A new opinion poll showed Australians overwhelmingly want the federal government to focus on developing renewable energy over nuclear power.

The Newspoll survey, commissioned by the Clean Energy Council, showed four out of five respondents preferred the Labor looked to solar and wind power options before nuclear energy.

Council chief executive Matthew Warren said on Tuesday in a statement while some people did support nuclear power in principle, the potential of renewables was clear.

"This confirms what we have thought for some time. You need to exhaust every other alternative before talking about nuclear energy as a climate change solution for Australia." he said.