Transcript - Minister Catherine King - Doorstop interview

JOURNALIST: Will the total infrastructure spend be roughly the same as the former Government's? Is it more about spending in different places than the change of the money?

KING: Yeah, absolutely Greg. That's what you'll see in the budget is that what we've tried to do is by working very closely with states and territories, looked at the pipeline of infrastructure investment. And try to make sure it lines up with the capacity to actually deliver it. What we saw from the previous government was constantly, this sort of fanfare about an announcement, but the reality is the delivery is taking time. And of course, at the moment with the significant capacity constraints we've got on construction, labour shortages. You know, if you're trying to get a tradie for a renovation at the moment just how hard that is. Well try and do that 20 times over for a large road or rail project. That's really what we've done in terms of the pipeline, but the infrastructure investment pipeline remains strong. It's an important part of making sure our economy and money keeps flowing through our economy, whether it's in our regions or our cities.

JOURNALIST: Minister, the Nationals say that the regions have been targeted and it will flow through to kitchen tables with higher food prices. What's your response to that?

KING: What a load of bunkum frankly, from the National Party and I'm not going to take lectures from Bridget McKenzie, the author of the colour coded spreadsheets in terms of regional funding. What you'll see in the Budget is significant investment in the regions whether it's from Cairns Marine Precinct, which I was at just last week, whether it is in fact the Central Australian Package, actually building a new art gallery in Alice Springs, right the way across the regions, you'll see our election commitments, investing money and money flowing through the regions. What you'll also see is two new regional programs to make sure that going forward local councils have certainty of an annual, competitive, transparent grants process that they can apply for, but they know that it's not the lottery that we saw under the previous government under the Building Better Regions Fund or the Community Development Grants fund, that there's actually transparency about decision making for that funding.

JOURNALIST: The money you have announced for Victoria's Suburban Rail Loop still needs to go through the land transport act process. That's an assessment that you need to make. But you've said already that money is committed because it's an election promise. So what happens if you go through that process and ultimately, it determines that it's not a good use of money?

KING: Well the first thing is with the Suburban Rail Loop. I mean, I do think this is transformational for the state of Victoria and particularly for the way in which people move around the great city of Melbourne and the greater suburbs of Melbourne. It actually develops, as you saw in Western Australia with METRONET, actually using the railway stations as significant precincts for jobs growth, for retail, for housing, and that's really what Suburban Rail Loop is about. Of course, our commitment is $2 billion dollars to the early works of the first component of that, it will still go to Infrastructure Australia as an overall project for assessment. And of course, it also has to go through the National Land Transport Act. I'm committed to the project, but of course there are processes that also have to be put in place as we're spending taxpayer money.

JOURNALIST: Can you shine a little light on where some of these cuts will be from the Morrison Budget early this year?

KING: Yeah. So certainly, there's very few cuts coming out of the Infrastructure Investment Program. And we've certainly also recommitted a substantial amount of money from money that we're taking out of the regions to put back absolutely into the regions, but it's fair to say things like the commuter car park. So you've all heard about that, you've reported on that. The Australian National Audit Office investigated that. Now these were car parks that we had, you know, where there were no train stations, where there's no land available. And we're now finding if you actually if I was to build them, they would cost hundreds of millions of dollars more to actually build. Now that's not good value for taxpayer money. So largely a lot of the car parts, some of the Urban Congestion Fund.

JOURNALIST: Will there be more than ten?

KING: You'll see that, the budget will report on those. Of course, we saw the previous government had to cancel a number of those as well because they frankly, it was a program that was in the lead up to the previous election campaign. They spread the money out. They didn't talk to local councils, didn't talk to state governments, and now of course, we're struggling to deliver them.

JOURNALIST: The Nationals claim that the Rockhampton Ring Road is on the chopping block as well. That was a promise that the Shorten Labor opposition made back in 2019. Can you commit to that project today?

KING: Yeah, the money that $823 million for the Rockhampton Ring Road is in the Budget. It remains in the Budget. There are no cuts in fact to infrastructure investment programs for roads in Queensland at all. No cuts at all. That project will happen but of course what we're seeing right the way across the country is significant capacity constraints and I don't want to pretend to people that it's going to be delivered tomorrow. I don't want to pretend that, I want to deliver the project, I want to do that in partnership as I need to with the Rockhampton Ring Road. But we're being realistic about the timeframes for delivery.

JOURNALIST: Maroochydore Rail and Great Western tunnel, is that the same?

KING: Maroochydore in Queensland, still in the Budget. Absolutely still in the Budget. The Great Western tunnel, we're not funding that, we're funding the two ends of the tunnel. We want to work with the New South Wales Government to make sure that corridor actually works for the people of the Blue Mountains and we'll work with them on that project.

JOURNALIST: Can you give any sort of, shed any light on how many projects will have to be reprofiled because of these, you know, delays and shortages and workers? Do you have a figure that you can give us?

KING: Again you'll see in the budget, the overall figure about the reprofiling but there are some 800 projects that are in the infrastructure investment pipeline. We're committed to delivering those, but to delivering those in a way that is sustainable for the Budget, actually works for our construction sector and actually drives productivity and so you'll see a lot of those announcements in the Budget.

JOURNALIST: Less than half, more than half?

KING: Good try, good try.