A headline that includes the words ‘laughing stock’ over an image that includes a picture of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull is always a welcome albeit unsurprising sight in the Australian media. This week, the headline and image accompanied a story about the insanity that is ‘Snowy 2.0’. Future generations of school kiddies will (hopefully) cite this grand folly as the zenith of Australian climate cult madness, and marvel that such stupidity and arrogance could grip an entire government.

The Snowy Hydro Project was Mr Turnbull’s baby and deserves forever to be associated with his name, and indeed, his legacy. Whatever else Mr Turnbull will be remembered for (Spycatcher, anyone? The ‘Goanna’? Defenestrating Brendan Nelson? Defenestrating Tony Abbott? And, er, that’s about it…) it is clear that Snowy 2.0 will be the greatest and most permanent memorial to this particular individual’s contribution to the life and prosperity of our great nation.

The scheme was always an economic nonsense that relied on an accountant’s thimble trick of buying energy at one price and selling it a higher price. Importantly, it would never generate any net energy, instead consuming more energy than it generated. Originally scheduled to cost around $2 billion and be up and running five years ago, it is now projected for the early 2030s (yeah, right). The project has been plagued by hopeless construction components, with laughable ‘boring’ machines with silly names getting literally bogged down in the Snowy sludge for months on end. Worse, there are now even questions being raised about whether or not the thing can actually work as promised (if it’s ever finished) without reliable coal-fired energy available. And then of course there are the insane cost blow-outs, currently sitting at around $42 billion (and rising, no doubt).

One Nation’s Barnaby Joyce is scathing about the entire project. Which is relevant, given he was a member of the government that approved it.

‘Like the whole climate cult swindle, it turned into a complete financial disaster,’ laments Mr Joyce. ‘A cost well in excess of $40bn and in excess of a 12-year build for three days of 2000 megawatts of power. Every coal-fired power plant in Australia could have been upgraded for less than the money that was pissed up the wall on Turnbull’s power station in the scrub.’

And Mr Joyce makes this pertinent point:

‘If a public company hid this loss from the accounts at the AGM of the company, there would be possible jail time coming the way of the board members,’ Mr Joyce says.

This magazine concurs, having previously offered the opinion that if there were such a thing as ‘political negligence’ or ‘duty of care’ that demanded similar accountability from politicians that we demand from the private sector, there are well-known premiers and prime ministers who would now be cooling their heels behind bars.

Which brings us to the Farrer by-election next weekend. Currently One Nation is riding high in the polls and their candidate looks like winning the seat. The danger, of course, is that the conservative vote is split and the tealish Independent wins. This would be a disaster.

But with all three conservative parties finally doing what this magazine has long advocated and agreeing to exchange preferences – the only hope for a ‘glorious coalition’ of conservatism – there is a strong chance the One Nation candidate, David Farley, will prevail over the Independent, Michelle Milthorpe.

This is critical, and this magazine urges all readers in the electorate, in this instance, to vote for One Nation, regardless of intentions at the next federal election. If the Independent prevails, this will be used by the remaining bed-wetters of the Coalition to shift leftwards, at the very moment it is clear the Coalition’s only hope for government lies in moving sharply in a more conservative direction.

A One Nation victory will not only deliver a sound MP to the lower house, and bolster Mr Joyce, but will be fodder to those Coalition supporters who are keen for the parties to go into the next election promising to end the climate cult idiocy as well as dramatically reduce immigration.

Or to put it another way, a One Nation victory in Farrer could well be the final nail in the coffin of the Coalition’s disastrous Turnbull experiment.

It will be an interesting election night.