THE federal government has announced its plans to fast track more than a dozen major projects, worth a combined $72 billion and supporting up to 66,000 jobs. Prime Minister Scott Morrison promised to cut approval times by 25 per cent by "streamlining" federal process, in a bid to stimulate the pandemic-affected economy. "Under our new approach, this investment and most importantly these jobs will be brought to market earlier by targeting a 50 per cent reduction in Commonwealth assessment and approval times for major projects from an average of 3.5 years to 21 months," Mr Morrison said. The priority list includes the Melbourne-Brisbane Inland Rail, the Olympic Dam extension in South Australia, emergency town water projects in NSW, Western Australia's road, rail and iron ore projects and the Marius Link between Victoria and Tasmania. More details on the remaining 10 priority projects will be released soon. Mr Morrison also announced a further $1.5 billion to immediately start work on small priority projects that have been identified by the state and territory governments. "As part of this package, $1 billion will be allocated to priority projects which are shovel-ready, with $500 million reserved specifically to target road safety works," he said. "Our number one priority is getting people back into jobs, And they need to be real, productive jobs. Jobs that produce goods and services that people want."
