PAUL CULLIVER, HOST: How would you like to get to Sydney in an hour? Even better, how would you like to get out of Sydney and back to Newcastle in an hour? Well, that could be one step closer to reality. With an announcement today from the Federal Government, they're putting $230 million towards the next step in high-speed rail. Catherine King is the Federal Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government and visits us here today in Newcastle in the studio. Minister, good morning to you.

MINISTER FOR INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORT, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT CATHERINE KING: Good morning. It's lovely to be with you on this incredibly humid day.

CULLIVER: It sure is. What does $230 million get you?

KING: So it gets us the development phase, all of the detailed design work of High Speed Rail, Newcastle to Sydney. So we're releasing the business case today, which shows that the economic activity that could be generated from High Speed Rail to Newcastle to Sydney is around $250 billion, 99,000 jobs, 160,000 extra homes, and of course, great opportunities for economic development here, right the way through Newcastle and the Hunter. What we're doing now is going into a two-year development phase which is basically engineers will be going metre by metre along this rail track and designing it, designing all the tunnels, designing the stations, getting it ready for a final investment decision in 2028 for the Commonwealth to decide what the next steps are. But really, this is best practice in terms of the work we can do. Normally, you sort of get to a business case and then you make an investment decision. What we want to do is get a lot of surety about exactly what the design is going to be. It's a complex project, 140 kilometres, a lot of tunnelling as well. And so we're getting all of that detailed design work done over the next couple of years and then ready for a final investment decision. But the economic opportunities that High Speed Rail offers are huge. It's not really just about providing that opportunity for people to get in and out of Sydney and back to Newcastle and Central Coast quickly. It's actually about what it means for getting businesses to decide it is possible to locate here, have a workforce here, and then obviously still be able to have access to the market and then international markets out of Sydney. So really, it's a great opportunity for the Hunter and really looking forward to seeing that development phase start as of today.

CULLIVER: So Infrastructure Australia and yourself have had that business case in your hand since December 2024. It's been, obviously, that's now over a year. Why has it taken this long to progress to the next stage?

KING: Yeah, so not quite that long in terms of that. Infrastructure Australia assessed the business case and provided at the end of last year some advice to me, which is that it is appropriate now to go into the development phase, so to put that money into that. And that's really what we've done with the first available opportunity we've had post the Mid-Year Economic Financial Outlook to announce that we're going to put funding into that development phase. So it's a complex project, a really big project. We've taken time to do the business case. This development phase is the next part of really getting this ready to actually decide whether to, you know, invest in it and actually start to build it. Really, the hope is to start construction 2029. It's a big project. It'll take a while to get off the ground. But really, we're focused on getting that design work, all of that done, taking some of the risks out of this project too for developers, because often what you find is, you're not quite sure what's underground, trying to actually get all that work done early. And that's what this investment today really allows to happen.

CULLIVER: You mentioned the final investment decision is still ahead. Is there a chance this government walks away from this project?

KING: Well, I think you've probably heard the Prime Minister on this project on multiple occasions. He is a huge, as am I, advocate for High Speed Rail. We're the only really high economic value country that doesn't have High Speed Rail. You're seeing it in every other developed country. Most countries are investing in it as well. We think it's time that Australia does have high-speed rail. That'll obviously be a decision for the government to make down the track in terms of, you know, it's a big investment. I think it's the costs, including the trains, including advanced manufacturing facilities, hopefully here in Newcastle, is around the $55 billion mark. So it's a big investment to make. But you've heard from me and the Prime Minister pretty clearly. We're huge advocates of it. We want to see it happen. It won't be built in the short term. It's going to be a really long-term project, but we want to see it started.

CULLIVER: To many people listening, they might say they've heard it all before. High Speed Rail has been talked about for literally decades. There is so much scepticism that this will actually happen. So just be clear, there is still a chance that you could look at all of this and say no.

