Press Conference - St Kilda

JOSH BURNS: Well, it is an absolutely beautiful day here in St Kilda, here at Catani Gardens. And today, we’ve got a very exciting announcement, where we’re going to be supporting and working collaboratively with the City of Port Phillip on a project to extend the Esplanade and extend the pier here to connect up to Jacka Boulevard just there.

This is a place where people come, and especially over summer. No one comes to Melbourne without coming to St Kilda, or if you do come to Melbourne and you haven’t come to St Kilda, you’ve made a terrible, terrible mistake because this is such an iconic part of Melbourne. It is so beautiful, and especially on a day like today, it is just here for the community to enjoy. So this project, in line with the City of Port Phillip and the State Government, is going to really transform this whole area and make it even more wonderful for people to come and enjoy.

I’m really pleased to be here with the Mayor, my friend Louise Crawford, and of course, the Minister for Infrastructure, Catherine King, who has been such a champion for good local projects that are going to revitalise community, be there for people to enjoy, and make our wonderful cities an even better place to live. And I’m going to hand over to the Minister right now.

CATHERINE KING: Thanks very much. Well, what a cracker day in St Kilda. Unbelievably beautiful today, and it’s terrific to be here with Louise and Josh. I’m announcing today the successful grant applications for the competitive open program, the Thriving Suburbs Program – $129 million, 26 projects across the suburbs of this great city of Melbourne.

Really, what we found when we came to government is that there’d been great regional grants programs. They’ve been going for a while. We’ve continued those and continue to fund infrastructure in our regions, but our suburbs had been neglected. That community infrastructure where we learn to swim, where kids get- learn to get on with each other in playground equipment, theatres, all of those sorts of things, there hadn’t been a grants program, so we established an equivalent Thriving Suburbs Program. And this is the first round of that program and first grants.

Here in St Kilda, of course, National Theatre, a new playground, and here at the iconic pier, a connection in. We know the activity zone up at Jacka Boulevard really isn’t connected into the foreshore, so there’s $2.6 million going into this particular project. These are great projects, from aquatic centres, sporting facilities, playground equipment. And as I said, this is really important. It’s important community infrastructure to really build those connections and that social inclusion. It’s where children learn to get on with each other. Parents talk about what’s happening in their neighbourhoods. And really delighted to be partnering with the City of Port Phillip on these projects, and I’ll hand over to Louise, the Mayor, to say a little bit, and then we’re happy to take some questions.

LOUISE CRAWFORD: Well, firstly, I’d like to say thank you. Like, this is amazing. Obviously, St Kilda is home to, as we say, many of the iconic places that people come to visit. So that connection that we’ve been working on with the State Government and now with the Federal Government to make that connection, that entry point really pop, so that you really feel like you’re coming to a brand-new pier and the beauty that St Kilda has to offer. And with the adventure playground, the St Kilda Adventure Playground is one of the most beloved spaces in our city, and we have consulted with the kids on the kind of equipment they want. So this grant to add to that will just- those kids are going to be the happiest and luckiest kids around, I have to say. So again, I just want to say thank you to Josh and thank you to the Minister.

CATHERINE KING: You’re most welcome.

JOURNALIST: What are the plans here like? Are you actually going to build a-

CATHERINE KING: [Talks over] You can answer that one.

LOUISE CRAWFORD: What are the plans-

JOURNALIST: Like, a bridge from Jacka Boulevard down here?

LOUISE CRAWFORD: Yeah, so the pier as it’s connected there, it’s kind of- goes through a car park and it’s not very exciting. So the idea is to open it up and be a real pathway through with obviously landscaping. But it’s that- so it’s an entry point that is designed from Jacka Boulevard that connects to the pier, as opposed to doing a sideways walk …

JOURNALIST: Right.

LOUISE CRAWFORD: … you know, through a car park to get to the entrance of the pier.

JOURNALIST: Are you actually going to, like, expand the bridge or like, try and make it a bit easier for people to walk them up there?

LOUISE CRAWFORD: The bridge isn’t part of the plans at this stage, but I could talk to Josh about it at this- it’s more like a big esplanade down to- connecting when you come to St Kilda rather than it being hidden away.

JOURNALIST: Will it be removing car parking, [indistinct]?

LOUISE CRAWFORD: We’ve kind of refigured it. It’s not a lot. It’s more just where the road connects, there’s an adjustment plan.

JOURNALIST: Yeah. And then, so how were these sorts of grants divvied up? Obviously, I presume not with a whiteboard.

CATHERINE KING: No. Definitely no colour coded spreadsheets when it comes to any of the grants that the Albanese Government administers. We have had a competitive open grants process. Business Grants Hub has done the assessment. We had a multi-party panel, Liberal MPs, Labor MPs, Independents, Greens having a look. My department’s then assessed them. And basically, we’ve funded everything that was recommended by the department. So, open process and we’ve done the same with the regional grants program. It’s really important.

