Treasurer Joe Hockey honoured his commitment in last year’s Budget to allocate another $350m to the Roads to Recovery project for the 2015-16 financial year.
The Federal Government established the Roads to Recovery program in 2000 to help local governments address the backlog of roads maintenance across the country. In total, it has committed to provide $2.1bn in funding to the project between the 2014-15 to 2018-19 budgets.
Last night, in his 2015-16 Budget announcement, Hockey committed a second round of $350m funding to the programme.
Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) President Mayor Troy Pickard welcomed the announcement, which included the increase of black spot funding from $60m to $160m in 2015-16 and 2016-17, respectively.
"Local Government is responsible for around 80 per cent of the nation’s roads by length and while investment in major transport infrastructure is important, we cannot afford to forget that almost every journey begins and ends on local roads,” said ALGA President, Mayor Pickard.
“The doubling of Roads to Recovery is an important boost to all Councils who need help maintaining the first and last miles of our transport network, on which the nation relies to move goods and people.”
In addition to the Roads to Recovery funding, the Budget continued the funding of regional and remote aerodromes under the Regional Aviation Access Programme.
The announcements come at a time when councils face increasing difficulties as infrastructure funding from the mining sector declines and the freeze on the indexation applied to the Financial Assistance Grant programme continues, having been put on pause for three years in the 2014-15 Budget.
Hockey on infrastructure
Despite this, Hockey placed strong emphasis on the investment in infrastructure in his Budget night speech.
“We are rolling out the biggest infrastructure programme in Australia’s history, with new road and freight corridors being built right across the country,” he said.
“This Budget continues to implement our plan to build new roads, new rail and new infrastructure that will generate new growth opportunities across all parts of Australia, from our cities to regional areas, from Tasmania to our northern frontier.”
By ‘northern frontier’, he was referring to his intention to tap into the Northern Australian market with a $5bn investment in a Northern Australia infrastructure Facility.
Hockey said that Australia’s North shares the same climate as two thirds of the world’s population and is closer to Australia’s key trading markets than any other part of the country.
“We will partner with the private sector and governments of Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland, to provide large concessional loans for the construction of ports, electricity and water infrastructure that will open our Northern frontier for business,” he said.
Year on year
In the 2014-15 Budget, Hockey committed $50bn in transport infrastructure. To date, work has begun on 19 new major projects and a further 55 projects are scheduled to start construction this year.
According to Hockey, the following major projects are on track to be delivered by 2010: Pacific Highway, WestConnex Stages 1 and 2, Toowoomba Second Range Crossing, Gateway Motorway North, North-SouthRoad Corridor, Perth Freight Link, Gateway WA and NorthConnex.
In last year’s budget, a commitment of $5bn was also dedicated to establishing the Asset Recycling initiative, a five-year programme where states and territories could receive 15 per cent of the price of an asset sold if all proceeds are allocated to new infrastructure investment.
Two agreements have been signed under the programme so far with New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, which will generate more than $15bn in additional infrastructure activity.