Dick Smith claims Teals backer Simon Holmes a Court defamed him

Renowned Australian businessman Dick Smith has claimed he was defamed by political activist Simon Holmes a Court after scolding the Labor government’s push for renewable energy.

Electronics entrepreneur Dick Smith has claimed he is being defamed by political activist Simon Holmes a Court after scolding the Labor government’s push for renewable energy.

The defamation claim comes after both men appeared on ABC’s Australia’s All Over podcast on Sunday morning to discuss the government’s renewable energy plans, which led Mr Holmes a Court to accuse Mr Smith of spreading “misinformation on both renewables and nuclear”.

During the heated debate on radioactive energy, Mr Smith criticised government agencies of misleading ministers over the costs of reactors and the practicalities of renewables.

He said the energy crisis in Broken Hill was an example of “what’s going to happen” to the whole country if it accepted the CSIRO research that 90 per cent of the country could be run on renewables and storage.

Mr Smith said he was worried about the path Australia was taking, adding he was concerned about delays to developing nuclear energy.

But the Teals-backing businessmen had rubbished his claims, saying he was disappointed to see one of his “childhood heroes” spreading misinformation.

“Dick Smith is one of my childhood heroes – I learnt basic electronics from his funway series, lernt to solder and spent most of my hard-earned pocket money at his stores,” Mr Holmes a Court said in a statement on X. He added: “so sad to see him spreading misinformation on both renewables and nuclear.”

“If decision makers were to listen to him, it’d drive up costs, reduce reliability and lead to literally billions of tonnes more CO2 emissions in our atmosphere. He means well, but hasn’t done the work – he’s just going on his gut feel.”

Mr Smith has long maintained that renewables alone could not keep electricity flowing across the country.

He told The Australian he would not be pushing for any legal action against Mr Holmes a Court because he was not “litigious”.

“He’s saying I’m telling lies, which I’m not. I’m telling the facts,” Mr Smith said.

“What he said is that I’m spreading misinformation on both renewables and nuclear, and that’s defamatory because I’m not spreading misinformation.”

“To put that on Twitter, I just simply couldn’t believe it. I’m not litigious, I don’t sue people, but I’m very upset that he would write such a thing when it’s not true.”

“I don’t litigate against people who defame me. I never have and never will. I believe in a free speech. So yes, he can say that even though it’s defamatory and it’s untrue.”

Mr Smith said he had been in contact with Mr Holmes a Court, who offered to remove the social media posts.

“For him to go on Twitter and defame me, I think is just unconscionable. I don’t know why he would do that. We do have different opinions, but I can assure you that I’m saying the facts,” he said.

During the debate, Mr Smith said Broken Hill was the ideal place to showcase if renewable energy was working as it had both wind and solar farms.

“The whole lot got turned off, and they all went to total blackout,” he said.

“That’s what will happen to the whole of Australia if we attempt to go 90 per cent renewable. It is so ridiculous, it’s delusional.”

Mr Holmes a Court argued the nine towers that were knocked down during the storm needed to be “beefed up” in order for them to trade power back and forth.

“If we want it to be able to operate in islanded mode, then they need to beef-up the support systems you need. You need more storage and you’re going to need, there is a backup generator there, but for whatever reason, they couldn’t get the backup generators to work,” he said.