FEDERAL MEMBER FOR BANKS ZHI SOON: Morning everybody, welcome to the electorate of Banks. In particular, we are at the edge of South Hurstville and Connells Point. Before I kick things off, I want to recognise that we are on the land of the Bidjigal people, and really acknowledge their continual custodianship of the land, air and waterways of this area for generations. I'm so excited to welcome two amazing ministers. We've got the Federal Minister for Infrastructure, Catherine King here, and the wonderful New South Wales Minister for Roads, Jenny Aitchison. Look, it's a really exciting announcement for the community on the eastern side of Banks here, as we talk about the King Georges Road upgrade. I'll hand over now to Minister King to kick the kick proceedings off. 

MINISTER FOR INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORT, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT CATHERINE KING: Thanks so much, everybody. So today marks the start of construction on Stage 2A of King Georges Road. This stage, of course, focuses on what you can see is a real pinch point here in South Hurstville, we've got a beautiful, older suburb, but the volume of traffic really is not keeping up with the number of people who are using this road. We know that this part of the road is really a pinch point, and it will help ease congestion for locals and make this area, of course more importantly, much safer as people go about their daily commute. Thousands of commuters use this road each and every day, and whether they're trying to get to work, whether they're trying to take their kids to school or to childcare or to early education, they deserve to be able to use this road safely and efficiently. We've committed as a government, $95 million to this project, alongside $95 million coming from the Minns Labor Government as well. It's a great partnership we have together on making sure that we actually make these great suburbs even more liveable for people. This project is the next stage in the King Georges Road upgrade. Of course we had the Stage 1 opening, a great project, opening and finished just last year. And that road went from four lanes to six. Stage 2A really continues the momentum of fixing this road. We’re really delighted to be able to partner with Jenny. Of course, you know, we love announcing and starting these infrastructure projects, but really, these projects are about people. They're about our magnificent construction workforce. Can I acknowledge BMD for the work that they are doing on this project? It's lovely to see some familiar faces here on site as well and thank them for the work that they're going to do on the project. But also, it's about the people who live and commute in these communities, making these roads safer, making them more available for people to be able to get home safely, because that's really what transport infrastructure is all about. I'll hand over to Jenny, and then we're both happy to take some questions. 

NSW MINISTER FOR ROADS AND REGIONAL TRANSPORT JENNY AITCHISON: Thanks, Catherine. Look, this is a fantastic project. There are 60,000 cars that use this corridor every single day. Going from two lanes to three lanes in either direction is going to enable us to reduce congestion, improve safety and most importantly, allow people to spend less time in their car and more time with family and loved ones. This part of the King Georges Road is a pinch point. Luckily, in this part, we won't have to do any property acquisitions. We've got the space we need within the corridor. So this is really about moving from Culwulla Street and William Street up to Connells Point Road. We'll be providing more turning lanes for that part of the road to turn into Connells Point Road, as well as ensuing we have the median strip so we have more traffic control, essentially through the geography or the construction of the road there, having those three lanes separated will be much safer for commuters, and it's great to see this project going ahead. As Catherine said, we've finished the last part of stage 1 last year. This part is a $32.5 million dollar investment in the community. I want to thank Zhi as such a strong advocate for his community from the federal perspective, and of course, Catherine and the Albanese Federal Labor Government for coming to work again, hand in hand with the Minns Labor Government at the state level, so that we can actually ensure that the communities get the infrastructure that they need to ensure amenity and safety and less congestion, I think I'll leave it there. Any questions? 

JOURNALIST: Minister, you mentioned this is about improving safety. Has there been a history of crashes? 

AITCHISON: Look, we know that there are, in all parts of the network where we've got this kind of congestion, there's always that potential for crashes. I don't have a specific crash history for this area. Now, but we know that having those medians will be really important, and we can hear from the traffic already, and we can see that congestion is going to be much alleviated by having those three lanes here. 

JOURNALIST: So, when will work begin and how long will it take? 

AITCHISON: Yep, so work's basically starting today. It will start today and take about 18 months. The last section took a bit longer because a lot of acquisition and utility movements and asbestos and all sorts of other things. The team's very prepared for such eventualities now, so that will enable them. And part of that, you know, has been getting the cutovers all organised in advance, knowing what we have to do. 

JOURNALIST: You're saying no land needs to be acquired for this?

AITCHISON: Yeah, so the corridor is the right size, so we don't need to acquire land. So that'll save a lot of time on the project as well. 

JOURNALIST: I've got some questions for Minister King from Canberra. 

KING: Yes, sure. 

JOURNALIST: Been any delays or cancellations [indistinct]?

KING: No, if you've seen that from Minister Bowen, each Saturday he's providing an update about the availability of fuel in Australia. In fact, the report from Saturday was that, in fact, in terms of our minimum stock holding obligations, jet fuel is slightly up a day from the last reporting period. 

