By Jo Nova
Coming over the event horizon — a project so bad it could break the nation
Snowy 2.0, the pumped hydro “battery” is far worse than we thought, and we thought it would destroy lakes, rivers, farms, cheap electricity and national productivity. But it’s worse than that. Now it’s been infected with Victorian Union style contract bombs, which will spread to all the attached transmission tentacle projects, and blow out their budgets too.
The government (us) is backing everything, guaranteeing profits for foreign companies and super sweet salary packages for union workers and the project is “too big to fail” and the debts promised for years to come. Imagine if you took witchcraft masquerading as science, hyped it with childish modeling, managed it with world class incompetence and mixed it with the worst union cartels, then locked it all into a 35 year contract. “Hey ho!”
For foreign readers, the CFMEU is the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union, which is being investigated for corruption that may have cost the Victorian government people some $15 billion dollars. In the words of the administrator the Victorian branch of the CFMEU was “no longer a trade union but more like a crime syndicate”.
You might wonder what union corruption has to do with bad science, but they all grow from the same self-serving pot. Bad science was used to justify Big Stupid Projects (like trying to use power stations to stop storms in 2100!). And Big Stupid Projects attract stupid people and greedy people. So we end up with stupid government managers that accept terrible deals from greedy unionists — deals that are so bad the government doesn’t even want to reveal the true cost because it’s too embarrassing. And none of the scientists want to speak up because their salaries depend on keeping the myth alive that renewables are cheap and worth pursuing.
And thus Snowy 2.0 becomes the black hole that bends space and time in every direction. It consumes land, money, energy, Australian productivity and industrial relations.
One trillion dollars is about $40,000 for every man, woman and child — wasted on a frivolous quest to make the weather nicer a hundred years from now. Let’s just ask Australian’s who wants to buy this?
Snowy 2.0 union deal set to trigger $1 trillion network charge for Australians
By Robert Gottleibsen, The Australian
The addition of the CFMEU locks in a $1 trillion network charge bill that will hit all power users. To escape the looming exorbitant network charges Australians who invested large sums in roof top solar and batteries will need to consider diesel generating back up even though that will increase the burden on everyone else.
What was a $2 billion dollar project is now likely to cost $40 billion, but amped up the “union rules” the total extended budget is orbiting the GDP.
But now that $40bn cost is set to explode because the project developers have signed an agreement with the CFMEU and linked unions to embrace very similar provisions to those planned for the Victorian Suburban Rail Link.
Not only are there huge pay rises but effectively the CFMEU people will be joint managers of one of the most complex tunnelling projects ever attempted in Australia. Governance goes out the window.
Snowy 2.0 is not just a pipe and a turbine, it’s a web of pylons and wires across thousands of miles:
To transmit the electricity over these huge distances, around 2000 towers — often 60 to 70 metres high or almost the height of the Sydney Harbour Bridge pylons — must be erected on Australia’s prime farming land. That power then drives water up to a giant dam in the “high country”.
So the “cost plus” horror contract will spread into huge industrial projects. The big bonanza win for the Union was to get the government to agree to cover the budget blowouts whenever unions “won” a better pay deal. This meant there was no cost to the company or the union in those decisions. And the government wouldn’t want to complain because as Gottleibsen says if people knew about much these things cost, “that would explode the “renewables are cheap” myth.” Gottleibsen estimates there is a trillion dollars in government liabilities “hidden” from official estimates. The total cost of transmission lines alone could be as much as $450 billion. He is astonished that things could get this bad:
My appeal is to the ALP caucus. You will have to explain to your family what you did to boost power prices and the cost of living for at least 35 years.
Worse still, you were so ashamed at what you were doing that you concealed it.
The first clue that there is government unease about the “missing trillion” came from Finance Minister Katy Gallagher. In an interview with The Australian, she said it would be unsustainable for the government to indefinitely continue supercharged spending on the “net zero” transition.
Snowy 2.0 also shows the industrial-relations danger. Once government-backed megaprojects become too big to fail, contractors and unions gain enormous leverage. If taxpayers or electricity consumers are ultimately on the hook, every delay, variation and wage condition can be rolled into the final bill. What began as an energy policy becomes an infrastructure disease.
The political class promised Australians a clean, cheap, modern grid. What they are building instead is a debt-funded machine for turning public money into private guarantees, higher power bills, ruined farmland and permanent dependence on bureaucratic modelling.
As an American I could laugh at Australia’s stupidity but then we have our high speed train line that is supposed to connect Los Angeles and San Francisco over 494 miles. It was passed by California state voters in 2008 and its cost was $33 billion.
