NSW govt launches Investment Delivery Authority amid Budget tech splash

The NSW government has launched the Investment Delivery Authority to approve major projects as part of its 2025-26 Budget which includes the tech sector.

The government set aside $17.7 million in the Budget for the Authority, promising that projects will come from “all industries, including advanced technologies and energy.”

The Authority is accepting expressions of interest from eligible domestic and international investment projects valued at more than $1 billion, and this initiative is set to come into effect in the 2025-26 financial year.

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The Authority will comprise of Premier’s Department Secretary Simon Draper, Treasury Secretary Michael Coutts-Trotter, Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure Secretary Kiersten Fishburn and Infrastructure NSW Chief Executive Tom Gellibrand.

The launch was hosted at NextDC’s S3 data centre facility in Sydney, with its CEO and managing director, Craig Scroggie, noting he has been in talks with the government on project issues for the last 12 months.

“Over the past year, we’ve worked closely with Premier [Chris] Minns, Treasurer [Daniel] Mookhey, Minister [for Planning and Public Spaces Paul] Scully and their teams to address the regulatory and infrastructure bottlenecks facing large-scale digital infrastructure development,” he wrote on a LinkedIn post.

“The Investment Delivery Authority is a direct response: cutting red tape, coordinating cross-departmental approvals, and delivering the policy certainty required to unlock billions in private capital.”

Minns echoed Scroggie’s sentiments, saying that major private sector projects are “getting bogged down in red tape, which is making it harder to do business in NSW when we should be doing everything we can to get things moving”.

“Our state is open for business and this change will encourage more people to bring their best ideas to life in NSW, all backed by our government,” he said.

“We’ve made great progress with the Housing Delivery Authority. This reform is a big signal that NSW is not just open for business—it’s serious about being a global leader in innovation, industry, and investment.”

Scroggie also wrote that in the context of planning reform, speed and scale are “the decisive advantage”, particularly with AI workloads resulting in exponential power density increases.

“The challenges can’t be solved incrementally; they require coordinated planning systems built for an AI era,” he said.

NSW govt splashes cash on tech initiatives

The Investment Delivery Authority comes as the state government also announced a range of technology initiatives in its latest Budget that it intends to fund.

A number of these commitments directly linked to IT include:

• Ag-tech and on-farm connectivity solution adoption – $45 million
• Biodiversity Offset Scheme projects
  • Digital obligation and authority registers and upgrades – $14.6 million
  • Digital architecture upgrade and re-design – $9.6 million
• Crown Solicitor office’s new ICT solutions – $2.5 million
• Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment software updates for Water division – $463,000
• Department of Communities and Justice digital court reform program refresh – $1.1 million
• Department of Customer Service projects
  • Phase two of digital licensing program – $25.8 million
  • NSW Digital ID and Wallet project – $15.4 million
  • Cyber security strategy enhancements – $15 million
  • Digital restart fund – $15 million
  • Phase three of digital evidence first responder program – digital evidence cloud project – $560,000
  • Revenue collection system (MARS) technology refresh – $8 million
  • Revenue NSW critical system maintenance – $7 million
  • OneGov digital services gateway – $937,000
• NSW Police Force projects
  • Critical ICT infrastructure upgrades – $50 million
  • SAP upgrade – $41.1 million
  • Phase two of cyber security upgrade – $13.6 million
  • Southern, Southwest and Far West NSW police radio technology refresh – $11.7 million
• State Library of NSW projects
  • Digitisation and ICT infrastructure for cultural sector preservation and access – $1.3 million
  • Digital Experience project – $300,000
• NSW Education Standards Authority technology reform program – $43 million
• NSW Health unification and integration of electronic health record systems – $283.3 million
• NSW Planning digital environment works, including portal and new operating model – $11.7 million
• Sydney Water Corporation IT projects – $70.4 million

Additionally, there were also several initiatives that included technology investments within a broader spending commitment. Some of these include:

Department of Communities and Justice

• Digital infrastructure for remote hearings and therapeutic spaces for witnesses, victims and children in newly established vulnerable persons service hub and ten new virtually-enabled court suites for centralised bail hearings, along with five new small court rooms – $83.9 million

Fire and Rescue NSW

• The incorporation of “the latest advances in technology” as part of the department’s Replacement of Fire Appliances Program – $68 million

TAFE NSW

• Reliable internet, Wi-Fi connectivity and end-user digital and collaboration devices as part of the TAFE Asset Renewal Program and TAFE Digital Access Foundation projects – $342.7 million

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