The Hon Catherine King MP
Transcript - Minister King and Senator Green Doorstop interview, Cairns
SENATOR FOR QUEENSLAND, NITA GREEN: Thank you so much for being here today. My name is Nita. I'm a Senator for Queensland and the Special Envoy for the Great Barrier Reef but I'm also a local Senator here in Cairns, passionate about manufacturing, so I couldn't be prouder to be here today. I'm here with Catherine King, our Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. And we're also joined by Russell Beer from Ports North to make a really exciting announcement. It is a pleasure to be here and I just wanted to thank a few people before we get started. I want to thank Rob and the team here at Tropical Reef Shipyard for having us on site today. But of course, a shout out to all of the shipyards that make up the Cairns Marine Precinct. North Ship and Austel have been incredibly helpful with their time and their expertise in putting together this announcement today. It is definitely exciting to make election commitments. That's something that's enjoyable to do. But it's even better to come here as a Labor Government, a member of a government and make an announcement about something that will be in the budget fully funded. And that is the Cairns Marine Precinct today. I'll leave the announcement to the Minister but I just want to say this. This is a game changing investment for Far North Queensland. It means a change that will be generational, that will reform the way that jobs are created here in Far North Queensland. One of the reasons why so many people across the region have supported this project is because it will make sure that we have a diversified economy, good local secure jobs, training for apprentices, training for traineeships, and in securing the investment for defence manufacturing for many years to come.
It's also really important that we're talking about skills today and we've got an exciting announcement to make about the University as well. We know that under a Labor Government, you'll see investment in regional Australia and you'll see investment in regional Queensland. This is an investment in regional Queensland. This is an investment in manufacturing. Under the previous government, we would have seen cuts to Medicare, lower wages, and no investment in skills and no investment in manufacturing. In fact, this project that we're talking about today wasn't supported by the previous government. And it is really clear what the difference is under an Anthony Albanese Labor Government with a Minister like Catherine King, who is from regional Australia, in the infrastructure portfolio that we are seeing this investment in regional Australia in regional manufacturing, and I'll hand over to Catherine.
MINISTER FOR INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORT, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT, CATHERINE KING: Thanks very much Nita and I'm so delighted to be back here in Cairns and to see this economy thriving once again. It's been a tough few years and it's really lovely to see the visitor economy booming, but more importantly, being able to be here today to confirm that in the budget next week, you will see the Albanese Labor Government's commitment of $150 million in partnership with $150 million from the Labor Queensland State Government to the Cairns Marine Precinct. We know this is the one of the single biggest economic development opportunities here for Cairns and for Far North Queensland. Hundreds of jobs will hang off this investment, providing the common user facilities to actually be able to grow the marine infrastructure here, bring high skilled, high paying jobs into Cairns and diversifying the economy. We know that's absolutely critical for regional communities such as Cairns to really grow your economy from the base that you've got, and what a natural advantage you have here in Cairns with this incredible port infrastructure and can I thank Ports North for having us here on site today and for the businesses who are using these facilities here. This will see a 5000 tonne ship lift built here. Increased capacity with a new hardstand here to allow businesses here to do more marine work, to do that work for defence, but to do that for the private industry and private sector as well. Being able to do that here, provide more apprentices more traineeships in the marine sector, a growing sector and you've got such a natural advantage here in Cairns in this sector with this incredible port infrastructure and the ability to do that.
We're also announcing today that we are confirming the $50 million commitment to CQU bringing that campus well and truly into the centre of town. 4000 students on campus, being able to see the people of Cairns use those university facilities as well and really reinvigorating that component of the CBD. These are the sorts of investments that Labor is making in regional Australia. In the budget you will see substantial investment in our region's from our election commitments here in Cairns, right the way across every regional community in this country. You'll see that investment come to life and I'm really looking forward to being back here with many businesses here with your fabulous Senator Nita Green to actually see the first ship hopefully lifted out of the water. I'm very excited to be able to be here today.
And I might hand over to Russell just to say a brief few words and then we'll take questions from there.