80 miles of bridges and such have been built so far but no rail line laid and what is built is in the middle of nowhere which is very exciting. It is part of a 1st phase to connect Merced and Bakersfield. Has anyone here been to Merced or Bakersfield? There isn’t much there. It’s too funny.
Anyway the cost is now $233 billion and Trump’s Dept of Transportation has said “No more Federal Money.” The Communists and Socialists in Sacramento still kind of want this but in our lifetimes? Not a chance.
Has anyone been to the garbage dumps of Los Angelese and San Fransisco lately? My advice is to steer clear as the Democrats have destroyed these two cities like everything else they touch so it is amusing they feel people will want to escape from one them to flee to the other one – albeit at high speed.
Then again its only 55 minutes air time by plane today with 150 flights daily so………..
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You have conjured up a scene in my mind from a Fistful of Dollars and Once Upon a Time in the West, only ours is far worse caused by a buffoon who was once known as a Prime Minister. If only we could get Clint Eastwood to come down here and work things out with the bad-ass goons in the government and their union buddies.
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I was thinking more on the lines of the Dirty Harry film The Debt Pool…
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” If only we could get Clint Eastwood to come down here and work things out ”
I was thinking Musk… make him dictator for a year..
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Musk is detested around the Western World in just about every survey by The Left. In the US the Republicans think he is great as does the Venture Capital industry that has made $billions investing in his companies.
The reason he is detested is 1) Ignorance and 2) Envy – one of the bedrocks of Communism. Communism of course creates nothing but destroys everything it touches.
Take his compensation package from Space X. The press said that when Space X went public in its IPO earlier this month, that Musk was now a trillionaire. That is so wrong.
He gets paid $54,080 a year. To get his initial 1st tranche of 1 billion shares in Space X vested there must be 1,000,000 people permanently living on Mars and the value of Space X must be $7.5 trillion. Not on the moon but Mars. That’s pretty insane right there.To get the remaining 300 million shares Space X must operate data centers in space that draw at least 100 terawatts of power or 1000 times the consumption of every data center currently operating on earth.
Ambitious – setting incredible goals – that is Musk and The Left’s response is envy.
America is so blessed to have Musk.
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Woke gullible Western leftist loonies useful idiots governments are more like the “Keystone Cops”..” The 3 stooges”…”Laurel and Hardy”…But the big difference is that those 3 examples are ACTORS unlike the obvious stupid leftist loony politicians.
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Well John,
I have been to Merced and Bakersfield and can’t wait to go back. When the track is laid and the trains running, I want to fly into Meadows Field and make the run up to Merced for lunch at The Bar B-Q Pit; then back south, and fly home. The problem: I expect to reach ambient temperature before the trains run. 🙂
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I lived in California in the 1960’s – Bakersfield was poor but Anglo. It now might as well be the capital of Guatemala. There is hardly any private industry.
It does make The Top 10 and The Top 20 lists:
It is in the top ten cities in the US for obesity.
It is in the top ten worst cities to retire in.
It also makes the list of the top 20 cities that Americans are fleeing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JT0gy9b4aY
Glad you find Bakersfield enchanting.
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Reading with interest the other day all the commentary from the soccer World Cup visitors to your wonderful country.
They love all the aircon, free drinks with meals, big shopping centres with large adjoining car parks. But they were sad that there wasn’t much rail travel between your large cities.
Well, they were sad up to the point when someone explained that all those cities are serviced by relatively cheap efficient air travel.
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Yep, we have a high speed rail line from London to Birmingham that is our massive waste of taxpayers money to achieve…er nothing useful as by the time you get from the new stations into Birmingham or London any time saving will be long gone. If follows the usual UK path of insisting it will be ‘World beating’ – in other words using unproven technology which will prove costly assuming it even works. We could just have used what already works but with the line not due to complete until the 2040s all that will be out of date. And the cost has soared to be more than the US space rocket around the moon.
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When the Snowy Scheme was built from 1949 to 1974 a pumped hydro plant, Tumut 3, was incorporated. Tumut 3 at 1800 MW is almost as big as Snowy 2 at 2200 MW. Tumut 3 has hardly been used because the simple fact is pumped hydro is a negative energy power source: it uses more energy pumping the water uphill then energy produced when the water is released downhill. Weather dependent energy sources like wind and solar are bad enough but a pumped hydro scheme really is rubbing the Australian energy consumers’ noses in the utter stupidity of green energy.
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Like all of Climate Change, it’s about the cash. Nothing else. At $2.5Bn it was not worth doing as a 50% loss battery storage for windmills. At $1.2Trillion, it is beyond any possible justification to continue and should stop immediately.
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Australia is STUFFED.
Thank you Mr. Turnbull.
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And Morrison, and Albanese (and his fool Bowen). And the morass of climate alarmist, unionists and renewable snakeoil salesman who are going to be the grateful recipients of taxpayer largess.
