Former ACTU secretary Bill Kelty says toll road operator Transurban is “exploiting government stupidity”. 

Mr Kelty, who has worked as both a union secretary and Linfox Group director, says Australia has “one of the highest cost building of tunnels and roads in the world - you go to Victoria it’s double the cost in Spain”.

“You have Transurban rooting everybody, you’ve got governments not able to make decisions,” Mr Kelty said.

“Don’t get me wrong, Transurban are not the rogues here – Transurban is exploiting government stupidity.

“Poor old Jeff Kennett said; ‘I’ve got no money, so I’ll get somebody to build the road and by the way, I’ll give a government guarantee and a 14 per cent return’. 

“You could have got it funded at 4 per cent – it’s cost every school and every hospital equivalent in Victoria.”

Mr Kelty proposes a new framework for major infrastructure projects in which all projects must be cleared by Infrastructure Australia and only go to tender if there is bipartisan political support.

“It would remove the nonsense of political risk and reduce the market price,” he said.

“What is wrong with super funds spawning more road-building companies with separate EBAs to create competitive forms of bidding for effective road building and financing? There would be more than one major road builder. It would make infrastructure projects more competitive with other comparable parts of the world.”

Former prime minister Paul Keating has described Transurban’s success as a failure of competition policy.

“The emphasis has to be back on competition policy,” he said. 

“Remember, I set up competition policy in the ’90s. That’s what we are missing. You have got to have a treasurer interested in competition. If you don’t have an interest in this stuff you get Transurbans.”