ANDREW CLENNELL, HOST: Catherine King is the Transport Minister, she joins us from the new Western Sydney International Airport. Thanks so much for your time, Catherine King. Let's start with this opening. The first commercial flights from the second Sydney Airport today, only 40 years in the making. What does this mean for aviation in Australia, and how much pressure will it take off the Sydney Airport?

MINISTER FOR INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORT, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT CATHERINE KING: Well, it's really exciting news for Western Sydney, but also the whole of New South Wales. The brand-new Western Sydney International (Nancy Bird-Walton) Airport’s first flight is to the Gold Coast today. Excited families are ready to head out on that first flight, passenger flight, out of Western Sydney. It has been 40 years in the making. Hawke bought the land back, there's been a lot of argument, but we are there. It is opening. It is going to be terrific for Western Sydney. It's a huge catchment area, providing that opportunity for people to travel domestically and to the world. It's a cargo precinct, getting goods to market, but also just the jobs it's generating for Western Sydney will be terrific. We know that Kingsford Smith's capacity is constrained. We're constantly trying to look at ways to deal with that, and really bringing this new airport on, which is why it's been built, is because of the constraints on Kingsford Smith, it provides that extra opportunity for people to travel, but also to have fantastic aviation jobs. So, really exciting day for Western Sydney and for New South Wales today.

CLENNELL: Is it disappointing that as it opens, as the commercial flights start, there isn't a direct rail line? How much would that transform its operation?

KING: Well, it's not far off, and as you know, whilst I'm the transport minister for the whole of the country, I'm also a proud Victorian, and we've been debating airport rail for a very long time. It's not too far away. It is a big, complex project to build, but there will be a rail line to the new Western Sydney International Airport. But there's plenty of connectivity in other ways to get there, with bus services, free shuttle services, as well as obviously rideshare services and your own transport as well to get there to start with. And the rail line is on track to open in the next 12 to 18 months. So, it is being built as a greenfield site with a rail line in mind, something we're a little bit jealous of in Victoria. We're pretty keen to get our Melbourne Airport rail up and running as well.

CLENNELL: Well, there you go. Of course, there have always been curfew concerns and flight noise concerns around Sydney Airport proper. The Prime Minister would be well aware of that with his electorate, and has always advocated for a Western Sydney Airport as a result, Will this new airport alleviate any of that, or just create a whole bunch of new problems for Western Sydney residents?

KING: Well, what it does is that there has been significant changes to the flight paths, including the flight paths coming into Kingsford Smith, as well as that, now the curfew hours. So there's always been a little bit of leeway around those curfew hours. So that's now gone. Now that Western Sydney is open for passengers, none of that can occur. That's been in legislation for a long period of time now. And also, you know, what we hope to see is obviously more flights coming out of Western Sydney as well, and adding to that capacity. But you know, airports create noise. There's not a lot we can do about that. Newer aircraft, as we're seeing those come online, are a little bit quieter. But the reality is, you can't build an airport without some noise. But you should see some changes in the flight paths over Kingsford Smith and through there as well. People through there have had a significant amount of aircraft noise for a long period of time now. Now, with the second airport opening, we're sort of moving some of that around a bit, but there will still be some aircraft noise. It's unavoidable when you build an airport.

CLENNELL: Will we see cheaper flights?

KING: Well, certainly we hope so. The deals that I'm seeing out of Western Sydney are terrific at the moment. Obviously, there's quite a bit of competition in the Sydney market as well. We know that route between Melbourne and Sydney, in particular, is highly commercial, but also highly competitive as well. So, with Jetstar flying, I think the 14 flights to start with through to Melbourne each day. I think that we will see certainly some pressure taken off pricing, but of course at the moment we are seeing one of the biggest costs in aviation is fuel and fuel costs, and unfortunately we're not seeing any alleviation of that anytime soon.

CLENNELL: I wanted to ask now about the tragic attack on Helen Haines. You too are a Victorian regional MP. How much did this hit home for you?

