STEVE MARTIN, HOST: Last Friday it was announced that community consultation was beginning for the reworking of the Warrenheip Interchange. So this is Brewery Tap Road and Old Melbourne Road and the Western Freeway. I think it's only a bit of a highway in that stretch because it's the 80 k zone on the eastern edge of Ballarat. Over the years, we've heard a couple of times from locals who fear that there is going to be a very serious collision at those intersections, particularly Brewery Tap Road and Old Melbourne Road because they're offset as well. Catherine King is the Federal Member for Ballarat but is also the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development 

MINISTER CATHERINE KING: Good morning, Steve. 

MARTIN: I'll start with Brewery Tap Road. There are some other politics questions I want to ask you later on, Catherine King, but just locally, just explain where things are up to with this interchange and the upgrade because this has been long anticipated by the local community. 

KING: Look, this has been a longstanding issue for the local community. I'd be getting emails probably at least once a month from someone who's had a near miss there and who's concerned about the road. And I think that we're starting to work towards a solution. We're at the start of the planning process. It's a really complex intersection, a lot of services, a lot of business there. But really what we're asking the community now is to have their say about what they think the most appropriate fix is for that intersection. There'll be a pop-up from the Victorian Government's Big Build team on Saturday the 21st of February between 10am and 3pm at the Warrenheip Memorial Hall. There's a survey people can take on the engage.vic.gov website as well, which again goes through it all. We're just trying to get a real understanding of who's using it, when are they using it most, what's the sort of traffic patterns there. They've had the tapes down doing counting as well. So we're at the start of the planning process. So really the idea is to get all that work done first, get all the design work done. There's money to start the construction and early works of that from the Federal Budget. So that'll continue. But this is really the start to try and get this intersection fixed once and for all. 

MARTIN: Okay. I noticed there's one local resident in the paper today saying it needs an overpass or an underpass. So have any decisions been made on what an upgrade will look like? 

KING: No, so not at this stage. There was a big study done back in 2016, which was really about trying to convert that highway section into freeway. Now, that's a very, very expensive build that's lifting the road right up. That is a quite a significant project. I couldn't even begin to think how much it would be, it’d be over the $500 million to $600 million mark. So at this stage... And that would include Woodmans Hill if you did something like that. So that's a very big project. At this stage, we're just looking at upgrading, you know, trying to work out what can you do at the intersection itself. And that's where there's $100 million committed to do the intersection itself. So that's really where we're at the start of. People can, of course, put all of those broader ideas in, but that's a slightly bigger project doing a big underpass, overpass that's very costly. 

MARTIN: So this is about the alignment of those, because there's two roads coming the Western Highway which are offset and I know a lot of people think it's a continuation but they are offset and that's what seems to make it so dangerous especially with larger slower traffic so this is about changing the way that works. It may be and it may well be that the recommendation is for a much more larger change to that. Again, we're right at the start of that planning process. So just even standing there on Friday, just the sheer number of really heavy vehicles going through that intersection and the interaction you can see with people obviously trying to get their kids to school, go about their daily business, and that heavy vehicle traffic to me is causing quite... You can see they're sort of running the gauntlet, trying to get across the highway rather than going way down to the B double turn. You can see a lot of risk-taking through that intersection as well. But all of that is part of what we're up to at the moment to really get an understanding of that. And really, this is the opportunity for not just the local community, but people who use that intersection regularly to have their say. 

MARTIN: I know you'd be very familiar with the intersection, just going about your daily work, Catherine. But have you ever stood there and watched the traffic before you did on Friday? 

KING: I've sort of, you know, if I've stopped at the service station, if I'm getting petrol or things, you know, you obviously have a bit of a look at it. And every time you come through, I would have come through, you know, I'd come through that intersection from the highway end at least two to three times a week, and I've certainly had big trucks cross, you know, almost right in my path where I've had to really brake to slow down rather than, you know, wait. They've run the gauntlet through there. I've certainly, having stood at the service station, seen just what a busy intersection it is. 

MARTIN: Yes, indeed. All right. So what's the timeline on the community consultation? 

KING: So this stage, that will go for a few months, but you've got the opportunity, as I said, to actually go and speak to the people who are doing the design work on the 21st, Saturday the 21st of February at the Memorial Hall between 10 and 3. I encourage locals to do that. If you can't get there, then to get on the engage.vic.gov website and fill out the survey there as well. So design work really just depends on the complexity of the intersection. That can take... It can take up to 12 months to do that design work because you've got to understand what utilities are underneath, what's the plan to move all of those. So really we're just at the start of that process. I have to ask people to be patient with that. I know this intersection's been a long-standing issue but we've got to try and get it right. 

