Queensland’s premier says she does not want to see her state “worse off” after a federal government infrastructure review.
Infrastructure Minister Catherine King in May announced a 90-day review of the country’s Infrastructure Investment Program, saying cost overruns mean some projects previously announced by the coalition would not be able to be delivered.
Annastacia Palaszczuk said she still had not seen the review into the $120 billion national infrastructure pipeline, describing the wait as “frustrating”.
“I do not want to see any situation where Queensland is worse off,” she said on Monday.
“We want to see that infrastructure review as quickly as possible.”
The future of some road and rail projects appeared in jeopardy when the federal government review was announced, with Ms King saying the national infrastructure pipeline of 738 projects was “clogged”.
Ms Palaszczuk hoped to see the report at the next national cabinet meeting or “shortly thereafter”.
“Our Queensland infrastructure spend is greater than what the federal government spends nationally,” she said.
“There are a number of infrastructure projects across this state where we require matching funding from the federal government and we will not shy away from that.”
Deputy Premier Steven Miles said federal government dollars were needed for projects to support Queensland’s population growth.
“While there might be projects in other states that may not be necessary … Queensland is not in that situation,” he said on Monday.
“Queensland has this surge of population growth and we need to deliver the infrastructure to support that population growth.
“We need the Australian government to contribute to it. We have projects in Queensland right now that should be funded with those dollars.”
