ttbn this reminds me of the EU agricultural subsidies. They caused milk lakes, butter mountains and many unintended consequences World wide.
Politicians are concentrated on quick fixes and quick bucks for themselves. I think we will approach the day soon when the public will appreciate the costs, waste and theft of so much of our money on this scam but whether anyone will be bought to account is unlikely.
My (Our?) only hope is that the LNP get half a dozen acceptances to build big coal fired power stations and drop the supply price to where it was.
How much sympathy for AGL, Alinta or Engie? None from me.

A time is coming when a decision on whether to spend an enormous amount
of money on 100% wind and solar or grasp the nettle and go nuclear will have to be made.
At present that decision is being made on panic emotions and not on
real data of cost.
No one has any idea how many wind & solar farms and where to locate
them and how to connect them all to the one grid.
I gave an example of one US study that suggested that they need 15,000.
If our wind systems are anyway similar we would need a similar number.
Maybe a few less or a few more, who knows. Just less turbines on each.
If such a study has been done here they are keeping very quiet about it.

"Australian manufacturing is doing great - but not in Australia", as Australian businesses pay 2 to 3 times the US price of energy. (Michael Baume, Spectator Australia, January 2019).

Bazz Nuclear is the answer
not the threat
one simple power station would reduce our carbon out put to well under any target
If you and I could see one hundred years in to the future we would see a far different source of all power

You are absolutely right Belly! I do not think anyone can argue but in the meantime we have to have that electrical power.
I wonder if any one of us will guess the right course but sure as eggs our political mates will pick absolutely the wrong one. Of course at our expense.
The current biggest problem is the horrendous cost blow out and the fact that the providers are working to increase these horrendous costs! If the LNP offered cheaper power they would get back into government but I do not think they have the smarts for that.

JBowyer, the scum sold off nearly all essential services to themselves and their mates. I don't remember being asked if they could do this.
I do however remember they tried to sell the power generators some time ago.
The arrogant pigs responded with, 'it's not profitable enough, raise the profit level and we'll think about again'.
So for the next few years they kept BSing us that our power prices were too low and had to go up, and hey presto, the profits went up, they had another look at it,THEY told the govt THEIR terms of reference and have held us to ransom ever since.
Be very clear about the Australian govt, it knows that the Australian public is pretty much made up of a bunch of disinterested, lazy, mis-informed, un-informed schleps and dreamers.
Remember what I have been doing as of late, and that's to vote for the independents, the ones that are not affiliated to the majors, but will debate the issues on a stand alone basis, and not bloody party line.
So they have been running amok with our money and we can't/won't do anything about it.
We vote them in on pre-determined campaign promises, then when they win office they go berserk with things we did not agree to.
Remember, I have been voting for the inedpendents for some time as they debate each issue and not just follow the idiots along bloody party lines.