Interview on ABC Drive Tropical North

HOST, MECHAM PHILPOTT: This big announcement came out from the federal government today. The media release reads, restoring integrity to regional funding and says the government will deliver two new regional programs in the 2022-23 October budget that's released tomorrow evening, to invest in much needed community infrastructure in a way that's transparent, fair and more sustainable. But what really caught my attention when I was reading through this is this, the government will not be proceeding with the Building Better Regions Fund Round 6. Now the Minister that's overseeing this is Catherine King, of course the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, and Local Government and Minister thank you for making some time for us this afternoon.

MINISTER FOR INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORT, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT, CATHERINE KING: Good to be with you Meech. That was a fun song to start with. set the scene for the beautiful Mackay.

PHILPOTT: Look this is the big one, I guess, which is concerning for us in the regions, because so much of the infrastructure that's been built in the last decade has been under the Building Better Regions Fund, but that's not going to proceed, what's the difference? What's happening?

KING: So, the Australian National Audit Office did a big report into the previous government's Building Better Regions Fund and basically said look, it started off okay, but every time they got close to an election, they basically used the funds to funnel projects through their own seats, and that hasn't been fair to other regional communities. And it got to the point where frankly, the program was just so corrupted, I can't proceed with the current round, but what we do want to do is make sure - I know how important regional grants are there - there'll be money flowing through for regions with our election commitments in the budget, but we also wanted to make sure that there were regional grants programs going forward. We'll announce those in the budget. It's a billion dollars for two programs going to over the next three years. There will be one will be a competitive grants program, and the other will be for those larger scale projects. So if your local council's got a big precinct that it wants to actually - whether it's an industrial precinct, whether it's an education precinct, whether it's something to look at your retail sector or your CBD, or a sporting precinct, but it's at that really larger scale - that program will be there for that. We're going to work on the guidelines to try and make sure with regional communities that we get them right. We'll do that much more transparent program much more fairer program that allows regions... At the moment BBRF for many communities was pretty much a lottery. We really want to try and clean it up and go forward with a new program that really helps regions across the country, not just frankly, the ones the Nats held.

PHILPOTT: Okay, interesting coalition's come out and said, well, it's no great surprise that a lot of money went to National held seats because the Nationals hold a lot of regional seats in Queensland and regional Queensland is the powerhouse of Australia, because we're the ones that produce stuff for the GDP so therefore, they’re basically infrastructure builds, how do you react to that one?

KING: You know, there is money that we're putting into, you know, Bruce Highway, a range of other roads all the way through Queensland. Keeping the Beef Roads, keeping a lot of really important projects right the way through Queensland and that's in the infrastructure investment program. But what was sort of happening is that it's you know, and National Party seats, yeah, they hold a lot of seats. Libs hold a lot of regional seats too, so do Labor members, we hold about 13 per cent of the regional seats, but when you actually look to what the Audit Office did, they looked at where the money went. Basically, about 77% of it was going largely to National seats and that might be great if you're a regional person who lives in a Nationals seat, fantastic. But if you're don't, it's not really helped other regions and all regions deserve to actually have an opportunity to compete fairly for grant funding. And that's really what we're trying to do, is clean that up. And there will be plenty of money for both honouring our election commitments in the regions and actually then just getting on with cleaning up the grants program and making sure we move forward with a transparent program for people to apply for.

PHILPOTT: Minister you must have, I'm going to apologize for this question straight away. But the cynic in me is going whoop whoop whoop at the moment, so we're trading one government for the other. So what stops this becoming a slush fund for Labor seats?