We need a Royal Commission into climate activism and renewables scams.
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©️Climate Reparations©️
Can’t you blame J.C. – go way back to the root of the problem, ie. James Cook – and sue the English Crown or the Royal Society or the international ‘financiers’ who backed his journey of discovery south of the equator… culminating with the idea mankind can push water uphill to generate [cheap power?] fortunes. El Dorado!
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William,
A Royal commission is just a further waste of money as the gruberment that calls for it sets the terms of reference, ei; questions. The only answer you generally get are the ones the gruberment want.
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And the after the Royal Commission the government gets to decide which, if any, recommendations it will act on.
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Remember the Yes Prime Minister Episode. Humphry Appebly stated that: “A train is impartial about where it wants to go, which is why we lay rails where we want it to go! A Royal commission is impartial which is why we set terms of reference and the right commissioner!”
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As ALWAYS:
“FOLLOW THE MONEY” (over the spillway)
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Thanks to Turdbull AND all the idiots that voted Labor into power the first time and then, unbelievably a second time in 2025 when they’d already shown their complete incompetence in their first term.
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T they have said it so often I almost believe it. There is no evidence of corruption in the election process in Australia.
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“There is no evidence of corruption in the election process in Australia.”
Both getting money for the votes you receive and having limits on donations are both that. Elections are won on propaganda, and the person who controls the money behind that determines who wins. This is why the internet/social media has upset so many people.
Having union donations not counted is a classic example!
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It has happened on at least 2 occasions in the last 15 years.
The first time was in Indi in 2013, when a box of ballots turned up on the Wednesday night after the election that contained 1,003 ballots, all of which were first preferences for one particular candidate, who had received well under 30% of first preferences across the entire electorate, and the final margin was just on 500 votes.
The other was the Red Shirts performance in Victoria that saw Dan Andrews et al elected in Victoria, when the ALP were using Parliamentary funds to pay “volunteers” for election activities, and then after they were elected spent $1.4 million in public funds to short circuit the investigations.
Then, of course, was the bullshit that Bill Shorten pulled during his initial election to Federal Parliament where he had a labour supply company paying for his campaign staff.
It’s not been on the scale of the US, but it has been happening, it’s just the Electoral Commissions haven’t been interested in investigating and enforcing election laws.
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Jo,
You missed the opportunity to coin an acronym with Big Stupid Project. I checked and BSP has no good one. You could start a list of BSPs, with Snowy 2 at the top. Then I think Ivanpah Solar. Broaden the scope and include such as the Barack Obama Presidential Center {BOPC}. This could be a long list.
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BSP is British Standard Pipe, and it’s used worldwide in plumbing fittings.
That’s a lot of confusion to be had.
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When I was working in power plant construction, BSP stood for “Big Silver Pipe,” a large stainless steel pipe.
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Sounds like collusion between Turnbull, ALP, unions and overseas interests (including complicated connections to Oz politicians) to me. Perfect job for a journo to investigate. But they won’t.
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He has family too you know. The offspring have been snout troughing the renewable scene for years. Brazen lot you can be sure.
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Shy Ted…..certainly not in the way they “investigated” BRS anyway I guess…
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This seems a good thread about this debacle. Josh Frydenberg should NEVER be allowed back to into Parliament for his part in this. https://x.com/FootnotesGuy/status/2069029349677043738?s=20
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I totally agree with you. He comes across as OK but a bit too greasy for my liking.
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Just look at the renewables output the last couple of days – hardly any wind and minimal solar with capacity factors in the sewer. According to Bowen and the Labor/Greens alliance they want to power Australia with that. Brainless decisions made by clueless people.
See wind https://anero.id/energy/wind-energy
See solar https://anero.id/energy/solar-energy
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I have a mate in a position of power pushing these 2 barrows PLUS BIG batteries.
I weep.
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An interesting new development in the lovely clean green paradise that our intellectual superiors are pushing down our throats. https://dailybusinessgroup.co.uk/2026/06/asbestos-found-in-china-sourced-wind-turbine-parts/
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I know of a residence, in Point Piper, where we can send all these Bills…
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It is the perfect kleptocracy; started by a kleptomaniac to enrich his family business.
The Labor government are now rorting it using their union arm to extort money with their enforcers. Then their “dues” go back to Labor.
It is a thorough waste of money. It will consume energy not produce it. It is time to stop it to stop the rorting. Take a break determine of anything can be salvaged. Cut off the union and Labor money supply.
It will not be the first major project to get canned without ever producing anything.
