Chapter 3
Infrastructure decision making and planning
3.1
This chapter explores infrastructure planning and decision processes. It
considers the political dimensions, evaluation and transparency of project
selection; and opportunities to improve planning and coordination.
Decision making
Political dimensions
3.2
The committee heard strong evidence on the need to 'de-politicise' or
reduce the political dimension involved in decisions regarding infrastructure
projects.
3.3
This issue is important to the consideration of this inquiry as it
relates directly to the confidence of investors. The committee heard
that—post-GFC—investors are more risk averse and therefore wary of investing in
infrastructure projects that are not subject to transparent planning and
decision making processes.
3.4
Mr Glenn Stevens, Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, has stated
that:
The impediments to [good infrastructure planning] are not
financial...The impediments are in our decision making processes and, it seems,
in our inability to find political agreement on how to proceed.[1]
3.5
Mr Saul Eslake, Economist, emphasised the need to reform the current
system:
One of the things that has undermined public and market
confidence in the desirability of governments borrowing money to fund
infrastructure investment is the lack of confidence in existing institutional
arrangements to ensure that the projects which are funded are the best projects
that could be funded and are ones that will generate returns that are
sufficient to service the debt which has been incurred in the construction of
them and ultimately to pay it back.[2]
3.6
Standard and Poor's Ratings Services agreed, stating that
de-politicising infrastructure would improve investment outcomes:
Depoliticising the current infrastructure debate and
reframing the conversation with the public to focus on the outcomes of
high-quality infrastructure investment could reduce the potential for
sub-optimal or compromised solutions.[3]
3.7
Professor John Hewson, Economist, told the committee that:
...right now we have too much short-term politics in what ends
up being infrastructure. A lot of the infrastructure that is being built is not
much better than a bandaid or a marginal improvement.[4]
3.8
However, witnesses including Peter Newman, Professor
of Sustainability, from the Sustainability Policy Institute, Curtin University,
questioned the practical realities of de-politicisation:
I think depoliticising is too much to ask because
infrastructure is always going to have a political element to it...
...It was not depoliticised before; it was completely taken
over by particular lobbies, and they were not very sensible.[5]
Project evaluation
3.9
Suggestions to de-politicalise infrastructure centred on the requirement
for a robust and transparent cost-benefit analysis.[6]
3.10
The Productivity Commission (PC) noted that some major public
infrastructure projects have proceeded without sound and transparent
cost-benefit analysis:
There are also examples where large public infrastructure
projects have been approved without any formal analysis of their costs and
benefits. Most notably, the National Broadband Network, Australia's largest
public infrastructure project, was commenced without a cost–benefit analysis
having been done. It also appears that detailed analysis of the project was
focused, from a relatively early stage, on how best to implement the government's
policy objectives, rather than considering the merits of different options (box
2.2).[7]
3.11
Another example is the proposed Melbourne East West Link project, where
during a performance audit, the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) found:
Neither stage of the East West Link project had proceeded
fully through the processes that have been established to assess the merits of
nationally significant infrastructure investments prior to the decisions by
Government to approve $3 billion in Commonwealth funding...[8]
3.12
The committee heard suggestions that an independent body, such as IA,
could take on more responsibility for decisions about infrastructure investment
in order to facilitate de-politicisation of the decision processes.
