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Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Treasurer Joe Hockey have given the clearest signal yet the federal government is prepared to sign on to the China-led Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, though both have cautioned Australia must be satisfied with the bank's governance arrangements.
And Mr Hockey has also dismissed concerns that Australia joining the bank could have implications for the US-Australia alliance, while holding out the prospect of the US$100 billion institution generating jobs for Australians.
That green light is expected to lead to a formal decision to sign up to the precedent-setting Chinese initiative when the full cabinet meets on Monday.
On Friday, Mr Abbott confirmed a final decision was pending but "obviously we have a huge infrastructure deficit, not just in this country but across our region and it's important to do what we can to reasonably address that".
"If it's possible to have a new multilateral institution with transparency and with good governance arrangements, obviously Australia would support that and I'd hope most other countries would as well," Mr Abbott said.
"We appreciate that other countries take infrastructure seriously and we want to be a good international citizen when it comes to helping not just our country to be prosperous but helping the world to be prosperous, because a more prosperous world means a more prosperous Australia."
Mr Hockey, who has been an internal proponent of Australia joining the bank, said Australia had been thinking carefully about the matter and pointed out that nearly 30 countries, including New Zealand, the United Kingdon, Germany, France and Italy had already joined up.
"This is going to operate in our region, in our neighbourhood. There is a lot of merit in it but we want to make sure there are proper governance procedures, that there is transparency, that no one country is able to control the entity," he said.
"And we have been working with the Chinese government but also I have been speaking to my counterpart fellow finance ministers in Europe and around the world so we can all make sure this works."
But Mr Hockey said there were no implications for Australia's alliance with the US by joining.
"Because the United States congress has been dragging its feet on reform of the IMF and the United States understand that this is a bank that is going to be operating in our region, using contractors in our region, we want Australians contractors involved, we want work for Australians out of this bank and because it is operating in our region," he said.
Labor treasury spokesman Chris Bowen said the imminent decision to join the bank was a late move.
"We said last year that we should be joining this bank, we should have been one of the early adopters. This is a remarkable opportunity for Australia," he said.
"The government has been at sixes and sevens, leaking against each other from the national security committee of the cabinet, fiddling while other countries joined."
