5.51 Rather than continue the planning and preconstruction work on the previous Government's $2.2 billion project known as the Goodna Bypass in South East Queensland, in the 2007 Federal election the ALP committed $1.1 billion to fully fund the Ipswich Motorway Upgrade between Dinmore and Goodna.159 As an existing Australian Government funding commitment, the Ipswich Motorway project was not included in the Queensland Government's submission to Infrastructure Australia. However, in April 2009, the Queensland Government made a submission to the Infrastructure Coordinator in respect to funding towards increased project costs, as follows:
The Nation Building Program (2009-10 to 2013-14) agreement between the Australian and Queensland Governments includes an Australian Government commitment of $1.14 billion towards the Ipswich Motorway from Dinmore to Goodna. The Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads estimates the Target Outturn Cost for the project is $1.95 billion. A request for this amount was submitted to the federal Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government on 10 December 2008, seeking the additional $810 million project cost. It is on this basis that I am writing to you to request funding towards this project under the Infrastructure Australia Program.
5.52 In December 2009, the Office of the Infrastructure Coordinator advised ANAO that:
Interim assessment processes were not undertaken for this project because it was not submitted to Infrastructure Australia prior to January 2009. Profiling, appraisal, delivery and Building Australia Fund evaluation criteria assessments were undertaken for this project after information was submitted to Infrastructure Australia.
5.53 The results of the Office of the Infrastructure Coordinator's profiling assessment and review of the proponent's BCR did not support the inclusion of the project as a priority project. However, the evaluation against the Building Australia Fund criteria supported the extra project costs being funded from the Building Australia Fund. As noted at paragraphs 5.44 and 5.45, this project had been included in the published table titled 'Infrastructure Priorities' but had not been included as either a priority or pipeline project on the Final Priority List.
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159 ANAO Audit Report No. 29 2008-09, Delivery of Projects on the AusLink National Network, Canberra, 23 April 2009, pp. 16 and 189. That report further noted (at page 174) that savings of $330 million from 2007-08 and 2008-09 funding previously allocated to the Goodna Bypass project were used to fund the commencement of some of the ALP Election Commitments.