5.21 Under the approach taken to developing the Final Priority List, rather than an Evaluation Report being prepared by the Office of the Infrastructure Coordinator that documented how the evaluation was conducted and the results, the primary records of the development of the List were the papers submitted to the Council meetings and the meeting Minutes.142 The key meetings in this regard were held on 30 January 2009, 27 February 2009 and 27 March 2009.
5.22 As noted at paragraph 5.6, for the 30 January 2009 meeting, Council members were provided with short summaries of the 37 projects for which additional information had been received by 28 January 2009. The Minutes of the 30 January 2009 Council meeting state that there was substantial discussion about the themes and alignment with the projects in the Office of the Infrastructure Coordinator's priority matrix. The Council decided to add one project to the pipeline list, and asked that further work be undertaken on a further five projects, and that progress on a further two projects be reviewed. The Office of the Infrastructure Coordinator advised ANAO in May 2010 that:
At its 30 January 2009 meeting, [the] Infrastructure Australia [Council] provided guidance to the Infrastructure Coordinator (and the Office of the Infrastructure Coordinator), including a request that proposals be assessed against the themes adopted at its meetings in December 2008. Following the 30 January 2009 Infrastructure Australia [Council] meeting, proposals were further evaluated against the profiling, appraisal and deliverability criteria, including:
• further assessment of the proposals' thematic alignment; and
• following the 28 February 2009 meeting143 of [the] Infrastructure Australia [Council], the proposals' national significance.
5.23 The evolving Priority List144 was discussed at the Council meetings of 27 February (with the Minutes stating that Council requested further projects be added to the Priority List) and 27 March 2009 (with one project minuted as being moved from the pipeline to the priority list). However, neither the papers for these meetings nor the meeting Minutes record when certain projects were included on the Final Priority List (as either a priority project or a pipeline project), or the reasons for their inclusion (having regard to instances where the Office of the Infrastructure Coordinator's analysis and advice to the Council had identified methodological issues with the BCR submitted by the proponent, and/or the concern that the project may not be economically viable).
5.24 For example, the Final Priority List provided to the Minister on 27 March 2009 comprised nine priority projects and 27 pipeline projects. The published List included a 28th pipeline project, being the Western Australian Government's Northbridge Rail Link (The Hub) project. In April 2010, the Office of the Infrastructure Coordinator advised ANAO that:
The Final List contained nine priority projects and 28 pipeline projects, with Northbridge Rail Link being added to the pipeline list by [the] Infrastructure Australia [Council] at its 1 May 2009 meeting.
5.25 Similarly, in respect to the Queensland Government's Eastern Busway project, the summary provided to the Council at its 30 January 2009 meeting advised that:
• 'robust' information and an associated economic appraisal had been provided in respect to Stage Two of the overall project but no such information had been provided in relation to Stage Three;
• the claimed BCR for Stage Two indicated 'marginal' economic viability but the part of Stage Two for which Commonwealth funding had been requested may have a BCR lower than that claimed (the State Government had already committed funding for the construction of part of Stage Two); and
• as a BCR had not been presented for Stage Three, it could not be compared on economic criteria with other projects that had been submitted to Infrastructure Australia.
5.26 At the 30 January 2009 meeting, the Council asked for more work to be undertaken on this and four other projects. The Minutes of the 27 February 2009 meeting recorded that 'subject to BCR, Option One Eastern Busway Stage Two should be included' on the project pipeline. However, the Final Priority List included both Stage Two and Stage Three of the Eastern Busway project, with Council's meeting Minutes not recording when the decision had been taken to include Stage Three, or why.
5.27 In addition to an absence of records concerning why certain projects were included on the Final Priority List, a consistent approach was not taken to recording decisions to promote projects from the 'pipeline' list to the 'priority' list. In particular:
• the Minutes of the 27 March 2009 meeting record that the Council had decided to 'move the Pacific Highway project into the priority list [from the pipeline], on the basis of a recommendation from the Infrastructure Coordinator that further analysis was undertaken with the same rigour as other projects and the national significance of the Pacific Highway justified such a decision'; but
• the Minutes of the 30 January 2009 meeting had recorded that the Council had decided to include the Seaford Rail Extension project on the pipeline list. This project was later promoted to the priority list, but the Minutes of the 27 February 2009 and 27 March 2009 meetings do not record this decision having been taken, or the reasons for it.
5.28 In June 2010, the Chair of the Council suggested to ANAO that the various drafts of the List, coupled with the project assessment descriptions prepared by the Office of the Infrastructure Coordinator (which were both circulated to Infrastructure Australia Council members) represent a formal record of decision‐making. However, the various drafts of the List did not record why projects were being included or removed and the assessments prepared by the Office of the Infrastructure Coordinator for some projects did not support their inclusion on the List.
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142 In July 2010, the Infrastructure Coordinator informed ANAO that he had prepared the papers and minutes.
143 The Infrastructure Coordinator had circulated an updated draft Priority List to Council members on 12 February 2009. Following further assessments of projects, a further updated draft Priority List was circulated for consideration at the 27 February 2009 Council meeting. A further updated draft of the Final Priority List was provided for consideration at the Council's 27 March 2009 meeting.
144 At this meeting, three projects were added to the 'pipeline' of projects with 'real potential', being: the Northern Connector Road and Rail Corridor (South Australia); Mornington Peninsula Connector Road (Victoria), and Northern Link Road Tunnel (Brisbane City Council). The Council further agreed, subject to its BCR, the Option 1 Eastern Busway Stage 2 project from Queensland should be included as a 'pipeline' project and that the Northbridge Rail Link (The Hub) project from Western Australia should 'be drawn to the attention of government and whether other sources of funds may be suitable. If not, it should be flagged as a project of Infrastructure Australia's interest.' Both projects were later added to the list of 'pipeline' projects.