Time to get runs on the board
CONSTIPATION is a curse, particularly when the whole nation is witness to every shamefaced grunt it takes just to liberate a pebble.
Fortunately for the heavily obstructed bowels of the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, the government is on helpful standby with a funnel, rubber gloves and gallons of economic stool softener.
The federal loan provider has only produced one solitary loan worth $16.8 million since it was launched two years ago, barely a grain of sand from its $5 billion funding quarry.
Northern Australia Minister Matt Canavan has come to the rescue, loosening up cumbersome restrictions on how much debt NAIF can take on and the kinds of project it can back.
We are told there are 16 projects in the “advanced due diligence” stage, just requiring some final brewing before they burst forth, and these new relaxed rules should help dilate the funding pipeline.
As Scott Morrison limbers up for Tuesday’s big Budget announcement, all eyes up here will be scouring the bowl for big ticket items in Far North Queensland.
NAIF funding is unlikely to appear in the papers – certainly, predicted outlays for specific projects will not be included – since the facility is treated as a commercial investment.
It means the government can write down its budget deficit, even though NAIF will attract millions of dollars worth of interest payments once the money is finally out the door.
Not all of the blame for the NAIF’s fruitlessness lies at the feet of the Federal Government, nor the organisation’s besieged management.
The State Government has not come to the table in any way, shape or form, failing to apply for funding for important projects in Queensland, and ignoring correspondence from the facility.
NAIF’s failure so far looks pretty grim for the Coalition just a year out from the next federal election and Queensland Labor is keen to maintain the status quo to help their federal mates in opposition.
In any case, the highly-spruiked fountain of Northern Australian wealth has not sprayed us with its infrastructural goodness and, in the meantime, we desperately need our fair share from the Budget.
We are told the economy is in hale and hearty health, such that a planned increase to the Medicare levy can be scrapped without jeopardising the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The government is supposedly on track to post a budget surplus in 2021, so we will be back in the black just as Turnbull promised.
We can afford modest income tax cuts, probably across all brackets, and states and territories will share in an extra $3.4 billion in GST revenue in 2018-19.
Infrastructure has been touted as a key focus of the Budget and, certainly the big cities and Queensland’s southeast corner, are in for a splurge.
The Melbourne airport rail link is getting $5 billion, the M1 highway upgrade between Brisbane and the Gold Coast has been earmarked a clean billion, and we have even got $50 million in seed funding set aside to create an Australian Space Agency.
That is all good news, and if the government can afford to shell out on outer space, surely it can throw Far North Queensland a bone.
As anyone with a high-cheese diet knows, the joy of eventual release is a beautiful thing.
We will assume Morrison and his ilk have tried their best to get the money moving in Northern Australia, but the past few years have been fairly uninspiring. Come on, Treasurer. Pull the cork and let it flow.