3.1 One of the major priorities specified by COAG for Infrastructure Australia in its first year of existence was to formulate an Infrastructure Priority List.81 The function of providing an Infrastructure Priority List was specifically provided for within the Infrastructure Australia Act 2008. Under that Act, one of the primary functions of Infrastructure Australia was to provide advice to the Minister, all levels of government, investors in and owners of infrastructure, in relation to Australia's current and future needs and priorities relating to nationally significant infrastructure.82 The development of Priority Lists that prioritise Australia's infrastructure needs was also one of the additional Infrastructure Australia functions under the Act,83 and (at the time it commenced preparing the first List) Infrastructure Australia expected the Infrastructure Priority List to be reviewed on an annual business cycle basis.84 In advice to ANAO dated April 2010, the Office of the Infrastructure Coordinator advised that the Infrastructure Priority List was to include infrastructure capital investment decisions as well as infrastructure reform decisions.85
3.2 Infrastructure Australia faced a number of challenging circumstances in developing the Infrastructure Priority List. In particular:
• this was the first time a non‐sector specific list of priority infrastructure projects was to be prepared at the Commonwealth level such that the List published in December 2008 included infrastructure projects in the transport, energy, telecommunications, water and health sectors;
• the original timeframe provided to develop the list was nine months (completion in March 2009) but this was reduced (in October 2008, three months into the project), to six months for an interim report (due in December 2008); and
• the Office of the Infrastructure Coordinator was required to develop and implement its own administrative arrangements86 and make the necessary staff and advisory appointments for its operations concurrently with conducting the National Infrastructure Audit, developing the Priority List and preparing and publishing national Public Private Partnership Guidelines.
3.3 The Office of the Infrastructure Coordinator advised ANAO in April 2010 that COAG's decision to request Infrastructure Australia to bring forward an Interim Priority List by December 2008 provided it with less than five weeks (in practical terms) from the provision of jurisdictional submissions (and seven weeks for public submissions) to conclude its initial (although not final) assessment of proposals and to then present advice to government. Nevertheless, the deadline of December 2008 was met with advice on a draft Interim Priority List provided to the Minister on 5 December 2008 and the Interim Priority List publicly released on 19 December 2008.
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81 COAG Meeting Communique, 26 March 2008.
82 Section 5(1)(a) of the Infrastructure Australia Act 2008.
83 Section 5(2)(b) of the Infrastructure Australia Act 2008.
84 Infrastructure Australia, Outline of Infrastructure Australia's Prioritisation Methodology, 24 September 2008, p. 3.
85 Specifically, the Office of the Infrastructure Coordinator advised ANAO that it defined an infrastructure priority list as a list which: 'provides guidance to government and industry on Australia's current and future priorities relating to nationally significant infrastructure in the transport, energy, water and communications sectors. These priorities can be categorised into two broad areas: infrastructure capital investment decisions (and the planning and project development activities leading to those decisions); and infrastructure reform decisions, in particular, regulatory and other decisions taken by governments, industry and infrastructure owners in relation to, amongst other things, the management, pricing and operation of infrastructure networks.'
86 The Infrastructure Coordinator's letter of appointment required that the internal processes be developed in a way that would mean they were consistent with the DITRDLG's Chief Executive's Instructions.