Senator Malcolm Roberts

3 hours ago

Snowy 2 rorts abound

Shut it down before taxpayers lose more money.
The sunk cost loss from shutting Snowy is around $8bn.
The final cost is $42bn & climbing.
The annual operating loss once completed is above $500m annually.
For a measly 370Gw/h of power p.a.
Turnbull vanity project will be an albatross around taxpayers’ necks forever

Quoting Peter:
“The Auditor-General found a mechanism on Snowy 2.0 that he called the parking lot. When a payment claim comes in without enough supporting information to assess it, the claim goes into the parking lot.

And while it sits there, it gets paid.

The money goes out first. Whether it should have gone out is worked out later.

Between the 2023 reset and November 2025, $770.8 million went through that mechanism. Of that, $116.3 million was later confirmed as allowable and $23.3 million was excluded. As at November 2025, $480.9 million was still unresolved.

The audit records that the unresolved amount now exceeds the security bond Snowy Hydro holds from the contractor. In plain terms, if the contractor failed, some of that money could not be recovered.

The parking lot is not defined anywhere in the contract. There is no documented process agreed with the contractors for how it works. And Snowy Hydro holds a clawback right for subcontracts that were never properly approved.

As at December 2025, it had never used it.

The lawful explanation is real and I will give it its best run. New South Wales security-of-payment law sets hard deadlines for paying builders. A head contractor who misses them is in breach. A mechanism that pays inside the statutory window while flagging the claim for later assessment is a defensible way to stay lawful and keep the job moving. That is a genuine answer.

It does not explain why a mechanism moving three-quarters of a billion dollars appears in no contract, why no process was ever agreed, or why a clawback right sat unused while half a billion dollars stayed unresolved.

This is what oversight looks like when it is technically compliant and practically absent.

Sources:
Details ANAO Report No.39 of 2025–26, Delivery of Snowy 2.0, paragraphs 4.93–4.99 and paragraph 4.85. Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW). ... See MoreSee Less