Within the ACCC there was apparently discord over including so political a recommendation, and it only got through with important qualifiers. "To the extent that this policy can encourage investment in capacity from a diverse range of sources, diluting market concentration and promoting competition to supply retailers", the NEG is a good thing, the report states. But faith in regulators getting excessive market power right next time isn't helped by their track record. And while the report makes many comments critical of the vertical integration of generators and retailers that have helped drive "elevated prices", it stops short of calling for them to be broken up.

Instead, the ACCC will intervene to prohibit takeovers that exceed a 20 per cent market share - even if it's a bit late for that. It recommends the federal government set up special offtake agreements to guarantee a minimum price of, say, $45-$50 per megawatt-hour for later years (beyond six). That would encourage new entrants into the sector - correcting that market failure. Loading Likewise, the retail market's current pricing models for electricity - the "standing offers" - need intervention to fix. It's so confusing, ill-informed consumers have been gouged. The answer, the ACCC says, is to abolish the offers, and get the Australian Energy Regulator instead to set a lower-priced "default offer". (Perhaps as a response to such proposed interventions, AGL's shares fell about 7 per cent and Origin 4 per cent on Wednesday.)

But how to account for the many emerging offers of solar PV and or storage coming on to the market? Won't intervention dent competition? Then there's the NSW, Queensland and Tasmanian governments which the ACCC says should take "immediate steps to remedy the over-investment of their network businesses". That "gold-plating" of poles and wires is currently costing NSW consumers alone $850 million a year, Sims says. But who should pay for that remedy? Well, taxpayers in those states, the ACCC says, "with appropriate assistance" from the federal government. Turnbull, asked about a federal bailout, said - through somewhat gritted teeth - it was "something we'd be happy to discuss".

Certain to irk Victoria and Queensland, too, will be the ACCC claim their higher renewable energy targets is resulting in continued "policy uncertainty". That's presumably unless the federal target is lifted above the level envisaged by the NEG which will be achieved even before its 2020 start date. "There are billions of dollars of investment in renewable energy in Victoria because of the certainty provided by the [Victorian Renewable Energy Target], Lily D'Ambrosio, the state's climate and energy minister said. Investors "are certainly not confused - in fact, the opposite". Loading While Sims was all about market failure, the absence of a mechanism that priced in the cost of greenhouse gas emissions remains notably absent from his report. As with the Turnbull government, the focus is on the economy and equity - as if failing to tackle climate change won't take a toll on both.