“Australians are witnessing a sudden collapse that has taken years of sluggish incompetence to bring the nation’s energy market to a halt”, wrote Sydney Morning Herald journalist David Crowe a few days ago in reaction to news headlines about the local crisis in power generation and pricing.

He was but one of many in the media pointing the finger at successive governments, both federal and local, for consistently hiding behind ideological blinkers and complacency rather than working to guarantee that electricity supply in a relatively wealthy nation like Australia be guaranteed, and not subject to the threat of sudden blackouts as if we were some hopeless backwater like North Korea.

Moritz Bleibtreu in Blackout (2021). Photo © Gordon A. Timpen / Joyn / Sat.1 / W&B Television.

Moritz Bleibtreu in Blackout: Tomorrow Is Too Late (2021). Photo © Gordon A. Timpen / Joyn / Sat.1 / W&B Television.

When it comes to foreseeing society’s vulnerability to power disruption, the international television industry has done a better job than our local and federal governments, with no less than four series now streaming locally in which power blackouts are the major plot driver. Which...