In time for Julieanne Alroe commencing her role as the new chairwoman of Infrastructure Australia (IA), the organisation has begun the process of updating its Infrastructure Priority List (IPL), with the next full edition to be published in February 2018.

Welcome Julianne Roe – and four more

Chief executive of Infrastructure Australia Philip Davies welcomed Ms Alroe to her new position, who has been a member of the board since 2015.

In turn, Ms Alroe welcomed three new board appointments — Deena Shiff, a former senior Telstra executive, Andrew Ethell, a former senior Toll executive, and Dr Peter Wood, a former Evans & Peck executive. They will be joined in January 2018 by Reece Waldock, the former Director-General of the Western Australian Department of Transport.

Updating the IPL

As part of this update, Infrastructure Australia is calling on Australian governments and non-government bodies to identify infrastructure problems and opportunities of national significance.

The 2018 IPL will build on the current list, with new initiatives to reflect emerging infrastructure priorities across Australia, as well as update existing initiatives.

Infrastructure Australia says it is open to submissions for all types of infrastructure, including programs of related works and programs for network optimisation. The submission period will close on 27 October 2017.

Mind the framework

Proponents should align their submissions with IA’s recently updated Assessment Framework.

The Infrastructure Australia Act requires that the Assessment Framework be reviewed at least every two years. This ensures that it remains current, and consistent with similar frameworks used elsewhere in Australia and overseas.

The Assessment Framework sets out the process Infrastructure Australia uses to consider initiatives and projects for inclusion on the Infrastructure Priority List. The Assessment Framework provides information about what Infrastructure Australia does and how initiatives and projects are assessed, to enable proponents to develop their submissions.

The Assessment Framework was most recently updated in June 2017 with a focus on improving usability and readability. This included:

• Merging the Assessment Framework overview and the detailed technical guidance into a single document.
• Updating the existing templates, and developing new checklists, to simplify the submission process for proponents.
• Providing better clarity on the role of Infrastructure Australia and the proponent at each step of the five-stage assessment process.

Proponents can make a submission via the Infrastructure Priority List—Call for submissions page.