City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore addressing the AFR’s Infrastructure Summit in Sydney. Image: Paul Hemsley/GovNews.
Public support for infrastructure projects is being undermined by a lack of trust, Lord Mayor of Sydney told a summit in Sydney yesterday.
Speaking yesterday at the National Infrastructure Summit, a conference convened by the Australian Financial Review and Informa, Ms Moore also criticised governments for not following through on announced projects and for not effectively consulting communities.
“I think people elect the federal government, the state government, and the city government on the understanding that they’ll work on common goals,” Moore said.
“The most important thing is that we have a vision for the future, that our governments share that vision with us, and that the three levels commit to that vision.”
The three-tier model of government needs to be more collaborative, said Lord Mayor of Perth Lisa Scaffidi, though she said she had worked well with Western Australian governments from both parties.
“I’ve now worked with two consecutive state governments — a Labor and now a Liberal, with Colin Barnett — and I have to say the kind of working relationship we have with them has enabled us to deliver key precincts in Perth.”
“We should have the three tiers of government and their assembled leaders in the same room at the same time and have them commit to action,” Ms Scaffidi said.
Ms Moore said the Westconnex project, which would expand and extend roads in Sydney’s west and south-west and is supported by the New South Wales and federal governments, was not her vision.
“Both the Labor and the Coalition have lost public confidence in infrastructure projects,” she said, saying the former Labor government in New South Wales did not build announced projects and the current state and federal governments had “an ideological obsession with roads.”
“I don’t believe confidence will be restored to our federal and state governments unless they firstly take a rigorous, non-ideological assessment of infrastructure projects,” Ms Moore said.
Ms Moore also said that it is important for Australia to have a national cities policy, saying the capital cities were centres of growth, creativity, and innovation.
A national policy should focus on climate change and affordable housing, she said.
Ms Scaffidi agreed on the need for a national policy. “We keep saying we want it, and we are yet to see it.”
