Analysis for the government reportedly likens roads spending policies to gambling and says rail has lost out

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

Tony Abbott’s pitch for building the roads of the 21st century has come under pressure from a leaked report for Infrastructure Australia. It claims the country has a “gambler’s addition to roads” and describes road spending as “hideously inefficient”.

The report entitled “Spend more, waste more, Australia's roads in 2014: moving beyond gambling," which was leaked to Fairfax, reportedly said national road spending was outstripping revenue raised through road-related taxes and charges.

It said “Australia’s thirst for roads” would come at the expense of other services and suggested there was little consideration of whether Australia’s demands for new roads should be satisfied, arguing that rail funding had missed out as a result.

Infrastructure Australia, the government’s chief advisory body, would not release the report, saying it was the work of consultant, Juturna Infrastructure and did not represent the views of Infrastructure Australia.

Luke Fraser, the principal of Juturna, is a retained adviser to IA and was appointed by transport ministers to the Council of Australian Government’s heavy vehicle investment reform board, which is responsible for reforming road pricing, user charging and road investments.

A spokesman for the infrastructure minister, Warren Truss, said the report had “no further standing” than a consultant’s view.

He said the week-old Productivity Commission report into infrastructure funding identified opportunities to improve decision-making around road investments including user-pays road charges but any changes would be in the longer term.



“In particular, the PC identified the need for closer linking of road usage and expenditure, including considering options for road-related revenue sources,” the spokesman said.

Anthony Albanese, the opposition spokesman on infrastructure, said while he had not seen the IA report, he agreed that Australia had focused on building roads at the expense of urban rail for public transport. He claimed that, while in office, Labor had allocated more to urban rail projects than all previous federal governments combined.

“We believe that investment on public transport will deliver real productivity outcomes as well as taking cars off roads and improving urban amenity,” he said.

“Since taking office Tony Abbott has scrapped all federal spending on public transport, including billions of dollars Labor had allocated to projects like the Melbourne metro, Brisbane’s Cross River Rail project, Adelaide’s Tonsley Park project and a rail link between the Perth CBD and the city’s busy airport.