CHAIRPERSON, PORTS NORTH, RUSSELL BEER: Minister, you're always welcome in Cairns, and you're particularly welcome at days like today when you confirm your government's commitment. As the Minister and the Senator have said, this is a very, very major announcement for Cairns today. A lot of work is being done. There's a lot of stakeholders put a lot of time and effort into this. The Queensland state government has been fantastic under the leadership of Annastacia Palaszczuk and local Member Michael Healy. Senator Nita Green has really driven this project from a federal level. And we're delighted now to see the commitment to this being announced in the budget next week. Come here in a few years’ time you're going to see this thing go from what it is now to something that's going to blow your mind. Already the shipyards here are in talks with the US and the British defence about maintaining some of their vessels here. And in years to come, this is going to be a high level activity. It's going to be great for all of our stakeholders, great for our community. And our kids. And I get the greatest thanks to both the federal and state governments. Thanks very much. Happy to take questions.
JOURNALIST: [inaudible]
KING: Well, that's it we're in talks with obviously the Queensland State Government who will manage the contract for us but I would hope that as soon as we possibly can, we are very conscious that there are some capacity constraints in terms of construction at the moment. But my view from hearing from the board, they are raring to go and we'll be making the money available in the budget next week.
JOURNALIST: How many jobs will this investment create, sorry, and what exactly are these jobs involving?
KING: I'll get Russell perhaps to supplement, but really what you see you see here at this facility is you know, you can see behind us already that this is about getting ships into drydock, it's about doing that maintenance and engineering work. That is actually vital. You know, these ships are taking goods, our goods and services to market, they are actually ensuring that our mining industry continues to be able to be viable in this country. And so those jobs are highly complex jobs. They are jobs that you see, as I said, it's through maintenance work through engineering, but it's also what that also means for the broader economy, making sure that the legal contracts we've got Legal Services and Financial Services to be able to ensure that the contracts that are each of the companies here have we are with defence with other industries, those sorts of jobs will grow as well. But I might get Russell to also supplement that.
GREEN: So this investment in the Cairns Marine Precinct will lead to 150 construction jobs when the facility is built. That's really exciting news, because we know that we do have some bigger construction projects that are coming offline in the next couple of years. So having this long term pathway of construction jobs in Cairns is important. But the really important focus on jobs with this investment is the 1000s of shipbuilding jobs that it supports. So we are talking about welders, we are talking about fitter and turners, we're talking about boiler makers, but also the supply chain that goes with it. As Catherine says, we've got a team of people who support all of those jobs here. And we're seeing more investment and more advanced manufacturing happening. So we're seeing engineers being involved, and we're talking to people who are working on the computer systems that are in ships and that they are basing themselves here to be working on that really high tech equipment. So it's the construction jobs in the build-up, but also the support that it will provide to the jobs of this industry going forward that I think is so important for our region.
BEER: Just another couple of comments about jobs and timings. There's currently about 600 people full time, involved in these three shipyards when things are running. We expect that there will be a multiple of those by the time this thing is finished. There is huge pent up demand for this work to be done in this region. And once we provide that infrastructure the work will be there. In terms of timing though, if you look down to the [inaudible], you'll see four grey pylons sitting up there. That's actually part of the new wharf we're developing there now. So there will be one new wharf there very soon and you can see the crane down there. Plus the other side that's actually putting pylons in for another wharf. So there's already some work there. They'll probably be ready this time next year. So that would dovetail nicely into some incremental development pushed along by the step change and the major development happening behind the scene.
JOURNALIST: [inaudible] Critics out there saying pretty much you've come up here today pretty much announced, what was already known? What's your what's your response to that?
KING: Well, this is a multi-million dollar facility here in Cairns, where we are confirming that in the budget next week, the money will start to flow to this project as well as the project for CQ University and also Kuranda Range Road and huge investments and you'll see other ministers there. This project came to us from the Port, from Advance Cairns, from the business community, from the council here and has enormous support and I think it's important that I am here today to confirm that investment to make sure we actually get this project here. I'll be back many times as we see this develop and to see this grow. And certainly you know we are always happy to hear about what those you know what new projects might be. But really this is one of the single biggest investments you've seen in the Cairns community for frankly decades. And I think this is something that the community particularly those proponents who brought this project to the Albanese Labor government should be very, very proud.
JOURNALIST: You mentioned creating jobs. How will it actually impact and benefit the economy?
