If you think ministers handing out sports grants to marginal electorates is a waste of taxpayer money, you need to take a look at the Coalition’s plans to hand out coal-fired power stations as well.

The former free marketeers in the Coalition literally went to the last election promising to subsidise the business case for a new coal-fired power station in Collinsville, Queensland, which – as luck would have it – was in one of the most marginal federal electorates.