3.13
Professor Hewson agreed with the need for greater financial transparency
and suggested IA as an appropriate vehicle to achieve this. Professor Hewson advocated
transcending short term politics:
...be prepared to put a structure in place that would transcend
any individual government...Governments can state their priorities, they can
compete with oppositions about which projects should get up and should not, and
which ones they would try to prioritise and so on, but unless they stacked up
to an Infrastructure Australia assessment of the social and economic benefits
of those projects in the medium-term sense, they should not be pursued.[9]
3.14
Mr Eslake advocated that IA:
...as a body that would evaluate proposed infrastructure
investments and rank them is very much in the direction of the kind of
improvements that I think ought to take place. What I would like to see is all
of these infrastructure projects subject to a cost-benefit analysis and the
assumptions underpinning those cost-benefit analyses and the results of those
cost-benefit analyses laid out publicly for everyone to see and projects ranked
according to the results...[10]
3.15
However, Mr Eslake did not argue that there should be mandatory
acceptance of IA's findings, but instead advocated for an obligation on
politicians to publicly provide reasons for departing from this advice.[11]
3.16
Professor Phillip O'Neill, Director, Centre for Western Sydney, University
of Western Sydney, also cautioned that in his view infrastructure decisions
would always be a political process as financial modellers from Infrastructure
Australia cannot make those decisions:
These are political decisions. Politicians need to be informed
by that modelling, but that modelling cannot determine the decisions government
has to take.[12]
3.17
Professor O'Neill, while noting the importance of cost-benefit analysis
to assist decision-makers, also emphasised that decisions about infrastructure
will always be political. Professor O'Neill signalled that the processes cannot
be handed over to IA completely.
It is not possible to take decisions about billions of
dollars of expenditure of public or private money—with the property rights that
are entailed, the changes to community living and urban functioning, the
political processes and zoning processes, and all the things that have to take
place when you have these huge material objects, like WestConnex, implanted in
a city—and evaluate them by a simple set of numerics housed in Infrastructure
Australia, for instance, in another city—and evaluate them by a simple set of
numerics housed in Infrastructure Australia, for instance, in another city. It
is always going to be an intensely political process, and we are naive to think
any way other than that.[13]
3.18
Professor O'Neill said that governments should:
...do the cost-benefit analysis but make it an input into a
political decision making system.[14]
3.19
Ms Marion Terrill, Transport Program Director, Grattan Institute,
cautioned that cost-benefit analysis needs to be undertaken with care 'using
consistent methodologies to ensure true like-for-like comparisons of potential
projects'.[15]
Ms Terrill also cautioned against shifting all infrastructure decision making
power to IA as IA primarily considers projects that have the highest
cost-benefit ratio. Independent bodies such as IA do not always consider the
social and non-economic benefits when ranking infrastructure projects. IA may
exclude important community projects on the basis of financial viability:
...it is likely that some parts of the community that are
legitimately the concern of governments would not do well out of that. I think
country towns would be an example of that. So it does not seem to me that a
purely technical assessment is quite the way to go.[16]
Transparency
3.20
In the 2015 Australian Infrastructure Audit Report, the need for
decision making transparency was recognised:[17]
Transparency is also a vital element of best practice
planning, project selection and regulation practices. However, decision making
in the infrastructure sectors often remains relatively opaque. Limited
transparency in planning and project selection processes has caused concern in
recent years, particularly when major infrastructure projects proceed without a
cost benefit analysis, or without the results of such analysis being disclosed.[18]
3.21
This view was reiterated in IA's 2016 Infrastructure Plan:
Making project data and analysis publicly available, including
the publication of a project business case, exposes government processes to
scrutiny, allowing assumptions to be tested and lessons to be identified and
shared. As a result, the quality of analysis is improved and the likelihood of
positive project outcomes is increased.[19]
3.22
Agreeing with these points, Ms Terrill argued that proposals should be
considered in the light of long-term plans:
Transparency of business cases and their assumptions brings a
discipline to governments either to choose the projects with the highest
benefits relative to costs or to explain to the electorate why they are
prioritising some other goal.[20]
3.23
Ms Terrill mentioned that greater transparency would improve community
confidence in infrastructure projects. The public scrutiny of project proposals
would ensure that if a minister decided to support a project that did not meet
the technical assessment; there would be an onus to justify the project's
non-financial benefits.[21]
3.24
In a more recent report, Ms Terrill provided more detail on this aspect,
citing the limited impact of bodies such as IA:
A better approach would involve three steps. Governments currently
cherry-pick the evaluation method that suits the result they want. Instead,
they should not be able to commit to a transport infrastructure project before
tabling in parliament a rigorous like-for-like evaluation of the net benefit,
conducted by an independent body.
