MINISTER FOR FINANCE, WOMEN AND THE PUBLIC SERVICE KATY GALLAGHER: Morning everyone. Thanks for coming down here for this very important announcement today about a funding boost for the Sydney to Canberra rail network. This is something that has been important for the people of the ACT for a long time. And I’m so thrilled to be joined by the Minister for Infrastructure, the Chief Minister, Minister Jenny Aitchison from New South Wales, Steve Whan the local member, our friend and fellow Canberran/NSW I should say. And of course, Alicia Payne is the Member for Canberra, who had this as one of her recommendations from her committee report into the National Capital. So it’s great to be here with Catherine on the eve of the Budget to make this significant announcement today. Over to you.

MINISTER FOR INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORT, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT CATHERINE KING: Thanks Katy. As you can see there’s a lot of interest between NSW and the ACT in terms of this train service. The train you just saw depart is sold out, and that’s a regular occurrence as people want to get from Sydney to Canberra by train. There’s over 25,000 people who drive every single day between Canberra and Sydney, when you add the flights between Sydney and Canberra that’s another 1,500. But a lot of people also want the option around train.

And I know the issue really has been it’s an older service – it’s been around for a long time. And I want to commend the ACT Government, Chief Minister, Andrew Barr and Jenny Aitchison, my NSW counterpart, who’ve been working together on this project. They both came to me as part of their budget bid, and NSW put in a budget bid for $50 million from the Commonwealth to be matched also between the ACT and the NSW Government, taking the potential proposal up to $100 million to do a couple of things here on this important rail route.

The first is some quick fixes. We know that there are some quick fixes that we can make to make the service much more efficient and to make it a little bit quicker. And so they will come into effect and those are planned upgrades to the service right away. The other is a business case for future expansion of this network. We know that there are opportunities to straighten it out a bit, try and make it much quicker service. This announcement today, $50 million to start the work, get some quick fixes, get some early runs on the board for the people of Canberra and NSW who use this service each and every single day.

This is a really busy line. It’s partly operated by the Australian Rail Track Corporation, partly operated by NSW Country Regional Network, and also then the Sydney Train network as well. So, having the ACT Government and the NSW Government really wanting to work very closely together on this project I think is a great thing and it’s a real pleasure for the Commonwealth to be part of that proposal. It of course builds on the announcement a little earlier this year here, to bring the precinct of the rail network, to look at the opportunities for more housing, more commercial opportunities in this precinct. We’ve put in $2.8 million, it’s an over $5 million proposal, to actually do the planning work for this precinct as well.

So really exciting things happening when it comes to Canberra trains. NSW Government will manage the project but work very closely with the ACT Government. And I’m going to hand over to Jenny who’s been doing a huge amount of work, not just on this project but also she’s got some exciting news about the trains themselves and a few other bits and pieces. Thank you.

NSW MINSTER FOR ROADS AND REGIONAL TRANSPORT JENNY AITCHISON: Thanks, Catherine. It’s great to be here. Canberra is a really important part of the network between Sydney and Melbourne. And this initiative is one which will make that journey much, much faster – $100 million of joint funding from the state and territory governments in conjunction with the Commonwealth will really make a significant difference.

This will change stations, it will change stabling for the trains, it will change the alignment, the turnouts, as well as level crossings. What happens when we have the kind of track that we have at the moment, managed by three rail infrastructure managers, is that it has degraded; it has not had the investment that it’s needed over decades. And when we came to government in NSW, Labor made a commitment that we would actually improve public transport for people in regional NSW, and that is going to have a great benefit for Canberra as well.

What this is about is really taking those three rail infrastructure managers, getting them working together, making sure that we make the changes that will make a significant difference to the time. So at the moment, if you’re travelling from Sydney to Canberra for example, it’s about four and a quarter hours, it can be as long as four and a half. We are hoping to get that down to under four hours. We think that with these changes we can.

We’ve already been working very closely with the ACT Labor Government. I have to say, Chief Minister Barr has been really very passionate about this project and has given us the resources and assistance we’ve needed to really work through this. We’ve had ARTC from the Federal Government sitting in the cabs with our drivers, looking at the reductions and what can be done on a really practical level to fix that.

Because what happens with trains is, once they slow down they then can lose their path and then they have to step off, and that really makes them late. So this is why this is so important, because every difference we make is going to make a massive difference in the overall journey.