The wholesale electricity market volume in Australia has been in decline for two decades. So growing costs spread across fewer consumers. All heavy industry and their international owners are getting tax payer funds to offset the high cost of electricity and stay in business. Australia has become a soviet era kleptocracy. Those in authority stealing from the public and pretending they are not stealing.
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Australia has become a soviet era kleptocracy.
Absolutely, Rick! Well said. This should become a bumper sticker!!!!
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That’s a lot of our money spent on a supposed panic over about 4 (yes, four) molecules of carbon-dioxide in every 10,000 (yes, that’s ten thousand) molecules of atmosphere.
When the likes of Bowen, Turnbull, the UNIPCC et al can coherently and honestly explain how those four little molecules, each being made up of just three atoms, control the climate of planet Earth, I might consider paying them a scrap of attention.
But they can’t, so I won’t.
Do they actually believe it themselves?
Do they even care that it’s all utter nonsense?
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” Do they actually believe it themselves?
Do they even care that it’s all utter nonsense? ”
NUP.
Because it’s ALL about the money…….they can make.
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While it’s true that they all talk utter nonsense, you should definitely be paying attention to them, since ignoring them is what got us into this mess. We all ignored the lunatics ranting about the immanent end of the world and those lunatics all got positions in bureaucracy and other agencies that now control our lives and make it immeasurably more difficult and less enjoyable than it should be..
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As if the big build blowout scam in Melbourne is not enough, now the CFMEU etc are out hunting for even more billions to help seal our fate forever.
Victoria and Australia could be a basket cases for many decades to come and all because loonies in parliament believed we have a climate crisis, that doesn’t exist.
Why can’t they spend just 5 minutes online and look up the data?
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” Why can’t they spend just 5 minutes online and look up the data? ”
What, do you think they are literate AND CARE?
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Australian National Audit Office
Latest Snowy 2.0 Report
https://www.anao.gov.au/work/performance-audit/delivery-of-snowy-two-point-zero#para-4-2
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“Snowy Hydro 2.0’s costs have ballooned more than 20 times the $2 billion forecast by former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in 2017.
Calls have grown for a Royal Commission into the project as questions are raised about possible misallocation of resources.
Former Snowy Hydro boss Paul Broad laid the blame with the Energy Minister who he claimed allowed Italian contractor Webuild to ramp up costs.
Mr Broad criticised the decision to renegotiate from a fixed-price contract to a cost-plus model, which allows a contractor to be reimbursed for certain expenses.
“When (Mr Bowen) got there (during) the back end of COVID, his then chair of Snowy Hydro went off to Italy and renegotiated the contract away from an incentive-based contract to a cost-plus contract,” he told The Kenny Report.
“So in my view, he created the problem rather than solved it. He created a problem that we’re going to see now when a cost goes through the roof.”
He claimed the energy minister took a leading role with the project which contributed to the cost rises.
“Chris and the people in Snowy at the time – I suspect under Chris Bowen’s instructions, because … the whole place seems to run out of his office (and) under his instructions – ended up with a cost-plus contract, which leads to significant increase in costs,” Mr Broad said.
Mr Broad resigned from Snowy Hydro in August 2022, just three months after Labor won that year’s election.”
Sky News
NOTE: Albanese Labor Government closed the ABCC – Australian Building Construction Commission – that was the government industry watchdog organisation that had penalised unions and contractors for breaches.
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Compare 2026 Audit Report and 2022 Audit Report below;
https://www.anao.gov.au/work/performance-audit/snowy-20-governance-early-implementation
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Understanding the ABCC
https://getlaw.com.au/articles/understanding-the-australian-building-and-construction-commission-abcc-regulations/
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Wow! 20X$2billion ! How many nuclear plants could we have had for this sort of money?
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how about coal fired plants as we have plenty of “cheap” coal!
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Just looking at that, TIME to throw the towel in.
What’s that OLD saying?
When you are digging a hole and realise you’ve made a mistake,
STOP DIGGING!!
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Or the ultimate dunce, Homer Simpson. Dig up, stupid!
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As someone who worked on Snowy 1 in the 60’s and whose father worked on the project on the 50’s I am appalled at all aspects of Snowy 2. No proper planning and investigations and little in the way of cost benefit studies.
Snowy 1 was constructed on time and on budget and was a worthwhile project.
Can’t this country get anything right these days?
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Snowy Hydro Electric Scheme History
https://www.snowyhydro.com.au/about/history/
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A fairly shocking safety record of 121 deaths, although probably not abnormal for the standards of the times and the scale of the project. They mention they implemented mandatory seat belt use in their vehicles in 1960, ten years before it became standardised on our roads, but obviously they could’ve done better in the other high risk work areas.
