In the past two decades, Australian governments have spent $34 billion more than they initially said they'd spend on transport infrastructure projects. But that sum is being dwarfed by what's now unfolding.
So far, Australian governments will spend at least $24 billion more than they said they would on just six extremely large, or 'mega' megaprojects.
Previous chapters established that large projects are at greater risk of cost overruns (Chapter 2), as are prematurely announced projects (Chapter 3). This chapter shows that the current crop of projects is breaking records in two ways: the number of extremely large projects currently being built (Section 4.1), and the size of the cost overrun that has already been confirmed on these extremely large projects (Section 4.2). And Section 4.3 suggests further records may yet be broken.