State governments need to step up and help pay for the infrastructure backlog that is choking Australia's cities, federal Treasurer Joe Hockey believes.
An Infrastructure Australia audit to be released on Friday warns the cost of road congestion will soar to more than $50 billion in coming years.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott says it plainly demonstrates the need for better infrastructure across the country.
"If we don't get building, we won't stay moving," he told reporters in Tasmania.
The audit contains current and estimated costs of road congestion for metropolitan areas and population centres across Australia.
Road congestion is set to balloon in the Greater Perth area, compared to the inflation-adjusted projections across Australia.
Mr Hockey said the federal government was "doing plenty" with its commitment to a record spend on new projects in the 2014 budget.
"It's time for state governments who have primary responsibility for infrastructure to step up to the plate with the infrastructure prime minister," he told reporters in Brisbane.
But opposition infrastructure spokesman Anthony Albanese said not enough projects were being funded and Mr Abbott has failed in his quest to be seen as an infrastructure prime minister.
"Well he's got to build something," he told ABC radio.
"Here we have this audit, which clearly identifies the need for investment in public transport, and he says that is not the business of the national government."
There was clearly a need for such investment given 80 per cent of Australians lived in major cities, Mr Albanese said.
Mr Hockey hit back at criticism the Commonwealth wasn't funding public transport, saying federal contributions were coming from the asset recycling scheme that had been taken up by Labor governments in Victoria and the ACT, but rejected by Queensland.
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