Why the Coalition is pouring money into road infrastructure.

From the Australian Financial Review AFR Sept 18 2013  By Mathew Dunckley and Matthew Drummond

Promising infrastructure wins votes. It is a road to power. It is tangible. Voters can see it and touch it, feel their taxes at work. Politicians tour their projects endlessly for the cameras or simply to “inspect works” in visits that are justified by confected milestones.

The truth is that Australia has singularly failed to meet the infrastructure challenges it faces. A multitude of studies has shown we have lived long on the spending of past generations. And the true costs of the spending we have avoided are now becoming painfully apparent, particularly in our ­cities.

This is why Tony Abbott pitched himself to the electorate as the “infrastructure prime minister”. Solving a problem is good politics.

So what will change? With one exception it is hard at this point to be sure. The exception is there will almost certainly be little ­federal government investment in commuter rail. This means that the largest and hardest to fund infrastructure has lost one of its greatest sources of finance. Continue Reading…