Professor Phillip O’Neill
University of Western Sydney
The shift to procurement: legacies from economic classifications of infrastructure
Infrastructure as an idea has shifted substantially. In the postwar, progress period, infrastructure was seen predominantly as a public good with universal characteristics requiring monopoly provision by the state. Water supply was a typical example and the physical structure of today’s water supply infrastructure largely refects this conception.
The perceived crisis in water supply has many sources: environmental, social, economic, technical, behavioural and so on. This paper focuses on the consequences for water supply of the shift in the role of the state in infrastructure supply since the postwar period. Key here is the shift towards a narrower (and qualitative different) state role: that of procurement. This sheds previous ownership, financing and management configurations of water supply. The shift to procurement is outlined in general and implications for water supply possibilities are explored.
Email: p.oneill@uws.edu.au