Maybe eagle but I think your timing is out in the scheme of the economic cycle.
Ports (to ship what?), Railways (to haul what?), skills training (to work where?), broadband (ebay sales have dropped!) all things to make us more productive and competitive. Howard let a golden opportunity slip by.
All the things you mention need a healthy economy to be worthwhile having. Look where we are now! Even Lab supporters would argue now is the time for building what you have mentioned. There are less issues with finding workers and the government if they have the nous can negotiate better prices for the work to be carried out.
Perhaps we should just blame Keating because he did not prepare our infrastructure during the last recession for a commodity boom that was to stretch our resources to the limit or the lack of foresight in planning ahead for our communication boom?
Spending on infrastructure in time of boom is too late. Just look at the projects around the world in the mining sector being caught out in the same way others were in the previous boom. Excessive Government building projects would have made the skills shortage all the worse for other enterprise and dramatically added to inflation.
