Transcript - radio interview - 6PR Perth, Mornings with Gary Adshead

GARY ASHEAD: Anyway, now, federally, federally at the moment, the Albanese Government is – and this does happen, of course, when governments change, they’re looking back at all the sort of infrastructure pipeline plans that were put forward and perhaps funded and promised and so on and so forth, and they’ve turned up hundreds of them that they’re going to question going forward. Now, I suppose from a Western Australian point of view, we’d only care about whether, when they look at $120 billion worth of road and rail projects, et cetera, and other projects out there in the community, whether or not some of them might be from Western Australia.

So, let’s see if we can pin it down by having a chat to the Federal Infrastructure Minister, Catherine King. Thanks very much for your time.

CATHERINE KING: Good to be with you Gary.

GARY ASHEAD: Have you got a hit list already prepared in some of these infrastructure projects?

CATHERINE KING: No, not at all. It’s why I’ve asked the review to be undertaken is we’ve got to work closely with states and territories to get a full understanding of what’s able to actually be delivered out of this almost 800 projects we’ve got sitting within the Infrastructure Investment Pipeline. I’m absolutely committed to keeping the pipeline at $120 billion over the next ten years. But to be frank, we had a bit of a look at it in the October Budget to try and find out where there are projects that were under-costed, we’d have to find billions of dollars more money to fund them. We did a little bit of cleaning up then and really this is now trying to get some good, independent advice to work with each of the states and territories to tell us what’s able to be delivered and what isn’t. It’s pretty clear when you look at what’s happened over the last decade, we started off with a pipeline that had about 150 projects in it. We’ve now got a pipeline with 800 projects in it, over 490 something of them are under $50 million and they’re going to require substantially more money to actually build.

GARY ASHEAD: Can you give West Australians an idea of whether there are projects? I mean, we all obviously know about the funding that’s already gone into METRONET and big major rail projects like that, but are there areas that you’re looking at in terms of Western Australia?

CATHERINE KING: Not particularly. As I said, it’s across the entire pipeline. I mean, Western Australia and Rita Saffioti has done a pretty amazing job keeping those projects going. Really big infrastructure builds that are the envy of the East Coast in many cases. So, there’s no particular projects that I’ve got highlighted, certainly in the west, that I think are problematic. But we’ve got to work with the state to make sure we’ve got this happening, as I said, projects announced by press release. A lot of the money has just been sitting in the budget for a long period of time and then nothing’s actually happened because we haven’t got a state government that’s committed to the project, we haven’t got a co-funding partner, and then basically there’s not enough money there to fund the whole thing.

So, we’ve got that right the way through the pipeline and that’s in every state and territory. But I’m starting with a very open mind about what are the ones that are actually able to be delivered. We also are really conscious that there are significant cost blowouts happening in construction at the moment. We’ve had significant increases in the cost of bitumen, the cost of labour and that is really seeing massive escalations on a range of projects that were not anticipated. And the previous government, because they filled this pipeline with so many of these smaller projects, there just isn’t the headroom for that escalation. There was no money set aside for cost overruns. So, we’ve got to try and get this pipeline to be sustainable and actually deliver projects rather than its money sitting in the budget inactive.

GARY ASHEAD: So, are you trying to book any savings through this budget or are you talking beyond?

CATHERINE KING: No this is not about finding savings. What this is about trying to do is make sure that every project that is sitting within that pipeline is able to be delivered, has a funding partner to deliver it with us, is actually costed properly so we know how much that is going to cost but also create headroom within that infrastructure pipeline for new projects. We know that there are really important projects, the port over there is going to be a significant investment. That’s a long-term project – I’m sure the state is going to be coming to us to assist with money for that. I think in terms of finishing METRONET, a fantastic project for the West, there’s going to be cost escalations in some of that that the state is going to be looking to from us. And at the moment trying to find that headroom within the pipeline is really difficult at the moment because it’s just filled with all of these projects where we can’t actually deliver them but they’re also just still sitting there within the budget so the money is allocated but not actually even able to be spent.

GARY ASHEAD: Obviously when it comes to funding these kind of projects it suits either side of politics at the time as to what you’re going to fund. I mean if we look at the weekend there’s the Prime Minister standing down there in Hobart promising a $240 million commitment to a stadium. Some may say that’s reckless.

CATHERINE KING: What we committed to in Tasmania and in a seat not held by Labor I would have to say was really about an urban development precinct. It’s actually what we’re interested in funding is working with state governments, working with councils to actually look at how do you get urban renewal in your cities. One of the things when you look at particularly in port cities, we developed them back in the 1800s, turning our back to the water and the port sort of blocked residents access to the water. And as ports have changed, as the use of that land has changed, what we’re trying to do is create urban zones.

You’ve seen it – you’ve done it over in the west already. We’ve seen it with Barangaroo in New South Wales, in Sydney, Docklands in Melbourne again, has been an important urban development. So, that’s what we announced. We announced $240 million for a precinct, which includes social and affordable housing, transport connections, and of course, the anchor of that tenancy is a stadium, which will be important to get an AFL team for the state of Tasmania. So, that’s really what we’re announcing, is it’s about precincts and urban development. We’re also trying to encourage that development around rail stations, around public transport, then that’s really what METRONET has been about over in the west. It’s what Suburban Rail Loop will be about over here in Victoria as well, and trying to sort of look at how you bring those precincts together for people. So, they’re the sorts of things we’re trying to invest in.

GARY ASHEAD: Will you look at some of these infrastructure projects through the eyes of the fact that there’s over 700,000 migrants due into Australia over the next couple of years?

CATHERINE KING: Well, the issue around net migrations occurred because if you think about it, we haven’t had students leaving, but what we have had is students coming back. And that is a good thing. It’s a great thing for our universities. It’s a great thing also, as many of them are working, they’re allowed to work for 20 hours a week in our hospitality sector, in our aged care sector, right the way through the economy. So, that’s been a really good thing. But of course, we haven’t had students leaving because they haven’t been here in the first place. So, that net migration figure will be higher for a short period of time.

But what National Cabinet did talk about last Friday was how important it is to actually get planning ministers together across the country to get better planning, including planning making sure we’re not building on floodplains, we’re building for climate resilience. We’re actually planning precincts. And part of my job as Infrastructure Minister is to work with states and territories, work as part of National Cabinet to get that better planning done. I think it’d be fair to say often people do say suburbs are built and then infrastructure comes later. We don’t want that to happen. The infrastructure should be being built first and then the houses come and trying to actually get that into our state planning. And the way in which planning is done right the way across the country was something National Cabinet agreed to on Friday.

GARY ASHEAD: Out of interest, I remember the scandal, obviously, that unfolded in relation to commuter car parks under the previous government. Is that something that – are there still those things still in the pipeline that you’ve spotted?

CATHERINE KING: Yeah, there’s lots of those. That’s the problem. There’s lots of them. Commuter car parks, roads that would require literally billions of dollars more funding to be built where state governments have said they’re not going to participate in the project. There’s lots of those still through the budget.

GARY ASHEAD: All right, maybe not for long. I appreciate you joining us today.

CATHERINE KING: Good to talk to you, and as always, jealous of your weather over there.

GARY ASHEAD: Okay, no problem. We’ll send some your way. Thanks for that.