KING: Well, I think when you've heard from the Prime Minister and you've heard from me that we want to see this done and we are investing more than any other government has before. We've got a legislated High Speed Rail Authority. We've released the business case, detailed business case. That'll be up on the High Speed Rail Authority website at nine o'clock today. So I really encourage people to have a look at it and look at the economic activity it can generate for the region. We're now putting an additional $230 million, so a total of almost over $660 million, is now going into the development phase. We don't make that sort of investment, that sort of serious work around detailed design of tunnels, getting metre by metre a look at this to walk away from the investment.

CULLIVER: SMH last week reported that the High Speed Rail Authority put the cost of this project at $70 to $90 billion. Is that right?

KING: That's for if you're taking it all the way to Western Sydney International Airport. But the first phase is what we call 1A and 1B is around $55 billion. But that also includes all of the stations, all of the signalling, an advanced manufacturing facility and all of the trains as well. So the construction of the line itself is about $30, $31, $32 billion, but that's also part of what we've got to do through this development phase, is you really get a much deeper and better understanding of exactly what the costs are, because you've got all of that detailed design work. You know exactly where the tunnels are going, what they look like, what is required to build them. That level of detail in a design normally sort of happens in a project's life cycle in a different way to this project. We're trying to get all that done first, then make that final investment decision when we've got an absolutely, pretty accurate assessment of exactly what the costs are. But we're fairly confident of the figures that they've put out now. But obviously that detailed design work, that development phase will really pin all of that down.

CULLIVER: It's 17 minutes past seven on 12.33 ABC Newcastle. Paul Culliver with you this morning. You are hearing from the Federal Minister for Infrastructure, Catherine King, in the studio today in Newcastle announcing the next stage of developing the High Speed Rail project between Sydney and Newcastle. How fast are the trains going to go?

KING: Well, they can go up to 320 kilometres, so that means you can expect a trip from Newcastle to Sydney an hour, from Gosford 30 minutes to get you into the CBD in Sydney. It'd be amazing.

CULLIVER: I want to raise this idea just on behalf of Novacastrians, any chance we could skip Gosford and just go straight to Sydney?

KING: I think the Central Coast would be pretty upset about that. And again, that's part of what we've had to look at is how do you make this viable? You've got to have the passenger numbers to make this viable. You've got to be able to have the population density, which is why Newcastle via Central Coast to Sydney actually makes this stack up. And then the further you go from then Sydney to Parramatta to Western Sydney International Airport to Canberra to Melbourne, the more you start to add to this, the more economic benefit is gained you do that. But we're concentrating on where we think the biggest bang for our buck can be in terms of investment and the opportunities both for housing and economic development, which we've got a lot of faith in the Hunter. You can see the changes that are happening here. Every time I come to Newcastle, there's new building, new activity happening, new businesses opening up. We want to really try and facilitate as much of that as we can, and high-speed rail really provides that opportunity.

CULLIVER: Where will the train terminate? Where does it stop in Newcastle?

KING: So I think it's, gosh, you're going to have to, you're testing me there. So it is…

CULLIVER: Will it be Broadmeadow?

KING: Yes, it will be. Thank you. I just didn't want to get the name of the place wrong. So it will be Broadmeadow.

CULLIVER: And that's locked in? Broadmeadow will be the terminus?

KING: Well, that is where, but again, if through the development phase they find it's feasible to do an alternative, then they'll look at that. But really that is, you will see in the business case, Broadmeadow is the start point.

CULLIVER: How locked is the route? What do we know about the route?

KING: Yeah, it's pretty locked in the sense that, so you would have seen there's quite a bit of geotechnical work that's already been done. People would have seen High Speed Rail Authority people drilling and having a bit of a look at what's along the route. So the route's fairly set. It'll be new track because, you know, we've looked at, you know, can you replace the old track? Can you look at how that works? That's not going to work. So we've gone through all of that. So really the route's pretty set. But of course, in the development phase, if they find there's something that's impossible to get through or it's going to add to the cost hugely, you know, it might deviate slightly. But really with High Speed Rail, you get the speeds because you go bang in a straight line.

