The political connections

In August 2018, NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet announced the sale of 51 per cent of WestConnex to a Transurban-led consortium for A$9.3 billion. He described it as a ‘very strong result.’ Academic analysis published in The Conversation described it differently: ‘the biggest misuse of public funds for corporate gain in Australia’s history.’ The Conversation analysis noted that Perrottet was selling to ‘one of his party’s more generous donors.’

Perrottet became NSW Premier in 2021. In the same year, the government sold the remaining 49 per cent of WestConnex to Transurban for A$11.1 billion. This was after the Berejiklian government had promised before the 2019 election not to privatise further assets. The promise was reversed.

WestConnex has bipartisan support. Both the Coalition and Labor backed the project at state and federal level. Both parties have been described as recipients of Transurban donations ¹⁸, though Transurban told a Queensland parliamentary committee in 2024 that it does not make political donations ¹⁶. The privatisation model that produced a 75 per cent EBITDA margin for Transurban was not the product of one party’s ideology. It is the product of a political consensus that infrastructure privatisation is good policy: a consensus that both major parties share and that the infrastructure industry has systematically cultivated.

01The donation architecture

The Greens said in 2018 that Transurban had made significant donations to both Labor and the Liberals ¹⁸. The Australian Electoral Commission publishes annual returns of donations above the disclosure threshold, which was A$16,300 for 2023-24, on its Transparency Register ². In August 2024, writing to a Queensland parliamentary committee after an estimates hearing had called it a Labor and LNP donor, Transurban stated that it ‘does not make political donations or contributions of any nature to any political party, politician, elected official or candidate for public office in Australia’ ¹⁶. That is the wording of its Political Contributions Policy ¹⁷. Earlier disclosures tell a different story: responding to the returns for 2016-17, the Greens said Transurban paid the Labor party over A$28,000 that year and made significant donations to both Labor and the Liberals ¹⁸.

State disclosure registers are more relevant to toll road policy because concession agreements are state-level decisions. NSW, Victoria and Queensland each have their own electoral commission disclosure requirements. NSW sets a lower disclosure threshold than the federal AEC: a political donation of A$1,000 or more is reportable to the NSW Electoral Commission ⁷, which gives more granular visibility of state-level donations.

The pattern visible across the disclosure records is consistent with the airline rort, the gas rort, and the airport rort: a regulated industry with government-granted monopolies has been reported as donating to both major parties, maintains relationships across both sides of government, and ensures that neither party has a strong incentive to fundamentally reform the system that benefits it.

Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said Transurban "is a registered political donor at both federal and state level", that it and related entities appear in AEC returns, and that both major parties "have received Transurban donations", citing the AEC home page. No specific AEC record was found to support those words, and in August 2024 Transurban told a Queensland parliamentary committee that it does not make political donations in Australia ¹⁶¹⁷. The section now attributes the donor description to Green Left ¹, records Transurban's statement, and cites the AEC's 2023-24 disclosure notice ² and the NSW Electoral Commission's donation rules ⁷ in place of home pages. The same change is made in the opening, where it said both parties "receive donations from Transurban", and in the subtitle. Reference 6, The Conversation analysis quoted in the opening, now gives the article's correct address (it ends -102790, not -102780).

Correction, 7 October 2026. Further changes in this pass. This section now records, from the Greens' response to the 2016-17 disclosures, that Transurban was reported then as donating to both major parties ¹⁸, alongside its current policy of making no political donations ¹⁷; it said the industry "donates to both major parties", and now says it has been reported as doing so. The image caption and key facts said both major parties "receive" Transurban donations, and now say both were reported as recipients and that Transurban says it makes none. The subtitle called Dominic Perrottet the "NSW Premier who sold WestConnex": he was NSW Treasurer at the 2018 sale of the first 51 per cent ⁶ and became Premier in 2021; the subtitle and the pull quote in "The revolving door" now say so.

Correction, 8 October 2026. The opening and the timeline gave the price of the first sale as A$9.26 billion; The Conversation ⁶, the source cited, gives A$9.3 billion, and they now use its figure. This section described Transurban in 2021 as “a big political donor to both major parties”, citing Green Left ¹. That quotation is not on the Green Left page, which has no donor wording, so it is cut from this section, the opening and reference 1, and the donations are now attributed to the Greens' 2018 statement that Transurban had made significant donations to both Labor and the Liberals ¹⁸. The correction above, which attributed the donor description to Green Left, is superseded by this one. Reference 1 also said the sale of WestConnex was announced at a COVID media conference to minimise political scrutiny; the Green Left page does not carry that, so the sentence is cut.