Governments would then be free to make and defend decisions on
the basis of a clear rationale for investment. Politicians would be less eager
to invest in projects that don't stack up.[22]
3.25
Ms Terrill suggested that there be automatic publication of business
cases for major projects seeking government funding 'particularly the
assumptions underlying the cost benefit analysis and the evidence in support of
those assumptions, so that experts and the community can scrutinise proposals'.[23]
Ms Terrill stressed:
I cannot see any reason why business cases cannot be
published, and published before the successful tenderer is announced...[24]
3.26
Ms Rebecca Douthwaite, Policy and Research Manager, Property Council of
Australia (WA), also supported the transparency of business cases:
A big issue at the moment is that about two years ago the
Economic Regulation Authority did an investigation into microeconomic reform,
and a big finding of that was that the infrastructure processes in WA at the
moment are sufficient. That was very strongly rejected by industry based on the
fact that even a demand analysis for a new road is not available to the public.
That sort of information at the very least would help improve decision making
when private sector and community can be involved or at least can understand
how those projects were selected.[25]
3.27
Professor Newman agreed with the need for greater analysis and
transparency of projects, commenting that 'getting the economic analysis
transparently available is a very big step forward.'[26]
Commercial-in-confidence
3.28
Commercial-in-confidence has been used as a key reason for not making a
cost-benefit analysis public. Evidence presented to the committee did not
support using commercial-in-confidence to avoid transparency and scrutiny.
Mr Eslake stated:
...I do not think commercial-in-confidence criteria should be
used to obscure appropriate public scrutiny of the decision making process
here. I understand that there might be some things that do need to be kept
confidential, but thinking of some recent major infrastructure projects that
have either been put forward or been reversed, I do not think it enhances
public confidence in the merits of these projects or in the decision making
processes of governments that lead to them going forward or being rejected if
cost-benefit analyses and the assumptions underpinning them are concealed from
public scrutiny.[27]
3.29
Professor O'Neill observed the tendency of governments to make
conditions within contracts commercial-in-confidence. Professor O'Neill highlighted
that secrecy made it difficult to learn from past infrastructure mistakes:
Whether you are an advocate of public sector efficiency or of
the benefits of the market, what we do know is that efficient knowledge and
learning from the past in order to improve to the future is at the core of
economic progress. And here we have in the infrastructure sector—probably the
newest emerging private economic sector in the world—governments intervening in
ways that inhibit learning, because we do not know the conditions under which
privatisations take place, so we cannot say: 'That is good. That is not
working. This is working.[28]
3.30
The PC was also not persuaded that commercial-in-confidence
considerations should mean cost-benefit analyses are not made public,
concluding that typically the analysis is done prior to procurement. For this
reason the data is unlikely to be commercially sensitive. Accordingly the PC
was:
...[n]ot convinced that there are valid
commercial-in-confidence reasons to withhold the release of full
cost−benefit analyses. Even where data are provided by private
participants, the normal presumption of transparency should prevail as a
condition of involvement in government-backed projects.[29]
3.31
The PC emphasised the need to publicise the cost-benefit analysis of
large projects as a way of improving the transparency of decision making.[30]
The PC concluded that such transparency:
...allows particular estimates (for example, of construction
costs or patronage) to be debated and testing done on how the use of different
estimates would affect the projects net benefits. Transparency can help to improve
the quality of analyses because proponents and practitioners know that any
flaws are likely to be exposed.[31]
Planning and coordination
3.32
The need to improve integrated planning was seen as another way to
reduce the risks for infrastructure investors and depoliticise decision making.
IA outlined that an integrated and well planned infrastructure system enables
the community and its economy to connect:
It makes it easier for people to get to their jobs, ensures
businesses can operate efficiently and enables the creation of dynamic
communities with strong social ties.[32]
3.33
In the Infrastructure Plan, IA indicated that to facilitate good
practice in infrastructure decision making frameworks they will work in
partnership with governments, business and the community to:
...identify National Governance Principles to help drive better
infrastructure decision making. Key components of the National Governance
Principles are likely to include:
-
Development of long-term integrated infrastructure plans;
-
Publication of full project business cases, including supporting
data and analysis;
-
Completion of in-depth community engagement, starting at the
strategic planning phase; and
-
Preparation and publication of robust post completion reviews.
