‘Makes absolute sense’: Labor urged to rethink nuclear ban amid fears Australia will fall behind - The Australian

Former Liberal MP Andrew Hastie has renewed calls for Labor to revisit Australia's nuclear ban, citing concerns that the country will lose ground to international competitors as other nations expand their nuclear fleets. The argument centers on Australia's risk of falling behind in energy and technology competition if it continues to rule out nuclear generation.

Where this fits

Australia's renewables-only path commits the grid to weather-dependent generation that requires either massive battery buildout, locked into a China-owned supply chain, or sustained gas firming. Nuclear is banned by law despite being the lowest-emission firm power available, and the lowest across its full lifecycle including manufacturing. This story surfaces the competitiveness problem: while Australia legislates away dispatchable generation, other developed economies are treating nuclear as essential infrastructure for both decarbonization and grid firmness. The sovereignty angle sharpens here too: China controls the panels, batteries, and processed minerals that underpin a renewables-only grid. A firm, energy-dense alternative with no China supply-chain dependency sits off the table.

What it means

Maintaining the nuclear ban while competitors adopt it means accepting higher whole-system costs for an equivalent decarbonized grid, the transmission overbuild, the gas fleet kept spinning for weather variability, the mining and processing footprint for battery materials. It also means ceding strategic energy autonomy to a nation that controls the mineral supply lines renewables depend on. The debate is no longer academic: other democracies have concluded that firm, low-emission power matters. Australia's policy architecture has not caught up to that reality.