Federal infrastructure policy has been rife with controversy for years: from the sports rorts scandal and dubious commuter car parks to overpriced land for the second Sydney airport. So notorious did the excesses become that they convinced the Morrison government’s critics to campaign for a strong anti-corruption commission during the May election.
Little wonder, then, that the Albanese government has brought in a new broom to head its infrastructure department.
Jim Betts replaces Simon Atkinson, a Morrison-appointed career bureaucrat who held the job through all those recent scandals. Like Atkinson, Betts is a long-time public servant, but he comes to the job straight from the state rather than federal bureaucracy.