The National Governance Principles would be relevant to
infrastructure decisions at all levels of government, irrespective of the
funding source or procurement mechanism used.[33]
3.34
IA in its Infrastructure Plan commented that politicisation of
the infrastructure decision process can result in 'plans wholly or partially
being re-written following a change of government'.[1]
3.35
This view was supported by Mr Martin Locke, Adjunct Professor, Faculty
of the Built Environment, University of New South Wales. Mr Locke highlighted
the need for long-term plans and commitments for infrastructure that:
...sees through political cycles and is somewhat bipartisan, if
that can be achieved [or tripartisan]...is the key, in my opinion.[34]
3.36
Ms Terrill pointed out that infrastructure projects are often pursued in
marginal states or electorates.[1]
Ms Terrill drew together the political nature of infrastructure decision making
with issues relating to broader project selection and financing issues,
pointing out that there is:
a widespread view from entities such as the Productivity
Commission that governments have not made good infrastructure decisions and
that they have been driven by electoral concerns, the desire to build big and
iconic over small and useful and a desire to keep debt off public sector
balance sheets.[35]
3.37
Witnesses emphasised that in order to improve planning, projects should
not be seen in isolation but seen as part of an integrated system. Dr Paul
McLeod, Research Program Leader, Planning and Transport Research Centre,
University of Western Australia, referred to transport to articulate this
point:
Transport is not a project, it is a system. It is transport
for the city and every project has to interconnect with all the other projects.
The responsibility to make the whole system work usually lies with government.[36]
3.38
Dr McLeod went on to describe that an integrated project, has to be
considered through what makes the whole system work better:
You cannot really do it in an unintegrated way. You have to
have the planners and the financiers, in a sense, working together to make sure
that both sides get what is required.[37]
3.39
Ms Terrill also indicated that looking at infrastructure as an
integrated system means that small projects can make a big difference:
Because of the networked nature of transport infrastructure,
there will often be pinch points that will jeopardise the running of the whole
system, even though of themselves they are quite small and they can be quite
easy to fix. So we are seeing a lot more things like improving problematic
intersections or ramp measurings to improve flow rates on freeways, which have
nothing like the scale of expense of the projects that attract media attention
but in fact can make a huge difference to the operation of a system as a whole.[38]
3.40
Ms Debra Goostrey, Chief Executive Officer, Urban Development Institute
of Australia (WA) also emphasised the need to stop looking at projects in
isolation using Fremantle port as an example:
...the state government is looking at selling the Fremantle
port. They need a new port but they are struggling with the funding of it. We
had a project that was proposed a number of years ago to build a residential
island off Fremantle. One of the things that could be done is to get the
constructer of that to build the outer harbour and then transfer the land
rights to enable the urban development on the current port site. So the state
gets a new, fully automated port, the developers get an inner-city area that
they can develop for high density, you get a new area for the cruise ships to
come in, and you get freight efficiency. But we are not looking at how we can
collectively solve complex problems.[39]
3.41
The Property Council of Australia (WA) provided an assessment system to
the committee which Mr Lino Iacomella, Deputy Executive Director,
Property Council of Australia (WA) indicated facilitates a more holistic
integrated approach.[40]
3.42
The matrix was an outcome of research commissioned from Urbis based on
best practice infrastructure.[41]
The Urbis review did not just look at the direct cost-benefit analysis around
initial investment but rather at what that investment would activate long term.
Ms Douthwaite explained how the approach was developed:
When you look at the investment in infrastructure,
particularly as it relates to productivity versus broader economic benefits,
for argument's sake, you can build a road anywhere in the state and it could
increase productivity, but how do you unlock those greater, broader economic
benefits that are attached to that investment? That is what we really wanted to
understand. Obviously, coming from property, we wanted to look at how it would
activate property development and those sorts of opportunities for our members.