CULLIVER: Yeah right. Okay. So we're talking a lot of compulsory acquisition to achieve this? There certainly will be the requirement of land acquisition. Always we like to be able to do that in a voluntary way. As we go, there will need to be some land acquisition, business case outlines some of that, but again, through the development phase. Generally that you go pretty broad and then you narrow that down. So there will be some need for land acquisition. There's need to work pretty closely with New South Wales Government on environmental approvals, planning. Some of their land will be required for the project as well, and we'll work pretty closely with the New South Wales Government on all of that.

CULLIVER: The Sydney stop?

KING: The Sydney stop is central.

CULLIVER: Okay.

KING: So underground into central and then out to Parramatta there.

CULLIVER: Okay. $55 billion for the first section at a time when there's been a lot of focus on government spending and its role in inflation. Could it be that High Speed Rail is going to be inflationary?

KING: Well, we think it's actually really important. So infrastructure actually drives economic activity…

CULLIVER: Which leads to inflation

KING: and it drives economic activity through jobs particularly, which give people good and decent wages on projects to then be able to afford their mortgages. And so 99,000 jobs is nothing to sneeze at in our construction industry. But we know it's a lot of money. There's no getting around that. Rail is expensive to build. High Speed Rail is expensive to build. We will be looking at funding partners. We'll be looking, for example, across in the UK, superannuation funds have funded quite a lot of the construction of High Speed Rail in the UK. We'll be looking for private investors in this as well. Government won't be able to bear the cost of this alone.

CULLIVER: Public transport to the Newcastle Airport, pretty woeful. It's now an international airport. Any plans to link that in?

KING: Not at this stage, no. I think, again, that's not the proposal to bring high-speed rail to Newcastle Airport. It's really around trying to look at that Newcastle to Sydney link by rail. But I think, obviously in terms of public transport, if the New South Wales government wants to bring forward proposals to look at how they might do other alternatives out to the airport, we're happy to have a look at those, but we don't have any proposals before us at the moment.

CULLIVER: 99,000 jobs, potentially a lot of people coming to, Newcastle and all the way down to Sydney. We're going through a housing crisis. Where are they all going to live?

KING: Well, hopefully along the whole route. I mean, this is a big opportunity to try and open up some further housing, whether it's through the Central Coast or whether it's through the Hunter. And the estimates, as I said, are around 160,000. But, you know, this is over a long period of time to be able to build the project. What I'm really interested in is providing that opportunity, not for people to only be able to live here, because it's an unbelievably beautiful and fabulous place to live, and then have to commute to work to Sydney. What I'm really interested in is the opportunities it brings. So if you think about High Speed Rail 2 in the UK into Birmingham, a really great city, the UK, what it's done is brought major banking institutions out of London, because it's just too expensive to keep your people there, into Birmingham, so that they can actually do those jobs in Birmingham rather than actually having to commute. So I think that opportunity it provides, so you might still have your headquarters in London, but all your workforce is in Birmingham. And so I imagine if you could do that in Sydney and have everyone actually working here and not having to go too far from home at all, but still being able to get into Sydney if you need to get into head office for a bit.

CULLIVER: Minister, when does the first train depart?

KING: Well, obviously we've got a little way to go. You don't build a project like this overnight. We're doing this in a really staged, practical, managed way. First two years of development, getting that done, final investment decision in 2028, hopefully construction starting in 2029, but it'll take a little while to build, but we want to get it started.

CULLIVER: And a final investment decision during the federal election campaign of 28?

KING: Well, that'll be a matter for our expenditure review committee to have a look at. But 2028 is certainly when we expect a final investment decision.

CULLIVER: Minister, you've got a busy morning with many media appointments. I'd better let you go, but I really appreciate your time today.

KING: Thank you. Really good to be with you.

CULLIVER: The Federal Minister for Infrastructure, Catherine King, in Newcastle today announcing the next package of funding, just shy of a quarter of a billion dollars to progress detailed assessment for the high-speed rail. I'm seeing lots of your text messages coming in about that. I will get to them in time, 1233, ABC Newcastle, if you'd like to text through. We've just learnt a lot of detail about the future of the project.