KING: Very much so. I think that Helen's community is not that dissimilar to mine, and Helen is out and about in her community every day. Her electorate office is in the main street of Wangaratta. She'd be interacting with people at supermarkets. She's going about her daily life as well. My community is the same, and on the whole, I generally feel really safe in my community, and you don't think that anything like this could possibly happen. So, I know regional MPs in particular, it's been, how could this happen in the beautiful town of Wangaratta? And I think the Wangaratta people are feeling exactly that. You can see the outpouring of grief and love and loss and coming together in Wangaratta, and that's certainly being felt in communities right the way across the board. People should be safe at work, and politicians should be safe at work as well. And Helen was going about doing what she does every single day. She'd been at a sod turn for a community infrastructure project on her way to do a television interview at her electorate office, the same – I would park out the front of mine to unpack as well. So it becomes very real for you. I don't think anyone would have thought, in a heightened risk environment, that Helen would have been particularly unsafe in her own community. But clearly, that's now been tipped on its head.

CLENNELL: The fact it's not a terrorist attack, an MP said to me yesterday, was not necessarily a relief, as it means any of you MPs can be randomly targeted at any time. Are you and your colleagues more fearful because of this, particularly of copycat attacks?

KING: Well, certainly over a period of time, particularly as we've seen more and more abuse coming through emails, coming through our phone systems, often people feeling okay to say things to our faces on the street that they perhaps wouldn't have said before. I think we've all been saying for a while now that it is when, not if, that something will happen to one of us, and we've been saying that certainly for the last five years or so. And you know, so all of us, I think, have been alert and have been trying to look at how we do our jobs differently. But the very nature of what we do is we talk to people, we're interacting all the time, we're out and about in the community, and it's really hard to protect yourself and your staff who are often with you from someone who takes a decision to do what this person is alleged to have done. It does come to your mind as to, well how do you stay safe? And there's a few things that a few of us are doing differently. I had a mobile caravan that I've had for almost 25 years now. I don't use that now anymore because it doesn't have a second exit point. If someone did kick off and I'm trapped in the van, it's very hard to deal with that, so I have to do mobile offices a little bit differently. I don't advertise those on social media in advance. A lot of things are a bit different, but the very nature of our jobs is we need to be out and accessible and available to people, and it's very hard to protect against that. I guess that's why we've been saying that when people are, and I understand people are angry. I understand people have got grievances about a whole range of things, and you know that's part of my job is to listen to that, try and work out how we can actually resolve both individual problems and national problems. But when your immediate reaction when you're angry about something is to confront or get online and to be abusive. You just don't know who else is listening and watching that. And there are people who are unwell in our communities who can be triggered by some of this. And so I just say to people, and I know there'll be people listening to me who feel enraged about me and something that I've said, and there'll be comments on your pages about me. Just have a bit of a think about it if you can. Just check yourself a bit, and if you are feeling like that, go and talk to someone else first before you get online, because you just don't know what you're triggering in somebody. You just need to be a bit careful about that. You know, just think about what you're saying a little bit, and would you be okay saying it to someone's face or doing it? And if you're not, then maybe go and talk to someone about how you're feeling, and sort of try and work through what the solutions are to how you're feeling, and what someone can do about it, rather than targeting someone because it can engender a lot of anxiety and anger in other people as well.

CLENNELL: Well said. Do you expect extra security at Parliament this week?

KING: Look, I think that we're very well looked after by the Australian Federal Police. Obviously, when an incident so horrible as has happened to Helen occurs, they'll go back and look at all of the security measures are in place. But in Parliament House, we're very well looked after by the Australian Federal Police. Obviously, this is something that's happened out and about in the community, and all of our thoughts, I know as we head into Parliament, will be with Helen not being there with us. She's, as you said at your start, she’s a very well-liked member of Parliament, someone that we all see very much as a colleague. Don't always agree with her, but we see her very much as a colleague, and our thoughts and prayers and hearts are with her. It's so pleasing to hear she's now in a stable condition, but she's got a long road ahead, and she's going to need all of us behind her as a community of politicians, but a community of her workplace to make sure that when she's ready to return to work, that her staff are supported, that she's supported, so she can continue to be the fabulous member of parliament that she is.

CLENNELL: So we've had a bit made of the Prime Minister's office putting out this information about Helen Haines's grant applications a couple of weeks back, and what's been called a dirt sheet. The information in the sheet insinuated she may be doing favours for mates and was a response to her criticism of the Marrickville Golf Club grant. In hindsight, was putting out that sheet a bad idea?

