Latest news ............ "Last week an updated Business Case for Snowy 2.0 was released. Like every aspect of this hapless, over-hyped project it is late, inadequate, and unrealistically optimistic.
For some inexplicable reason the public release of the Business Case has been delayed nine months after it was adopted for the project ‘reset’ last August, following a “comprehensive and robust review”.
However, it hasn’t been worth the wait as the document is little more than a rehash of the August 2023 Media Release with a few photos and diagrams. The complete Business Case, assuming there is one, remains locked away and it seems will never be released.
A Senate request last year failed to elicit any more than heavily redacted papers with no substantive information.This secrecy is at odds with the commitment made last August by the shareholding Ministers, Bowen and Gallagher, to “provide full and transparent updates to the Australian people, unlike the previous government”.
And it needs to be remembered that the project ‘reset’ was extensive, coming after seven years of cost blowouts, delays and construction debacles – resulting in a doubling of Snowy 2.0’s cost to $12 billion (its fifth increase, though this does not represent the total cost), adjusting the completion date to December 2028 (sixth change), and replacing the $5.1 billion fixed-price main works contract with a cost-plus contact."
