Australian Government welcomes release of fifteen year infrastructure plan

The Australian Government has welcomed the release of Infrastructure Australia’s 15-year Australian Infrastructure Plan, which sets out an ‘Infrastructure Priority List’ of more than 90 potential projects around the country and an extensive set of recommendations relevant to all levels of government about reforms to improve the delivery of infrastructure nation-wide.

Infrastructure Australia is an independent statutory body with a board of recognised industry experts. Infrastructure Australia has a mandate to advise government on nationally significant infrastructure, including through a 15 year rolling Infrastructure Plan to specify national priorities.

The Australian Infrastructure Plan is the first long-term national infrastructure plan, based on a top down audit of the nation’s assets, developed in the nation’s history.

The Infrastructure Plan follows extensive consultation by Infrastructure Australia with governments and other stakeholders, will be a key tool to inform decisions by the Commonwealth Government and State and Territory Governments about which reforms to progress, and over time which projects will be funded.

The Government has an extensive infrastructure investment programme – with a record investment between 2014-15 and 2019-20 – and a strong infrastructure policy agenda.

Today the Turnbull Government is also announcing a set of funding and financing principles that will guide the Commonwealth’s approach to funding major projects, particularly in the way we engage with states and territories.

The Australian Infrastructure Plan includes extensive analysis of key infrastructure policy challenges, across transport, energy, telecommunications and water infrastructure, and makes a number of recommendations, including:

• Governments should make greater use of well-regulated market based solutions to improve the efficiency of Australia’s infrastructure and support productivity growth
• State and territory governments should deliver long-term regional infrastructure plans
• Australia needs a National Freight and Supply Chain Strategy
• Governments should routinely consider value capture opportunities in all future public infrastructure investments.

The 15 Year Infrastructure Plan provides a major contribution to strategic, long term thinking about Australia’s infrastructure needs and how that can be best met.

This Plan contains many recommendations – to both the Commonwealth and state and territory governments.

We expect the 15 Year Australian Infrastructure Plan will spark vigorous debate about our national policy settings – including how we get the best from our existing infrastructure, and how to make wise decisions about potential new infrastructure.

The Turnbull Government will carefully consider the recommendations, and have regard to public debate, before announcing our response to them in due course.

A copy of the Australian Infrastructure Plan and the Infrastructure Priority List is available at http://infrastructureaustralia.gov.au/policy-publications/publications/Australian-Infrastructure-Plan.aspx