Australia's private sector must get involve and invest in the country's infrastructure projects and as the taxpayers' dollar started drying up, the government must devise creative funding solutions in order to attract them.

This according to Sir Rod Ellington, head of Infrastructure Australia, as he added that government investments in smart infrastructure and wisely utilising the available resources are the fundamentals of the country's service-based economy.

He warned though that future infrastructure funding should eventually draw its source from the private sectors since the federal budgets are slowly running out of room for such expenditures as he stressed that in 1972, "we spent less than 30 per cent of our budget on health and education, so there was a lot more money to spend on hard infrastructure."

Speaking before the American Chamber of Commerce gathering held in Sydney on Friday, Sir Rod said that "taxpayer dollars won't be available the same way they were in the past, and the same way they are now in the developing world, because we have bigger commitment to things like education and health."

He stressed that the private sector's involvement was crucial in ensuring that the reliability of services such as water and electricity would be sustained into the future as he cautioned that "unless we can find a way to get the private sector more actively involved, it won't get built."

Sir Rod conceded that Australia may be enjoying a substantial superannuation pool but the government should not cease in looking for creative solutions to package infrastructure investments as attractive prospects for institutional investors.

He said that the country can ill-afford to be complacent at this time lest it would arrive in a future situation where resources have become scarce, adding that "my fear is that unless we are very careful, we will increasingly find ourselves in that space."

Sir Rod underscored the importance of pushing our governments at federal and state level to continue their infrastructure projects and devise creative ways in looking for the source of funds, as he stressed that "we also need to think about making best use of what we have, as well as how to add to it."