should be substituted for, < cling wrap thin underlays. > I seem to be getting some unwanted editing from somewhere.

Graphene is a super conductor and is 200 times stronger than steel. This would also come with the added benefit of dramatically reduced road maintenance. TBC.
Alan B.

99% agreed the reintroduction of slavery was a good idea.
99% wanted a cut to the price of 'Premium' petrol, as the Roller doesn't run well on 'Standard'.

The rubbish put out by the likes of this bloke, that small business is somehow the philanthropic "Mother Teresa" of the Australian economy is not borne out by the facts on income, living standards and taxation. With a benign taxation system favouring business, the average small business owner in Australia nets in excess of $110,000 p.a. (2018). Stop the belly aching, and get on with it.