Tony Abbott’s promise to conduct cost-benefit analysis on infrastructure projects worth more than $100 million lies in tatters a year after he made the undertaking in a speech to Canberra’s National Press Club.

In the 2014 Budget, Mr Abbott paid billions of dollars in advance funding to road projects like Sydney’s WestConnex project and Melbourne’s East-West Link, despite having conducted no proper cost-benefit analysis.
This is a direct breach of his own promise in his self-published book ‘A Strong Australia – the values, directions and policy priorities of the next Coalition Government’ that is still available on the Liberal Party of Australia website.
 

There will be a published cost benefit analysis for any infrastructure project to which a Coalition government commits $100 million or more.

Tony Abbott, p.99, A Strong Australia, www.liberal.org.au

Last year on September 2, Mr Abbott repeated the promise at the National Press Club, later reported by The Age newspaper.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/tony-abbott-says-he-doesnt-need-to-see-the-eastwest-links-full-business-case-20130927-2uih8.html
Since then, he has scrapped public transport projects like the Melbourne Metro and Brisbane’s Cross-River Rail project, which had been subject to proper analysis and judged by Infrastructure Australia to represent value for money.
Prior to the election Mr Abbott was prepared to say anything to illustrate his claimed interest in infrastructure investment.
A year later not a single infrastructure project created by the Coalition has begun and Mr Abbott continues to desperately seek credit for old infrastructure projects conceived and commenced by the previous Labor Government.
The man who promised to have bulldozers at work on major projects within a year of being elected has produced nothing more than bulldust and broken promises.