00:00 There's been a review underway for a number of months now looking at the 10-year infrastructure
00:08 pipeline as the Federal Government calls it, to ensure that some of these projects that
00:12 have been promised and have had money allocated to them can actually be delivered on time
00:18 and on budget.
00:19 Adding to that at the moment are some of the concerns around the inflationary crisis hitting
00:24 Australia and whether or not spending all of this money across a large number of projects
00:29 is going to further fuel that problem, putting more strain on labour costs and on construction
00:36 material across the country.
00:38 So what Catherine King, the Infrastructure Minister, has been doing is running a ruler
00:41 over all of these projects and trying to get a sense of where the problems lie and whether
00:47 or not some of these projects do need to be delayed or indeed scrapped altogether.
00:51 And while the findings of this review remain under wraps, we do know that it has identified
00:57 $33 billion worth of cost blowouts that Catherine King says need to be addressed, otherwise
01:04 there will be serious problems for that infrastructure spending and for the rollout of these projects.
01:10 As I mentioned, she's keeping the full details of this review under wraps, but she says her
01:15 priority here is clear.
01:17 It is simply just not sustainable for the pipeline to continue in the way that it is
01:25 after a decade, frankly, of being used for political purposes.
01:30 We saw that the largest amount of projects were added into the pipeline in the lead up
01:35 to the 2016 and 2019 election campaigns.
01:39 We've seen lots of announcements of projects with really not enough funding to really even
01:45 deliver a small amount of it, let alone a large amount.
01:50 So Matthew, do we have any indication which projects are under review?
01:54 Not at this stage, Ros, and that would no doubt be causing concern for state and territory
01:58 governments where every time any sort of discussion around infrastructure funding and cuts comes
02:03 to pass, the alarm bells go off in their offices in various state and territory capitals.
02:09 We do know what isn't part of this review, and those are some of the projects that are
02:13 already underway.
02:14 We know that the Victorian suburban rail loop project in Melbourne, which was an election
02:19 commitment from the Federal Labor Party, is also outside the scope of this review, something
02:24 that the Federal Opposition says is quite laughable, considering some of the criticism
02:29 that that project has had.
02:31 Other projects that are underway, including inland rail, are also not subject to this
02:35 review.
02:36 So there will be those discussions happening between the Federal and state and territory
02:39 governments as to what projects are in the sights of this review and what their future
02:44 may well be.
02:45 Ros?
02:45 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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