MARTIN: Okay. Can I just ask you, Catherine King, going back to something you alluded to earlier, that maybe the recommendation will be for that significant major upgrade. They may look at it and go, look, really the best and only way is to fully do it. How difficult does that then become in terms of funding from your government's point of view to actually find the money to do a project like that at the moment? 

KING: Yeah, well, obviously it is, you know, we are trying to be pretty careful about spending at the moment and we've got a big infrastructure budget. Each year I've got to make decisions. I have asks of, you know, billions of dollars of funding from states and territories every single budget and we have to make decisions about that. Obviously, if the Victorian Government says this is a priority for funding, then we can, you know, work to bring money forward. But we're not at that stage yet. There's a lot of money in the Western Highway overall. There's big projects all the way along the highway. So there is money that can be moved around as well as different priorities come. So we'll take that work when it comes to us. Let's work out what we need to do first. 

MARTIN: Okay. I'll give out those details for community input at the hall and via Engage Vic again in a moment. Given that we're talking about major projects, I did want to ask you as the Federal Minister for Infrastructure, in particular Catherine King, there are calls in Victoria for a Royal Commission into the Big Build in this state. They're coming from the state opposition. Apparently they've unveiled their terms of reference for their proposed Royal Commission. This is about the CFMEU and its involvement in corruption worth $15 billion. Do we need a Royal Commission? 

KING: Well, I think what we need to do is allow the administrator to do its work. What we don't need is further inquiries. We know what the problem is. We need to clean this industry up. None of this happens in a vacuum. Payments have obviously been made illegally and inappropriately. No-one wants to see that. No-one wants to see criminal activity on our building sites. It's why this government, the federal Labor Government, has taken the strongest action we could. We've put it into administration. It now means that the CFMEU officials can no longer have access to any money out of members' funds, and that means that they are significantly hamstrung when it comes to these sort of activities. And what the administrator now does, having control of those funds, is using those to undertake investigations, then to refer matters to the police, to the Australian Federal Police to the Corruption Commission where appropriate. And all of that is happening. We saw arrests happening just last week. This is going to be slow, purposeful work to uncover all of this, but we've just got to get this done rather than trying to do more inquiries frankly. 

MARTIN: Is that $15 billion if that's the correct figure and I know there’s some contention, but if that is the figure, is it gone? Will governments ever get that money back or has it disappeared off into the ether? 

KING: Well, it's hard to know. And as I said, I think there's some contestation about that particular figure, but any dollar, any tax payer dollar that is not going into the actual building of infrastructure is money that should not have been used in that way. Any dollar being used in that way is too much. So we've done quite a bit with working with the states through what we call our Federated Funding Agreement, making sure that there's strict reporting, real investigation on cost real work collaboratively with the Victorian state government to really make sure we've got a handle on where every dollar of federal funding and then state funding is going on these projects. So a lot of investigative work to try and get that done. And the State Government reports to us if there's any issues that they have of concern on the projects that we're co-funding. And that work continues, as does the work of the administrator. 

MARTIN: Just finally, Catherine King, new opposition leadership team in place as of Friday. Does that change anything as far as the government's concerned? 

KING:  Well, I think it's sort of a bit more of the same, frankly, from the Liberal Party. I think what we've seen after a pretty chaotic, you know, not just six months, but the split with the Nationals as well, is a party that really is in crisis. It doesn't know where its values lie, doesn't know what it actually stands for. And they've just promoted the person who is the architect or two people who are basically the architects of pretty disastrous policy decisions during the election. So the decision to not just block our tax cuts, but say you're going to overturn them, that tax cut to over 15 million people, was taken by Angus Taylor. He was the person who did that and they've just given the bloke a promotion. The person who said, we should have no more work from home was now promoted to deputy leader. I think they're in a real crisis, and I don't think changing the leaders is really going to change that. I think they've got a fair amount of soul-searching to do to understand why people are not voting for them and a lot of work to do. And I'm not sure the two people they've put in charge are capable of doing that. 

MARTIN: Catherine King, thank you. 

KING: Really good to be with you, Steve. 

MARTIN: Member for Ballarat, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. We will talk to Dan Tehan later this morning and I'll see what Dan Tehan has to say about those thoughts from Catherine King as she just expressed about the new leadership of the Coalition and the Liberal Party in particular. Three and a half minutes to the news at half past seven. Warrenheip Memorial Hall, Saturday the 21st between 10am and 3pm if you're a local resident or you use that intersection regularly and you want to get involved in this process otherwise you can have you say at engage.vic.gov.au look for Western Freeway, Brewery Tap Road that's where you'll find that information on Vic Engage on the website.