Doorstop interview at Western Sydney Airport

ANNE STANLEY:  My name is Anne Stanley and I'm the member for Werriwa and I am very privileged to have this airport in my electorate, providing almost 50% of local jobs here. 

It is wonderful to welcome the Honourable Catherine King, Minister for Infrastructure back to this wonderful site to talk to you today about the completion of the terminal to weather tight. This is such an exciting project for our part of the world, and for just how much that we can do well in Australia. Catherine.

CATHERINE KING:  Thank you. Look, it's terrific to be here back at Western Sydney International Airport with my friend and colleague Anne Stanley, the local member here, but also with Simon the CEO, Paul, our chair as well as the magnificent workforce who have been building this incredible terminal that we're here today. 

This is a great milestone to be able to celebrate alongside the construction staff, the commissioning staff at Western Sydney International Airport. This brings it up to 80% completion. As you can see around us the terminal, the last part of the roof is now on. There's been 100 workers working to put this roof over the last 18 months onto this terminal here. And behind us you can start to see the shape the design and the experience that passengers going to have on track ready to open in late 2026 from the baggage experience from the great veranda that we're calling it outside. 

And also obviously the many components that have gone into this building. We've got over 40 kilometers of steel here in the roof as I said ,100 workers putting that roof together,  some 7000 working on this site. All our steel's come from all over the country -  Adelaide, Whyalla,  Tamworth and Orange to come here to Western Sydney International Airport and you can see the beautiful local stone from Newcastle as well. This is a terrific milestone. It's great to be able to celebrate that here alongside the construction staff. 

We’re really keen to see the way in which this is unfolding,  new aspects that you're seeing at the airport every single day. And I do want to commend again the construction team who are doing such a great job here. Building on construction sites is not easy but this is a project you don't often get,  to build an airport from scratch, and that's what they've been doing here out at Western Sydney International Airport and the Albanese Labour government is very proud to invest the $5 billion to building this airport. You can see all of the rest of the components. The rail, the metro, is well underway as well.. And we're starting to see more and more construction on this site. So thanks very much. I'll hand over to Simon and then I know there's some questions about this and other matters.

SIMON HICKEY: Thank you, Minister. Can I start by congratulating our local athlete Jess Fox, who got gold last night and go Jess, she's going for gold again, coming up from Penrith just down the road. 

This is a fantastic milestone for Western Sydney International. We're now fully weather independent here in the terminal with the roof structure completely done. All of the cranes, the big platform cranes that we've had here for a number of years are now down. And that means we just can continue to get on with the job of finishing this terminal and getting ready to welcome passengers to Sydney’s 24/7 airport here, Western Sydney International. This is a transformational piece of infrastructure for Western Sydney and for Sydney and for Australia. And we're really happy that we're on track to deliver it and open for passengers in 2026. Thank you.

CATHERINE KING: Thanks any questions? I'll let Simon do the construction talk.

QUESTION: [inaudible]

SIMON HICKEY: Yeah, so we're 80% Complete. We're now going to all of the interior works. That means the Border Force fit out. It means all of the scanning machines that need to be put in place. We’ll start to talk about the retail that will start to fit out and finishing off all of the carpets and the flooring and everything else. From there. mid next year, we'll take the all of the assets across the airport and we go into an operational readiness and testing. So testing across the entire airport, including all of the different agencies that will work together so that we're actually fit and ready for the first passengers to arrive in 2026. 

QUESTION: [inaudible]

SIMON HICKEY: Towards the end of 2026 is what we're what we're working on. And I'm very comfortable in the last quarter of 2026 

QUESTION: [inaudible]

SIMON HICKEY: So we're on time and we're on budget.

QUESTION: [inaudible]

CATHERINE KING: Of course there's any anything else on this at all? No, you might want to move. You can move closer if you  don’t want to shout at me.

QUESTION: [inaudible] 

CATHERINE KING: Well again, the first thing I'd say is Rex has yet to make an announcement about its future. It obviously put a trading halt on its shares yesterday and it's due to make an announcement about it’s pathway going forward.

We've been in constant discussions with Rex during the course of the day -  my department has been doing that. And we'll wait for Rex to make an announcement about its future. But can I say very, very clearly, the government is in no doubt about the importance of regional aviation and Rex to regional aviation. We will work with Rex. 

We want to make sure that they have a future is as part of aviation in this country and we're very determined to make sure that happens. We obviously don't want to do that just at any cost. We want to be involved very closely in what that future might look like. 

I know this is a very uncertain time for staff, a very uncertain time for passengers but I would say that there has been significant discussions during the course of today. And certainly we'll wait for Rex to make their announcement as they need to do under the Stock Exchange rules.

QUESTION: [inaudible]

CATHERINE KING: Well, again, I would suggest that we just wait to see what the announcement is. There’s a range of different announcements that could be made in terms of where Rex goes as of tomorrow and it's got some rules that it needs to comply with in terms of the Australian Stock Exchange, 

But the government is working and prepared to work with them in terms of making sure,  I mean obviously there is the immediate making sure that passengers can get to their destination, making sure that airports are still open and available for Rex to fly into but also then in a longer term what does that look like?

Because be in no doubt, we know that Rex is very important for regional aviation and we're very determined to make sure that those regional aviation Services are there. But the government will also if that, if we are called upon, will also want to have a bit of a say about what that future looks like as well.

QUESTION: [inaudible]

CATHERINE KING: There's been discussions with the leadership team and my department today. And I've been keeping the Prime Minister informed and having discussions with him during the course of the day.

Thank you so much, everybody. Let's come around and have a look.