Politics Blog - February 26

The Government enters the final stretch of its 100-day plan with a bullish promise to pick up pace on its agenda — but warns there are unpalatable choices ahead to fill the country’s infrastructure black hole, Andrea Vance writes in The Post.

This week will see a flurry of announcements as the coalition races tick off the last few policy promises from a list of 49 by Friday.

In the coming weeks, the Government will also have more to say on infrastructure funding and financing, which will include exploring public private partnerships (PPPs), road tolling and value capture – essentially a tax on the private economic benefit from public investment.

Infrastructure and Housing Minister Chris Bishop conceded user-pays pricing for public assets would be controversial – but necessary to build new infrastructure and also keep up with essential maintenance, which has also been neglected.

“Not all of these decisions are easy and not all of them are going to be liked by people such as toll roads or PPPs. But ultimately, that's what the country voted for. We consider ourselves to have a mandate for that agenda, and we're going to execute it.

“And I think the public has moved on quite a bit in the last 10-15 years as well. People are prepared to pay for better services.”

Click here for the full story from Andrea Vance in The Post