But we also wanted to look at those broader things—new markets, new industries,
new supply chains.[42]
3.43
Professor Michael Negnevitsky, appearing in a private capacity, spoke
about factoring in the increasing use of renewable energy into long-term energy
infrastructure planning:
What may
happen in the future is that people may install solar panels on the roof and
have reliable battery storage in the garage, and basically you will not need a
distribution network. Five years ago I raised this question at the IEEE general
meeting in the United States, and people were asking whether I had all my
marbles.
Last year
I had the same discussion in TasNetworks, but the other way around: they were
asking my view of what may happen with the grid, because if the situation
continues like this we will have a situation where middle-class Tasmanians—and
not just Tasmanians but people all over Australia—will have a house that is an
independent energy unit.[43]
Long-term planning
3.44
The committee heard that another way to reduce politicisation and
infrastructure risk is to improve the long-term planning of infrastructure
projects.
3.45
Professor Hewson lamented the lack of enduring infrastructure planning:
...we have never had either the leadership or the financial
capability in the annual budget structure that we have got, and the sort of
constraints that that operates under, to contemplate a serious infrastructure
strategy going forward...We have trouble thinking to next week or beyond a
particular short-term issue.[44]
3.46
The PC also noted the need for:
...appropriate long-term
planning for corridors, rigorous demand forecasting, investigating project
risks fully (including latent risks borne by governments)...[45]
3.47
The findings of IA's 2015 Australian Infrastructure Audit report
stressed the need for long-term planning, dealing with uncertainty, with
current issues including:
-
the implications of demographic change for Australian society
generally and government finances in particular;
-
the scope and direction of technological change; changes in the
global economy;
-
the future of work, e.g. where people work, incomes, and
part-time work;
-
and the prospect of climate change, and uncertainty as to how the
international community will respond.[46]
3.48
Dr James McIntosh, Director of LUTI Consulting, explained that the way
we live is changing which should change what we plan for in future. Dr McIntosh
spoke about Generation Y:
...Victorian
kids are getting their driver's licences, like, five years later than they
previously were 10 years ago, and the percentage of I think it is 18- to
28-year-olds has actually dropped. So 15 per cent less are actually getting
their driver's licences, and then they are getting them later. They have these
public transport and active transport travel behaviours that they, from then
on, tend to keep for the rest of their lives. What this basically means is they
value it. They go, 'Well, I don't really want a car.' So their behaviour and
their willingness to pay is driving up different values...[47]
3.49
This view was echoed by Ms Debra Goostrey who spoke about automated
vehicles as an illustration of the changing future infrastructure needs:
We have the automated vehicles on trial, as of next month, in
Adelaide. We are looking at them becoming commercially available in the next 10
years and in Western Australia we are looking at a 10-year rollover in vehicle
use. By 2030 they are going to be fairly common. We need to be planning our
infrastructure to interface with these new technologies. That is one example,
but there are many more where we need to look to the future, how we will be
living, and making sure all our infrastructure is efficient and effective...[48]
3.50
Ms Terrill indicated that it is possible to make reasonable predictions
for long term planning. Although demands change over time, Ms Terrill indicated
that we can make some pretty good assessments:
... of where people will live, where jobs will be, where people
will get goods from, where they will want them and the changing nature of all
that...
