When a party loses an election, there's rarely a single cause.

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But sometimes, amid the noise, one issue stands out as the tipping point. For the Liberal Party in 2025, that issue was nuclear energy.

I say this as a party member, a former staffer, and someone who wants the Liberal Party to win.

The nuclear policy wasn't just a distraction, it was a political liability that shifted marginal voters, cost public trust, and helped deliver the result we now face.

We must be honest about that if we want to rebuild.

A uComms poll in April, surveying over 5000 voters in 12 marginal electorates, found that 50.6 per cent of undecided voters were less likely to vote for the Coalition because of the nuclear policy.

Just 31.6 per cent said it made them more likely.

Across these 12 seats, the same research showed that if the Coalition dropped its nuclear plan, it would have increased its primary vote by 2.8 per cent.

That's not a rounding error. In a handful of tight contests, it's the difference between forming government and falling short.

A RedBridge poll on the easter weekend found the same. Kos Samaras' analysis is correct: "[Labor have] successfully been able to basically build a narrative that Peter Dutton is going to build these nuclear reactors with money that he's going to harvest via cuts ..."

"When we test that proposition, it rates its socks off."

What senior members of the party need to........

© The Examiner