KING: Well in multiple ways. First, you've obviously got the construction jobs, and that's the first part of it. But really what it also does, you know, you've heard from Russell that there are already 600 people employed in this precinct. Imagine that doubling, being able to have young people doing their training here in Cairns, being able to have those high value apprentice jobs, being able to have that long term job security here, rather than having to leave for other areas. We know that in general, marine engineering is significantly under invested in this country. We know that there are huge opportunities in this to grow jobs. And I think the fact that Cairns is well ahead of others areas and saying we've put our hand up. We want to see those jobs grow here in this region. But then of course that has a multiplier effect when you've got multimillion dollar contracts from overseas defence organisations coming into this region, that money will flow right the way through the economy here. So whether it's the visitor economy or whether it's the financial services sector or the legal services sector, everybody will benefit from having this facility here and having that money flowing through the Cairns economy.
JOURNALIST: With the new facilities and especially I think the drydock that you mentioned, coming to Cairns, how many other places in Australia have similar facilities...?
KING: Not many and not many that can do 5000 tonnes so it will be quite a unique facility here to be able to do that we know that ships are getting bigger, and they're more complex in terms of the needs that they have in terms of maintenance and actually being able to keep them here. But it'll be one of the very few facilities in the country that will be able to do 5000 tonnes. And Russell might be able to add to that as well as to why you've actually had the jump on many other areas and have a competitive advantage here an Cairns.
BEER: Thanks Minister, you can count the number on one hand. You have the Darwin port, which of course these days is Chinese owned, and I'll leave that there. You have the Henderson Base over in Fremantle, you have [inaudible] in South Australia. They're a long way away from the geopolitical centre of the world at the moment, which is obviously in Southeast Asia. So we're well placed there. And last time I looked at the penguins down in Antarctica, they're not putting out much of a threat so I can see Navy and others putting more in this part of the world.
KING: Any other questions? Yep, about tourism. There's a new campaign being launched. But there's also a big problem [inaudible]. Yeah, so I think Minister Farrell, the Tourism Minister has been saying, Well, we know domestic tourism is booming. There's a substantial pent up demand and you're seeing that, you're seeing that here in Cairns at the moment, you're saying that in Brisbane as well, with the occupancy rates are in our hotels doing really well. But we also know that bringing international tourists back is a really significant challenge. We've got quite a bit of work to do. I think the announcement recently from the Tourism Ministers Meeting of an investment to really focus on
particularly aviation and bringing international aviation passengers, we're seeing a lot of Australians going out and traveling overseas. We want to start to see those international visitors going back in and part of that is confidence. It's letting the world know we are open. We are open for business, the fact that you've had the Prime Minister and our Foreign Affairs Minister traveling extensively to rebuild some of those relationships. I think it's also really important to signal that Australia is open to the world and we're ready to see international tourism come back in.
JOURNALIST: [inaudible] new public service academy?
GREEN: Well, it's a really exciting enhancement that we've made for the APS Academy to be based at JCU in Townsville. And I'm incredibly excited to announce that in hand in hand with Katy Gallagher, our Minister for Finance, the APS Academy in Townsville has been specifically chosen because we know that Townsville is a hub for Northern Australia and North Queensland, particularly in the delivery of government services. And the reason that we've chosen Townsville is because we do have those JCU facilities there. And we know that we have some departments who are based in Townsville to provide the jobs and the training to go hand in hand. We know that under the previous government, the Australian Public Service was stripped back to the point where we were relying on labour hire companies to fill jobs that were needed. We saw the Department of Veteran Affairs waitlist, just blow out because they didn't have enough staff. So investing in the public service is important to our government, because we know that deliver services in regional Queensland, in regional Australia and that's why I'm really proud that we've delivered that Academy in Townsville 300 places for Townsville and I think it will mean 300 fantastic people take up those jobs and contribute to the economy.
JOURNALIST: [inaudible]
GREEN: Yeah, so we've committed 300 places at the APS Academy in Townsville, and what that means is that 300 people will be employed at a government agency, but they'll also be getting training and that's really significant and important. I know. I'm one of those people who, when I left school, I couldn't just go straight to university. I didn't have the money to support studying full time. I studied as a trainee, working full time but studying at the same time. And I think it's really crucial that people have an opportunity. If University isn't their pathway, they still get a chance to work in the public service, and they get a chance to get the skills that they need to develop and move on to other jobs in other industries. So that's why we've chosen Townsville and we've chosen the 300 places. I want to see people take up the opportunity, young people who live in Townsville right now. Get the chance to have a good local secure job, get the chance to have good training from JCU and get the chance to give back to their community.