We also have some reasonable predictions about population
growth which, even though it has come off in more recent times, we expect to be
pretty strong over the next 20, 30 or 40 years. So there is no reason why we
cannot make pretty good plans for 30 years.[49]
3.51
Mr Raymond Tame, Chief Executive Officer, City of Armadale spoke about
the need for long term planning to address population growth in places such as
Perth. Mr Tame raised :
the need for a scheme for cultural and recreational
facilities over the next 30 years, providing the basis for a population of a 1½
million people, that is funded over a five-year or a seven-year program—a
series of such facilities that are setting up greater Perth...for the next 30
years.[50]
3.52
Mr Tame stressed the need for integrated planning particularly to
address the needs of growing areas:
...at the moment as soon as you work out a program that works
for the entire population of Australia, taking in the regional needs and taking
in the global city needs, you are not meeting the needs of these areas where
the population is not yet there. Yet we know they are the dormitory suburbs and
the voting suburbs of the future. So those people move in, they have paid out,
they have made the biggest investment of their lives. And then they look around
and say, 'Where is my bus system? Where is my train system? Where are my
recreation opportunities?'[51]
3.53
Dr Vicki Gardiner, General Manager of Tasmania, Engineers Australia,
when discussing the current electricity supply shortage in Tasmania emphasised
the need for governance to implement long-term planning infrastructure and
energy needs:
It is now
just a matter of, 'Rather than looking at the short-term fixes, let's look at
the midterm and at what is coming up over the longer term,' always bearing in
mind that there needs to be a diversity of supply for energy security, with
those opportunities for new technologies that are coming through.[52]
Coordination between governments
3.54
In addition to improving the way infrastructure projects are planned,
witnesses spoke about the need for better coordination between levels of
government and agencies.
3.55
Mr Anthony Schinck, Chief Executive Officer, City of Ballarat said that:
I think the best results we will get from that is in fact a
coordinated dialogue across the three tiers of government and, in particular,
through agencies that have the capacity to depoliticise to a large extent those
investment opportunities.[53]
3.56
Ms Terrill mentioned that:
...the Commonwealth and the states have a relationship which
means that the Commonwealth tries to skew state decisions. I think the
Commonwealth can be frustrated that the states do not put up a lot of projects,
but it seems that neither side is entirely happy with the activities of the
other side. The states generate the project ideas for the most part, but the
decisions are probably skewed by the way that funding is provided.[54]
3.57
Mr John Brennan, Chair of the Tasmanian Polar Network, highlighted that
the interplay between the Commonwealth, state and private investors has the
capability to transform Australia, if done well. Mr Brennan spoke about the Antarctic
and Southern Ocean sector:
We would not have this sector had it not been for the vision,
over 30 years ago, of the federal government when it decided to invest in
infrastructure in Tasmania and in placement of human resources here. It
relocated two federal government departments here, one being the Australian
Antarctic Division and the second one to follow being the CSIRO. It is really
important to note that because it shows that federal government investment in
infrastructure and people at the right time and in the right place can create a
whole new industry...[55]
3.58
Mr Sean Cameron, Manager Economic Development and Mr Schinck, raised the
need for all levels of government to work in a coordinated way.[56]
Mr Cameron used the Ballarat West Employment Zone as an example of three levels
of government working together to 'de-risk' infrastructure.
...we are able to work with all three tiers of government to
address the different productivity components...By having the correct evidence
base and the strategic justification behind it, and understanding what
productivity improvements could come and whether the private sector investment
was real and what type of return they need to get to...happen, we were able to
ensure that those public moneys from the whole three tiers of government were
actually going to get the results that we required.[57]
3.59
Mr Eslake also highlighted need for long term planning between levels of
government for projects to succeed:
Public sector infrastructure projects are usually complex and
require considerable planning, especially if they entail the acquisition of
land; involve a large number of tenders for work underpinned by lengthy and
complicated legal documentation; and take years to be completed. Legislative
requirements, especially when more than one level of government is involved, as
is often the case in Australia, add to the difficulties of matching the timing
of infrastructure spending to the business cycle.[58]
3.60
Ms Goostrey spoke about the difficulties of coordination with each
agency having its own piece of self-protecting legislation.[59]
Ms Goostrey outlined that when talking to agencies about coordination, they are
in agreement, until the agencies meet to sort out the practicalities of a
proposed infrastructure project:
