Transcript - Minister Catherine King radio interview - Flow FM with Rikki Lambert

LAMBERT: Great to be joined soon after the Federal Budget by the Transport, Infrastructure, Regional Development and Local Government Minister have I got them all Catherine King,

KING: You have got them all. And I'm the Member for Ballarat.

LAMBERT: Yes, importantly, we might talk about Ballarat a bit later on. But first of all, the Federal Budget look, we talked about this spreadsheet, the green and pink options that some National MPs had to push their projects up in the Building Better Regions Fund, that's gone. Now you flagged it was going to go what is that being replaced by?

KING: Yeah, so we have and I, you know, thank you for providing us with sort of some more colour and movement about how the previous government was actually dealing with regional grants. So we have cleaned that up, we said, we're not going to proceed with the Building Better Regions Fund, Round 6 after the Australian National Audit Office Report, it really was impossible for us to do so. We will introduce two new grants programs, one the Growing Regions Fund, which will be a competitive fund for local government, and not-for-profit organizations to apply for. And there will also be a Precincts and Partnerships Program, which will be for those larger scale projects, which are sort of transformational industrial precincts, education precincts, retail precincts or, where councils want to bring together libraries and childcare centres and senior citizen centres into the one community hub, in your town, those precincts or be funded through that Precincts and Partnerships Program.

We're working on the guidelines at the moment, we obviously want a much more transparent and fairer system. We don't want secret ministerial panels and guidelines that no one knows about being used to, basically all colour coded spreadsheets. So we're cleaning all of that up. And that program is obviously only a couple of months till Christmas. But we'll do that in the New Year, we don't want people to have to try and frantically get applications together over the Christmas period.

LAMBERT: Just on that subject of putting applications in. And we've seen press releases from counsellors such as in the Barossa and other parts of regional South Australia disappointed that BBRF is gone. I guess first of all, where would you encourage them to direct that disappointment? And do they get a leg up in the applications for the first round of these projects?

KING: No one will get a leg up everyone should be treated fairly and equally and. BBRF Round 6, I think it closed late last year, so around December 21. When we got into government, no single assessment had been done of any project under that round at all. It was oversubscribed by about by about $1.5 billion. So the chances of anyone getting a particular project, certainly in a seat like mine in Ballarat was pretty much zero, I would have thought from that. But equally I do recognise a lot of time, energy and effort went into those applications. Obviously, some of the information that's been provided in those applications will be able to be used in a new application to the Growing Regions Program.

But again, I want to make sure regions and projects are treated on their merit, not on the party of the politician that happens to have been elected to that particular seat. So we've had to clean it up. I think it's disappointing that it was used in the way that it was. And as I said, after the Australian National Audit Office, really we can't you know, whilst and for those who've been in seats that have been great beneficiaries, there may be some disappointment. I can tell you for seats, you know, where it hasn't been, there's great relief that in fact, hopefully there's a fair chance of actually being able to attract funding under this program.

LAMBERT: Just on the day of the Budget had was going to be announced that night, Dan Tehan the Member for Wanon defended that the claim the fund wasn't being rorted, but also said he was concerned that the replacement program wouldn't have the same scale that the BBRF had in total dollar terms. You've mentioned BBRF was heavily oversubscribed, are we talking about replacement programs with the same amount of funding or even more available?

KING: So, it's around about the same amount, there's a billion dollars over three years. So in the Growing Regions Program, it's about the same amount as BBRF. But we've added this Precincts and Partnerships Program for some of the larger scale projects, which actually couldn't be funded under BBRF. So it's around about the same scale of funding. But what we're also doing is having more transparent guidelines, we're taking some time to work with some of the big regional bodies and local government to actually look at how the guidelines might be drafted, to better fit the way in which councils are operating at the moment.

But also, what we'll have is a two part process where we'll ask for expressions of interest first, where a bit of information has to be given but not a full detailed application. And then people will be invited or councils will be invited to apply so that you're not getting, you know, we're not getting hundreds of applications that are not ready, but where councils have put in huge amounts of energy and effort, only to find that they're not they're not going to get funded in any event. So we're trying to narrow it down to those projects that are absolutely and utterly investment ready for the Commonwealth and I think that's, that's an important distinction to make from the way in which BBRF was operating.

LAMBERT: Now, moving across to the transport task and infrastructure, it is a big one in regional Australia, particularly with the flooding impacts, just how much of the money in the Budget is going to go towards rebuilding or maybe flood proofing infrastructure in regional areas.

