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 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.
“The Australian government has traditionally provided grants for infrastructure,” he will say, according to his speech notes. “This approach adds to our deficit and reduces incentives for state, territory and local governments to innovate in infrastructure funding and delivery, and partner with the private sector.
“Grants also do not encourage consideration of reforms likely to improve infrastructure planning and decision making. We cannot afford to fund every project of merit from our budget.”
He will say the “innovative financing unit” would “broker investment in landmark projects”.
Turnbull will repeat his vision of a “30-minute city” where no worker’s commute time is greater than half an hour.
Labor’s transport spokesman, Anthony Albanese, called on Turnbull to “restore” $4bn cut from urban public transport projects when Tony Abbott came to power and to appoint a minister for cities.
Jamie Briggs was Turnbull’s minister for cities and the built environment, but he was forced to resign from the ministry in December after an incident with a public servant in a Hong Kong bar.
Turnbull elevated New South Wales Liberal MP Angus Taylor to the role of assistant minister (formerly called parliamentary secretaries) to the prime minister for cities and digital transformation.
