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you know it's bad when Whistler starts covering your local news

Rule 1 of Project Management: be in charge during planning and get paid.
Rule 2 of Project Management: be nowhere near the project when it's supposed to deliver.

I'm Australian, and we are used to Snowy 2.0 being an ongoing joke.
It's proof of Moores Law, every 18 months it doubles in price...

They need to turn it into a tourist attraction, “The Big Shaft”

I work in video.
We were brought in on a consult to shoot progress and promotion videos for the public.
We had people from the engineering company. PR firm. And two gov reps in the meeting.

They brought us up to speed. Many slides and two cutaway models.
NOTHING about the drilling. It was just assumed that could be done. Nothing on the power corridor leading away from the power station. Like... loudly nothing.
So me, being both an idiot and a bit of a geology fan, asked "The ground in that area is a billion years of trainwreck. It is broken rock. Sedimentary fill and muck, isn't it? How do you tunnel through that?"
And the response was "shut up! That is outside the scope you would be covering"
We didn't get the gig.

And yet the people behind it still got rich, and are getting richer. Odd that.

My husband is working there, oh boy he has many stories to tell about what is going on at the site.

And no Politician or bureaucrat will ever be held to account. Meanwhile I still can’t afford to heat my home in winter or cool my house in summer.

All those bonuses for meeting goals that were not met should be given back.

16:59 executive bonuses still being paid out despite missing targets. And you wonder why suits get a bad rap.

Watch any episode of Working Dog's fabulous "Utopia" to understand how we get things done here in Australia.

There is zero accountability for the abysmal failure here

FYI - the initial geo- tech study indicated that Florence -TBM was going to encounter significant amounts of soft conditions, from the get go., yet the engineers choose to not import, & utilise  the soft ground technology optional. Devices  and to proceed without it.   What was the team thinking?  Save money on the optional accessory,,  minimise delivery delay?   Must get going as soon as possible?  Geotechnical study was smoking  sone funny stuff and their professional advice was written about a different reality to the TBM operators.  .. did the project get all excited about prime minister visits and ribbon cutting instead if sound engineering principles.

I’m sitting in the Lobs Hole Dry Mess eating my second serve of pudding learning how this blew the budget. Poetic

The Australian comedy series "Utopia" is actually a Documentary.

As an Australian I appreciate your concise coverage of this issue.  The extended time-frame of these consistent disasters obfuscates the problem as a whole when they're delivered piecemeal in the press.

Malcolm TURNBULL is now Director of Upper Hunter Hydro. AGL Energy owns the Upper Hunter pumped hydro energy storage projects. In May 2025, AGL acquired 100% ownership of the two hydro projects (Glenbawn and Glennies Creek) from the Upper Hunter Hydro Top Trust and its trustee, which was originally founded by former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his family. No surprises there. Malcolm Turnbull has an estimated net worth of over A$200 million. This makes him the wealthiest modern Australian Prime Minister.

the whole thing is a pollies' jobs for mates disaster .Follow the money and see which pollie you end up at

My father worked on Snowy 1.0 from 1951 to the finish in 1969, Eucumbene, Cabramurra and Khancoban.
We were immigrants from Scotland.
I’ve often thought with the debacle that is Snowy 2.0 that Australia has lost the ability for these type of projects.