1/ With the medical emergency in Australia being managed well, Governments are now looking at which construction projects to build in order to stimulate the economy.

2/ As pointed out by many, simply rolling out mega road projects is not a great value for money strategy.

See here for example https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/the-road-to-recovery-are-victoria-s-mega-projects-still-worth-it-20200423-p54mja.html

3/ A really great plan would be a huge investment in public housing. This will help the economy and also help those most vulnerable in our communities.

4/ An idea that should be considered in addition to this is the idea of building design subsidies.

What if the State paid up to $50,000 for the design fees, consultants fees, permit fees for new projects.

$1 spent on construction equates to about $3 of flow on economic activity.
So a $1 million build generates 3 times that to the builders, product suppliers, real estate agents, councils, consultants utility providers etc.

So if a government spent $50k just to get a $1M project shovel ready, then just $50k of taxpayer money is spent stimulating the economy by $3 Million.
This is a great return on investment.
The building alone would generate $100k in GST

Time limits should be put in place to make sure that the scheme produces a timely stimulus with money only being distributed once construction has started.

There will be many projects that might have proceeded if covid didn’t happen, that are now no longer possible. However for those that are, this is the signal to act now and not wait until everything is back to ‘normal’.

The design subsidy could apply to individuals, companies, community groups etc.

It would spread out economic benefit over a larger area and probably cost Victoria around a $200m for six months. The equivalent of about 200 metres of motorway.

Would a design subsidy be worthwhile use of some taxpayer money?

Consider a case study of 500k renovation that took 9 months to build.
Design subsidy outlay say 25k

Gst on build 45k
1 person not on job keeper 18k
Flow on benefits of extra spending

Taxpayer comes out at least 38k ahead if project otherwise would not have happened.