This will be a big benefit for communities in Queanbeyan and Goulburn. We’re looking at not just the three services we’ve got currently – the morning, noon and night – but looking at putting in additional services if we can do that. That’s a really great part of this as well.

I also want to talk about the trains. You would have seen the XPT, 43 years old this year, looking pretty good for its age, I have to say. We have given them a massive facelift. So in addition to the $25 million that the Minns Labor Government is contributing here on the track, we’ve also put $40.3 million into upgrading those trains. Passengers will notice the difference in terms of seats and buffet cars and windows and curtains. But the most important part is in the reliability, doing complete overhauls of those engines to make sure that the locos and the power cars are going to really take those cars much better. And that is a really important part of this whole project as well.

And then, of course, we’ve got the new regional rail fleet – on the track, 11 trains in dynamic testing over 16,500 hours completed. Now these are bimodal trains, so they are diesel and electric, so they can go on both parts of the network. And that will be a game changer. Much more accessibility, wider leg room. They’ve got the power charging for laptops, for USBs, as well as Wi-Fi. So that that’s coming very soon, 2028 is the first scheduled time on the track, but seeing them in Bathurst just a couple of weeks ago, it was astounding to see them actually out on the network in regional NSW. We’re really looking forward to it. So I want to thank again Minister King. We did go to her as the NSW and the ACT Government did a pretty bold ask to say let’s have $100 million altogether here. And this is what happens when you have Labor Governments working across state and territory borders with the Commonwealth, hand in hand, to improve the working lives of people who are using these trains to get to work, for people who are using them to get to medical appointments, for education, just to see friends and family and providing real inclusion for everyone in our community. It’s a great day and I’m incredibly proud of all the work that’s been done.

I’m going to hand over to the Chief Minister, Andrew Barr, now and he’s going to tell you about the Canberra perspective.

ACT CHIEF MINISTER ANDREW BARR: Thank you very much, Jenny. Good afternoon, everyone. This is a really exciting day for the broader Canberra region. I’ve had a very simple objective for a long time now to make it cheaper and easier for people to visit Canberra. And when it comes to the rail service, we’ve recognised over more than a decade now the need for investment, but just also how complex improvements on this service are going to be. And you’ve heard a little already from about the practicalities of delivering on this particular commitment. We want to ensure across the different network owners, the NSW Government’s operations, that all of the relevant parties are working together. And so that’s been a task I’ve taken on over the last decade in fact. And there will be footage of me catching that train nearly 10 years ago up to visit the then-NSW government and I’ve beat a path to federal infrastructure ministers over a decade now. Not much luck up until now, and I want to particularly acknowledge and thank Jenny and the NSW Government and Premier Minns for the support in the last few years to get a business case forward.

To Minister Catherine King, for listening to me over a number of meetings about just how important this is. Can I also thank Katy Gallagher; without her support we would not be here today. But I also want to acknowledge that this is a regional effort. So to Steve Whan, to Kristy McBain, to Alicia Payne, to all of our Labor team from the Canberra region, it’s your consistent advocacy that gets us to where we are today, a really important next step in this journey. The detail of work has been outlined. We’ve put a lot of time and effort into preparing a business case for the Commonwealth. It’s been through the Infrastructure Australia process, it was recommended for investment. So this is precisely the sort of project involving multiple levels of government, multiple jurisdictions, where the Commonwealth have a really important role to play. And I think this demonstrates what’s possible when those different levels of government work together. And it’s due to the people behind me that we are where we are today. And I’m very appreciative of all of their efforts.

From our perspective now, we look forward to both the further business case development for next stages but also getting on with the work that is funded through this joint initiative. And I think there’ll be a lot of excitement and interest in Canberra and the region around additional services, the arrival of the new trains in time, and of course the broader precinct that this station sits within. This station will be upgraded in the short term, but in the medium and longer term, when we come back here for further announcements, this area will have changed, and it’s exactly the sort of transit-oriented development, more housing, in locations where people want to live, that is really at the heart of a shared agenda for urban renewal and more housing that, again, has been supported across multiple levels of government. I’m very grateful, in closing, to both the NSW Government and the Commonwealth for their support on this project. It’s a good one. It’s a really good one for our region to support economic development, tourism, and better and more pleasant journeys between Canberra and Sydney.

Thank you. We’re happy to take questions.

