Transcript - Minister King ABC Radio Far North interview with Charlie McKillop

HOST, CHARLIE MCKILLOP: $150 million for the next stage of developing the Cairns Marine Precinct, the so called common user facility. But what we've been hearing since the election is just how tight the fiscal situation is with the budget. It's been a burning question. Will the new Labor government be able to deliver on its promises? Federal Minister for Infrastructure Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, Catherine King is in Cairns and has been good enough to drop by to speak to you, G'day Minister.

MINISTER FOR INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORT, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT, CATHERINE KING: Hi Charlie, how are you?

MCKILLOP: I'm pretty good. I'm glad to be able to track you down on a busy day. This was one of the real points of difference during the Federal Election Campaign, Labor was going to put $150 million into the port and the Liberal National Party actually argued against it. They said that this money will never be spent because you hadn't done the planning and even the basic costings, what is your plan and how likely are you to be able to fund it?

KING: So we're confirming today that the Albanese Labor government's $150 million for the Cairns Marine Precinct will be in the budget next week. That of course matches the $150 million from the Queensland Labor government. And that means this project will get built. This is really about diversifying the economy of Cairns, we know, tourism is incredibly important here. But we've got to grow jobs in other sectors as well, if we're going to sustain the Cairns economy. And for me, this project absolutely allows new marine jobs, it allows the opportunity for people to be trained here in marine engineering, it provides really good skilled quality jobs in this region. And I think, again, you know, we know anyone who works in regional development knows, is you've got to look at what are the natural advantages of your community and grow the jobs in those areas, in those industries that are already here. And the marine precinct is very much part of that.

MCKILLOP: But the Cairns port, by definition is not an easy place to develop. It's basically a swamp or a mangrove. How are you going to go about getting the approvals, getting the land tenure that you need, and hopefully getting it all built?

KING: Well, we've done big projects here before, the 1970s International Airport really important to actually change the whole of Far North Queensland. So we've done projects like this before, and I'm pretty sure the Queensland State Government and we're used to doing that, used to big scale infrastructure and complex projects. So we deliver that all the time. So you know, really, we'll be working in partnership with the Queensland State Government to actually get this done. This is a project that Advance Cairns, the Cairns business community, the Council are all told us very clearly was desperately needed here in Cairns, because we've got to start to diversify the economy because we try and keep having this sort of boom cycle for tourism. And then we've had economic shocks and then the economy really goes into decline. You've got to try and really grow jobs in all of the sectors across the across this region. It's too important not to.

MCKILLOP: Minister, thank you very much for making time for us on a busy day.

KING: Lovely to be with you.