What our community said about nuclear energy
Recently 1 Million Women surveyed our community across Australia, exploring their attitudes towards nuclear energy. We received more than 3350 responses from women across all Australian states. This survey and the written responses that we received from women made clear that our community would prefer the Australian government to focus on immediate actions to reduce Australia's contribution to climate change and reduce the cost of living this decade. We teamed up with The Australian Conservation Foundation for this survey, who recently just commissioned DemosAU to do a national poll of 6000 people on the same topic.
What our community said
93.3% of survey respondents are concerned about nuclear energy in Australia. When asked to rank their concerns, 36.3% of respondents said they were most concerned about nuclear derailing the renewable energy rollout. This was followed by radioactive waste management, impact on future generations in the event of an accident, cost and time delays, and intensive water use.
Only 8.1% of survey respondents believe that nuclear energy would be good for Australia. An overwhelming 91.9% of respondents believe that nuclear energy would not be good for Australia. 80.5% of respondents believe it is unlikely that a nuclear reactor would be built in Australia 'in the next few decades'.
We also put a submission into the House Select Committee on Nuclear Energy's Inquiry on Nuclear in Australia with the stories and opinions that women shared in our survey.
Here is what some of the respondents said:
Read about our report and survey in the media
- Nuclear energy debate draws stark gender split in Australia ahead of next year's election; The Guardian
- Women long-term thinkers on nuclear; Natalie Isaacs' OpEd in the Canberra Times, Illawarra Mercury, The Launceston Examiner, and Burnie Advocate
- Women strongly opposed to nuclear power, just one in three men willing to live near a plant; Renew Economy
- Radio news pieces; ABC Radio Sydney, ABC Radio Melbourne, ABC Radio Hobart - Tasmania Statewide mornings and ABC NewRadio.
