The chief of Infrastructure Australia says new financing solutions are necessary to attract private investors to put in funds into building projects, as taxpayer money gets hard come by.

Sir Rod Eddington states that the government should invest in smart construction and capitalise on what is available so Australia can take advantage of its services sector.

However, he says that future financing for construction would have to come from private firms increasingly, as the federal and state budgets are tightening.

"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," Sir Eddington said in an American Chamber of Commerce conference in Sydney today.

"Those 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."

Sir Eddington said the private sector needs to be involved so the reliability of services can be ensured for the future, such as power and water.

"Unless we can find a way to get the private sector more actively involved, it won't get built."

"My fear is that unless we are very careful, we will increasingly find ourselves in that space," he said.

The infrastructure chief said the country had a good superannuation base, but had to create innovative solutions to make construction investment enticing to private firms.

"We have to push our governments at federal and state level, not only to build infrastructure, but to be more inventive about how they find ways to fund it," he remarked.

"We also need to think about making best use of what we have, as well as how to add to it."