KING: Well, look, I haven't seen it, so it's, you know, I haven't seen it, and don't really want to engage, frankly, in that. I think that at the moment all of our thoughts are really focused on Helen and what's occurred, and how we actually try and work together to really make sure that people like me and like Helen can continue to do our jobs in a way that, you know, does mean that we can advocate in the way Helen sounds to have done for her community, which is a pretty legitimate thing for all MPs to do. Because I'm the Infrastructure Minister, I don't think there's a Member of Parliament who doesn't come to see me about a community project in their electorate that they would like to have funding for. It's a pretty regular traipse to my door to ask for that, and that's a pretty normal process that we see happen. But right at the moment, I think the most appropriate thing for us to be doing is really focusing on Helen, but also understanding we can't change what's happened. It's happened. It is horrific. It is life changing for her. But what we can do is think about how we act going forward, what we do towards each other. But it's also on everybody. Whether it's legacy media, social media, whether it's individuals on the street, about what sort of country we want to be and live in, and how we actually go forward to make sure that we actually continue to have the open democracy that we do have.

CLENNELL: Because you administered this grants program, the Major and Local Community Infrastructure Program. It's a $560 million program, in which 45 electorates weren't even invited to apply. One of those electorates not invited to apply was Helen Haines's electorate of Indi. Why weren't 45 electorates invited to apply?

KING: So there's been a lot of reporting about this, and frankly, a lot of misreporting about this as well. I administer both competitive open grants programs, and we have over almost a billion dollars worth of funding for those in the Growing Regions and Thriving Suburbs programs. Then, as I'm required to do, as you know, political parties make election commitments at election time. You'll have candidates out and about. The Liberal Party does it, the Greens political party does it, independents do it, making election commitments in their electorate. Once the election's held, then there has to be a way in which a government then administers those election promises, and that's what the Major Community Local Infrastructure Program is. It's the 2025 election commitments. And the way in which the Audit Office, which we've done through a major inquiry into how grants are administered, the process that they say you have to set up to do that is a closed, non-competitive grant scheme. Obviously, you're not going to have someone in another electorate apply for a grant in someone else's electorate that's specific to a sporting club or something like that as an election commitment. So I have to administer that through a closed program. My department goes through those to check that they are value for money, that they can actually be delivered, and then we have contracts in place generally with local government to deliver those election commitments. But they are two separate things: closed, non-competitive grants programs that administer the election commitments, and then we have a whole range of community infrastructure projects. To be honest, Helen’s electorate's done really well out of out of the regional community Precincts and Partnerships Program, and Growing Regions, there’s terrific projects at Mansfield, and I think she was turning the sod on one of those on Monday when this tragic event occurred.

CLENNELL: Isn't this just a taxpayer-funded rort? You had $409 million go to Labor electorates of the $560 million.

KING: Well, as I said, these are the 2025 election commitments. Every single political party, when it comes to an election, the previous government had a program called the Community Development Grants Program. That was how they administered their election commitments. This has been happening for a long period of time. If the debate is about should political parties make local community election commitments, that is a different question to examining one program over another. You could go back and look at the Community Development Grants Program, for example, and say, well, that's skewed towards Liberal seats. They won the election, so therefore you could understand that. It's a different question. So, should political parties make community infrastructure election commitments? The Labor Party, we think you should, and in fact, many local governments and communities rely on that. They develop advocacy and priority documents that they bring to their local members to say we would like you to make election commitments about these particular things. And candidates and MPs weigh up whether they want to support or advocate for those particular projects. It's part of our democracy. It's been part of our democracy for a really long period of time.

CLENNELL: And it's a pork barrel, isn't it? You administered a pork barrel.

KING: Well, there are election commitments, and obviously, the party that wins government then gets to deliver its election commitments, and that's what they are. And as I said, this is you know the previous government did exactly the same with the Community Development Grants Program. When we were in government before, we had a similar program. What the question really should be is are we administering it according to the Audit Office requirements? And that's exactly what we are doing with this program. But as I said, there are also over a billion dollars worth of community infrastructure programs that I administer that are competitive grants programs. I'm about to open another one shortly that people do apply for, and there's invitations to apply for Thriving Suburbs and Growing Regions as well.

CLENNELL: That’s a better system isn’t it, Minister?

KING: Well, that's the question, I guess. If you're saying that at election time, no political party should make election commitments. That's an unusual thing, you know. That is what political parties do at elections. They make election commitments.

CLENNELL: Yeah, election commitments around policy, you don’t give everyone a building just because it's a Labor seat or it's a seat you want to win. I'm not sure two wrongs make a right either. Well, just because the Liberal Party did it.

