Do you trust politicians? OK. There is a simple and established way of evaluating infrastructure (and other new) projects: 1) at any time, the number of proposed/NEW projects always exceeds the amount of funding that is available for undertaking all of them, 2) each project proposal has to be evaluated independently from the other (cost/benefit analysis, including social benefit if you building for a nation), 3) from the above pool of the viable projects, the ones which offer the highest return on investment must be selected, all others put on the back burner or discarded, 4) finally, the number of 'best pool of projects' has to be matched with the available funding costs.
As of now:
- The LNP government is continuing to fund some of the infrastructure projects (including roads) which were *started* during the previous government. - It has also leaved previously allocated funds for projects which were *announced* (planed) but not started by the previous government. - There are some completely *new* projects planned in the budget, but no money allocated yet.
My view is simple in regards to ALL government projects: 1) the SELECTION process has to be public, clean, and commercially and socially viable projects should be supported. 2) the funding has to match to cost of the projects.
I am not confident that governments always follow the best practice to undertake national projects and never select projects purely based: a) on their location (friendly electorate), b) size of the political donation from building industry (don't want to name names), c) cost/benefit analysis done by retired politician and friendly retired executive (don't want to give examples).
The above practice is simply opaque & corrupt.
In regards to the budget - the *total funds for infrastructure* over the forward period (until the next election) is front-loaded, more money now and slowing to little by the next election.
