Thirsty work: Australia’s growing cities won’t have enough water

Australia’s plans to build millions of new homes will be held back by a lack of water in the country’s major cities, Infrastructure Australia has warned in a report that says tens of billions of dollars will have to be spent on major projects in coming years.

The independent agency, which provides advice to the federal government on projects from roads to rail lines, used its first national priority list in four years to argue more desalinisation plants may be needed to ensure major cities do not run out of drinkable water.

Infrastructure Australia’s priority list identified 68 projects, stretching from the proposed east coast high-speed rail line to fuel lines for city airports, that are likely to need financial support over the next decade.

It found 15, of which a third are water projects, should get immediate priority for funding, noting Sydney, south-east Queensland, Canberra, Perth and Adelaide all face substantial increases in demand for water over the next few decades.

It recommended projects in Melbourne, Darwin, Launceston and Adelaide, plus an upgrade to the Paradise Dam in Queensland, all get priority support.

The agency’s chief executive officer, Adam Copp, said the pressure on water supplies would increasingly stretch the ability of cities to provide necessary housing to their growing populations.

“One of the biggest barriers to housing is water and having appropriate water and wastewater, we’ve got climate change and we’ve got ageing assets in the ground,” Copp said.

“So we need more water infrastructure, but we also need more climate independent sources of water, things like desalination plants.”

As part of the AUKUS submarine project, the government is expanding facilities at both Osborne in Adelaide and Henderson in Perth. The two projects, together worth at least $55 billion, were on the agency’s priority list.

Copp said while the focus on the two shipbuilding sites emphasised their role in the defence industry, both would become more like San Diego, a major commercial hub in the United States.

“Support networks, road and rail, the energy, the housing for new people, the creation of new industries, there’s a whole hub precinct that needs to be thought about, that is not just about the defence investment itself,” he said.

Other projects identified as requiring priority funding include the Sydney-Newcastle high-speed rail, the eastern section of Melbourne’s suburban rail link, 26 kilometres of rail line on the Sunshine Coast, NSW’s planned network of chargers for electric buses and the ACT’s proposed renewable energy battery upgrade.

Over the next two to four years, the agency said work was needed on a proposed freight rail link in western Sydney, a link between the Tallawong and St Mary’s metro stations in Sydney, upgrades to public transport on the Gold Coast and improvements on the Craigieburn, Upfield and Seymour rail lines in Melbourne.

The federal and state governments have been involved in a decade-long surge in infrastructure spending, which is expected to peak in 2027 at more than $60 billion. That’s in addition to private sector infrastructure.

Infrastructure Australia noted that, in addition to new roads and rail lines, there were opportunities for governments to make existing infrastructure work more efficiently.

So-called “high-capacity signalling” on suburban rail lines enables trains to run more frequently compared to traditional forms of signalling.

Copp said while governments were spending billions on Metro projects, getting more trains operating on existing railways would be welcomed by commuters.

“It’s great to have a shiny new metro, but a lot of what people care about is just getting from A to B as quickly and reliably as possible, and that’s what high-capacity signalling offers,” he said.

“And you can do it relatively cheaply and relatively quickly, far more quickly than building a new metro service necessarily.”

Engineers Australia CEO Romilly Madew said improving the delivery of major infrastructure projects was necessary.

“Infrastructure productivity is now a national economic issue, not just a delivery issue. It is central to strengthening our economy and quality of life,” she said.