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When the Thredbo Village landslide and deaths occurred years ago the cause was traced to the main road above the village and drainage, and then to the construction method for the ski lodge that slid down the slope on its “floating concrete slab” foundation. The hillside was excavated to prepare for the building, the water seepage over years eroded under the concrete slab and there was a dam-like effect from the rear hillside facing wall of the ski lodge. Late at night the water and loose ground combined and the ski lodge slipped downhill and collapsed trapping several people.
Later in a documentary about the disaster a former Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric Scheme engineer from Poland explained that the Snowy Mountains area is unstable ground and roadways had collapsed during construction and people were killed when vehicles crashed into the valley below the gravel roadways. He said that the original Threbdo Village was built on timber pole foundations secured into holes drilled into the ground and gravel underneath each one before concrete was added. He also commented that Willow Trees were planted because of their extensive root system and water seeking.
When National Parks & Wildlife took over after the State Parks NSW and VIC were declared UN registered National Parks the Willow Trees were all poisoned because they are not Australian trees. Later construction has allowed concrete floating slabs including cutting into the hillside.
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And using concrete tunnels is a first, completely untested. It should never have started.
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‘Can’t this country get anything right these days?’
On climate change and energy governments across the board have failed miserably, and they continually compound the error. Kurri Kurri is well over budget and late.
‘Large coal-fired power stations are retiring as Australia transitions to intermittent, renewable energy sources like wind and solar power. This means having electricity sources that can produce ‘on-demand’ or dispatchable energy is also needed.
‘The Hunter Power Project at Kurri Kurri will fill the gap in electricity demand and ensure security of supply
‘The open cycle gas turbines for the Hunter Power Project will provide the necessary dispatchable ‘firmed’ energy, ensuring security and stability to support the volatility that arises from intermittent renewables.’ (Snowyhydro)
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The Kurri Kurri gas turbine generator plant is one of the six the Morrison Liberal National Coalition Government recommended to the State governments;
One for South East Queensland
Two for New South Wales
One for Victoria
Also recommended but rejected by the Queensland State Labor Government was a new HELE coal fired power station for North Queensland and with Federal Government underwriting the finance.
These were another example of the change away from the transition to renewable energy and away from fossil fuels by the Morrison Government after Prime Minister Turnbull was replaced by Prime Minister Morrison in 2018 and left Parliament, resigned as an MP.
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My father and I both worked on New Zealand hydro electricity projects in the 60s to 80s. The Italian miners were really skilled and were a great part of the community.
I was skeptical about Snowy 2.0 from the get go. It’s a shame we’re wasting so much money – guess it’s like the NBN fiasco.
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THe need for all these distribution lines, most of the $500Billion, is madness. At ultra high voltage, they are only for long distance distribution. Which is crazy as Australia has only a few major population centres. Melbourne is 83% of all of Victoria. And all have major coal deposits nearby. Australia is not America or China or Europe. We do NOT need this National stuff. Never did. So who are we powering? Cooper Pedy? Alice Springs? Birdsville? It’s not about cost, it’s about why we have to have everything in the control of Canberra?
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The time has come to walk away from SH2, its cost has outgrown its usefulness, stopping it will knacker the CFMEU, upset all the lefties , which is a bonus on its own and provide a handy spot to park our missiles when relations with Chyna sour even more.
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Superglue Chris Bowen to a turbine blade of a functioning windmill, so that when he is inverted, the $148 million credit card falls out of his pocket. As a bonus, it will stop him, and his minions, from their frequent jollies to Turkey. To keep the turbine balanced, superglue Malcolm Turnbull to the second blade, and a CFMEU official to the third.
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Could be a modern version of the Catherine Wheel.
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Turnbull and Bowen are much the same height and weight, so they can be positioned at the same relative location on their blades.
Make sure the CFMEU fella is positioned properly to keep the turbine in balance — he’s bound to be a lot fatter!
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If so, the CFMEU dweeb needs to be nearer the hub.
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Be cautious.
Gottleibsen’s piece implies the costs of Snowy 2.0 has blown out from $2bn, to $4bn, to $40bn, to $1tn+. Which generates an instant WTF response and invites scrutiny.
It’s beyond discussion that Snowy is an ocean-going disaster and national disgrace. However, backtracking to Gottleibsen’s April 9 piece The $1 trillion renewables ruse set to blow the budget it’s clear that the $1tn is an estimate of the whole renewable rollout for NSW and Victoria – $350bn for infrastructure and generation, bulked out with CFMEU theft and assumed interest charges. As best can be seen from his working, Snowy is a $40bn blip in the overall catastrophe.
For me, the estimate is light on in that it doesn’t include costs for gas backup or externalities, but it also really shouldn’t capitalise 35 years of interest into the headline number.
