PAUL CULLIVER [HOST]: Well, Catherine King is the Federal Minister for Infrastructure and joins you today. Minister, good morning.

MINISTER FOR INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORT, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT CATHERINE KING: Good morning.

CULLIVER: Did you know about the Prime Minister's honorary membership to the Marrickville Golf Club?

KING: Well, the first thing is the Prime Minister is not the decision maker of this program. I am the decision maker of the program, so no, nobody would declare anything basically. It is, I am the decision maker, and the only person who would need to declare something, who would have a conflict, would be me, as the decision maker. And what I do in this program and all programs when it comes to my own electorate, is another minister makes the decision. So, I think this is a bit of a beat up, frankly. And I want to explain a couple of things because there's been some confusion about how public administration works here. There are two processes. Obviously, there are…

CULLIVER: Sorry, Minister…

KING: No, no, no, I do want to…

CULLIVER: if we can start with the question first and then we can work our way back.

KING: No, no, I do want to clear this up.

CULLIVER: Well, I did start off with a very straightforward question.

KING: And I just said to you, I’m the decision maker of the program.

CULLIVER: Okay, but that doesn't answer my initial question.

KING: Well, it does. The Prime Minister is, to be blunt, you know, the Prime Minister is not the decision maker.

CULLIVER: Minister, respectfully, the question was, did you know about Anthony Albanese honorary membership to the Marrickville Golf Club?

KING: I’m sure there are memberships right the way across a whole range of grant programs that I administer, and to be blunt, he is not the decision maker of this program. So, it would only be if a decision maker had a conflict, which was the case with Senator McKenzie, that is the issue. Does the decision maker have a conflict? I am the decision maker, so that's the issue here.

CULLIVER: Okay. Can you tell me if you knew about the membership or not?

KING: I wouldn't know about any person's membership across the board, of any of the grant programs in general, unless there was a declared conflict, and the declared conflict is if the decision maker makes a decision, and I am the decision maker.

CULLIVER: So, I can take that to mean you did not know about this honorary membership.

KING: You can put words in my mouth, which you seem to be determined to do in this interview…

CULLIVER: No, no, just wanting to clarify Minister…

KING: But I'm just being very, very clear. I am the decision maker, not the Prime Minister.

CULLIVER: I have no interest in putting words in your mouth. I'm looking for a clear answer. If you're saying that you don't know about any honorary memberships that any MPs might have, I'm just applying that to be specific to the Prime Minister here. Is that true?

KING: Well, I'm just going to move on. So, I've answered your question, thanks.

CULLIVER: Okay. When it comes to the way this grant program has been administered, though, and in your statement to us yesterday, you pointed out that this is fulfilling election promises. So, given that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is the local MP for Grayndler, where the Marrickville Golf Club is, was this an election promise?

KING: Well, I'm actually going to go back to how this program works, and this is the issue that we've got here. Under our democratic system of government, political parties make election commitments in the lead up to elections, so that is the process that's happened for over 100 years. We do that all the time, and what happens after the election, a government wins and is formed, and they have to have a process or a mechanism for delivering their election commitments. The Commonwealth grant rules require us to set up a closed non-competitive program, the grantee then applies for that. And once the grantee has applied for that, and a value for money assessment is done by the department, and I as decision maker, then look at the recommendation from the department and we sign off on that. That is what happens after every single election, happened under the previous government, happened under us prior to that, and prior to that. That is the process required by public administration because we have to have a mechanism to actually then deliver the election commitments.

There are then open grant programs. I'm administering over $2 billion worth of those for regional and community grant programs and infrastructure, and they are across the board, open competitive grants programs. We've cleaned up the process that the previous government had around secret ministerial panels making decisions. We've worked really hard to try and get integrity back into that system, and so what happens there is the process that's open. So you can't really compare the two. We have to have a process to deliver election commitments, and that's what this program is. If you want to look across the board of what we're delivering, I think you'd probably find, particularly in the regional areas, that the vast majority of projects, for example, $45 million in Maranoa, I think there's several million dollars in other seats. So, if you look across the board of community infrastructure, that would be the proper way of actually looking at what we're delivering across the community. Election commitments have to be delivered in a certain way, and that's what this particular program does.

