Australia has long been recognised as a producer of some of the highest quality dairy products in the world.

Victoria’s public service wages bill continues to spiral despite the government slashing hundreds of jobs, prompting warnings from international rating agencies that employee costs are undermining the state’s finances.

The capacity of Australia’s largest planned solar farm has been cut due to tough market conditions, while the country’s first new pumped hydro scheme in 40 years faces delays in a fresh setback for the Albanese government’s goal of fast-tracking renewable energy supplies.

Australia is undertaking a 100 per cent renewables transition without its best players: those reliable old steam turbines that once gave cheap, steady power. Ignoring physics won’t make electricity affordable.

Australia’s biggest employers are pushing Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers to impose strict limits on spending, debt levels and the tax-to-GDP ratio, as the Treasurer promises to save more than he spends in next week’s budget.

In 50 years, historians will look back at what we were doing during the 2010s and 20s and think we had gone slightly mad.