New polling of 1000 New South Wales voters shows 67 per cent would back lifting the state’s uranium mining ban if projects demonstrably cut emissions, giving the Minerals Council of Australia fresh leverage to push for legislative change. The MCA is linking support to nuclear power and pointing to near‑border assets such as Boss Energy’s Honeymoon in‑situ leach operation, about 80km inside South Australia, as evidence NSW is forgoing investment. Any repeal would open large sandstone basins to exploration but trigger stricter radiation, tailings and groundwater controls.

UK and US governments are signing two agreements to accelerate commercial nuclear fusion development by combining national expertise in artificial intelligence and high‑performance computing. The pacts are expected to support faster optimisation of plasma confinement and reactor control algorithms, and to improve simulation of tokamak and stellarator designs that currently demand exascale‑class computing. For civil and nuclear engineers, this signals future design programmes where structural, thermal and neutronic load cases for fusion plants are iterated rapidly using shared AI‑driven modelling frameworks.

Australian mining bodies are urging the Federal Government to extend capital gains tax (CGT) concessions to junior mineral explorers, matching relief already available to tech and other start-up sectors. The Minerals Council of Australia and the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies warn proposed CGT changes could deter high-risk greenfields exploration, particularly for early-stage ASX-listed juniors reliant on equity raisings. Industry groups argue that without tailored CGT treatment, pre-discovery investors may exit earlier and reduce funding for drilling campaigns and resource definition.