JOURNALIST: I had a question for Minister King, if that’s okay. So it sounds like these changes are going to shave 15 minutes, possibly half an hour from the travel time, but are you hoping that- can we hope that one day there will be an express service? How long will we have to wait for that? And we’ve just seen inland rail be canned, can we have faith in the Albanese government to fund this project?

KING: You sure can, because what we do is we do the work properly. We don’t just make announcements and then try and figure out how to do it later. We actually do the work, and that’s the issue with particularly rail infrastructure, which is the most expensive form of infrastructure, but it’s also one we’re investing in and investing in seriously by doing it properly. So, the announcement you’ve seen today is to do some of the quick fixes to get the time down, but to really look at things in the longer term, what do you need to do is do that business case, do the proper planning work, work with the ACT Government and the NSW Government and then ARTC to then understand what the next level of work can be. And we’ll continue to do that in subsequent Budget processes.

JOURNALIST: What’s the target journey time?

KING: Well, that’s a matter for the NSW and the ACT Governments. We don’t operate the rail services, what we do is we look at the planning for particular projects and then we fund those projects. At this stage, we’ve got a project before us with a $50 million contribution from the Commonwealth to improve the existing service, which is what we’re doing, and to do the planning work for the next stage.

JOURNALIST: So can we ask NSW or ACT the kinds of journey time then?

BARR: So look, this investment reduces the travel time below four hours. Ultimately... Okay, so as I was saying, this investment should get the journey time below four hours. Further investment would be required to reduce it closer to three. At three hours, you are probably more competitive than flying and taking the bus or driving yourself, particularly if your destination is the Sydney CBD and you’re seeking to get there at any peak time within the Sydney travel network. That will require further investment, and that’s what the business case element of this funding is going to pursue. And that investment will need to occur in a number of different sections of the track. So I think the important thing, and Jenny has touched on this, is that the new trains will have the capacity to travel faster and provide a more comfortable travel experience, provided network and the track is up to that standard. So part of that obviously is straightening elements of the track, improving signal crossings, the integration into the Sydney suburban network. All things that, obviously, from the ACT Government’s perspective, things we want to see prioritised, but we also recognise that there’s a lot going on in the NSW train system, and Jenny is doing a fantastic job in pursuing not only this project, but a number of other projects for regional NSW. And we’re very, as I said, very appreciative of the support and priority that has been given to this element,

JOURNALIST: This project’s over five years. How long before we have to wait for the next phase?

BARR: Well, we’ll need to undertake that business case development and put forward further proposals, but it has to start somewhere and I’m pleased, after 10 years of advocating for this, that we are here where we are today, and that we have a pathway to the next stages.

JOURNALIST: That’s what I mean. It’s been happening, people have been talking about this for so long, and yet here we have- we’ve got to have more planning. We’ve got to have a business case. It’s…

BARR: It’s a complex project…

JOURNALIST: It’s frustrating for people to hear that.

BARR: I appreciate that, but compared to where we were 10 years ago or even five years ago. I said at the time, I will keep at this until we get an outcome. Now we’ve got the first stage of it today, and I commit here and now to continue advocacy over time, but you’ve also going to be realistic about the prioritisation of delivery timeframes, but what we’re going to see is progressive and incremental improvement, and that’s really important.

AITCHISON: Can I just speak to that for a moment? Look, there’s a number of elements that impact on rail, reliability and punctuality. The track is one element; the rolling stock is the next. The timetable also comes into it, and then driver behaviour that happens because of the network. So drivers are constantly having to stop because of temporary speed restrictions, then they might slow down coming up to them. And so then that behaviour kind of drives even more slowly. Then once they lose their part in that timetable, they have to set so that they don’t hold down other passenger or freight vehicles. So that’s the challenge that we have. We’ve already been seeing really good improvements in the way that ARTC and Sydney Trains and TrainLink have been working together. That method of having the drivers, with the ARTC train, track maintainers in the cab, means they see what that temporary speed restriction is going to do. And in fact, in one of the last occupations, and actually the last two, we just had one last week on the south line. But the one that’s before that, we actually got them together and said, what are the things that are going to prioritise speed and reliability? So even without this funding, just on the ordinary work that ARTC has been doing, since we’ve come to Government, we’ve made that much more targeted around including those services. Now we’ll continue to do that, and I’m really pleased that we’ve got this investment now because it gives the team faith that they can continue that work. It is funded, and then the business case, we developed the pipeline to get ahead. So this is something that wouldn’t have happened, to be honest, without the advocacy from the ACT Government and Andrew personally and with Catherine King listening to us and us obviously listening to our community, right from Southern Sydney, Moss Vale, Queanbeyan, and Goulburn, and then even further down into Melville, because this will actually help everyone on the line. That’s the whole beauty of doing anything on the rail network. Once you start making improvements in some parts of network, you will help the whole network flow better.

