At 31 August 2026 there were 2,878,973 people in Australia on temporary visas. Take out New Zealand citizens, visitors and crew, and 1,825,403 remain. Most of what this section writes is about bringing that number down. But a country also needs to be able to afford its own electricity, and this week showed how badly that is going. A project meant to keep the lights on cheaply has turned into one of the most expensive overruns the country has seen.
What happened to Snowy 2.0?
Snowy 2.0 is a huge hydro project in the New South Wales mountains. It was announced in 2017 with a budget of $2 billion, and it was meant to be running by 2021.
This week Snowy Hydro released a new review. The project could now cost up to $25 billion, about 12 times the original price.
It will not produce its first power until early 2029, eight years late.
What is it actually for?
Think of it as a giant battery. When electricity is cheap, it pumps water uphill. When power is short, it lets the water run back down through turbines.
The point is to cover the days when there is little sun or wind. Once finished, it is expected to be able to power three million homes for a week. That kind of reliable backup is exactly what a modern grid needs. Which is why getting the cost this wrong matters so much.
Who is to blame?
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has called for Energy Minister Chris Bowen to resign over the blowout. Shadow Energy Minister Dan Tehan says Bowen should apologise to taxpayers and go.
The government's answer is that it inherited a project already facing delays, rising costs and serious risks from the former Coalition government.
Here is the awkward part, and it is better said plainly. Taylor approved and funded Snowy 2.0 when he was energy minister in 2019. Asked whether he should take some responsibility for the cost, he said: "No, not under me."
Both sides have their fingerprints on this. That does not make the overrun anyone's fault in general. It makes it a lesson for whoever builds the next one.
Why should someone in their twenties care about a dam?
Because the price of power sits under almost every other price you pay.
It is in your electricity bill, obviously. It is also in the cost of everything made, stored, chilled or shipped in Australia. And it decides something newer: whether Australia can run its own computers.
AI runs in data centres, and data centres run on enormous amounts of electricity. ABC reporting this week put data centre investment in Australia at $35 billion so far this year.
Whether that computing power ends up Australian-owned, or rented from overseas companies, comes down in large part to how cheap and reliable our power is. That is our argument rather than an official forecast. But a country that cannot build storage on budget is going to find it very hard to offer the cheapest power for anyone's computers, its own included.
Should Snowy 2.0 be scrapped?
Probably not, and the honest answer is less satisfying than a slogan.
The government says walking away now would hurt grid reliability, cost thousands of jobs and push up bills. Taylor himself would not say whether it should be scrapped. The money already spent cannot be got back. What can change is how the next big energy project is costed, checked and held to account.
That is the job an opposition is for, and on this the Liberals are right to keep pushing for the full costings to be released.
What do the Liberals bring to a new government?
Scrutiny, for one. A party that keeps asking where $25 billion went is a party that will keep asking the next time.
They have also moved on the number this section cares most about. The Coalition's plan would cut 650,000 temporary visas over four years. That is a serious shift, and it puts the Liberals much closer to One Nation than they were a year ago.
One Nation goes further. Its plan would cut the temporary migrant population by 750,000, and do it in three years rather than four.
Who should lead?
One Nation, with the Liberals and the Nationals beside it.
One Nation has the deepest and fastest cut to the intake. The Liberals bring the habit of following the money, which this week proved is badly needed. The Nationals bring the case for cheap power from the gas and coal regions. Together that is a government that would bring the numbers down and make sure the next power project is not another Snowy.
Getting energy right is not a side issue to the migration argument. It is the other half of what makes a smaller, richer Australia possible.
For the figures behind the migration argument, see our page on the temporary visa population.