Anthony Albanese has labelled the federal government’s $5bn spend on the Snowy Hydro 2.0 project in New South Wales as one of the most significant announcements he will make as prime minister.
On Wednesday Albanese and Dominic Perrottet formally announced the almost $8bn joint-funding deal with the NSW government on poles and wires to connect the Snowy scheme to the electricity grid.
Craig Memery, a senior energy adviser at the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, said the Snowy project’s “market disruption and unrealistic project timelines” were already costing consumers.
“With Snowy 2.0, the Albanese Government has inherited a bad deal for consumers,” he said.
“They might not be able to walk away from the project, but as the owner of Snowy Hydro they can prevent NSW energy consumers from being burdened with Snowy 2’s multi-billion dollar transmission cost.”