Infrastructure Australia's report to the Council of Australian Governments, Communicating the Imperative for Action, outlines the areas that Infrastructure Australia will focus its efforts in over four-year period following the release of the report. The report discusses issues affecting cities, water, energy, freight, broadband and Indigenous infrastructure.

Key points

The report discusses infrastructure challenges in four key areas:

• decline in productivity growth
• lack of progress on financing and funding reform
• lack of progress in pursuing regulatory reform
• weaknesses in planning and project development.

Infrastructure Australia's main areas of focus are:

• applying the approach taken for the National Ports Strategy to other areas in the infrastructure sector
• looking at financing reform, particularly by developing options to secure private funds for necessary infrastructure investment
• expanding the infrastructure pipeline, with a strong emphasis on projects that could be privately funded, and projects in regional Australia
• encouraging debate about infrastructure and how that infrastructure is paid for.