The other part of this is the CRN, the Country Regional Network.That is going to receive benefits from this as well, and that’s the part where we need to do more alignment. So there’s a lot of work to do here. I think $100 million of work, including a business case, doesn’t just get us to an end of a project and then we stop there, which I think has been part of the problem we’ve had. We’re actually going to have the pipeline that gets built out. And part of my role in NSW as Regional Transport and Roads Minister has been to develop strategic regional integrated transport plans, which actually look at the needs of community and how they need to travel and how are they traveling? And you can go online see the work that we’re doing there, to listen to communities and hear the feedback from communities. Like Andrew was saying, I would catch the train to Sydney, but it’s just not viable. We’re hearing that from our NSW community. So that’s what this is about, having proper plans, not just saying we’re going to do something over here because it’s in a Liberal National electorate, and that’s where we want to put money. This is about having proper funded plans that deliver real outcomes for the whole train network.

JOURNALIST: When will we see a new train, one of the new trains here on this platform?

AITCHISON: Look, they’re scheduled to be 2028 but I want to make a point about that. The coalition promised those trains in 2015. They failed in eight years to get one train on the track. They put it in the complicated public-private partnership, which we’ve bought out now so that we can actually speed up the delivery. Formerly, they were taking 17 days on the production line in Spain. They’re now taking five days. We’ve got 11 out. That’s over a third of the fleet. So that’s real progress from where we were when we came to Government with not one train, a massive blowout in time and a massive blowout in dollars. We are going to save money by buying out that PPP in the maintenance on the ongoing work that’s been done at Dubbo at the minute. So it’s a real success story of actually pulling something out of the fire, which is what I’ve had to do for the last three years with every project in NSW and regional roads.

JOURNALIST: You mentioned more services, we’d probably get that three a day here. Or what do you think we can look at realistically in the short term future?

AITCHISON: Look, we’re hoping to get two services. One of the issues, again, is without having additional trains on the track, the capacity is limited. So that’s why we’ve got a five-year plan, because I can’t give them to you tomorrow. I’ve got people all over NSW that want an extra train, but unfortunately, they weren’t ordered properly and weren’t delivered properly by the former government, so we’re having to deliver those.

JOURNALIST: A question for Minister Gallagher, if that’s alright. I just want to ask about some comments you made in the Australian today. You said that children entering childcare the earlier they are there, they would be more prepared for school. Can I clarify are you talking about children under three years old?

GALLAGHER: Well, early education and care – the early education and care system operates from birth to school age, so birth to five.

JOURNALIST: So under three?

GALLAGHER: Well, I was making comments around early education care, and I think the evidence is that – pretty clearly that it’s a quality investment preparing children for school.

JOURNALIST: Minister, the Government’s proven willing to change its position on tax in the name of fairness, even if that means going back on promises in the past. Ed Husic, your colleague, recently made comments around the GST split saying that the deal was unfair, that WA was getting too sweet a deal. Given the Government’s record on tax promises, will you consider any changes to the GST going forward?

GALLAGHER: Well, I think the Treasurer and the PM have both been clear on that, there are no changes to GST. Tomorrow’s Budget will be an ambitious Budget. It will be a Budget about resilience and reform. You’ll have to wait till then to see all of the detail, but we’re very proud of the Budget that the Treasurer will be handing down tomorrow.

JOURNALIST: Minister, we know about the legislative tax cuts, what other cost of living support for families is expected?

GALLAGHER: Well, you will see a focus on cost of living, so some of that has been announced already. For example, the Medicare urgent care clinics and their ongoing funding. That’s a really important investment, making sure people can get access to healthcare with their Medicare card. And our investment is obviously supporting that, including the bulk billing, investments in cheaper medicines and more access to medicines. You’ll see a focus on housing. I mean, all of these are areas where we are looking to do what we can whilst managing the inflation challenge in the economy to ensure that we are helping households with cost of living help. You referenced the tax cuts that have been announced, and then obviously, there’s also the instant tax deduction as well as part of it.

