The budget in May and subsequent events indicate that Australian state and federal governments want to follow the lead of South Africa, where years of neglect of the power grid mean that its citizens are now enduring blackouts of up to ten hours a day.

Although the Australian experience is unlikely to be as bad as that of South Africa, where there have been reports of corruption and even of criminal gangs operating within the country’s power utility company Eskom, it may still be bad enough.