But as I said, this is the first time that there’s been a suburban or an urban grants program because it really is an infrastructure deficit, particularly in many of our older suburbs. We’ve got ageing infrastructure that really does need a bit of a refresh so that people can use it more [indistinct].

JOURNALIST: I might ask about other things that are [indistinct]-

CATHERINE KING: [Talks over] Yeah, of course.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: That’s fine. [Indistinct] …

JOURNALIST: Just on suburban rail, Minister …

CATHERINE KING: [Talks over] Yeah, of course.

JOURNALIST: When will the Federal Government release the $2.2 billion that was promised to the Victorian Government?

CATHERINE KING: Yeah. So I’ve got what’s called the PPR report before me. That’s being assessed by my department and Infrastructure Australia at the moment. They’ll provide a brief up to me and we’ll make decisions on that basis. But that assessment is currently underway now.

JOURNALIST: Will that be completed before the federal election?

CATHERINE KING: Again, I’m dependent on my department and Infrastructure Australia’s assessment. I would certainly expect so, but it’s under assessment at the moment.

JOURNALIST: If it’s not, is that a broken promise?

CATHERINE KING: Not at all. We’ve made the election commitment, but of course, we want to make sure that every dollar of taxpayers’ money is doing properly. It is a normal part of projects in the land transport space that they go through what’s called a PPR assessment. And I get a report up from my department before money is released, and that process is in the middle of that at the moment.

JOURNALIST: Do you anticipate getting more funding requests from the state? Because they’ve said they want up to $11 billion from the Commonwealth.

CATHERINE KING: Well, we get requests from every state and territory. I can tell you now …

JOURNALIST: [Talks over] [Indistinct] more before the election …

CATHERINE KING: … I’ve got billions and billions of dollars from every state. You know, Queensland, WA, New South Wales - Victoria is not on its own in terms of that request. As we head into the budget process – again, billions of dollars of ours – we would love to be able to fund everything. We can’t always do that. We’ve got to undertake assessments. Obviously, one of the things that I have done about reforming the decision making that the Commonwealth makes in terms of its investment is to really engage IA – back at Infrastructure Australia, back as the Commonwealth’s adviser to me, as their client really – to make decisions about that investment. And we- every time states ask us, I ask Infrastructure Australia for advice.

JOURNALIST: Do you have concerns, as Infrastructure Minister, about Victoria’s ability to fund its own projects, or at least repay some of the debt given the state debts reaching almost $200 billion?

CATHERINE KING: Well, Victoria has had a really big building program and you can see that right the way across the state, and that is really important. And I live obviously in country Victoria and I drive- when I drive into Melbourne, I can see that building that’s occurring. We’ve got North East Link, we’ve got the West Gate Tunnel project of course, and the Melbourne Metro. Many of those projects, other than North East Link, haven’t had Commonwealth money in them because the previous government, frankly, treated Victoria pretty poorly. We’re trying to turn that around, but obviously, we want to make sure our investments are able to be delivered in a way that the Commonwealth has asked of the state, and that’s what we’ll continue to do. We’ve put more money into North East Link. We’re partnering very closely on trying to get progress on Melbourne Airport rail. We’ve got the money for Suburban Rail Loop. And we’ll continue to invest in Victoria.

One of the things I’ve also been at pains to really make sure we do alongside the Victorian Government is make sure that we actually get that maintenance money for our national highways back up. Previous government froze indexation for national highway road maintenance back in 2013, that was a cut to road maintenance funding and that’s resulted in significant backlog in terms of maintenance right the way across particularly our regional road network. We’ve reindexed that and backdated it. So we’ve fixed the cut and we’re starting to see a lot of that money rolling out. But regional roads, metro, all of that is what we’re working on with the Victorian government.

JOURNALIST: And just on the airport, the CEO of the High Speed Rail Authority said recently that they’d like to see Melbourne Airport be the first stop on that. And to do that, he said- or the airport thinks they still need an underground station. What do you make of those comments from the High Speed Rail Agency?

CATHERINE KING: Well, Tim, the CEO of High Speed Rail, is concentrating on and I’ve asked him, as he’s one of my agencies, to concentrate on Newcastle to Sydney. That is where the focus is to really get that investment moving. We’re doing the geotechnical work at the moment to really look at that. I’ll have a business case before me. I think everybody wants high speed rail, but really what we’re focusing on is that Newcastle to Sydney bit, and then whether it goes beyond that is really a matter for investment decisions by government. But we are really focusing on that Newcastle to Sydney. I understand that there are- everyone, Canberra wants it, Ballarat would like it as well to be frank. But that’s really not where we’re concentrating at the moment. Newcastle to Sydney.

JOURNALIST: Could- well, could there potentially in the next couple of decades be a line from Melbourne to Brisbane?

