$50m 'investment-banking style' unit to fund transport projects
Malcolm Turnbull is promising an investment-banking style “innovative financing unit” to devise funding deals for multibillion-dollar transport projects as part of a grand plan to reduce commuting time and make Australian cities more liveable.
The infrastructure plan sounds great. But what to build and how to fund it?
Greg Jericho
Greg Jericho Read more
The financing unit would include bureaucrats and secondees from the private sector and would have the job of finding ways to pay for priority projects identified by Infrastructure Australia. They could include public/private partnerships, government borrowings or “value capture” – using some of the land value increases fuelled by a new project, like a rail line, to pay for its construction.
The government will pledge $50m for feasibility studies into these kinds of deals for prospective projects, which could include the Melbourne Metro, the rail link to the new airport at Badgery’s Creek in Sydney, the Adelaide light rail, the Brisbane cross-river rail and the next stage of the Gold Coast light rail.
Turnbull – who identified cities and major public transport projects as priorities soon after becoming prime minister last year – will use a speech in Melbourne to flesh out his approach.
He will say his government will treat infrastructure funding as an investment wherever possible.