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Gerard McManus - Herald Sun
AUSTRALIA's rising standard of living will stop and then drop unless governments get serious about a coordinated approach to infrastructure.
The warning comes from peak business body, the Business Council of Australia.
The continued failure of federal and state governments to tackle shortcomings in a united way in Australia's port bottlenecks, transport, power, water and communications would cut into growth, tax revenues and jobs, it warned.
But the BCA's newest "roadmap" has stopped short of calling for a new Federal Ministry for Infrastructure, suggesting existing structures such as COAG (the Council of Australian Governments) be revamped and held more regularly than annually to overcome some of the most intractable roadblocks to economic growth.
The latest BCA report says work on fixing infrastructure is piecemeal, unco-ordinated planning and sometimes wasteful.
"Australia's economy has expanded beyond the capacity of our current infrastructure," BCA president Michael Chaney said yesterday.
The BCA has recently been pilloried by Telstra communications chief Phil Burgess for being narrow-minded and not being concerned about the national interest.
Dr Burgess said the organisation had to decide between the interests of members or the broader national interest.
But the latest research paper from the BCA boasts that it "shines the high beam down the road to infrastructure reform".
The BCA claims that if governments follow its directions Australia's economy will be boosted by 2 per cent or $20 billion a year.
The head of the BCA's taskforce on sustainable growth Maria Tarrant said yesterday even the major Australian cities were guilty of "silo" planning with different government departments planning in isolation.
"The lack of co-ordination is putting serious brakes on economic growth," she said.
The BCA has pushed infrastructure reform before but its latest roadmap calls specifically for a new model of federal and state relations.
And it asks that the Productivity Commission be used to regularly monitor work being done and its effectiveness.
The warning comes from peak business body, the Business Council of Australia.
The continued failure of federal and state governments to tackle shortcomings in a united way in Australia's port bottlenecks, transport, power, water and communications would cut into growth, tax revenues and jobs, it warned.
But the BCA's newest "roadmap" has stopped short of calling for a new Federal Ministry for Infrastructure, suggesting existing structures such as COAG (the Council of Australian Governments) be revamped and held more regularly than annually to overcome some of the most intractable roadblocks to economic growth.
The latest BCA report says work on fixing infrastructure is piecemeal, unco-ordinated planning and sometimes wasteful.
"Australia's economy has expanded beyond the capacity of our current infrastructure," BCA president Michael Chaney said yesterday.
The BCA has recently been pilloried by Telstra communications chief Phil Burgess for being narrow-minded and not being concerned about the national interest.
Dr Burgess said the organisation had to decide between the interests of members or the broader national interest.
But the latest research paper from the BCA boasts that it "shines the high beam down the road to infrastructure reform".
The BCA claims that if governments follow its directions Australia's economy will be boosted by 2 per cent or $20 billion a year.
The head of the BCA's taskforce on sustainable growth Maria Tarrant said yesterday even the major Australian cities were guilty of "silo" planning with different government departments planning in isolation.
"The lack of co-ordination is putting serious brakes on economic growth," she said.
The BCA has pushed infrastructure reform before but its latest roadmap calls specifically for a new model of federal and state relations.
And it asks that the Productivity Commission be used to regularly monitor work being done and its effectiveness.
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