Transcript - interview - ABC Radio Northern Tasmania, Breakfast with Belinda King

BELINDA KING (HOST): Now, with a number of large-scale developments happening in our state, universities, a certain stadium, just to name a couple, a visit from the relevant federal minister seems only fitting. Joining us this morning is Catherine King, our Federal Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development of Australia. And definitely no relation to me, Catherine King, good morning.

CATHERINE KING (MINISTER): Good morning. No, as far as I know, we are no relation despite the surname.

BELINDA KING: No, so Aunty Catherine, sorry, sorry. Catherine, you are here to launch a grants program in regional Australia. The grants are between half a million and $15 million. That's what's on the table and available. What type of projects would you expect these grants to support?

CATHERINE KING: So, the Growing Regions Program, which is open for expressions of interest now from councils and not for profits, is really about liveability. So, community infrastructure, arts projects in terms of built infrastructure, sporting projects, it might be projects at airports. So, improving that transport infrastructure or those links for your major airport into your economy, those are the sorts of projects that the Growing Regions Fund will look at. And there is some matching funding requirements, but depending on the size of the council, those matching requirements go down. So, we wanted to make sure smaller councils had opportunities to be able to put in expressions of interest first. We've done it that way because we think a lot of councils spend a lot of time on applications that may not necessarily go ahead. So, an expression of interest first and then they'll be invited to apply if the project's ready and the panel who's looking at them decides that investments should happen.

BELINDA KING: So, these grants are particularly being targeted to councils, to local councils, to host these projects, to broker them.

CATHERINE KING: Yeah, we found that local governments are a really trusted partner in being able to deliver these projects, being able to get them in on budget, be able to pull together other parties to contribute to projects, but also really deliver them well, but also not for profit organisations as well. It's about physical infrastructure, which is focused on liveability, and it can be small projects from the $500,000 right the way up to a $15 million project, which is sort of the larger scale.

BELINDA KING: You mentioned, an expression of interest project and then a panel to assess it, to see if it is ready to go to a formal grant application process. We, of course, have had in recent years a lot of questions raised around grant funding in the regions. What sort of confidence can we have in the panel that's been assembled this time around for these grants that there won't be a repeat of past concerns?

CATHERINE KING: Yeah, so we've done it a little differently. In the past, under the previous government, there was a panel of cabinet ministers who met basically in secret with no secretariat support. This time around, I've actually established a party, a multiparty panel, so there's members of the Liberal Party, National Party, Labor Party and independents on that panel. And they are at the moment receiving probity advice from the grants hub, which is telling them and explaining what their obligations are under the grant guidelines, but also how to deal with conflicts of interest and those sorts of things.

I won't ever get to see the expressions of interest that multiparty panel will make the decisions about what should go up to application, applications will come in and then my department will do the assessments and make recommendations to me. And ultimately, if I take decisions not to follow those recommendations, I need to report that publicly and give reasons as to why. So, that's a very different process than before. It doesn't take away the discretion I have as a Minister. But I need to explain if I am using my discretion differently against recommendations, then I'll need to explain that publicly.

BELINDA KING: So, let's have a little look at the Newnham university site. I believe the plan there is still being finalised, but some developments are already confirmed, such as expanding the maritime college headquarters of the Institute of Agriculture and Affordable Housing. Can you give us some extra info on the status of these projects and when they're expected to get underway?

CATHERINE KING: Well, any projects that we funded as part of sort of election commitments and that might include projects that came out of the Education Minister's portfolio, they're making their way through, again, application processes to proceed and they are really important projects. One of the other programs we've announced is a precincts program. Really been very impressed of the work of UTAS moving in Launceston and just seeing what you can do with areas of your city that may not necessarily be really actively used. And so, we're looking also at a precincts program that can really tie together things like education precincts, industrial precincts, the way in which a town or a city might be used. So, there's also ability for people to apply under that.

BELINDA KING: There have been, of course, increased costs around materials and construction. Is there sort of an inbuilt bit of fat or safety within the grants programs to deal with those rising costs?

CATHERINE KING: Look, there really sort of isn't, we don't have a lot of capacity when you've got a capped amount of money. And so, we're being very cautious in making sure with grants programs that they are really ready now that there has been a lot of detailed work done into the actual costs rather than what I've seen from some of the grants program in the past that I'm having to deal of the legacy with is that often they really weren't ready and sometimes not ready for a long period of time, but they still got a grant and so we're now so, for example, I've got one that I've had to deal with from 2016. It's a long time ago and of course I've got grants where there weren't actually people who to give the grant to. I've got grants where there wasn't any land available or no land. There's sort of a hope that it might be purchased sometime in the future. And that's meant that I've had to cancel some of the previous government's grant programs. As I said, going back quite some time, which is not an easy decision. I hate taking money away from any project or any community, but if I can't deliver it.

So, what I'm really instilling and trying to instil in a discipline of if we say something shovel ready, it means it's shovel ready and we've got a pretty good idea of the costs. I know that some of the supply chain costs are easing, so that's a good thing for being able to get more bang for your buck out of the money that we have got, but we also need to cut the costs of the money that we've got. We're all having to be really careful about our budgets and the Commonwealth is no different.

BELINDA KING: You mentioned the developments, UTAS coming into the CBD of Launceston. You're here today, you're going to have an opportunity to take a look?

CATHERINE KING: Yeah, I'm going today to do a bit of a walkthrough of some of the new buildings that are nearly, nearly finished. I think they're opening sometime later this month, so hopefully I'll be back to get a chance to do that. I've already previously gone through the library, which is an extraordinary building and open to the community. I really encourage people to go and have a look, sit and learn. It's an amazing, just an amazing space and I think that's the great thing that universities can do when they've got this sort of precinct investment can really change the shape of the way a city operates. When I was down there last time, there was an older seniors group doing a big walkthrough and that was their exercise time. They used that as their recreation facility. And so having a look at some of the new buildings, I'll be doing that this morning.

BELINDA KING: Yes. More than shovel ready. I think they're ribbon cutting ready nearly.

CATHERINE KING: I think they're pretty close.

BELINDA KING: Indeed. Catherine King thank you very much for joining us this morning.

CATHERINE KING: Really lovely to talk to you, Belinda.

BELINDA KING: Thank you. Catherine King and she is the Federal Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development of Australia.