Governments tend to shower new roads, railway and other infrastructure on marginal electorates, but a new report says this pork-barrelling is creating a major drag.

The damning Grattan Institute report into how projects are chosen and managed says Australia is in the midst of a huge surge in infrastructure spending.

While politicians prefer to suggest the nation is slowing down due to a lack of big projects, the review of about $160 billion in Commonwealth and state spending says this is not the case.

The road, rail and infrastructure spending has been spurred by the resources boom and flood damage in Queensland, but Grattan analysts warn the quality of spending has often been poor.

They say there has been too little emphasis on independent cost-benefit studies, with Federal Government money being directed to to NSW and Queensland after large numbers of federal seats changed hands at the last election.

The stats show Canberra has handed 46 per cent more infrastructure money per capita to Queensland than to Victoria.

“Too often political considerations come ahead of the public interest,” says Marion Terrill, Grattan's transport program director.

“There has been too much spent on highways that are not especially important to the economy but are popular with local voters.

“Too much money has been spent on the wrong projects in the wrong places.”

She says the five most egregious examples of politics trumping logic are Victoria's abandoned East-West Link, the Canberra light rail, the Colac to Geelong road, Tasmania's Bell Bay to Launceston upgrade, and the New England Highway.

Ms Terrill said all governments must make greater use of their independent infrastructure advisory bodies.

“Governments shouldn't commit any public money until they've gone through a proper assessment program. If they do have one that shows a low cost-benefit ratio, that's fair enough – they are the elected government and the public and media can question it. But it'll be up to them to defend their decision,” she told reporters.

The Grattan report also takes issue with claims from that the construction industry is suffering from an “infrastructure deficit”.

They say the official figures actually show that the last decade has seen some of the highest infrastructure spending since records began in the early 1980s.

“There isn't anything wrong with the amount we're spending, but you hear people say we've got a terrible infrastructure deficit, but I've not found anyone able to make that case, and it's hard to imagine how you would even measure such a thing,” Ms Terrill said.

She said pointing only to peak-hour congestion was not an accurate measure.

“If there were never any congestion at all, it would suggest that we had spent far too much on deserted roads, idle ports and empty trains.”