CATHERINE KING: All of that obviously in terms of the scoping more broadly will occur. But really, our effort is to look at where we think it is the most economically viable at the moment in terms of population density, and particularly that Newcastle to Sydney. And you’ve also got to remember that high speed rail is not just about faster rail. It is actually about developing economic zones outside of your CBDs. So making it possible for that terrific Hunter region in New South Wales to really develop in a different way. I had the chance to go and have a look at High Speed Rail 2 in Birmingham in the UK about a year and a half ago now, and one of the things that has been really noticeable about what’s happened there is you’re starting to see some of the really big banks move their headquarters out of London into Birmingham for the first time, developing those great jobs out into the regional areas. And that’s really, for me, what high speed rail offers from Sydney to Newcastle. Whether it expands beyond there, I think really my point of view is we’ve tried to go too big too quickly, we really need to make sure we do the bits we think we can do first.

JOURNALIST: Have the talks with the airport on the Melbourne Airport Rail Link got better in the last couple of months?

CATHERINE KING: Yeah, look, absolutely. And I think really what we did- so, we got Neil Scales to come and have a look at how can we actually progress this really important project. And the three things that the report told us was the first that we needed to do is the Sunshine Rail precinct. And so that is going ahead. The Victorian Government and the Albanese Labor Government are now developing Sunshine really as the Southern Cross of the West. And that will be a major, major transport hub for the whole of the west of the state, and so that work has now started. We- the second thing they asked us to do was to redo the traffic management- the traffic from Tullamarine, because Infrastructure Australia was saying no, it hadn’t reached capacity yet. I think if anyone’s driven along there trying to get to the airport, you know it has. So we’re redoing that work now. And then the third thing was it said really clearly if the airport wanted an underground station, then it needed to do the business case for that. The airport has now come and said that they’re happy to do an overground station, and negotiations have recommenced with the Victorian Government around, is there land acquisition needed? What is that going to look like? So that’s ongoing.

JOURNALIST: Do you expect the state to go through the normal process in compensating the airport for that land?

CATHERINE KING: Well, that’ll be a matter of the discussions between the airport and the Victorian Government. Obviously they are- the lease holders, they have the lease of the airport and the Victorian State Government is wanting to build on that leased land so that negotiation will have to continue. But we are getting on with it. We’re really doing the Sunshine Precinct.

JOURNALIST: [Talks over] You own the land though. Can you come in over the top, though, between …

CATHERINE KING: I’m also the planning minister for the airport as well. So really those negotiations are happening. But I think from my understanding is that they’re progressing well. There’s much more open dialogue between the airport and the Victorian State Government, and that’s a good thing.

JOURNALIST: I just a couple of questions to Josh. Thanks. Josh, Peter Dutton said yesterday that Labor’s abandoned the Jewish community. Given the UN vote last night, what do you- what’s your response to Peter Dutton?

JOSH BURNS: One thing I’ve done since becoming a Member for Macnamara is always try and put the interests of the Jewish community above politics. I’ve stood with Liberal MPs on a number of occasions. Even only a couple of weeks ago, Dave Sharma and I stood when there was a number of people who came into Woollahra in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, graffitied cars and restaurants and homes, and I thought it was really important that Dave and I stood together in order to send a message that actually, the interests of minority communities in this country shouldn’t be one where they’re pitted against one political party or another. And I’ll continue to do that all throughout my career. I’m not here to try and make the Jewish community a partisan issue, I actually think it’s not in the interests of our community. So I’ll continue to do everything I can to combat anti-Semitism, to stand up and be a strong voice for the Jewish community inside government. And I’ll also work right across the Parliament, whether it be with the Liberal Party or the independents, to ensure that the community has the best access and the best representation and a collaborative approach in government.

JOURNALIST: So you support the Government’s vote in the UN last night?

JOSH BURNS: As the Foreign Minister made clear, we don’t get everything we want in these United Nations votes. There were actually three different votes. And what we do want, though, is we want peace. We want to see an agreement where people on the ground are able to come together and find a negotiated outcome. We saw that in Lebanon. We saw that only two weeks ago, where the Israelis and the Lebanese were able to negotiate a peaceful agreement. And it’s so important. I mean, it’s fragile, but it is the only thing that will get the long-term solution of a peaceful resolution for the region through this. And we want to see hostages returned. It’s been over a year. It’s devastating for families, and we want to see the Palestinians able to rebuild their lives as well.

JOURNALIST: But do you have any personal reservations about this vote given your support of the Israeli community?

JOSH BURNS: Well, look, I support a two-state solution. Of course I do. I think it’s in Israel’s long-term interest, and I think it’s in the Palestinians’ long-term interest. We all want to see peace, and we all want to see a resolution so that the devastation of the last 12 months comes to an end. And anything that we can do as a country to help support efforts towards that negotiated peaceful agreement, and Australia can be a constructive player in that as well.

JOURNALIST: Thanks all for your time.

CATHERINE KING: Thank you, very much.