JOURNALIST: Will EVs continue to be exempt from the fringe benefits tax via novated leases in this year’s budget? 

KING: Well, obviously there's been a review of the EV tax, that was a scheduled review as part of the legislation and part of the operation of that. We'll have announcements to make in the budget. But what we would say is that it's been the successful policy in increasing the uptake of EVs here in Australia that's, alongside the NVES, the New Vehicle Efficiency Scheme has been important. We're now also seeing a lot of those cars come off their leases into the second hand market. That's again been important in terms of the availability of some lower cost EVs into the Australian market, but we'll obviously have announcements in relation to the budget about that. 

JOURNALIST: About that, states and territories have indicated they want a national approach to fuel prices, but we're already seeing some states offer free or reduced fares for public transport, while others aren't. Do you think all states need to offer cheaper public transport fares to help reduce the fuel prices? 

KING: Well, obviously, the Prime Minister has been convening national cabinet, and he's doing that again, I think, on Thursday this week, to ensure that we do have clear line of sight of what each state and territory is doing, making sure they're aware of what the national government is doing and how they can assist with that. I’m pleased to see in my own home state, there's been free public transport, but state governments will make their own decisions about that. They're each in different budgetary positions, have different public transport systems. They will make their own decisions about that. But obviously, in terms of the Prime Minister, what he's been doing is ensuring national cabinet is meeting. We've got the national fuel security plan, we're in stage two of that plan at the moment, there's a clear line of sight of what that means. And I know that every government, whether it's a state government, the federal government, or even local governments, we’re all in this together to try and make sure we get the best possible response we can for the Australian public. 

JOURNALIST: Do you think all states should be lifting their weight equally in that regard, in terms of easing pressures? 

KING: I think really, at the end of the day, those are matters and decisions for states. I don't wish to weigh into those. I'm not round the state cabinet table making budgetary decisions, they're really a matter for states. But what we do know is that states, particularly, were very collaborative and assisted in terms of lifting some of the GST on fuel, trying to really look at that as a cost of living measure, making fuel available to people through distribution. They've done a terrific job with that. We're now seeing fewer and fewer service stations with constrained diesel in particular, so that work continues, and I know they'll continue those discussions at national cabinet with the Prime Minister on Thursday. 

JOURNALIST: If the ceasefire doesn't hold, will Australia move to level three of the fuel security plan? 

KING: Well again, as we've said consistently, really the issues around what we've been trying to do is shore up supply. And I don't think you could see anyone doing a greater effort than the Prime Minister; going to visit Singapore, Malaysia, into Brunei, getting those deals. The work we've done with the export finance authority to secure to secure fuel supplies, but also fertiliser, which is critical to our farmers, and food security, not just here in Australia, but where we export to, as well. So really making that effort to do that, working with the states to ensure that distribution is occurring, trying to take the pressure off the worst of the fuel price spike with the excise relief and also road user charging. We're doing a lot of contingency planning. We're in stage two at the moment. We'll signal very clearly, if we are going to have to move to stage three. But no, we're not there. We know that fuel supplies are secured right the way through May, and we'll continue to make those updates. But I also want to say thank you to the travelling public. They've been really fantastic, I think, really responding, understanding that no, this isn't a crisis of our making. We're all affected by what's happening in the Middle East. We're all hoping very much that a diplomatic solution is found and that the strait is opened as soon as possible, but we're making sure we're doing all of the contingency planning to ensure that we're ready should things worsen, 

JOURNALIST: Minister Aitchison, why won't New South Wales bring in free public transport to ease demand? 

AITCHISON: The New South Wales Government is working across a whole range of initiatives to try and assist people going through the fuel crisis. Public transport is already being used. We've seen record surges on the Metro. We know in regional areas that would not be effective, they don't have the same access to public transport as some of our city cousins do. And the other thing I think we are doing is that work in actually reducing the impost on diesel users, in terms of the heavy vehicles and keeping the trucks moving. Now we know that that will have a cost that comes to us in terms of road maintenance and upgrades by having those high productivity vehicles on the network, because they are harder wearing on the roads. So, we are obviously looking at all sorts of avenues that we can do, but in the way that our state is structured at this point in time, it's not something we're considering. 

JOURNALIST: Is it because it'd be too expensive, and people are already making that shift with the existing prices in place. 

AITCHISON: Look, I just look at it from my perspective. I come from the Hunter Valley. We have, you know, a train there, which is substantially cheaper than driving your car. People are still taking the train, but they are also still taking their cars. I don't think that, in a lot of our areas that access to transport is being driven by pricing. It's being driven by a whole lot of other factors. We've done things like increasing the frequency of services, particularly with the metros. So, putting on extra services, that costs extra money. The other thing is, we want to ensure that we've got the financial capacity to continue to maintain our public transport to, costs are increasing for the government in delivering those services, and particularly the extra additional services that we're doing. 

JOURNALIST: Thanks very much. 

KING: Thank you everyone.