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Well, if we're going to go off topic, may as well go the whole hog ...
What piques my interest is that many people (excluding, of course, our learned IIS members!) complain about the release of radiation from nuclear energy yet, each year, more radioisotopes are released from burning coal than from nuclear power, and more people die from coal-related incidents than nuclear power-related incidents. People complain about the risk of a nuclear accident, but use 40+ y/o reactor technology as their example ... kinda like complaining about the reliability of a 1970 MGB and using that as a reason to distrust all future vehicles, regardless of what they may be. And, of course, people fear something like Fukushima, yet that 40 y/o reactor (built on a fault line, in a Tsunami zone, hit by a double natural disaster on the same day that was five times its design limit, in densely-populated Japan, with under-resourced response mechanisms, hampered by opaque management ... could the surrounding circumstances have been any worse?) has still only managed to hospitalise 4 people (for radiation exposure) - and they've all recovered. I'm not saying that nuclear energy is without risks - clearly they are substantial - but they are manageable. The main problem is that public perception (i.e. fear) is greatly out of proportion to the facts.
Waste management is a different issue, but if you define waste to include gaseous emissions, then the waste issues of coal seem to be significantly larger than those of nuclear fission, including the impact on future generations. I could say more about waste management, but, alas, I would have to use words like "paralysed", "myopic" and "political football" ... and I don't want to do that!
I think many people (quite understandably) are misled by our historical inability (or refusal) to cost all externalities associated with power generation. It's an approach that still needs some bedding down amongst the populace, but it's entirely necessary to permit fair comparison.
What I do disagree with, is that nuclear energy will be cheaper - there is no clear evidence that it will be so. It may be, depending (I think) on scale and technology employed in waste management and fuel processing, but I've yet to see any compelling evidence.
Also, keep in mind that, even if "we" decide to go nuclear tomorrow, it would take 15+ years to get a reactor into service .. and that's reactor #1 of 25 or so. I doubt we could commission them any faster than one per year, and that's damn fast. So, it's no panacea for our imminent problems, but may yet be necessary. IMHO, we should not write it off - we should continue research and planning to maintain it as a potential addition to Australia's power generation mix.
(This post is intended to stimulate thought, not argument, if you know what I mean).
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