CULLIVER: Alright. You are hearing from the Federal Minister for Infrastructure, Catherine King, this morning. If I can just take what you've talked to me about there, about the process of why this grant program was delivered in this way, and it came from election commitments. Am I then right to understand the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, as the local MP for Grayndler, made an election commitment for $6 million to the Marrickville Golf Club without disclosing his membership to that club?

KING: Well, what I'd say really clearly is that members make, that there is a process internally within the Labor Party to determine election commitments, and what I would say is that we then announce those election commitments during the election campaign, and that has been done as we always, always do. There would have been members doing that across the country during the process of the election.

CULLIVER: Okay, but the prime minister has made an election commitment without disclosing his membership to that club.

KING: We've made lots of election commitments right the way across the country because we've got terrific Members of Parliament and we had terrific Labor candidates advocating really strongly for projects in their community, whether they be, you know, improving - largely for local councils - improving sporting facilities, improving services for women affected by domestic violence, a whole raft of election commitments, and they were made right the way across the country in the lead up to the 2025 election campaign, as they were in the 2022 campaign, as they were in the campaigns before that. That is part of the democracy that we have, is that political parties make election commitments, local candidates do the same, and we then have to have a process for delivering those, which is what we're doing, because our communities are both demanding that we do that, because there is a big dearth of infrastructure in communities, and because we've got great local members advocating for them.

CULLIVER: Alright. Failure to disclose this on the register of interest is that a breach?

KING: No.

CULLIVER: Why not?

KING: Well, number one. I think that you're asking me questions as a decision maker in relation to a particular election campaign process, and I've explained the process for that. There are a range of memberships that people will be given. They may know or not know about them, and frankly, you know that's a matter for each individual member to look at their disclosures and make sure. I have to go back and look at mine to make sure all the time to make sure I've got all of those up to date as well.

CULLIVER: Alright. When I look at the grants that have been awarded through this process, obviously Lake Macquarie City Council, as I mentioned, I tallied up about $8.8 million, most of that landing in the Shortland federal electorate for Pat Conroy Minister in the Government. But of course, there's seats that haven't gotten any money, and I know that you've pointed out that this has come from election commitments. But doesn't that just point to the idea that a Labor Government is not interested in making election promises for the entirety of Australia, just those notionally Labor seats?

KING: Well, what I would suggest is that you look across all of the programs that the Commonwealth funds for community infrastructure: the Growing Regions Program, the Regional Precincts and Partnerships Program, the Stronger Communities Program. I'm administering over $2 billion worth of commitments that are right the way across the country, where there are open processes. We've obviously got to have a process for delivering our election commitments, which we have, and that is what we're doing with this program. But across the entirety of the grant programs I administer, there are projects happening in seats right across the country, including substantial funding in the Member for Indi’s seat, the Member for Parkes’ seat, Durack, a whole range of communities are benefiting from that community infrastructure.

CULLIVER: Alright, Minister, you are in the region today for the ribbon cutting for the M1 Pacific Motorway Extension to Raymond Terrace. I had the chance to walk over it about four or five weeks ago. Looked like a pretty cool viaduct, the longest viaduct in the Hunter now. Why is this something the Federal Government has backed?

KING: Well, we've put about $1.7 billion dollars into this project, and in fact, the now Prime Minister started the work and made that initial announcement, the planning work. We were pretty shocked when we got into government in 2022 to see that you know, basically it hadn't started. I remember standing under the bridge with Meryl Swanson in 2019, basically saying, well, the government needs to get on with this, and we still didn't see any action. So we came in 2023, did the substantial sod turn, and now it's opening a year and a half early. It'll be open on Friday, bearing any further rain. So, but bearing that, it'll be terrific. People got a chance to walk across it, which is terrific. But once this piece is finished, and then Coffs Harbor Bypass opening later this year, you can get from Sydney to Brisbane, no traffic lights. It's going to be pretty amazing for that trip to finally have all of those last pinch points taken out, and the M1 Raymond Terrace is a terrific project, and really is going to save people lots of time getting to and from work, but more importantly, getting home to their families safely.

CULLIVER: Minister, appreciate your time today. Thank you.

KING: Great to be with you.