Federal agencies blow the whistle on #EWLink
Federal agencies blow the whistle on #EWLink by Andrew Herington
A draft report issued by Infrastructure Australia (IA) has well and truly blown the whistle on the waste and mismanagement of government road spending. Tellingly titled “Spend more, Waste more” – and with the above photo on the front cover – the report is scathing about the way road authorities have pursued more and bigger roads.
Read the report here: Spend more, waste more. Australia’s roads in 2014: moving beyond gambling (PDF, 1.88MB)
Key extracts include:
“Australia has a true gambler’s addiction to roads: the money spent is not a rational investment. Governments assume that major improvement is just around the corner, if they could just spend more.
“The current Australian system assumes that roads are an answer to most transport problems and seeks more and more funding to that end, with little consideration of alternatives that most other developed parts of the world enjoy, such as significant heavy intercontinental rail networks and dominant heavy mass transit systems.
“Australia’s nearly $20 billion dollar annual road spend can only be described as hideously inefficient… In recent years road spending has in fact outstripped road taxes and charges revenue, meaning Australia’s thirst for roads might now come at the direct expense of other things.”
