The release of an Infrastructure Australia report into prioritising major public projects should be a wake up call to the federal government, the opposition says.
Labor's infrastructure spokesman Anthony Albanese said the agency's report highlights more than two years of missteps and inaction by the governments of Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull.
"This is a government that has talked big about infrastructure but failed to deliver," he told reporters in Sydney.
"This report should be a wake-up call because it serves a reminder of that failure ... a failure to invest, a failure to have proper analysis before projects are supported, a failure to ensure we have good public transport as well as good road projects, to deal with the scourge of urban congestion."
Mr Albanese said the report rejected "once and for all" the government's "absurd" view that the Commonwealth should not invest in public transport.
He said the coalition canned projects including the Melbourne Metro, Brisbane's Cross River Rail Link and Adelaide's Gawler Line in 2013, but they all now featured on the priority list.
"The Commonwealth government have failed to deliver a dollar for any new construction of public transport ... indeed they've cut more than $4.5 billion of funding already in the budget for such projects," he said on Wednesday.
Mr Albanese claimed the coalition had also taken the axe to Infrastructure Australia funding, and were wrong to downgrade the cities ministry to a parliamentary secretary's role.
"When Australians in the infrastructure sector have a look at this report, what they'll be reminded of as they read it, on issue after issue, is how much time has been wasted by the Abbott government's ideological approach," he said.
Mr Albanese said the agency rightly pointed out a lack of infrastructure planning by states and territories in its report.
He said the states clearly needed to do better.
"I think it's reasonable to say, as Infrastructure Australia have, that the states and territories have not done the work that's necessary in terms of planning," he said.
"But also the Commonwealth has a responsibility to assist that process."
Mr Albanese said Labor would carefully consider the report's recommendations.
"What we need to do is take these reports seriously as a guide for action, not just as an academic exercise," he said.
Share
