At the bottom of the SMH article was this.

NSW has a 2 per cent biofuels mandate and the Federal Government pays a subsidy for biofuel production.

But the Parliamentary Library in Canberra has just produced a report saying there is no evidence to support a mandate.

The report noted the subsidised cost of creating jobs in the Australian ethanol industry was already so high that "it would be cheaper to pay each worker average weekly earnings to do nothing".