The National PPP Guidelines
Australian Governments are committed to investing in infrastructure and delivering improved services to the community. Infrastructure investment is critical to our economic prosperity, and governments across jurisdictions currently seek the participation of the private sector in the delivery of infrastructure and related services to the public. Public Private Partnership (“PPP”) arrangements are one way of delivering infrastructure investment.

The National PPP Guidelines (the “Guidelines”) have been prepared and endorsed by Infrastructure Australia and the State, Territory and Commonwealth Governments as an agreed framework for the delivery of PPP projects. The Guidelines provide a framework that enables both the public and private sectors to work together to improve public service delivery through private sector provision of infrastructure and related non-core services.

The Guidelines describe a competitive and transparent mechanism to pursue opportunities that bring together the ideas, experience and skills of both sectors to develop innovative solutions to meet the community’s needs, expectations and aspirations.

The aim is to deliver improved services and better value for money, primarily through optimal risk transfer, management synergies, encouraging innovation, efficient asset utilisation and integrated whole-of-life asset management.

The Guidelines aim to consolidate the PPP guidance material of individual Australian jurisdictions to provide a unified national framework. The objective is to maximise the efficiency of infrastructure procurement, reduce public and private sector PPP procurement costs and remove disincentives to participation in the infrastructure market.

PPPs can make a valuable contribution to the delivery of infrastructure and services throughout Australia and are therefore encouraged, where appropriate, by governments across jurisdictions. The challenge for the public and private sectors is to determine the most effective and efficient means of service delivery in an arrangement that is beneficial to both sectors as well as to users and taxpayers.