I’m a peanut so my opinions on that don’t mean squat. But the risk is that recognised commentators running this line can easily be shot down, allowing valid criticism of the whole scam to simply be kicked into the long grass as ‘what else would you expect’ denier crank misinformation.
There are guilty parties who have made careers out of doing deflection.
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Yes.
There is a sort of asymmetrical rule in politics that bad guys are entirely free to have an ongoing quest to see who can tell the biggest fibs in the broadest possible way. And chipping away one by one at the fibs has very little impact.
The good guys on the other hand can be defeated by even the smallest of overstated details. Chipping away at the details can easily collapse the entire argument.
It’s a bit like science where nothing can be proven but every scientific theory must stand for all eternity at risk being disproven by an inconvenient experiment.
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It’s a bit like science where nothing can be proven but every scientific theory must stand for all eternity at risk being disproven by an inconvenient experiment.
That, right there, is an excellent analogy.
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I actually asked him that very question in the article, but I didn’t get a reply.
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Also not mentioned was the about $6.5 billion paid for the State shareholding in SMH Limited company to secure 100% shareholding by the Federal Government.
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As a Victorian, can I just apologise to the rest of Australia in advance for the CFMEU.
Quick potted history- it was the actions of the CFMEU which got Daniel Andrews and the ALP into government in Victoria in 2014. The incumbent LNP government (Ballieu/ Napthine)proposed a road project called the East West Link to link freeways and provide a secondary route across the city. Great idea. But due to CFMEU skullduggery on previous government projects the Libs demanded that any construction company was forbidden to use any CFMEU union workers. The CFMEU backed Daniel Andrews faction in the ALP, so they were very displeased. So much so that in resonse they aided a huge protest campaign using both Labor and the Greens to both defeat the LNP but also scrap the EWL.
Ever since there’s been a continuous “Big Build” of overpriced railway and road projects that have kept the CFMEU in employment. That will also continue into the future with the approval of projects like the Suburban Rail Link. Dodgy costings, dodgy priority, but hey, it will go ahead anyway. Because it will employ those construction workers on exorbitant wages and awards.
This is the same playbook applied to SH2 but the CFMEU are going national.
So, again I’m sorry, but we have idiot voters in this state who keep supporting the ALP and their union masters.
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I’m old enough to remember Norm Gallagher getting into some hot water for some work on his beach house.
That led to the deregistration of the BLF which in turn led to the creation of the CFMEU.
The wrong people knew what they were doing. But not the right people!
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The CFMEU has been a criminal organisation since its creation, a great many of Normie Gallagher’s crooks simply transitioned from senior positions in the BLF into the nascent CFMEU, including such charmers as John Setka, who in the Normie days was his chief thug and leg breaker.
That also why they tried to get that other great union criminal organisation, the Maritime Union, formerly known as the Painters and Dockers Union, joined up with them.
They are to two biggest, longest term, and most profitable crime organisations in Australian history.
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Snowy 2.0 Planning
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-24/snowy-hydro-2.0-decision-made-by-turnbull-in-less-than-two-weeks/8551134
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And in this ABC clip, Turn-bull- tells us that while Snowy V1 was built over 25 years, his Snowy V2 project will be done over 4 years.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-14/snowy-hydro-2.0-expensive-and-wont-deliver-energy-expert/11594768
It’s just totally arrogant to believe “modern engineering” would enable this sort of reduction in duration of such a project.
And he totally ignores that “modern Industrial Relations” would (and has) enabled huge blowouts on timing and costs.
White elephants were given for the express purpose of making the recipient go broke.
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The solution for many of these things is simple enough. Just abandon net zero and stop building more transmission lines.
Burn coal and upgrade infrastructure as required.
Solve several problems in a batch, housing, the national debt, the cost of power, the destruction of farmlands and forests, and household budgets
https://rafechampion.substack.com/p/attacking-problems-in-batches
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This is the same playbook applied to SH2 but the CFMEU are going national.
Oh crikey…I hope not!
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Vick, there was a bit of a handbrake on the CFMEU activities when the ABCC was in existence (see Dennis comment above). Now, nope.
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The Snowy scheme will cost over 40 Billion for nothing because it will never get charged for want of spare power in the system that is loaded with wind and solar power. According to McBratney’s Law.
https://rafechampion.substack.com/p/the-debacle-of-the-snowy-20-pumped
Moreover, wind and solar ain’t real capacity because they ain’t there on windless nights.
https://rafechampion.substack.com/p/wind-and-solar-aint-capacity
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So why are we wasting endless billions of $ on their so called dangerous CC?
The data proves we are living in the safest period in Human history and yet our pollies lie to the voters and hide the data.
Here Lennea Luekin provides the data that proves death rates from extreme weather events have fallen by 99% since 1920.
And data analyst Dr Pielke jr has also recently agreed with this conclusion.
