Billions of taxpayer dollars are committed before all the evidence for, and against, infrastructure projects is in. As well as missing business cases, basic rules of economic modelling are broken.
- Transport Fellow, Grattan Institute
Australia does need infrastructure to spur growth and support jobs - that idea comes with a big “but”.
Despite a huge fall in interest rates, the federal government has been using the same rate to value prospective infrastructure projects since 1989.
Traffic congestion is the main cost that cars create when they use existing roads. Road use charges are a more efficient and fairer way to cover the cost and help ensure traffic flows.
Instead of focusing on freeways, governments should change the way we pay for urban roads and public transport.
Ducking hard choices means avoiding change that could make a real improvement to the effectiveness of Australia’s infrastructure.
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