Western Australia’s biggest – and one of its best-performing – public schools is set to receive an $80 million makeover, including a new science block, a redeveloped library and redeveloped maths and administration buildings.

In announcing the upgrade recently, Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett said Willetton Senior High School will get $32.5 million in next year’s state budget to fund the first stage of the works.

With 1,736 students enrolled in semester one this year, the school, which last year became an Independent Public School, is the biggest in the state.

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A new metropolitan strategy is being developed for Sydney. It will provide a framework for Sydney’s growth to help plan for housing, employment, transport, infrastructure, the environment and open space.

The strategy will update the current Metropolitan Plan for Sydney and link it to the government’s other long-term plans – the Long Term Transport master Plan and the State Infrastructure Strategy.

In a city of Sydney’s size, we need to plan for enough housing and jobs of the right type in the right place, properly serviced by infrastructure and transport networks – these issues cannot be left to chance. We need an overarching vision to plan for short, medium and long term improvements and manage growth, change and opportunities in the future.

The new Metropolitan Strategy will set an agreed government and community vision for Sydney in the next 20 years. It will also identify the other partners and actions needed to make that vision a reality.

Throughout the year, the department will consult with communities, residents, businesses, workers, government and industry about what they want for Sydney to set an agreed course for the future.

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The largest federally funded infrastructure project in Queensland, the $2.8 billion Ipswich Motorway upgrade, will be completed in 2014-15, Transport Minister Anthony Albanese said this morning.

Five of the six stages have been completed, with the fifth stage – from Goodna to Dinmore – officially opened this morning.

The final stage, between Darra and Rocklea, will complete the upgrade of the major road link between Brisbane and Ipswich.

“We’ve got the National Building II program coming up in 2014-15 and in it we will be allocating further funding for Queensland infrastructure,” Mr Albanese said.

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MELBOURNE City Council is cashed up and bearing election-year gifts for its ratepayers, who are to be spared a rise in rates for the next financial year.

But motorists who park illegally in the city can expect no such favours, with revenue from parking fines tipped to soar.

As the Commonwealth and state governments struggle to balance their books, the city coffers are swelling, thanks mainly to the continuing influx of new central Melbourne residents adding millions of dollars a year to the council rates base.

”Since 2009, 6500 residential properties have come on line,” lord mayor Robert Doyle said yesterday. ”If you look just at last year, 3850 residential dwellings completed – and that’s going to accelerate. We expect from now until 2018 an extra 4500 residential dwellings each year.”

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According to Nick Greiner, infrastructure in Australia is a tale of two countries. North of the ‘Brisbane line’, the country is awash with infrastructure projects servicing, and funded by, mining interests. Investment in mining is massive, and associated infrastructure is booming.

But in the south, “traditional” infrastructure – roads, railways, ports, transport – plays the role of poor cousin.

It is the southern half Greiner wants to fix. Infrastructure here “is much more constrained because governments – state and federal – have got very restricted financial capacity, and [that’s] likely for a number of years,” he says.

Greiner – a former premier of NSW – has been reborn as an infrastructure guru. A patron of industry forum Infrastructure Partnerships Australia, Greiner is also chair of Infrastructure NSW, a body established last year by the NSW Government to ‘take the politics out of infrastructure’.

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There were slim pickings for the residential sector in the 2012 Federal Budget according to the Residential Development Council (RDC).

Tonight’s budget failed to deliver a plan to improve housing affordability, said Residential Development Council Executive Director, Caryn Kakas.

“The Government must stop behaving like an absent parent. It cannot choose to stump up child support payments on a whim once in a blue moon. Funding for roofs over families heads must be paid every month and every year on year.

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A scientific ghost town in the heart of southeastern New Mexico oil and gas country will hum with the latest next-generation technology – but no people.
A $US1 billion city without residents will be developed in Lea County near Hobbs, officials said, to help researchers test everything from intelligent traffic systems and next-generation wireless networks to automated washing machines and self-flushing toilets.

Hobbs Mayor Sam Cobb said the unique research facility that looks like an empty city will be a key for diversifying the economy of the nearby community, which after the oil bust of the 1980s saw bumper stickers asking the last person to leave to turn out the lights.

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A new $180 million office tower by Donovan Hill and BVN Architecture in Brisbane has been given development approval in Brisbane. The 20 storey office building in Brisbane’s city centre is being developed by Marquette Properties and according to the website Brisbane Development.

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KOGARAH Council has declared war on private building certifiers and called for council staff to replace independent inspectors on work sites across NSW.

The council’s mayor and general manager, Nickolas Varvaris and Paul Woods, have written to Premier Barry O’Farrell, describing the system as “an experiment gone too far”.

The council has been frustrated by the role independent certifiers have played in buildings with extra rooms that were not part of approved plans.

Cr Varvaris said private certifiers were giving the council “a bad name” by failing to police construction sites.
“There are things that just aren’t being done in accordance with what has been approved,” he said.

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A 170-room hotel with a view down the finishing straight will be built at Sydney’s oldest racetrack. NSW Racing Minister George Souris and the Australian Turf Club (ATC) today unveiled plans for the four-star complex which will be built trackside at Royal Randwick Racecourse. Mr Souris said the project was unique. “It may well become the pre-eminent example around the world of this new, exciting concept of a hotel literally being part of a racecourse,” he said.

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