According to a report in Fairfax media today, the Labor government is set to announce funding for Melbourne’s A$9 billion metro rail tunnel, in addition to the A$40 million it has already contributed towards…
Last time around, the Victorian Government made too many decisions predicated on a stereotyped idea of Australian drought.
AAP Image/Julian Smith
The notion that Australia is the driest inhabited continent on the planet has created a persistent stereotype. Recent weather shows it to be misguided. It suits embarrassed planners, myopic politicians…
Criticisms of secrecy around infrastructure tendering fail to properly acknowledge the realities of costing and managing major projects.
One of the initiatives in the Victorian government’s economic statement released late last year was a decision to change the arrangements for announcing the cost of major infrastructure projects. Until…
Universities campuses need to adapt to the new reality of mobile students and online education.
Flickr/Jill
FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: We continue our series on the rise of online and blended learning and how free online courses are set to transform the higher education sector. Today Victoria University’s David…
Infrastructure lobbyists are pushing for more funding to fill the “infrastructure gap”, but the investment doesn’t make sense.
Indiana Public Media
Every Australian State and Territory has an ongoing roads program and a “wish list” which it brings to the Federal Government for funding. The current extent of the multi-billion dollar program can be…
Queensland Treasurer Tim Nicholls has delivered a budget that commits to austerity, with a return to surplus within three years.
The 2012-13 Queensland budget was the most anticipated policy announcement in several decades. The cut-backs in public sector employment previously forecast and cost saving measures announced in the early…
Olympics are sold on the benefits their infrastructure will bring, but sometimes reality doesn’t match the promise.
CmdrCord
When London won the Olympics, it was booming. The GFC changed everything. In 2008, Tessa Jowell, minister for the Olympics, said: “Had we known what we know now, would we have bid for the Olympics? Almost…
Improving the transparency and evaluation of major infrastructure projects is one way to increase productivity.
AAP
Productivity growth results in more valued output per unit of production input, or the same output for fewer inputs. Growth of productivity requires changes involving the adoption of new technology, better…
Cycling infrastructure gets people on their bikes, and the economic benefits are legion.
Janet Lackey
You might have heard that bike lanes are a waste of money. The Australian National Audit Office recently investigated the $40 million bike path scheme, announced in 2009 as part of the Federal Government’s…
Sydney’s Cross City Tunnel is on the brink of bankruptcy for the second time.
AAP
Public-private partnerships (PPPs) have been in the spotlight recently, but seemingly, for all the wrong reasons. The NSW government, which has a particularly chequered history with PPPs, announced this…
The Global Financial Crisis should be called the Global Debt Crisis. Too much debt has been created and there is not enough productive capacity to pay the interest on the debt, let alone repay the loans…
It’s first decade as a nation has been challenging, but the outlook for Timor-Leste is positive.
AAP/Mick Stone
The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste (East Timor) is one of the world’s newest post-conflict nations. Next year it celebrates ten years as an independent democratic state, after almost 30 years of Indonesian…
Investment in Australia’s ports is one obvious priority to enhance growth - but let’s broaden our outlook.
There has been much debate in the popular and political discourse on the state of our national infrastructure. The general consensus, despite Victoria’s Baillieu government’s failure to put forth any proposals…
Fixing Australia’s infrastructure policy regime will be a long, bumpy road.
AAP
Australia’s ability to provide appropriate infrastructure for the future remains under question, despite changes to Infrastructure Australia’s role announced in the 2011 Federal Budget. The budget has…
Recent reports that the Queensland government may build its $2B Sunshine Coast hospital by using a public-private partnership appear to indicate a continuing love affair with this form of funding. State…