The attempts of the Commonwealth and South Australian governments to rescue the Whyalla steelworks is the latest ad hoc measure to paper over the cracks being created by Commonwealth and state energy policy disasters.

The promised spending of $2.4 billion is to save 1,000 jobs involved. Moreover, the assistance is conditional on ensuring much of the money is allocated to replacing coal and gas fuels by intrinsically high-cost and unreliable wind and solar – and prospectively by hydrogen from water, a solution rightly ridiculed when Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen promoted it in the 1980s.