1.21 The Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government wrote to the then Prime Minister in December 2007, prior to the establishment of Infrastructure Australia, requesting that the establishment of Infrastructure Australia be placed on the agenda for the next Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting.
1.22 In December 2007, COAG agreed that it would nominate infrastructure as one of its policy priorities and would establish an Infrastructure Working Group, chaired by the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. COAG also agreed that the immediate priority for the Infrastructure Working Group was to develop an implementation plan (for consideration at the March 2008 COAG meeting) covering:
• mechanisms for Infrastructure Australia to report to COAG56;
• the scope of the National Infrastructure Audit, which was to examine the future capacity of transport, energy, communications and water infrastructure (see Chapter Two for further details); and
• a forward work program for Infrastructure Australia (including scope for the streamlining of planning and approval processes, standardisation of project appraisal techniques and the guidelines and principles for the assessment of Public Private Partnerships).
1.23 In accordance with this request, the Infrastructure Working Group agreed an implementation plan in March 2008, covering each of these items, which was forwarded to COAG for its consideration. In respect of the forward work program for Infrastructure Australia, the COAG Communique of 26 March 2008 records that COAG agreed with the three priorities put forward by the Infrastructure Working Group, as follows:
• the completion of the National Infrastructure Audit by the end of 2008;
• the development of the Infrastructure Priority List for COAG consideration in March 2009; and
• the development of best practice guidelines for Public Private Partnerships for COAG's consideration by October 2008.57
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56 These were incorporated into the implementation plan forwarded to COAG, and are as follows: Infrastructure Australia is to report to COAG on its activities annually and as requested by COAG or the Commonwealth Minister for Infrastructure; Infrastructure Australia's reports to COAG are to be conveyed through the Commonwealth Minister for Infrastructure, as Chair of COAG's Infrastructure Working Group; advice and reports by Infrastructure Australia to COAG will be accompanied by appropriate advice and contextual material agreed by the COAG Infrastructure Working Group; Infrastructure Australia's reports to COAG will be made public if agreed by COAG; and the COAG Infrastructure Working Group will ensure that advice to COAG is coordinated, where relevant, across COAG Working Groups, in particular between the Infrastructure and the Business Regulation and Competition working groups.
57 The timeframe outlined in the COAG Communique of 26 March 2008 for completion of the PPP guidelines is different to the timeframe outlined in the Infrastructure Working Group papers for Meeting 2 (see agenda items 7 and 9, which state that the National PPP Guidelines are to be completed by the end of 2008).