Turnbull’s Monument to Waste

Malcolm Turnbull should have his name attached to every announcement of another Snowy 2.0 cost blowout. He launched it, championed it and sold Australians the promise of cheaper electricity. The responsibility for that sales pitch belongs squarely at his feet.

With further cost increases now being reported, Australians should revisit what they were originally offered. The project promoted in 2017 with an estimated $2 billion price tag reached a $12 billion cost estimate in 2023. That is six times the original estimate, with another reassessment threatening to push the bill higher still.

Turnbull’s original announcement promised “cheaper power prices and more money in the pockets of Australians”. It also scolded policymakers for putting “ideology and politics ahead of engineering and economics”. Those words deserve to be displayed at the entrance to every unfinished tunnel.

The same announcement said the feasibility study would be completed later that year. Turnbull was already promising the financial benefits before that work was finished. A prime minister has a responsibility to distinguish an attractive engineering proposal from a thoroughly tested investment. Australians were entitled to caution with their money. They got a triumphant political launch.

The formal investment approvals followed under Morrison, and Labor now oversees construction. Both governments have decisions to answer for. Turnbull’s responsibility remains unmistakable: he put his authority behind the project and made its promised benefits part of his political legacy. That legacy must include the bill.

The Auditor-General’s June 2026 report makes grim reading. By the end of March, expenditure had reached $11.1 billion while reported completion stood at 73 percent. The audit found that governance deficiencies had undermined value for money, that contractors had not been effectively held accountable, and that the Australian Government bore most of the cost risk.

That last finding should make every taxpayer furious. Political leaders announce the grand vision. Contractors undertake the work. When the arrangements fail to contain costs, the public is left exposed. Families who must account for every dollar have become the financial backstop for a project whose ambitions keep outrunning its discipline.

Turnbull got the headlines for promising cheap power. Taxpayers inherited the risk of delivering it, and the bill keeps growing.

Labor's Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen should release the latest reassessment and explain the remaining costs, risks, and completion schedule. Australians deserve an independent examination of the options from this point forward. Money already spent cannot justify unlimited spending to protect political reputations.

It must be remembered that Snowy 2.0 will consume more electricity pumping water uphill than it produces when that water flows back through its turbines. Snowy Hydro acknowledges this itself. It depends on electricity generated elsewhere, returning less than it takes in. The cost of that electricity sits alongside the billions spent on construction. Turnbull owes Australians an explanation of how this increasingly expensive arrangement squares with his promise of cheaper power.

Turnbull should also answer a straightforward question: what responsibility does he accept for promoting this project with such confidence before its feasibility study was complete? Taking credit for visionary leadership carries an obligation to answer when the vision becomes ruinously expensive.

Snowy 2.0 belongs in the reckoning of his prime ministership. Turnbull supplied the fanfare. Australians are supplying the billions.

“Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own.”
– Milton Friedman