See Linnea’s 2 minute video at the link.
Again, where’s their Climate emergency or existential threat?
https://climateataglance.com/climate-at-a-glance-deaths-from-extreme-weather/
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Black hole is alternate terminology for high dollar political donor personal bank accounts.
This very best kind of time travel has been invented and utilized for decades.
Banditry by proxy.
Rob the productivity of the future and materialize wealth in the present.
And never leave the spa or golf course.
Or your table at the Oscars.
While making a cash withdrawal on the credits cards of the tax base you’ve carefully trained not to notice.
It’s helps if you’re already so connected that you know that the very connected know the the system that made them connected has run its’ course and is about to collapse.
And you’ve procured your island, or mountain, and built and supplied your bunker, because you know the peasants are going to be really mad.
Unless you can stop the Internet from helping too many of them find out.
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The scale of this boondoggle is truly world’s best practice. We ought to be proud of our efforts. In the future Snowy 2.0 will feature in videos along side disused Olympic stadia, and may even feature on Abandoned Engineering.
On the, ahem, downside, I lurk among the pro-renewables gangs and their accomplices on Facebook, and the truly astonishing scale of the delusion matches the scale of Boondoggle 2.0.
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Also a prime contender for Engineering Disasters.
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Thanks for your gift of Snowy 2.0 Mr Turnbull. Your dumb gift is not wanted. You pay for it. Australians want their money back.
By the way Mal, in German gift = poison and in French Mal = wrong. No thanks for your big fat bum steer Mal.
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I am not a Turnbull fan by any stretch of the imagination but how about considering the history of the project and that as Prime Minister Turnbull accepted Snowy Mountains Hydro Limited company advice, SMH submission and capital expenditure approval request, an idea that continued and then look at the Albanese Labor, Minister for Energy Bowen, Minister for Finance Gallagher later decisions that have, we are informed, led to the second primary contractor, progress payments system and union involvement combining?
Please read the comment above from Dr Faustus.
By continuing to blame Turnbull effectively let’s the culprits off the hook.
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It’s not just accepting the advice … supposedly the Liberals believe in free markets (they say they do) therefore what you do is, get the best estimate you can, write a contract, and put it up for tender to see whether a private entity will put money down to build the thing at the given price.
If they don’t build it on budget they go bankrupt.
But what you don’t do is put the taxpayer on the hook for an open ended “cover all costs regardless” situation because obviously in that case, the costs will keep going up as long as the money keeps coming.
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If you want to know how the CFMEU affect large govt projects, look no further than Brisbane’s Cross River Rail.
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It would have to be Turnbull’s doing wouldn’t it.
sarc.
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Malcolm Turnbull must be exceeding proud of his legacy. For sure nobody else is.
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From the link I posted earlier today;
“It has been revealed Snowy Hydro first put the concept of “Snowy 2.0” to the Prime Minister’s Office less than two weeks before the project was announced by Malcolm Turnbull.
The project, with an estimated cost of about $2 billion, is the subject of a feasibility study due later this year.
That figure could become over $3 billion, once the cost of new power lines to transmit the power into New South Wales and Victoria is established and factored in.
Pumped hydro and its potential role in SA
The PM wants to further investigate pumped hydro as a way of boosting energy stability in Australia. But what is it and could it help South Australia in particular?
During a Senate Estimates hearing, Greens senator Larissa Waters asked Snowy Hydro chief executive officer Paul Broad for a timeline on the announcement, including the first interaction with the Prime Minister’s office.
“There were discussions with the Prime Minister’s office I think on the 3rd or the 5th of March,” he said.
“And the announcement was on the 16th of March.”
Mr Turnbull travelled to the Snowy Mountains to make the announcement, saying the Government would bring the “leadership and money” required to make the expansion vision a reality.
Snowy Hydro met with the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), which is working with Snowy Hydro on the feasibility study, on February 24.
The NSW Government, which own 58 per cent of Snowy Hydro, was briefed on the plans by Snowy Hydro on the Monday prior to the announcement.”
Another point being ignored is that the Federal Government purchased State shares in Snowy Hydro Limited company and paid – around $6.5 billion, part of the cost now being discussed as project cost.
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And it overshadowed the $444million cash parting gift to his wife and friends. To ‘save’ the Great Barrier Reef. Without application or plan or explanation. Money? Gone.
A few years ago I listened to the budget. There was a $14Million interest cost on this money. $14Million interest! Year after year on money which has vanished? Steal $14,000 and you can go to jail. Steal $14Milion and it’s front page news. Steal $444million and it is instantly forgotten.
