But as a society, we have a lot riding on finding a way to pay for the infrastructure that we need to boost our productivity and improve our living standards. Hopefully, the work currently being undertaken by the Productivity Commission will point us in the right direction.
And, in an international context, infrastructure financing will be one of Australia’s priorities when we chair the G20 next year. The third potential challenge is that of capacity constraints. Not only do we need to identify the best projects and find a way of financing them, but we also need to have the skilled workers to undertake them.