KING: Yes, so there's a substantial amount of money through the Disaster Ready program, and also through the National Disaster Agency, it's a new agency that we've seen operating really, that we've established through the floods, we've really sort of taken the best of what we know from some of the state-based systems, and you've seen that in action, I think the Commonwealth has been much quicker at getting payments out the door, it's been much quicker at announcing council areas that are eligible for payments and much quicker getting defence force and other volunteers on the ground. We've also announced in the budget gearing up through the National Disaster Agency, 5,000 more volunteers as well through that agency. So you'll see calls for people that are across the country to start thinking about whether they might like to do that, because we know, we're not going to always be able to rely on the ADF. And we need to be able to replace our pretty exhausted volunteers on the ground from other parts of the country. So it might be from cities that train up and need to be able to be deployed to other areas where there's not from where there's not flooding, to where there is flooding or into those areas to actually assist.

So that's part of it, what we've also done is really changed, previously, when you were eligible for disaster payments, you had to build back like for like, which is just a nonsense, because what we want to be able to do is build more resilient infrastructure. So particularly councils will be able to build back better, we're also doing a major review of all of the way disaster payments work. I think if you talk to any local government, you'll say, look, it just does not work on the ground in the way that it should. There's a whole lot of complaints that we get about how long it takes for councils to get payments to do the work, not being able to use their own workforces, which will be quite often quicker and cheaper to get some of the work done. So you'll see some changes over time that that's that is going to take a little bit of time. But we are absolutely determined to try and do better when it comes to disaster recovery. But more importantly, building that resilience into communities.

In terms of more broadly, you know, I obviously someone who lives and drives on country roads all the time, just the state of them at the moment, the weather has just absolutely taken them out right the way across the community. And it's not just in Victoria, it's everywhere. In South Australia, in New South Wales, and you name it, the roads are pretty shocking at the moment. So we've put some more money into local councils, we've topped up the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure fund to give councils more money to look try and look after local roads. But I think it's really hard at the moment with the weather still the way it is, you don't want to be out there putting gravel in potholes that then just gets washed away. Again, we've really got to get this done properly. And sometimes we're going to have to wait a little bit to do that until the weather settles down.

LAMBERT: Well, I see that the former government I think in the later days had put up the heavy vehicle user charge to try and increase the amount of how trucks are contributing to the cost of maintaining the roads. And why are we not looking here more heavily at putting freight on rail, I mean, the rain also means a bumper harvest and big heavy trucks on those roads making the potholes?

KING: Well, absolutely and getting more freight onto rail is important. We know the freight task is growing. Of course, there are some areas where that's just simply not possible. So we're certainly working our way through that trying to make sure that Inland Rail actually works and actually works as part of the national freight task is one of the jobs that I've got to do and I've just recently announced Kerry Schott to come and take undertake a significant review of where the Inland Rail Project is up to, because whilst it's been benefiting greatly communities along the route as it's being built, what I've got to do is make sure it contributes to the national freight task and rail has a really critical role to play in relation to that.

LAMBERT: Well, in Victoria, all roads sort of lead to Melbourne or the southern coastline, not the Inland Rail. Murray Basin Rail didn't get any funding here. And I guess it's just been this long running sort of impasse. But wouldn't that make a huge difference in regional Victoria?

KING: Well, again, it can. This is a matter of trying to negotiate with the Victorian State Government in relation to that project. It's been, I guess, a long running issue through those communities in particular, and we'll continue to talk with the Victorian State Government about how we might work on that project.

LAMBERT : But it does seem to sort of go a long way around Ballarat is that because of the existing rail and gauging?

KING: Look from memory I can't remember, I think it is around the gauging, like the gauging is the problem. I think there's also its interaction with passenger rail and all of those sorts of things from memory as well. And this is a long, long history with this particular project. There's also the sort of way in which I really interacts with Geelong, all of that as well. So it's a big complex piece of work. But again, it's really something I have to work with the Victorian State Government on.

LAMBERT: Just lastly, sorry, the South Australian Opposition had a grizzle about the what they argued was an inequity in terms of spending into the South Australian transit, freight, heavy vehicles and roads, what is being spent in South Australia under this budget?

KING: The first thing I'd say is that I mean, I must have got the balance, right. Because I think everyone's saying we didn't get enough. It's not just one state that's saying that, I think all states have done pretty well in terms of their population ask, but it certainly in terms of what was new in terms of the election campaigns, and so there is existing funding that was already in the budget for South Australia. But in terms of the new election commitments, we've put over $400 million into the national freight highway upgrade program in South Australia. And that includes the Dukes, the Stuarts and the Augusta highway works. We've also obviously that then feeds in these programs that we're linking in, up in the Northern Territory and over in Western Australia as well. So there's over I think $1.8 billion overall on actual national freight roads to upgrade those roads, but  South Australia and the South Australian Government, under Tom Koutsantonis and Peter Malinauskas lobbied very, very heavily for the Augusta and the Stuart and the Dukes to get funding and that's what we've done in this budget.

LAMBERT: Minister a whole lot to unpack from the federal budget. Really appreciate your generous time today for us.

KING: It is always very good to be with you.