JOURNALIST: Minister, a parliamentary inquiry recommended two years ago to upgrade the major railway line. Are you active now because you’ve sort of got a sense that Canberrans are feeling a bit neglected by Labor?

GALLAGHER: No, I don’t agree with that at all, Dana. I mean, I think if you look at Labor coming to government, what we have done working with the ACT and in this case the NSW Government to invest in this region, I don’t think any fair analysis could point to anything other than this Government cares about and invests in our city and our region. We have invested over $3 billion into various programs and supports, including housing, including in healthcare, including in education, including in hospitals, including in infrastructure. These are all things that we’ve done which when I was Chief Minister weren’t prioritised by a federal government. It’s very easy to write Canberra off politically, I think, when you’re – it’s a small city, punches above its weight, but I think in part when I was looking at the Chief Minister’s job working with a Coalition Government, they didn’t care about Canberra, our investments in the public service to make sure that we…

JOURNALIST: So, Minister, is there anything else?

GALLAGHER: Can I just finish this? I mean if you look at all of those areas that about, all of those, including the public service, which is the heart of our economy here in the ACT, you’ll see how seriously we take the ACT.

JOURNALIST: Is there anything else that Canberrans can look forward to?

GALLAGHER: You’ll all have to read the Budget paper.

JOURNALIST: Minister Gallagher, I just have to pull you up on that because the numbers just aren’t borne out of the Federal Budget. You’ve got $16 billion last year, this was in 25-26 for Queensland, $14.2 billion for NSW, $13.6 billion for Victoria. The 25-26 budget had only $600 million in terms of infrastructure spending devoted to Canberra. On per capita terms, you’re getting Canberra getting 50 cents to the dollar of some of those states. How have Canberrans not been done …

GALLAGHER: Are you including the National Security Office precinct in that?

JOURNALIST: No.

GALLAGHER: Right, okay.

JOURNALIST: But even still, you’re not getting anywhere…

GALLAGHER: Well, hang on. That is the largest infrastructure project happening in the ACT right now, so I think you would have to include that.

JOURNALIST: As a former Chief Minister, Bruce Stadium, many people would go there and say it’s falling apart. Will there be any money in the Budget, this month or future ones, to upgrade the Bruce Stadium?

GALLAGHER: So we’ve got the masterplan that’s being finalised in July on the Bruce precinct. It was part of the work that Kristy and Catherine supported in the last Budget, I think, when we invested in the AIS. I hadn’t included that, Dana, in my list of things that we’ve done in the ACT. And that will report in July, and that’ll inform future decisions for Government.

JOURNALIST: Minister, you mentioned the housing reforms that will be in the Budget, and you were told it’s about intergenerational equity. Does the Government regard negative gearing as an unfair concession?

GALLAGHER: Well, you’ll have to... I don’t want to pre-announce what will be in the Budget tomorrow night. You’ll have to wait for the Treasurer to speak to that. Our focus on housing has been about supply. Since coming to Government, that has been our focus. But we also have to deal with challenges as they emerge and responding to that in a way that makes buying your own home affordable and accessible, and we don’t apologise for that. That is something that people of my generation, we found it hard to save up and buy a house, but people in generations below me are finding it impossible. And that’s why the Government is supporting all of the different investments, five per cent deposits, the extra investment that we’ve announced in the last couple of days around enabling infrastructure to allow for the development of new housing programs or projects. All of that is focused on making sure that people younger than me are able to buy their own home and we are 100 per cent focused on that.

JOURNALIST: After all these voters flocked to One Nation at Farrer on the weekend, are you concerned that breaking more promises would just add to the trust deficit that the people feel towards major parties like yours?

GALLAGHER: Well, governments have to implement the positions, the election commitments they took to the last election. We’ve had a year of delivery, focusing on those election commitments. But as the PM said, and he said again on radio this morning, that wasn’t the limit of our ambition. We deal with decisions all the time, issues that come up, new information that comes before Government. If governments change their mind or change the position that they previously held, the responsibility is on governments to explain that, explain why they may have taken a different position and be upfront about that.

JOURNALIST: What new information have you got on the housing market since the last election?

