Darren Chester MP
The Hon Darren Chester MP Minister for Infrastructure and Transport
On behalf of the Australian Government, I thank Infrastructure Partnerships Australia (IPA) for its ongoing work in the infrastructure space, particularly in promoting genuine, cohesive partnerships between governments and industry. Today, I’ll outline the Australian Government’s position on infrastructure investment in the transport sector. You may have heard the Prime Minister say that this will be a term of delivery. The bottom line is that we are building for the future. Our record $50 billion infrastructure investment is changing and saving lives. We are investing in our cities, getting a fair share for our regions and working across all modes of transport. We are also on board with the many advances in technology that we know will change the way we plan, deliver and use transport services now and into the future. In building for the future, we are addressing three major areas. The first is safety, which is paramount. It must be integral to everything we do, and while Australia has made some great gains in road safety since the early 1970s, in the past two years the trend has gone in the wrong direction. In the past 12 months, 1292 Australians have died on our roads. We’re seeing 30,000 serious injuries per year, at an annual cost of $30 million. We should not accept the road toll as an inevitable cost of roads, and I challenge you to work with the Government in relation to road safety. The second major area is that as Australia grows, our choices about the transport infrastructure we build must be informed by each project’s capacity for economic growth and productivity at local, regional and national levels. 68
futurebuilding
Key points: • Australia’s growing and ageing population provides a ‘burning platform’ for infrastructure and broader policy reform. • A rationalised user-pays model for road transport would deliver transparency, equity and fairness, while also providing a sustainable funding model for road transport. • In advance of major structure changes to road transport, robust project selection is the most important factor to ensure high-quality, economically beneficial projects.
Volume 7 Number 1
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29/11/2016 4:00 PM
