Politics may sour big building plans: ALP POLITICAL interference could return in deciding national road and rail funding and result in billions being wasted on big projects, the federal opposition says. Infrastructure Australia (IA), the national body overseeing Australia's future needs for roads, rail, ports and bridges, was set up in 2008 to give independent advice. But IA head Michael Deegan has warned that the Abbott government wants to introduce a swath of new changes, which he says would see massive projects planned and built without appropriate scrutiny. Labor's transport spokesman, Anthony Albanese, says the government is trying to gut the IA body and destroy its independence. He called on the government to scrap the proposed changes, saying it's vital to have large infrastructure decisions based on a detailed cost-benefit analysis at arms-length of government. "It's important that funding go where the benefit is," he told reporters in Melbourne on Friday. It's a return to the days whereby political decisions will be made rather than decisions being made on the basis of productivity and economic benefit. He said the Greens had shown how they don't like roads and the coalition was anti-rail in a sign of how politics could get in the way of big transport decisions. "Too often our cities have suffered from housing being built without looking at transport connections, without looking at jobs, without looking at economic opportunities," he said.