KING: The first thing is that we're introducing an integrity commission. And I think it's going to be a brave, brave Minister, that in the context of having a national integrity commission does some of the stuff that we saw from the previous government when it comes to grants programs. My commitment, obviously, is I will work with regional communities on the development of the guidelines. There'll be an expression of interest processes first, so that local communities don't have to go through that full application and then find basically, they go through huge amounts of work and they don't get anywhere. Independent panel assessing the expressions of interest first, so hands distance from me or any other ministers working with our Regional Development Australia to make sure that they're investment ready. And then really making sure the projects that come to government for investment have been really decided at arm's length, they stack up and that we make sure that they're ready to be delivered in regional communities. The other thing I've got, which is not just the Building Better Regions Fund, but the previous government had this thing called the Community Development Grants program. Yeah, it wasn't a grants program. No one could apply for it. They just gave it out, basically, so $3.2 billion of it that they just gave out. I've got projects that aren't contracted, that go right the way back to 2016. And so unlike what the previous government did to programs that we decided in government, when we last office, they basically cancelled all the ones in Labor seats and kept all the ones in National Party and Lib seats. I'm actually honouring those ones that were done prior to them going into caretaker, we'll be getting that money out and doing proper assessments on those projects as well. But we can't just keep having a slush fund like the Community Development Grants program, we've got to do it properly.

PHILPOTT: I understand what you're saying. So massive projects, say for instance, the Rocky Ring Road the other one too, the Port to Ring Road from Mackay, which you know, enables people out west to go straight to port with produce. They've been going for years, but their applications stuck. They just sit so they don't reapply or anything is that you're saying?

KING: So there's two things so there's a thing called the infrastructure investment programs. So that's where the Ring Road seats, the big road projects out to the Port. All of those are in the budget, we haven't cut any of the infrastructure investment program funding in Queensland, none at all. But what we have had to do is, you know yourself if you're trying to get a tradie at the moment to do work on your house ,you can't. Well imagine trying to do that for a massive road or rail project at the moment, it's almost impossible. Plus, we're only getting one company tender and that's driving the price up. So what we're having to do, working with the State governments right the way across the country say okay, when can we realistically deliver this? How do we actually get this so we're not contributing to inflation. So there might be some delays with some of the projects. I want to actually deliver these projects. I don't want to just talk about them. And I don't want to keep putting out press releases saying, wow, isn't it great that the money's there. I actually want to dig the sod into the soil. And so what I've had to do is reprofile, with what we call it, make sure that we're actually delivering the money when the project is ready to be built. And so you'll see some of that in the budget as well, but there's no cuts to the Infrastructure Investment Program, no cuts to the Ring Road you know we all remember George and his Beyoncé film clip. We just had a look at it in the office before, you know I don't know if we want to see George to ever do that again. The money's there.

PHILPOTT: Understand the name was the Building Better Regions Fund that's out. What does the name become? What do we refer to it as?

KING: Yeah, so there'll be two programs, the Growing Regions Fund and also what's called a Precincts Program, which is really as I said about that program, if your council says that we've got this massive economic development opportunity for an industrial precinct. We want the enabling funding for the enabling infrastructure for that. We've got a big sporting precinct that's beyond Council's ability to do that. We've got some state government money ready for that as well. It's those big things, that really change your towns and your communities. So that's the Precincts Program that will be, but the Growing Regions Fund.

PHILPOTT: Big dams with pumped hydro?

KING: Water infrastructure doesn't sit in the infrastructure portfolio with water sits with climate change and water. So that that'd be sitting with Tanya Plibersek as the Water Infrastructure Minister, so talk to talk to her about that, but the National Water grid and the infrastructure that comes for that, that money's still around.

PHILPOTT: Just a quick one minister, you've been great with your time. Thank you so much. Two new funds. Does that mean new rules and it takes you a while to get that set up? Doesn't it?

KING: Yeah, so there will be some new guidelines but let's be real, so Building Better Regions Fund, so I thought this was a joke when I read it really, like I looked at the guidelines. And so what they had is this secret ministerial panel that made the decision so no one knew who they were. They had the guidelines and they put this thing in the guidelines said ministers can consider other matters. And then when I looked at, you know, what are the things that might constitute other matters? They then had a dot point that said other matters, like I kid you not, like really? That's what they were doing. So really, for me, like it's cleaning that up, making sure it's clearer for people. This will be an annual grants program. So councils will know each year it'll be open. We're trying to just work on the date of that early next year. But it'll be open annually, and councils will know exactly when the programs open, have an opportunity to put an expression of interest in first and then go to application if they're invited to.