Planners and builders of infrastructure can improve their project's chances of success as well as the benefits it delivers to the community and wider economy by adopting from the outset a number of practical, commonsense measures.

Today I've released Infrastructure Planning and Delivery: Best Practice Case Studies, a resource to help governments and industry build the modern infrastructure our nation needs while minimising the risk of delays and cost overruns.

Requested by the Infrastructure Working Group of COAG, this analysis of six very different infrastructure projects found that the planning and delivery of each was guided by a common set of principles.

The report found that new infrastructure is more likely to deliver value for money to the taxpayer and a good return to investors when proponents:

1. Develop long-term plans and robust business cases;

2. Employ strong governance arrangements;

3. Choose their procurement model on the basis of project specifics and in accordance with established guidelines;

4. Transfer risk appropriately;

5. Carefully manage local and environmental impacts;

6. Remain open to learning the lessons of previous projects.

The work undertaken to identify these commonsense principles will help improve the way our nation plans and delivers new infrastructure.

The six projects analysed were:

• Port Melbourne Channel Deepening Project;


• M7 Motorway, Sydney;


• Northern Expressway, South Australia;


• Southbank Institute of Technology, Queensland;


• Tiger Brennan Drive, Northern Territory;


• Southern Seawater Desalination Plant, Western Australia.

A copy of the report can be downloaded from: www.infrastructure.gov.au