Blind panic doesn’t cover it: Australia’s energy crisis has MPs and rent-seekers running around like chooks with their heads cut off.

Retail power prices (see above) have jumped anywhere between 20 and 28% in the last 12 months, in those states with major wind and solar capacity – adding to 13-20% increases, the previous year.

Energy Minister, Josh Frydenberg – who can’t come to grips with the hard numbers above and keeps on telling porkies on that score – has slammed into a brick wall, as he tries to sell his version of the National Energy Guarantee. The Green/Labor Alliance and its PR wing, GetUp! are determined to wreck it. While plenty of Liberal and National MPs have worked out that it is simply the RET on steroids, will cross the floor to vote against it. Then there’s the Senate…

Try as he might, Frydenberg’s NEG is a dead…