IN HIS budget speech the Treasurer Wayne Swan has addressed our increasingly worsening national infrastructure with the announcement that there is to be a Building Australia Fund which will work with state governments to address critical infrastructure shortages in transport, water, energy and communications. Initial funding will be $20 billion over the next two years from budget surpluses.
Now that sounds like a lot of money, but in reality it falls a long, long way short of what is required to make up for successive federal and state government’s lack of commitment to infrastructure maintenance.
You can’t make up for 30 plus years of under-funding in just a couple of years. For example ABN Amro recently estimated the infrastructure shortfall at nearly $400 billion – now THAT is a lot of money!
Take for example, Melbourne, a city I used to consider, just six years ago when I lived on its outskirts, a long way better off than its eastern seaboard counterparts of Sydney and Brisbane. City Link had just been opened and movement from east to west could be achieved with the use of a continuous series of freeways.
Now these freeways are becoming increasingly clogged and as commuters move to public transport, the train and tram system struggles to handle the huge increases resulting from road congestion.
Get more trains – “we are, but that will take time” – is the cry. And then as the number of train services increases so does the number of times trains cross roads and so the frustration of motorists is compounded as they sit at level crossings for increasing periods of time.
Put the rail network underground, you say. A very good idea but how costly would that be – and how long would it take to build? On visits to the bauma Construction Expo most people marvelled at Munich’s underground rail system – “if only we had this…”
Vicious circle, isn’t it? I think I’ll stick to dodging kangaroos and stock in the bush.
Meanwhile back with the Building Australia Fund. It is to be a new statutory advisory council of 12 members entitled Infrastructure Australia which will be chaired by Sir Rod Eddington, former British Airways boss and of late traffic consultant to the Victorian government for whom he proposes sweeping road and rail infrastructure development (including tunnels) to relieve Melbourne’s cross city traffic woes.
Eddington will have a board of 12 people to be selected from industry and government whose first task will be to undertake a national feasibility study of high priority projects in conjunction with the states.
Likely projects include upgrading key sections of the Bruce Highway in far north Queensland, the Gateway Motorway in SE Queensland, the construction of the Western metro rail link and upgrading of the M5 motorway in Sydney, upgrading of the Western Ring Road and construction of designated projects in the east-west corridor in Melbourne as identified in the Eddington Report.
Perth airport features with an integrated transport plan for the airport while Adelaide, the least congested city in the country will get a transport sustainability plan to ensure it remains that way. These studies will feed into the National Infrastructure Audit to be completed by the end of 2008.
A new Auslink program was also announced and will have $22.3 billion to spend over the next five years. Priorities identified include a $1.1 billion upgrade of the Ipswich Motorway in Brisbane, $2.5 billion for an upgrade of the Pacific Highway from Bulahdelah to the Queensland border and $900 million for the Western Ring Road in Melbourne.
It would be easy to be cynical and simply say “too little – too late”, but this move is the most positive I have seen to address the infrastructure crisis in a cohesive, national way. This government has a far greater chance of working with the states, being all of the same faith, than the former Howard government.
At the least when the National Infrastructure Audit is complete we will know the magnitude of the problem. Then comes the test of political will. To fix it.
Throw in the woes with water, energy and communications and the good times for contractors and suppliers of goods and services looks set to continue for a long time yet!
Doug Huett was National Executive Director of the Civil Contractors Federation from 1988-2002. He is now an industry commentator.
Source: Construction Contractor