Releasing the report Communicating the Imperative for Action, IA chairman Sir Rod Eddington said reform was frustratingly slow and had caused productivity to slow.

“Productivity has slowed as a direct result of infrastructure shortfalls – time lost in travel, delays at ports, lost production due to water restrictions,” he said.

Infrastructure Australia has recently set up an Infrastructure Financing Working Group to identify new ways of financing infrastructure.

The group includes experts from the public and private sectors and will consider:

Encouraging superannuation funds to invest in infrastructure by restructuring how projects are put to the market;

Updating guidelines on public-private partnerships, particularly in the area of demand risk;

Recycling of government assets to fund investment in new infrastructure; and

Finance models such as land value capture.

Eddington said that with the recent setting up of the IA’s financing working group, a key focus for the next four years was financing reform – developing practical ways to secure additional private funds for investment in infrastructure.

“Action is needed to reform the way governments choose the right projects, finance those projects, and operate and maintain them,” he said.

“Governments must also improve the planning of major infrastructure projects and foster use of the current networks more productively by demand management and pricing mechanisms.

“Currently the debate around infrastructure is about individual projects rather than policy development and systemic issues such as tax rates and charging, and levels of service. All governments need to communicate the imperative for action to their constituents and get on with the job.”

IA’s priority list includes $86 billion of projects, including $19.2 billion of “ready to proceed projects” and a further $13 billion in the “threshold” category.

The remaining projects are in the “early stages” and “real potential” categories.