In February this year, I introduced my Better Value for Taxpayers Bill alongside the Centre for Public Integrity and other members of the Crossbench. 

The Australian government has already committed to spending over $10 billion on major infrastructure projects, yet even before an election has been called both the major parties are out promising billions more. 

But our infrastructure pipeline for the next 10 years is already $32 billion dollars (or 25%) over budget due to capacity constraints.1 Meanwhile our federal budget is in structural deficit for the foreseeable future and the Reserve Bank has repeatedly made the point that major infrastructure competes directly with housing projects for skills and materials.2 

Two recent reviews of Australia’s infrastructure spending have been highly critical of our infrastructure spending. One review found that many of the projects we had selected lacked merit or any strategic rational and recommended more than 80 projects be ceased immediately.3 The other review found similar issues and determined the Federal Government was not acting as an informed investor in national transport infrastructure.4 The Government is yet to provide a satisfactory response to either review. 

This is not value for money and this needs to stop.  

My bill introduces four key integrity measures that will make the Government more accountable: 

1. Force the Government to have in place a 10-year strategic transport infrastructure strategy so we can easily identify when a project has no strategic justification. 
2. Force the Government to publish the business case for major projects at the time of announcement so we can assess the impact and costs and make informed assessments. 
3. Force the Minister to table in parliament any information they receive regarding changes to the cost or time of an ongoing project to discourage premature announcements and inaccurate or understated costings. 
4. Force the Government to produce and publish independent post-completion reviews of all major projects to ensure we’re learning from past projects and so the public can more accurately assess the ‘true costs’ of future projects. 

You can read my Better Value for Taxpayers Bill here as well as the Explanatory Memorandum here and the speech I delivered here.