The Albanese government should give its infrastructure advisor powers to hold back Commonwealth funding for projects that haven’t been properly reviewed.
The Albanese government should undertake not to fund projects that haven’t been properly reviewed by its infrastructure advisor, experts say, as concerns intensify over the multiplying cost of the nation’s groaning project pipeline and the political nature of many approvals.
“Could you imagine the bridge without the pylons? It would look naked, it would be awful. So you need to have more than just the cost-benefit analysis in these projects, you’ve got to have a wider social and economic view - that bridge is massively over-designed, it could take another 38,000 tonnes load - but boy has it worked.
Infrastructure Minister Catherine King told the National Infrastructure Summit that a review of Infrastructure Agency should be released by the end of the year.A “hard-nosed” review of the $14.5 billion Inland Rail project, which started out as a $4 billion project, is also well underway to ensure that it gets the best value for taxpayers, she said.
Coalition infrastructure spokeswoman Bridget McKenzie will on Tuesday claim that Labor’s project reshuffle had created uncertainty for business and voters. “The recent budget was a disappointment in that regard, with important projects dumped and others put on ice to the tune of $10 billion of projects taken off the table,” Ms McKenzie will tell the summit.
“While I acknowledge that market capacity constraints are applying pressure in the construction market ... it is important to remember that these constraints are not necessarily uniform across all geographic locations and across all tiers.” Australia has a shortage of 48,000 engineers but despite running programs over the past decade to get young people studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics, the programs were “clearly not working,” she said. “I still don’t think we’ve quite cracked how we get people into that industry.”with the hope of attracting investment from superannuation funds, was criticised by speakers during the summit. “I think it stinks,” said Mr Shepherd.
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