Established under the Infrastructure Australia Act 2008 and refocused following an independent review on nationally significant infrastructure and advice to the Commonwealth.

The threshold was raised, and it is an enacted reform of exactly the kind this site proposes. Infrastructure Australia now evaluates proposals seeking more than $250 million in Commonwealth funding, up from $100 million — to focus business case evaluation on the projects that matter and improve the efficiency of decision-making. All states and territories advocated for the change. A threshold reform, agreed by every party subject to it, is rare enough in this database to note.

The evaluation is real and it is late. A proposal arrives with a business case attached, which means a state has selected the project, developed it, and usually announced it. The evaluation asks whether this project stacks up. It is not a comparison against what else the money could have bought, because that choice was made before the submission.

And its remit is capital. There is no equivalent body, list or evaluation for the recurrent cost of running a service on the infrastructure once built. See The only Commonwealth instrument for urban public transport can buy concrete and nothing else.