Not a day goes by without someone claiming that they’re sitting on the proverbial gold mine, if only government would stump up a bit of cash. That someone is often a person who has a direct financial interest in the idea, and/or has done quite well at a previous venture, so brings survivorship bias into play.

The recent federal Budget included $2 billion worth of funding for a ‘Hydrogen Headstart’ program. Tim Ayres, Assistant Minister for Trade and Assistant Minister for Manufacturing, provided some details on the government’s reasoning for the program: “This Budget was a great budget for Australian manufacturing. Two billion dollars in the Hydrogen Headstart program, which will be there to create a market for hydrogen production in Australia to make sure hydrogen production is onshore in Australia with Australian technology and an Australian workforce.

It has been a few weeks since the Australian government rushed through its energy market intervention bill. How’s it working out? As one might expect: “Major energy retailers across the country have been forced to stop taking on new gas customers while others ramp up their prices, as they struggle under the government-imposed 12-month price cap.

The economics of the Australian government’s energy market intervention bill were awful. Now we find out it’s going to cost an extra half a billion dollars up-front, and they willfully lied to rush it through Parliament.

The Australian government’s energy intervention bill will soon clear Parliament. But the unintended consequences of it will be felt for years to come.

There’s very little support for the Australian government’s energy price cap plan outside of hollow political talking points, and for good reason.

The Australian government announced its much-anticipated solution to the energy crisis. At first glance it’s quite far off what one might considered optimal, although there are too many unknowns and too much uncertainty to draw any concrete conclusions.