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I was intrigued by your comment TdeF being reminded about the controversy and criticism and discovered this information;
https://www.barrierreef.org/what-we-do/reef-trust-partnership
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So we have a cover document. A government department started drawing up such vacuous stories after the money was long gone. Why was the money given? Was it a ‘donation’ to Lucy Turnbull’s little organization? Very generous of her husband.
There was no plan submitted. No application was made. No costing of anything. As reported in the press at the time, the woman in the 5 person office after a week said the only thing which was certain was $134Million in ‘administration fees’. I would have happily administered the $443Million for a mere $50million. This was ordered by Malcolm Turnbull without consultation with anyone as far as we know.
Now according to this ‘brochure’ it seems we are spending 50% of the money on ‘water quality’? What on earth does that mean? How do you assure ‘water quality’ in an area the size of Germany?
And in “Crown of thorns starfish” control. It was discovered from the people of Tahiti that the Crown of THorns starfish is a regular maintenance cycle welcomed by the Pacific peoples as it cleans up the reef and produces the sand in the Atolls. They had songs to welcome the starfish. We should not be spending a cent on Crown of Thorns starfish control.
All I can see is that they have spent money on a glossy brochure about the ‘future’. And in it they say they will use the money to ‘raise funds’. What?
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“Our ambition
The Great Barrier Reef Foundation is creating a future for the world’s coral reefs by protecting ocean habitats, restoring coral reefs and helping them adapt to the impacts of climate change.
We’ve built a collaborative organisation to raise funds, invest in innovative ideas and design real-world, scalable conservation programs that are delivering breakthroughs in marine and terrestrial restoration.
Walking in step with First Nations people and front-line communities, we’re fast-tracking and deploying solutions around the world.”
$443 million was to ‘raise funds’ and something about aborigines and the Reef? That’s absurd. Did they even know the reef existed?
What utter drivel and waffle. Did Australia the country decide to hand all this money to them to ‘manage’. Why? And why do they need to ‘raise funds’.
It’s been 8 years! Where’s the money? Or is it all gone?
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“The RTP, a $443m partnership between the Australian Government’s Reef Trust and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, has invested $51.8 million in Traditional Owner-led Reef protection projects.
That funding has enabled Traditional Owners to design and run projects on their land and sea Countries that address local ecosystem threats that impact their communities, and help protect the Reef from the impacts of climate change, poor water quality and crown-of-thorn starfish outbreaks.
And now the world is watching – to see if this unique, holistic approach of weaving Traditional Knowledge and Western science is the new, better way to slow the impacts of climate change and heal Country”.
So now ‘First Nations’ are the custodians of the Great Barrier Reef? When were aborigines the traditional owners of ‘sea countries’. The reef is 2500km tall and up to 250km wide and apparently has been the traditonal sea country of aborigines who now have $52million to manager the reef?
When did aborigines become open ocean swimmers and sailors and blue water fishermen? At the closest point, the Great Barrier Reef is 19km offshore! And up to 160km away. That’s Victoria to Tasmania. Great swimmers.
Who made all this up? Why? At least we know $52 million is being managed by “ocean nation” aborigines.
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Aa I keep saying, why are politicians allowed to make engineering decisions?
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Are Prime Ministers allowed order the spending of billions without any reference to parliament? And off budget? WIthout explanation? Without cost/benefit? Without anyone knowing? In which case why do we have a parliament?
When did parliament have anything to say about Malcolm’s ‘donation’ of $443Million to his wife’s little committee? Or Albanese’ the $1Billion on a Californian Quantum computer company? Where’s the money? What do we get for it?
Or a cool $1 Billion on a water pipeline from the Fitzroy River to Gladstone just completed and now utterly unnecessary because Andrew Forrest just walked away? All off budget, like Snowy II. And no detailed proposal, not cost benefit analysis, nothing.
Spending off budget, like Snowy II is now costing more than our entire GDP. Without parliament having any say. That’s not a government. It’s a kingdom of absolute power, unlimited speding without restraint or accountability or even justification.
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It’s totalitarianism writ large over Australia. Parliament is irrelevant.
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From the link;
The Grant Agreement between the Australian Government’s Reef Trust and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation outlines the Partnership’s objective, the three outcomes to be achieved by the end of the Partnership and the six areas of focus (referred to as Components), including funding allocations for each.
The Foundation released its Investment Strategy for the Partnership in its first year and each year we share an Annual Work Plan which provides a detailed schedule of work for the year ahead, as a subset of our overarching five-year plan.
Annual Work Plan 2024-2025
https://www.barrierreef.org/uploads/RTP-Annual-Work-Plan-24-25-1-.pdf
It appears not to be what it was alleged to be.
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National Audit Office
https://www.anao.gov.au/work/performance-audit/implementation-the-great-barrier-reef-foundation-partnership
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