Transcript - Minister King interview with Murray Jones

HOST, MURRAY JONES: We have an announcement happening a little bit later on this morning, Catherine King, the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government is in town. And of course, there has been some talk just over the last couple of days about some impacts or some potential impacts on some of the money that was allocated during the election to some of the key projects in our region and in other regions right across the country. But thankfully Catherine King is here to confirm today that certainly some quite, you know quite significant money for the Marine Precinct. And of course, CQ University is in the upcoming budget but this morning, she's here to actually confirm that that is the case. Minister Catherine King, good morning and welcome to Cairns.

MINISTER FOR INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORT, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT, CATHERINE KING: Good morning, Murray. It's so lovely to be here again. It's booming. It's amazing the difference since I was here in the election, the amount of tourists you've got in the place again, it's really noticeable.

JONES: It really is busy except for when you get you know you get hungry and want to find a spot in a restaurant that can be a bit that's one of the prices we pay but it's worthwhile. 

KING: One of the perennial challenges. Well, I went to the I went to the night markets last night and I had a very nice beef stir fry. Thanks very much, it was it was beautiful as always.  

JONES: Excellent. Well look as I said in the intro there confirmation despite some of the chats that we've had actually here on 4CA here over the last couple of days, and we will come back to that. But the Marine precinct, in particular that 5000 tonne ship lift which is an incredibly important in a piece of infrastructure for us to be able to actually do things here in the region. That has been confirmed. So tell me little bit more about the announcement that you're making today.

KING: Yeah, look, this is a really exciting project for Cairns it's $150 million from the Commonwealth $150 million from the state to build this Cairns Marine Precinct which includes the 5000 tonne ship lift, improvements to the hardstand. And really this is about jobs. It's about marine infrastructure jobs. It's about marine jobs overall, trying to bring more ships here to be repaired to be built and growing and diversifying the economy in Cairns, so we know tourism is really strong, but we also want marine jobs to be really strong here in this region as well. And we're also confirming again, a great project right at the heart of town, the $50 million for CQU to bring almost 4000 students right into the heart of the CBD which will help activate this part of town. You'll see businesses benefit from it but also the way in which universities have been building these new buildings have been really, you know, unique architecture, their common user facilities often, they are really about activating CBDs and seeing education as very much part of the future of the city. So two really important projects and I guess you know, you alluded to at the start we've had the National Party again, who frankly I don't think should ever be trusted with the Regional Development portfolio ever again, given the way in which they basically you know, use colour coded spreadsheets to allocate money so some regions benefit, their regions benefited, I even heard Bridget McKenzie say that "our regions" because that's what she means National Party regions. She doesn't mean regions like mine in Ballarat. She doesn't always mean Liberal Party regions either. So really what we're doing is announcing you know, there's millions of dollars funding from our election commitments coming into the region, and there will also be new programs in the October budget to fund regional communities as well as going forward on a much more transparent, fair and sustainable basis.

JONES: And certainly the Cairns Chamber of Commerce and Advance Cairns has certainly earmarked the projects that you're talking about, the Marine Precinct and the CQ University hub right here in town as some of the key things that they wanted leading up to the election. So it is good to get confirmation of that. I know Robbie Katter has come out in the last 24 hours and said that things like the Hells Gate dam project are also under fire. If we can go back a bit because I guess you know, there were things that Bridget McKenzie said that I guess have got a bigger, I guess regional picture for right across Australia that may be significant as well. This is what she said on 4CA on Monday.

MCKENZIE: What we've learnt over the weekend has really confirmed our worst fears the Labor Party is making very concerning noises that it wants to rip the guts out of the funding to rural and regional Australia. Whether it's specific projects or programs that have really served our communities right around the regions including Far North Queensland and Cairns, for many, many years, these are the programs that have you know, for instance, upgraded to Cooktown Airport in the past, and we don't want to see $1 taken out of rural and regional Australia and by removing funding to our key areas. It means we'll be left behind and so we've been making big noises to make sure that Minister King and Anthony Albanese understand that if you're looking for savings, don't go after the region's rather look to reforming the NDIS look to reforming Medicare and get some of those structural saves.

JONES: How realistic is it for us to actually look at savings with the NDIS and with Medicare because I guess they're two of the biggest backbones of the Australian social security system.

KING: Well, I'd say to Senator McKenzie, do you think people with disabilities and their families don't live in regional Australia? Do you think people don't need access to Medicare services in regional Australia? Regional policy is about the whole of government. It's not just one portfolios investment. It's about investing in our people skills and training. It's investing in our services like health services and disability services and child care. It's about investing in regional industries through manufacturing policy or from investments like the ship lift, and it's investing in our places like the investment in CQ University. It's across the whole of government and this sort of nonsense that the National Party keeps spouting that somehow or other you know, that they these quarantined funds that sat with them, that they had control over the only regional funding is really you know, it's just wrong. It's also doing a great disservice to our regions. So what I'd say really clearly is there will be plenty of regional funding in this budget. We made huge election commitments in the regions right the way across the board, from educational facilities to precincts and CBD developments through to small sporting infrastructure. That will all be in the budget. We'll be committing to funding all of that, and there'll be plenty of regional funding going forward as well. But what we won't do is as Bridget McKenzie was the architect of, colour coded spreadsheets that basically advantage some electorates over others. And I'm not going to be lectured to by frankly, the National Party they should never ever, ever be put in charge of big spending portfolios again. It's actually been disgraceful the way in which they've treated regional Australia they've actually, you know, funnelled money into their own seats for their own political purposes to get themselves reelected, and they've neglected the rest of the country and really regional Australia deserves much better than that sort of behaviour.

JONES: And look, you know, talking about some of the bigger picture issues moving forward and look I accept this is probably more a question for the Prime Minister. But when you consider what's going on with that, you know, the shrinking tax base, and you know, the stage three tax cuts that are still a few years away, but they're on the cards with respect to the cost of the pandemic, the changeover in a lot of ways with respect to even electric cars and some of the money that's actually raised from the fuel excise is basically disappearing. It is going to be tough in the future, though. You know, our tax base is shrinking. So, you know, there must be a savings made in some areas, though.

KING: So the first thing I'd say is, you know, this is our first budget, we're five months in and this is really the opportunity to fund our election commitments to clean out some of the waste and rorts that we saw from the previous government and, and I Bridget McKenzie, we frankly was you know, right in the heart right in the heart of that whether it's from commuter car parks to an urban congestion fund to sport rorts, you know, you name it so people expect and you know, people voted for us on the basis of cleaning this stuff up. Plus also you'll start to see some budget repair but this is just the start of a long task to really deal with the trillion dollars of debt of Liberal party debt we've been left, as well as making sure that we have quality spending that we're actually spending on those projects, and those things and infrastructure that is enabling, that is actually growing regional economies, is helping industries develop and is actually helping the liveability of our regions rather than helping National Party MPs get re-elected.

JONES: Look certainly the confirmation of the Marine Precinct. And of course, the CQ University funding federally is confirmed here for our region. So, some really positive news here. And of course, some nice positive weather nice and warm compared to Ballarat. So good to have you back here in Cairns.

KING: And lovely always to be here. As you know, it's one of my favourite places in the world.

JONES: You do come up fairly regularly.

KING: I do, I really like it. And disappointingly, I've said this before, I was meant to come for a holiday in July. So my husband with three teenage boys came up. But I had COVID, I was stuck at home.

JONES: At least you can boast back to them now. Anyhow, Catherine King, she's the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. Thank you so much for your time this morning and we will look forward to catching you again soon.