Roads Australia (RA) has welcomed the release of the Strategic Review into the Commonwealth Government’s Infrastructure Investment Program (IIP).
While the review includes road projects that will not receive Australian Government funding at this point in time, recommendations made by the independent reviewers are aligned with the need to transition to a more sustainable 10-year rolling infrastructure pipeline.
RA’s CEO, Ehssan Veiszadeh, said industry and government can now look forward with a greater degree of certainty.
“The IIP Review has placed some strong guardrails around future infrastructure funding, providing some much-needed clarity to transport stakeholders,” Mr Veiszadeh said.
“We must continue building transport infrastructure to meet population demand, matched with industry capacity.
“The core principles of productivity, resilience, liveability and sustainability at the heart of the Commonwealth Government’s policy statement support this need.
“RA has previously called for a nationally coordinated pipeline, and we look forward to seeing stronger collaboration across jurisdictions and between industry and government.”
Further recommendations have been welcomed by RA including in pipeline planning, managing escalation costs and safety.
“States providing annual infrastructure plans to the Commonwealth will hopefully allow for greater cohesiveness across infrastructure pipelines and less competition for skills and supply between jurisdictions,” Mr Veiszadeh said.
“Recommendations that focus on managing project escalation costs and risk allocation are crucial to the ongoing health of the transport.
“We’ve also seen recommendations to boost funding for regional councils and road safety which will make a difference to the quality and safety of infrastructure across rural areas.
“While delivering on all these recommendations will require a lot more work, RA will remain engaged with our members, including the Australian Government and individual jurisdictions, to ensure that the outcomes of this review leads to lasting improvements to the delivery of new transport infrastructure as well as the upkeep and maintenance of our road network.”