There was movement in the cabinet, for the word had passed around,
That a scheme of Old Regret was on its way.
A pumped-up hydro folly that would cost billions of pounds
And leave the nation’s taxpayers with the bill to ever pay (apols to Banjo)

They said Snowy 2.0 would be Australia’s great ‘nation building’ energy project. What it has actually become is a master-class in political hubris, managerial incompetence, and the systematic destruction of taxpayer money. And yet, the men and women responsible for this slow-motion disaster are still employed, still in power, and still trying to spin this farce as progress.

If Snowy 2.0 were an actual business rather than a government vanity project, its board and management would have been sacked years ago. In fact, in the private sector, some of them would be lucky to escape without lawsuits.

Snowy 2.0 began as Malcolm Turnbull’s great brainwave. He wanted a bold, photogenic project to cement his ‘innovation prime minister’ legacy. But there was a snag: The Commonwealth did not even fully own Snowy Hydro. Before 2018, the shareholding was split: NSW with 58 per cent, Victoria 29 per cent, and the Commonwealth just 13 per cent. Neither NSW nor Victoria would be so reckless as to pursue Snowy 2.0. They knew the economics would not stack up.

So, Turnbull, with Canberra’s taxing power at his back, decided to buy them out. The deal cost $6.2 billion. Overnight, the Commonwealth became sole shareholder. And with that, Turnbull had his vehicle for Snowy 2.0, no matter how shaky the economics or how flimsy the analysis.

The original price tag, in 2017, for Snowy 2.0 was $1.7 billion. That number now looks like a typo scrawled on the back of a napkin. By 2023, costs had been ‘reset’ to $12 billion. Now it is $20 billion and counting. Once transmission lines are included it will be many billions more.

Tenfold blowouts are not supposed to be routine in civilised countries, but in Canberra they are greeted with talking points.

The so-called business case is a tragi-comedy. When the cost was a wishful $12 billion, the net present value was supposed to be an equally wishful $3 billion. At $20 billion, using the same analysis, the net present value would not just be negative but catastrophically so. This is not value for taxpayers, rather one of the largest, most brazen destructions of public capital in decades.

Defenders say Snowy 2.0 is essential for long-duration power storage as coal retires. But it is Snowy 2.0 idiocy that crowds out, intellectually and economically, many viable alternatives, including nuclear. The opportunity cost of this boondoggle will haunt energy policy for decades and taxpayers for generations.

Snowy 2.0 is a case study of what happens when Canberra centralises both money and decision-making. The states walked away for a reason. Turnbull, determined to leave his mark, used taxpayers’ billions to override their caution. The result is an engineering talisman that is defended by those who know the economics never stacked up but fear the optics of pulling the plug.

And the project execution? A rolling farce. Workers are now earning around $300,000 a year under new agreements, with no ‘specifically measurable’ productivity trade-offs. Tunnel-boring machines break down or get stuck for months. Safety failures halt work. Florence the tunnelling machine is a reminder of how poorly reality bends to politicians’ visions. A project once touted as bold has become little more than a very expensive way to dig holes and get stuck in them.

Once slated to be complete by 2024, then 2026, then 2028, who really believes it? At this rate, it is more likely to become a tourist attraction for future generations: come see the tunnels that ate $20 billion, or many times more.

The contract signed does not specify or limit costs, with contractors rewarded for meeting targets irrespective of cost. There are penalties, not for cost overruns but for not meeting deadlines. The contracting process guarantees virtually unlimited cost overruns with the taxpayer on the hook for many billions more.

So how much must Australians suffer for the hubris of our politicians? How many billions of taxpayer dollars must vanish before someone in authority has the decency to resign? When will the board, the management, the ministers responsible finally admit what everyone else can see – that this is not nation building, it is nation fleecing? And when will this farce end?

Snowy 2.0 was supposed to be the ‘water battery’ that kept the lights on. Instead, it has become a bloated metaphor for everything wrong with Australian politics: reckless spending, managerial incompetence, and zero accountability.

Turnbull is off polishing his Companion of the Order of Australia pin. Current Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen says the project is ‘critical’ to Australia’s energy future while describing the cost overrun as ‘disappointing’. That is like calling the Titanic a minor mishap in maritime planning.

Bowen promises the government will make sure the project ‘delivers value for taxpayers’. How will it deliver value? It will not. It cannot. The costs will be recovered through higher taxes, higher energy bills and higher public debt. But this is not a problem for the politicians and bureaucrats responsible, many of whom will retire on defined-benefit pensions indexed for inflation. For them, the only thing Snowy 2.0 has generated is career insurance.

And here lies the broader point: Snowy 2.0 is not just a fiasco in isolation. It is emblematic of Australia’s entire centrally planned, top-down ‘energy transition’ – a project built on wishful thinking and fairy dust, not engineering or economic reality. Like Snowy 2.0, the wider strategy is full of grand announcements, heroic assumptions and minimal accountability. The costs keep rising, the timelines keep slipping and the public keeps paying.

A serious energy transition must be grounded in physics, engineering, and economics – not press releases and photo ops. Until then, Snowy 2.0 will remain the perfect parable: a giant hole in the ground, stuffed with taxpayer cash, sold as salvation but destined to be remembered as one of Australia’s most-expensive blunders.

If there is justice, its epitaph will be simple: Here lies Snowy 2.0 – nation fleecing, not nation building.