...when it goes through the belly of the beast of the decision making
process we dumb it down. From the development-industry perspective, they want
to do awesome; instead, they are left with vanilla, because that is the only
thing we can get through the system. From the federal government's perspective,
as many of the decisions that are made at state and local government level, it
is the leadership on what principle based planning and decision making
framework should be in place.[60]
3.61
Mr Tame spoke about coordination of infrastructure projects and
highlighted the coordination issues faced by councils:
We have offered our expertise and the facts that we have put
here to bring the voices of the nine councils that ring Perth together to get a
collective view and to sit around the table. We have submitted a couple
examples of the infrastructure aspects that where we think we could contribute
to the decision making. Then they would be able to feed into the planning, the
purchase of appropriate land and possibly the funding of some of those regional
facilities on a better coordinated basis. We also want to be at the table
because we do not know how water, power and a number of those important
infrastructure components forward planning is coordinated. At the moment, we
suspect that each of those agencies has its own strategic plan and there is not
really a recognition—for instance, our growth rates have outstripped all of
their predictions over the years.[61]
Timeliness of delivery
3.62
Witnesses emphasised that affordable housing, on outer metropolitan
fringes, does not mean affordable living as limited infrastructure exists. Mr
Tame explained that if infrastructure is not constructed while housing is
developed, generations can miss out on the amenities and lifestyles enjoyed by
those in established suburbs.[62]
3.63
The committee heard that the construction of infrastructure projects in
new areas are not meeting the needs of the community soon enough:
...it is when you get to that higher level of the regional-type
infrastructure the timing is so far out that people's living patterns and their
travel patterns are created before you put the right infrastructure in place
and they will never change. People move into a district and they have to have
three cars in their family to get to their jobs and their play and all the
rest. They do not change if you bring in a public transport system 15 or 12
years later. You have to have them in early enough.[63]
3.64
Mr Tame also spoke about the need to ensure leisure, recreation
facilities and wellbeing amenities are adequately funded for future
generations:
I am talking about leisure, recreation, the opportunities for
communities to be engaged in active sport and play but also community hubs that
are created. Sport and recreation are not just about activity and fitness; it
is where our future community leaders come from.[64]
3.65
Dr McLeod, acknowledged that current processes mean that the provision
of infrastructure falls behind in new areas and spoke of the need for
jurisdictional planning strategies and creating a dialogue to address this:
...'What compromises are we prepared to make? Are you prepared
to have smaller lots and higher density so we can get the services in et
cetera?' That is a vehicle where at least you have the dialogue about whether
this should happen or should not happen.[65]
3.66
Dr McLeod spoke of the advantages of implementing a state planning framework,
where you could stipulate that infrastructure needs to be done simultaneously
with a suburbs development. Dr McLeod advocated for a planning framework rather
than the traditional process of waiting for people to live in an area, waiting
for enough kids to plan the school, then planning transport:
...One of the things about places that do have them is that
they can either sit as nice things to do—but some jurisdictions have actually
made them quite formal, in that all the elements of their jurisdictional
planning strategy have to be signed off by the relevant agencies, who are then
committing to say that if a development is approved the public transport will
go, the parks will go, whatever will go, and it will be charged for in a
particular way and financed in a particular way. That might mean some
developments do or do not go ahead. The argument I have put on occasions is
that you can have a strategy that is sort of optional—as in it is a good
guideline or a good target; it may or may not happen. But some jurisdictions
have actually made them quite concrete.[66]
3.67
Mr Schinck spoke about the Regional Development Victoria model which is
a 'leading example of regional development funding' providing a 'consistent pipeline
of investment into projects that make good economic and social sense':
The other benefit...is having a department that has the ability
to effectively broker the co-operation and participation of other government
agencies in the delivery of projects. This is often an overlooked aspect or
dimension of the current model, but I think it is one of the most valuable. It
does three things: firstly, it provides a pipeline of committed government
funding to those projects; secondly, it acts as a broker of interagency
cooperation—so effectively an attempt to deliver a whole-of-government approach
to a particular project or issue—and, thirdly, there is expertise within
Regional Development Victoria that effectively connects those public projects
to commercial markets.[67]
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