KATY GALLAGHER: Well, if you look at the work that Clare O’Neil and the Treasurer have been doing in this space, you’ll see there’s an enormous amount of information about how we approach the housing challenge in the economy. And you’ve seen that...

JOURNALIST: Any specific changes to the housing challenge?

GALLAGHER: Well, if I can answer your question. And you’ve seen that from when we came in 2022 to the other programs that we have announced throughout our term, including those that we went to the election.

JOURNALIST: Since May last year, though, Minister?

GALLAGHER: Last... in 2025.

JOURNALIST: Yeah. Since May last year, what changes?

GALLAGHER: Well, Government gets a range of information all the time…

JOURNALIST: What specific?

GALLAGHER: …and we have to consider that and make decisions based on it, and you’ll see those decisions reflected in the Budget tomorrow night.

JOURNALIST: Minister, you said this morning that you expected the top-up funding at the CSIRO to prevent job cuts. That’s a bit different from what the agency is saying. They haven’t committed to that. And the short-term funding investment, the base funding, isn’t changing unless it’s changing tomorrow. Can you just clarify that? Was that over the forward estimates? Have you said to the agency that this money is being provided on the condition that they won’t cut further jobs?

GALLAGHER: Well, the way CSIRO is established is it’s an independent organisation. It has a board and it makes decisions independent of Government and the Government supports that. We have worked with CSIRO over the last nine months or so to reach agreement essentially with their ongoing funding requirements that allows them to deliver what they are asked to deliver, and the funding we have provided does that.

JOURNALIST: Would you be disappointed if there were further cuts?

GALLAGHER: Look, we have – in short, yes I would, because we have provided the funding that we believe will put CSIRO on a sustainable building.

JOURNALIST: Can I just ask a question of the Chief Minister please? You spoke about your ambition to make travel from Canberra to Sydney cheaper. Will this make fares cheaper I suppose in the future maybe?

BARR: Well, the NSW Government has some very generous concession fares available on this service and certainly it’s cheaper than flying. I have seen some one-way tickets between Canberra and Sydney that are up towards $600 one way. So I think it is important that there are alternative modes of transport, and the trains can provide for many people in the community a very affordable way to travel between the two cities.

JOURNALIST: We also heard that this was sold out this morning. Do we need extra services for travelling to Canberra to Sydney, if this is going to be faster?

BARR: Yeah, look, I think we will. I take on board Jenny’s point about needing the rolling stock to be available, but I think we’ve put forward a very compelling case given the level of patronage on the service at the moment. More of those services would grow the market, grow revenue for the NSW Government and allow more people to visit Canberra, which as the Tourism Minister for this jurisdiction for more than 20 years now is a lifelong passion of mine, and making it cheaper and easier to get here, whether that’s through land transport or flying is an objective that I have and I know that helps grow our tourism economy, which in turn supports tens of thousands of jobs in our economy. It helps to diversify the ACT economy further away from over-reliance on public sector employment. So we want to see that continue, and this is yet another example of collaboration across different levels of government that supports economic growth, and that’s why I’m so pleased with that.

JOURNALIST: Just in the short term, couldn’t they just add another carriage?

BARR: I’ll talk to Jenny about that. I’m not sure there is a...

AITCHISON: We’re doing a refurb we don’t have any!

BARR: There may not be any spare ones around at the moment, but as soon as there are, we will certainly be putting the case and I think the patronage does support more services, or if you could add another carriage on that would be fantastic as well. But rest assured I will continue to advocate for that.

JOURNALIST: And just one more, sorry, from me, any updates on the inner south precinct repurposing to construction ready land?

BARR: In this area here?

JOURNALIST: Yes.

BARR: Yes. so we have a number of projects underway including the work in the urban precincts program that was jointly funded between the Commonwealth and the ACT. And we have the East Lake planning strategy in place and we’ll have some further announcements in our budget next month. We do recognise that we have a part to play in the National Housing Target. I think the ACT is the jurisdiction best placed to meet its population share of that ambitious national target. We know people want to live in this precinct and we know they’re going to want to live here even more with better train services and better connectivity to Sydney, and of course to the rest of Canberra. So this is a great part of our national capital. It’s in my electorate as well, so of course I would say that. But we want to see these sorts of investments come together to support new housing as well.

JOURNALIST: Thank you.

CATHERINE KING: Thanks, everyone. Thank you.