New infrastructure projects can bring major benefits to Victoria through increases in economic activity, improvements in productivity, better delivery of public services and the creation of jobs. Complex capital projects also have a much better prospect of achieving expected outcomes when managed within a robust policy and guidance framework.
The Government launched its Partnerships Victoria framework in 2000 for the provision of public infrastructure and related ancillary services, with the private sector, using public-private partnerships (PPPs).
In this report, we examined 2 examples of major PPP projects: the Melbourne Convention Centre Development and the Southern Cross Station redevelopment. The former is still under construction, the latter is complete and is now into its operational and service delivery phase.
Both audits have demonstrated effective implementation of the Partnerships Victoria framework.
The Melbourne Convention Centre Development has successfully delivered the Government's requirements for business case preparation, procurement, risk allocation, probity and project management. The Gateway Review Process has also assisted in clarifying project outcomes, improving costs and benefits modelling, and refining the functional specification for an enhanced convention centre.
Although the Southern Cross construction dispute has been effectively resolved, there remains the need to develop more effective key performance indicators to enable better supervision of the ongoing management of the concessionaire's delivery of expected services over the lengthy term of the PPP contract.