
The September 2018 quarter of the Australian Infrastructure Metric – produced by Infrastructure Partnerships Australia and BIS Oxford Economics – sees total civil work won increase compared to the June quarter, as transport work won increased significantly.

The 2018 Australian Infrastructure Investment Report shows that Australia is still the destination of choice for infrastructure investors, but our hard-won reputation is under material threat. Our research reveals that both international and local investors are alarmed by increasing market intervention, abrupt and recurring regulatory reviews, as well as frequent changes in Australia’s political landscape. Confidence and preparedness to invest in energy assets has taken a hit this year, reflecting the high degree of uncertainty about the direction of our national energy policy.

The 2018-19 Australian Infrastructure Budget Monitor reaffirms the two-economy divide
in infrastructure across Australia. NSW and Victoria, ranked first and second, have large
infrastructure funding commitments facilitated by strong fiscal positions. Asset recycling continues to support growth, with both states benefiting from selling their shares in Snowy Hydro to the Commonwealth, among other asset divestments.

The June 2018 quarter of the Australian Infrastructure Metric – produced by Infrastructure Partnerships Australia and BIS Oxford Economics – sees total civil work won hold steady compared to the March quarter. The non-mining index reading has seen no change on last quarter, while the mining index
has increased.

The March 2018 quarter of the Australian Infrastructure Metric – produced by Infrastructure Partnerships Australia and BIS Oxford Economics – sees civil construction work won drop significantly, as expected, from the all-time high of the previous quarter. Work won in transport and utilities has dropped, with mining only marginally higher than last quarter.

This paper provides an overview of the challenges facing Australia’s freight networks and the actions needed to arrest the decline in our trade competitiveness. It makes the case that to meet the growing demand for goods across the country and internationally, we need more sophisticated mechanisms to capture reliable data to accurately understand where the pinch points, bottlenecks and breakdowns are across the supply chain. That is why the paper’s major recommendation calls for the establishment of an independent freight body, termed ‘Freight Performance Australia’.

The December quarter of the Australian Infrastructure Metric – produced by Infrastructure Partnerships Australia and BIS Oxford Economics – shows total civil construction work won spike to its highest level since the Metric began; driven by record transport investment – with major road and rail contracts signed – but also helped by a more modest recovery that sees mining infrastructure at its highest level since March 2014.

The September quarter of the Australian Infrastructure Metric – produced by Infrastructure Partnerships Australia and BIS Oxford Economics - shows that civil construction work won fell compared to the previous quarter, with decreases in civil construction activity in both mining and non-mining sectors. The transport sector, which remains the key driver of total civil work won, saw a significant fall following the spike in railway investment in the June quarter.

The IPA Australian Travel Time Metric uses Uber’s anonymised journey data to index road transport performance, across each of the four major capital cities.

IPA ranks Australia’s governments by measuring and comparing infrastructure funding levels, as a share of each government’s total budget expenditure.

The 2017 Australian Infrastructure Investment Report shows continuing appetite and focus on infrastructure opportunities – but shows with clarity that Australia’s solid reputation as an infrastructure investment destination is being eroded, as investors take stock of increasingly unpredictable political interventions, perpetrated by national and state governments.

Automated and Driverless Vehicles (AV/DVs) offer the prospect of positive and fundamental changes to the way Australia’s cities work and how people utilise transport. Our paper identifies three generalised approaches for policymakers to the prospect of AVs.