Four Corners: Oct 23

Monday’s Four Corners story is “Tunnel Vision” reported by Angus Grigg.

Snowy Hydro 2.0 — which was sold as a nation-building project for a low-carbon future – was meant to be feeding power into Australia’s grid by the end of 2024.

Instead, the pumped hydro project, which was once estimated to cost $2 billion, is now five years behind schedule and forecast to hit $12 billion.

This week Four Corners goes beyond the corporate spin to reveal the inside story of Snowy 2.0 and how it all went so horribly wrong.

Reporter Angus Grigg challenges the megaproject’s founding champion, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, on why there are such significant overruns. Turnbull tells Four Corners as much as $2 billion of the cost blow out can be traced back to a massive tunnel boring machine called Florence.

Stuck only 150 metres into its 15km journey, Florence is the perfect illustration of how the project’s progress has stalled.

Drawing on months of investigation, Grigg forensically examines the cost blow outs and asks what next for Snowy Hydro 2.0?

Monday 23 October at 8.30pm on ABC.