ABSTRACT

This paper provides an overview of the arrangements for financing infrastructure in Austral ia with particular reference to New South Wales and its capital city, Sydney. The purpose is to compare the process of privatisation of infrastructure for land development with the later privatisation of some forms of major infrastructure, noting particularly the effect of risk on the bargaining positions of government and the private sector. Private financing of works within and leading into subdivision began in earnest in the 1 960s whilst privatisation of major infrastructure took place in the late 1 980s. Increases in commitment to environmental assessment, participatory democracy and market liberalism accompanied and complicated the transition to privatisation.