02Infrastructure Australia: advisory to approval pipeline

Infrastructure Australia is the federal government’s independent infrastructure advisory body. It assesses major infrastructure projects, recommends funding priorities, and provides advice to government on what should be built. In December 2022 the federal government decided to replace its board with three commissioners, supported by an advisory board with experts from the infrastructure and related sectors ⁴.

On this article’s reading, the structural problem with Infrastructure Australia’s governance is not corruption. It is the risk of institutional capture: the body that recommends which projects get built takes advice from experts drawn from the industries that build and finance those projects. A recommendation from Infrastructure Australia that a major road tunnel should be built is the first step in a process that ends with a Transurban concession.

Infrastructure Australia’s evaluation of WestConnex was critical of its options analysis: it said a more robust analysis would have considered WestConnex against, and in conjunction with, a broader set of options for Sydney’s longer-term transport needs ¹⁴. It still rated WestConnex a High Priority Project in April 2016 ¹⁴, and the project was built. This is an example of what happens when the advisory process identifies problems but the political and financial incentives all point in the same direction.

Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said Infrastructure Australia's board "includes current and former executives from infrastructure funds, construction companies, and state government agencies", that the body "is staffed in part by people who represent or have recently represented" the industries that build and finance projects, and that its assessment found the NSW Government "had not adequately appraised alternatives". It relied on Infrastructure Australia's home page (references 4 and 14). The membership claims are cut: the section now says, from the minister's announcement ⁴, that the board is being replaced by commissioners supported by an advisory board of infrastructure-sector experts, marks the capture argument as this article's reading, and gives Infrastructure Australia's own words from its WestConnex evaluation, including that it rated the project a High Priority Project ¹⁴. The subtitle, pull quote and key facts are changed to match.

Correction, 8 October 2026. The opening of this section said the federal government had moved Infrastructure Australia from a board to three commissioners. The minister's release of 18 December 2022 ⁴ records a decision: the government accepted a review recommendation to replace the board with three commissioners supported by an advisory board, with the interim board staying until legislation is passed. The sentence now says the government decided in December 2022 to replace the board.

03The revolving door

Scott Charlton became Transurban CEO in 2012 ⁹. Over the following decade, he oversaw the company’s transformation from a Melbourne toll road operator to the dominant toll road monopolist in three Australian cities. The defining transaction of his tenure was the WestConnex full acquisition.

In 2023, Charlton left Transurban to become CEO of Sydney Airport ⁵⁹. Sydney Airport is another privatised infrastructure monopoly. Its owners, the Sydney Aviation Alliance, include IFM Investors, AustralianSuper, QSuper and Global Infrastructure Partners ¹⁹. AustralianSuper also holds a 20.5 per cent stake in WestConnex, alongside Transurban ²⁰.

This is not corruption. Experienced infrastructure executives moving between privatised infrastructure monopolies is economically rational: their skills transfer directly. But it creates an institutional environment in which the people who run privatised infrastructure assets, advise governments on infrastructure policy, and manage the superannuation funds that invest in both airports and toll roads have deeply aligned interests in maintaining the model that has produced 75 per cent EBITDA margins.

The NSW Treasurer who sold the first 51 per cent of WestConnex was described as selling to one of his party’s donors. The body that recommends infrastructure projects takes advice from the infrastructure sector. The CEO who built the Transurban monopoly moved to run Sydney Airport. These individuals are not corrupt. The system they operate in is designed to produce this outcome.

Update, 7 October 2026. References 5 and 9, which pointed to the Transurban home page and Crikey's home page, now give Transurban's ASX announcement of the CEO transition ⁵ and Sydney Airport's announcement of Charlton's appointment ⁹, which carry the dates in this section.

Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said Sydney Airport's owners "include IFM Investors and Australian Retirement Trust: the same superannuation-affiliated infrastructure funds that own stakes in Transurban", without a source. Sydney Airport was bought in 2022 by the Sydney Aviation Alliance of IFM Investors, QSuper, AustralianSuper and Global Infrastructure Partners ¹⁹; no source found says those funds own stakes in Transurban, but AustralianSuper holds 20.5 per cent of WestConnex alongside it ²⁰. The section and the timeline now say so, and the following paragraph says the funds invest in both airports and toll roads rather than that they "own both".

04The concession terms: commercially confidential

The concession deeds that govern toll road privatisations in Australia are commercially sensitive documents. They are not fully public: Transport for NSW publishes the WestConnex project deeds with provisions redacted as commercial-in-confidence under the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 ¹³. The detailed terms (traffic guarantees, compensation mechanisms, competing road restrictions, toll escalation formulas beyond what is announced publicly) are protected as commercial-in-confidence.

This creates a fundamental asymmetry in public accountability. The taxpayers who funded WestConnex’s construction and the motorists who pay its tolls cannot fully scrutinise the terms under which those tolls will operate for the next 40 years. The Auditor-General’s 2014 review of early WestConnex processes found shortcomings in the governance of the project’s early stages, with independent assurance that did not meet best practice ¹².

What is publicly known about WestConnex concession terms includes: the 4 per cent or CPI toll escalation floor until 2040, then CPI until 2060. What is not publicly known: the full suite of traffic guarantee mechanisms, competing route restrictions, and conditions under which the concession can be renegotiated.

Update, 7 October 2026. This section now says how the concession deeds are made public: Transport for NSW publishes them with commercial-in-confidence provisions redacted ¹³. Reference 13 previously pointed to the Transport for NSW home page.

Update, 7 October 2026. Reference 12, which pointed to the ANAO home page, now gives the NSW Audit Office's 2014 WestConnex report the second paragraph describes ¹². Reference 11, which pointed to the ACCC home page and said the ACCC cleared the WestConnex acquisitions "without opposition", now gives the ACCC's 2018 decision: it did not oppose the bid only after Transurban gave an undertaking to publish traffic data ¹¹.

Correction, 7 October 2026. This section added, after the 2014 audit finding, that "those weaknesses were not remedied". No source was found for that, and it is cut here, in the timeline and in the image, which also quoted the audit as saying processes "lacked adequate transparency"; those are not shown to be the audit's words, and the image and key facts now describe its finding of shortcomings in early governance without quotation marks ¹².

Correction, 8 October 2026. This section said the Auditor-General's 2014 review found “governance weaknesses in transparency”. The Audit Office's report ¹² does not use the word transparency. It says the independent assurance processes did not meet best practice and that the audit found shortcomings in the governance of the project's early stages; the section, the timeline and reference 12 now say that.

05The bipartisan consensus

The political connections story in the Roads Rort differs from the Gas Rort and the Airline Rort in one important respect: it is genuinely bipartisan, and it spans multiple decades and multiple governments.

WestConnex was a bipartisan project. The concession model has been applied by Labor and Coalition governments in NSW, Victoria and Queensland. Federal Labor and Federal Coalition have both provided grants and concessional loans to toll road projects. Neither party, in government, has fundamentally reformed the model.

The political economy explains why. Privatisation allows a government to record a large upfront receipt, popular in budget terms, while deferring the long-term cost (rising tolls) onto future users. The future users cannot vote against a decision made before the tolls started rising. The private operator earns above-market returns from the legal monopoly. The super funds that own the private operator earn infrastructure returns for their members. The road gets built.

The only losers in this equation are the motorists who pay tolls for the next 40 years. They are diffuse, numerous, and poorly organised. The beneficiaries are concentrated: Transurban shareholders, infrastructure fund managers, and the governments that got upfront cash.

If it’s a rort, we cover it.

Correction, 7 October 2026. The fact box listed "both major parties' donation records" among the model's supports; it now says both major parties, since Transurban says it makes no political donations ¹⁷. Reference 15, which pointed to The Conversation's home page, now gives the specific Conversation analysis of asset sales and toll roads it relies on ¹⁵.

Correction, 7 October 2026. The subtitle ended "This is how private monopolies are built with public money." It now says what the public gave up: control over WestConnex tolls, which the concession lets rise until 2060. Reference 1 was labelled "Wikipedia / Green Left"; it is one Green Left article, and is now labelled as that.