The Hon Catherine King MP
Transcript - ABC Newcastle - Breakfast with Jenny Marchant
JENNY MARCHANT: It’s a quarter past seven. Hope your day is going well.
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JENNY MARCHANT: What is that?
DAN COX: One more time, I think.
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JENNY MARCHANT: Is it thunder?
DAN COX: That’s the bullet train in Japan going through a station at 250 kilometres an hour. So you might just think high-speed rail is a reality overseas. It’s actually a tourist destination for me. It’s a bucket list item. I cannot wait to go to Japan and give their high-speed rail a go.
JENNY MARCHANT: After decades of discussion, though, the Federal Government is working on planning for a high-speed rail network along the east coast, and the section from Newcastle to Sydney is the first priority. The Government has already created a High Speed Rail Authority to try to get things in motion here. And it continues today as it searches for the CEO. The Minister for Infrastructure, Catherine King, is in Newcastle today as part of that.
DAN COX: Good morning, Minister.
CATHERINE KING: Good morning. Lovely to be with you.
DAN COX: Thank you for joining us. Who are you looking for?
CATHERINE KING: Well, we’re looking for a CEO who has got delivery experience of a rail project or large-scale infrastructure project. So we’re looking both internationally and domestically as well. But also someone who understands that this is really part of the economic future of the east coast and particularly the way in which high-speed rail will evolve between Newcastle and Sydney. It’s really very much about the continuing transformation of Newcastle, because, you know, I’ve recently just been over to the UK to look at High Speed Rail 1, which is the Eurotunnel and High Speed Rail 2, which is going to Birmingham and really looking at how that’s been working over there and how the delivery has worked there or not worked in some cases. And it’s really economically transforming the way Birmingham operates, for example.
So it’s an important project. It’s going to take us time. One of the lessons we know from projects like this is you’ve got to get all of the governance, the planning, all of that right before you have, you know, pollies, as we’re wont to do, sitting there you know, trying to get media digging out soils and cutting ribbons and all of those things. So, you know, it mightn’t be exciting work but it’s the work I’ve got to do to really make sure this project is grounded in good delivery, good governance, good planning work so that we can actually get high speed rail here in Australia.
JENNY MARCHANT: When will we be able to catch high-speed rail between Newcastle and Sydney?
CATHERINE KING: I don’t want to put a time frame on it yet because we’re in really early days. I mean, this obviously has been a project I think very dear to the Prime Minister’s heart. He started the initial business case back when we were last in government over a decade ago. There was work commenced then. It’s pretty much not had anything done with it for a decade. So we’re determined to really start the work to actually get this into reality here. But it is going to take a long time. You know for example, High Speed Rail 1, once you’ve got all the planning approvals done, once you’ve got all of that work done, the actual construction can take a number of years. But we’re not there yet. But it’s a long-term project that can take 10 to 15 years to build, but we’re not even right at that stage yet.
DAN COX: Minister, you’ll understand that the phrase “high-speed rail” is thrown around a bit as almost a joke, a description for something that will never happen here. We’ve been discussing it for 40 years. We could be discussing for another 40, and not having a time frame only adds to that. Why should locals here believe it’s ever going to happen?
CATHERINE KING: Well, we’re determined that it is going to happen. This is a project, as I said, that is very dear both to my heart but also to the Prime Minister’s heart. We’ve legislated the High Speed Rail Authority to start with, so actually established the board and the mechanisms to get this done. We’ve committed already $500 million to that early planning work, land acquisition, actually getting the authority up and running. We’re starting one of the big tasks of the new board and the new CEO is to establish the financing mechanisms. And, again, that was something I was looking at in the UK. It’s been largely funded, High Speed Rail 1, through pension funds. So over Canadian pension funds, in fact. So we’ll be looking to the private sector, we’ll be looking to superannuation, we’re looking at the financing mechanisms.
So all of that stuff is really right in its infancy, but we’re really determined that this project is an important one for the nation, and we’ve got to start somewhere. And legislating it, it means there’s bipartisan support through the parliament.
DAN COX: Minister, will you be sitting in a high-speed rail train carriage before you die?
CATHERINE KING: I’m very determined. I’m very determined that that will be the case. I’ve got the job of starting this project. I doubt very much, as much as I would like to be a minister in my later years, I think the chances of that happening given the vagaries of politics and parliament, but I’ll certainly be the minister who’s starting it, getting – making sure the direction, you know, that we’ve got the right people, the right planning, the right financing mechanisms, actually getting all of that delivery part right before we can start building it. But I’m determined that certainly I’ll be on it at some point in my life.