KING: Well, that's what I'm saying. I mean, that's the question for debate. I, as a Labor MP, believe really strongly that you should be able to make election commitments. And in fact, you'll find that communities and local governments come to you at election time very strongly, advocating for community infrastructure in their areas. They want to know what you as a local MP are going to do for them. And candidates right the way across the country, whether it's Liberal, Labor, Greens, Independent, come out at election time. You will have seen from election coverage. Often you'll see candidates and media releases making these sort of announcements. And so that's a different debate over whether this one program is okay or not okay. It's a different debate.

CLENNELL: If it’s a safe Lib seat though, tough luck. Now, a lot’s been made a lot's been made out of the fact that there are 1500 or 1600 –

KING: Well, that’s not true, I actually did make –  

CLENNELL: Go on.

KING: Well, there were some of our commitments made, so there were election commitments that our candidates made in in Liberal seats, and we're delivering on those too.

CLENNELL: How many? And are they still Lib seats?

KING: I couldn't tell you. Some yes, some they definitely are, and I'm still administering Community Development Grants from the previous government as well, so many of those are now opening at the moment. So yeah, still administering those as well.

CLENNELL: It'd be no surprises that I want to ask you about Marrickville. So there's 1,500 or 1,600 golf clubs in Australia, and the only one that got any funds was the one the Prime Minister promised. Were you the decision maker on that?

KING: Yeah, I'm the decision maker on the – when the assessment is done by my department. My department administers these grants, and then I sign off on whether the grant goes through or not. On this particular one, I was on leave at the time, and Kristy McBain signed. And I think that decision sheet is actually out. There was an FOI on that, and that's out in the public domain.

CLENNELL: Did the PM ask you for that grant?

KING: No, he didn’t. I’ve never spoken to the PM about Marrickville Golf Club ever, so no, he did not.

CLENNELL: Did the money end up going to sewerage works, as the PM has said in the Parliament?

KING: Well, I have to go back. Yes, that is the works. There's two levels of work. So, both of it is to look at the water outflow from the golf club itself, and to deal with the sewerage issue. And there's also some facilities. The contract, I think, I’d just have to go back and double check with the – it's actually with the local council, not with the golf club itself, is underway at the moment, and the scope of works is still being developed. But that is my understanding very clearly that it is both for the sewerage works and some of the facilities development out there. It's a well-loved facility out there, owned and operated and run obviously by the Marrickville Golf Course, but it is a local government facility.

CLENNELL: Did the idea for the grants program originate with you, or with the PM and his office, or in Labor Party HQ?

KING: Election commitments for this specific grant? There is an election commitments process that all political parties run as we lead into the election campaign, and candidates and MPs are asked to put forward, obviously, their election commitments and what their preference is in their local areas.

CLENNELL: Was Labor’s head office involved in that?

KING: Yeah, absolutely, because it's an election commitment process. It's a political process. So, of course, you know that is done through the party machinery, not through government machinery.

CLENNELL: So you've got this: MPs go to the party machinery, give their wish list. The party machinery decides it's all right, as opposed to you, the Infrastructure Minister, and then post-election you put it through the formal process, is that right?

KING: Yeah, we have to. There's a process for administration. But again, that is no different to what has happened previously. That is, every single time you have an election, people put forward election commitments. A political party wins. The selection process is the election. A political party wins, and they then have to deliver on those election commitments. So, as I said, that's a broader debate about election commitments, not particularly about this particular program or particular grants under this program.

CLENNELL: I’m aware you have to go to this opening, so one last question. A lot of talk some of the old guard will retire next year, allowing Cabinet reshuffle. I don't want to call you old guard, Catherine King. Are you going to run at the next election?

KING: Yes I am. I don't know about that, thanks for calling me the old guard! I have been there, I'm not the longest serving MP. That that would be someone else, and I'll try not to take offense at that, Andrew. I reckon you've been around as long as me. You'll have to go back and check.

CLENNELL: I am not that young, I must admit.

KING: That's all right. None of us are, mate. None of us. But certainly, that is absolutely my intention to run at the next election. I am so privileged to represent my beautiful community of Ballarat. It is a great place to live and be. And I know, despite all of the things that have happened this week that MPs feel the same. We love doing our job, we love looking after people, we love trying to solve and find solutions to really tricky problems for people and do the best that we possibly can. We don't always get it right, we're not always perfect but we really try and represent our communities. We live in them and we love them and that's certainly what I intend to do.

CLENNELL: Catherine King, thanks for your time.

KING: Great to be with you, Andrew. Thank you.