the interest-freetrap justcost them

so companies can no longer use your bill to buy marketing labels instead of cutting pollution.

the federal government is shutting down climate active, a program that let 620 businesses claim carbon neutrality by buying offsets.

for years, the climate active program gave a government-backed green tick to everything from fossil fuel energy plans to petrol. companies could call themselves carbon neutral just by buying offsets, basically paying for someone else to plant trees or protect forests, rather than actually reducing the carbon they pump into the atmosphere.

critics have called this out as state-sponsored greenwashing that misled shoppers who were trying to do the right thing. the scheme will now be phased out by 2027, forcing companies to face tougher rules like the safeguard mechanism which requires them to actually cut their own industrial emissions.

victoria is paying $589 million for a party happening 16,000km away that we aren't even hosting.

the victorian government paid over $200 million in compensation to glasgow to host a stripped-back commonwealth games after cancelling our own.

the 2026 commonwealth games kicked off in scotland this week, but victorian taxpayers are the ones footing a massive chunk of the bill. after the state government scrapped plans to host the games in regional victoria last year, citing a budget blowout that would have cost billions, we were hit with nearly six hundred million dollars in sunk costs and compensation.

about two hundred million of that cash went straight to glasgow to help them run a budget version of the event using existing stadiums. while they are pulling it off for a fraction of the cost, victorians are left with zero new housing or infrastructure and a massive hole in the public budget. it is a sharp lesson in how quickly public money can vanish when big projects aren't managed properly from the jump.