State’s wasteful major infrastructure spend must be curtailed

As the costs for major Tasmanian projects continue to blow out, more detailed cost analysis needs to be applied if they’re ever to be delivered, writes Graeme Wells

THE late American Senator Everett Dirksen often railed against wasteful government spending. As he is often quoted, “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money”. The fiscal response to the Covid pandemic has, thankfully, put the budget surplus fetish to bed. But Dirksen’s lesson has been lost during the recent election campaign, and for many years before that.

During the past few months politicians have prowled through marginal electorates with promises of a swimming pool here, a soccer field there, and a whisky distillery somewhere else.

But with a federal government gross debt of one trillion dollars in prospect, and with governments of all stripes too timid to take on meaningful tax reform, the quality of government spending has never been more important.

This applies with force to infrastructure spending. Investment in physical infrastructure is seen as a votewinner, even if the projects have little economic value. That is especially true at present. Unless the economy is in recession with unemployed resources, spending on infrastructure means that other projects can’t be delivered. There aren’t enough tradespeople or equipment to go round.

That’s why Infrastructure Australia was established more than a decade ago by the Rudd government. The intention was that major projects could be submitted for detailed analysis and a priority list established. The results of cost-benefit analysis are open to public scrutiny in the hope that only worthwhile projects proceed.

That hope has not been realised. Take the Bridgewater bridge for example. In 2016, it was announced as a $535m project. In 2019, when it was estimated to cost $633m, Infrastructure Australia found that ‘each dollar spent on the project is expected to return 53c in benefit’. The case for building the bridge is unlikely to have improved in the meantime, as the cost is now estimated to be $786m.

Snowy 2.0 is another example of hi-vis fever. In

March 2017 Prime Minister Turnbull announced, in advance of any detailed economic analysis, the new pumped hydro scheme. It would, he claimed, cost $2bn and be complete by 2022.

Perhaps a more considered approach was advisable. The project will not now be complete until 2026 and the cost has blown out to about $10bn.

The problem with these hivis announcements is that, once made, they are politically difficult to reverse when reality sinks in, or when

which protect workers from interference. Where a person trespasses, creates a public annoyance or is a common nuisance, they are committing an offence. Police officers also have discretion to ask people to leave certain areas and can arrest them if they don’t.

So if the Tasmanian government is not protecting workers with these draft laws, who are they protecting?

The Australia Institute Tasmania and a coalition of civil society groups are calling on the Rockliff government to withdraw this undemocratic law.

If not, we urge all members of Parliament to reject it, and instead protect citizens’ democratic right to protest.

Rachel Hay is the Anne Kantor Research Fellow at the Australia Institute Tasmania, and authored the Australia Institute Tasmania’s submission to the public consultation on the proposed anti-protester legislation.