Politicians should stop meddling with infrastructure planning, according to Engineers Australia.
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The peak body representing 100,000 members releases its state of the profession report on Wednesday.
The report says infrastructure planning should be removed from election cycles, adding that political interference often leads to inferior outcomes and higher costs.
"The political and technical responsibilities for infrastructure management need to be separated and clearly defined," it says.
Infrastructure spokesman Chris Warnock told Fairfax Media that major projects should be thoroughly planned and rigorously assessed.
"The timeframe needed for that to occur is typically longer than the political cycle, especially for the mega projects that are worth more than a billion dollars in capital cost," he said.
Mr Warnock cited the Prime Minister's $2 billion Snowy Hydro announcement as an example of ad hoc decision making.
"That concept is not listed anywhere in Infrastructure Australia's latest plan, which was only released in February," he said.
"There's nothing wrong with new ideas, but the release of new ideas without rigorous planning is becoming increasingly common."
Mr Warnock also criticised state and territory opposition parties for abandoning projects when they came to power.
In Victoria, the incoming Labor government's decision to scrap the east-west link was estimated to cost $1.1 billion.
"In the ACT the [Liberal] opposition threatened to rip up the light rail contract after it had been committed to by the current government," he said.
"Ripping up contracts as part of the political process completely undermines the confidence of industry and investors.
"Private investment has fallen off a cliff in the past couple of years.
"It's like playing snakes and ladders. You spend many years getting these projects to market, then there's a change of government and you slide down the ladder again."
