Share the risk and stop the fiasco

21 May 2009
Sydney Morning Herald Opinion Piece
By Paul Forward and Rob Aldis

The reputation of public-private partnerships has taken a battering recently, particularly in Sydney and Brisbane. But the truth is that this way of paying for infrastructure has served Australia well over the past 20 years. It has successfully delivered many significant projects, like the M7 orbital motorway around Sydney's west, Sydney Water's filtration plants, government schools in NSW and the CityLink motorway in Melbourne.

All were built to schedule, and by using private money to build them, governments were free to use resources for other, much-needed services.

But things have changed. If governments want to keep using private money to help build critical infrastructure, we need to find a new way to do it. In short, it means governments will have to assume some of the risk associated with the project, rather than leaving those who put up the money to carry the whole can if the projected figures don't match reality.

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