How wasteful spending pushes up major infrastructure costs What You Need To Know About | CIS

A large amount of taxpayers’ money, state and federal, is expended on large scale infrastructure that is intended to play a crucial part in Australia’s growth and prosperity — although some of it is arguably wasteful or perhaps even pork-barrelling. And as the recent federal government Infrastructure Investment Review found in axing around 50 planned projects, some “do not demonstrate merit, lack any national strategic rationale and do not meet the Australian Government’s national investment priorities. In many cases these projects are also at high risk of further cost pressures and/or delays.”

But major infrastructure projects in Australia are often also more expensive than comparable projects in other countries, even after even after adjusting for differences in currencies and purchasing power.

Learn what you need to know about infrastructure blow out in this episode.