JENNY MARCHANT: Is there a chance, though, that as you work through this process and details become firmer that there may not be a business case, that the cost of building this may not be worth it?
CATHERINE KING: Well, I think to some extent with these projects the first thing I’d say is the reason we’re focusing on Sydney to Newcastle and central coast is the density of population and the amount of people who are currently travelling and paying, you know, massive tolls to get to work in Sydney, although this is not just about Sydney. This is actually about increasing economic activity through the Hunter and Newcastle, so actually bringing big corporations, making sure that if people are looking for a destination for their business that Newcastle and the Hunter region is actually viable because you’ve got that great connection into the CBD of Sydney, but that that may not necessarily be where the flow comes. It might be all coming from Sydney to Newcastle.
So, you know, we’re very confident in terms of the population. But also with these large-scale projects it is actually important that you have a vision about what you want the country to look like, what you actually want to see develop. And this is one of those projects where we’re very determined that it get done. We think that from an economic point of view in terms of the way in which population growth is emerging along the east coast and the possibility as well of we have to decarbonise transport. We’ve actually got one of the busiest flight routes in the country if not the world between Melbourne and Sydney, and if we’re going to get planes outs of the sky and we’re going to decarbonise aviation, train travel is one of those ways that we’ve actually got to do it.
DAN COX: Minister, can the Federal Government do this without private investment?
CATHERINE KING: Well, we’ll have a look at that. I think my view is that we are going to need to look at whether it’s superannuation funds that we are going to have to look at something like that given the costs that are involved. But it’s really early days yet. That’s certainly the way in which the High Speed Rail 1 was built, was with pension funds, with providing a concession to – 30‑year concession, for the operation but also de-risking the project with backing from the government as well. So we’re going to have to look at all of that. But this project certainly – it’s not going to be cheap. I don’t want to pretend that, but I think looking at private sector investment and looking at that sort of financing mechanism again will be important. And that’s one of the roles of the board and the new CEO.
JENNY MARCHANT: Is there a risk with these long-term projects which you would see a lot of as the Minister for Infrastructure that political leadership can change a lot in the lifetime of even planning for something like this. And I know you won’t enjoy the thought, but there could be a new government in a couple of years, couldn’t there that may not want to continue this. There is nothing to say that the planning you put in now will still be a thing in 10 years, is there?
CATHERINE KING: Well, it’s why it was important to legislate the High Speed Rail Authority so it actually is a body that is now there in law so that that’s the first thing. And that had bipartisan support going through the parliament. And we’ll bring other political parties along the journey with us on high-speed rail, letting them know where we’re up to with it. And so that will be important. But it’s also a very good reason why you need to have long-term Labor governments in power for a period of – for a long period of time so that we can actually really make sure that these projects that are important to people and important to places like the Hunter are absolutely embedded so that when you do have a change of government you actually can’t – you can’t change the project. So long-term Labor governments do that.
JENNY MARCHANT: It’s a decision for the electorate obviously at the next election.
CATHERINE KING: Exactly. Of course.
DAN COX: Catherine King is the Minister for Infrastructure. Before we let you go, we’ve been talking about the damage to the Brig O’Johnston Bridge at Clarence Town. The mayor has called on State and Federal Government to fund a new bridge, one that won’t be damaged when a truck goes across it. Is it a possibility, Minister?
CATHERINE KING: Certainly I’m happy to hear from the council – I’m not seeing them today – about what’s happened with this project. I think there is already some money on the table, but it sounds as though the project is going to need a lot more than the money that’s on the table currently. So I’ll be happy to hear from the council as well as the New South Wales Government about that particular project.
Part of the reason we’re actually undertaking an infrastructure review of the pipeline of projects that are in there at the moment is I want to make sure we’ve actually –where we are delivering a project that we’ve got a really good, clear idea about what the costs are. And unfortunately at the moment I don’t have good oversight on a lot of the projects that are in the pipeline about that. So that’s what part of the review is about.
But I’m certainly happy to talk to the council about what’s happened there. It sounds like that’s been an unfortunate accident, one that people have predicted might happen. So I’m happy to have a chat to them about it.
JENNY MARCHANT: Minister, thank you very much.
CATHERINE KING: Very good to be with you this morning.
JENNY MARCHANT: Catherine King is the Minister for Infrastructure, in town today talking high speed rail, road projects, too. Some more on that to come.