Transcript - Radio interview, ABC Hobart

LEON COMPTON [HOST]: So we know the Federal Government have promised $240 million for Macquarie Point. My question is, what conditions, if any, are attached to it. Catherine King is the Federal Infrastructure Minister. Minister, good morning to you.

CATHERINE KING [MINISTER]: Good morning. It was lovely to be in your beautiful state on the weekend; it's so glorious.

LEON COMPTON: It is, indeed, with challenges and opportunities, Minister, and you're part of that story. The Tasmanian Government want to build a stadium at Macquarie Point; you want it to be an urban renewal project. My question is, you've announced $240m, what specifically have you told the Tasmanian Government that needs to be spent on? 

CATHERINE KING: Yep. So the first thing is the Tasmanian Government needs to come back to the Commonwealth with a precinct plan that includes the housing development, social and affordable housing, the transport corridor; they've also agreed to the upgrade of Macquarie Wharf 6, and also then the stadium, and they've also agreed to consult as they develop that plan with the RSL, with Hobart City Council and with First Nations communities as they go through that.

So the precinct will include a stadium, but it also needs to be much more, and to get us and our money across the line, that was the commitments that the Tasmanian Government has made to us.

LEON COMPTON: So, to be clear, all of that work needs to be done, that plan needs to be submitted to the Feds, and then you'll release the $240m? 

CATHERINE KING: That's correct.

LEON COMPTON: You've been burnt before by the $50m allocated initially that was frittered on admin? 

CATHERINE KING: Well, I'm not sure, I mean the $50m to Macquarie Point was really to clean‑up of the site, and you know, we obviously haven't been in office for a decade during that period of time, but it's important, you know, it was important for us when we looked at this site particularly, it's an incredible site; it has a great opportunity for urban renewal, and when you look across sort of urban renewal developments internationally and what's happened, and particularly ones that include stadiums, there really has been a lot of work been done to try and sort of release the benefits that you get from the economic activity of the stadium, but also to try and provide opportunities for other things.

And that's really what we were interested in and talking with ‑ we've been speaking extensively with the Tasmanian Government as we move forward with this.

LEON COMPTON: Mornings around Tasmania. How long are you expecting it would reasonably take the Tasmanian Government to satisfy you on those issues.

CATHERINE KING: Well, again, that will be up to them, and if they want to get on with the project, then they'll need to do that plan fairly quickly; they'll need to involve urban planners to look at that entire precinct, and I would hope that that would be coming fairly soon. If they're wanting to get construction started, then they'll need to do that work fairly quickly.

LEON COMPTON: All of those issues; the housing, the transport, and Mac Wharf 6 and a stadium, all of them individually come with price tags potentially in the hundreds of millions of dollars. How much of this $240m will actually be available to go into a stadium, Minister? 

CATHERINE KING: We haven't specified the breakdown of our funding, we've said the money is available for the precinct, and again, the Tasmanian Government as part of their planning will come back to us about how they want to see that money spent and how that money is to be released.

LEON COMPTON: So, what rules will you be having around the transport? It's been long talked about, the Northern Suburbs Rail Corridor; it's one of those issues that the Government's sort of almost actively been trying not to commit to up until recently. And what are your expectations about a timetable for delivery of that Northern Suburbs Transport Corridor, whatever form it takes? 

CATHERINE KING: Yeah. Well, the first thing, Leon, there's $35m sitting within the Hobart City deal for that corridor already, so that money hasn't been spent, that's sitting there, so that's additional Commonwealth money.

We've been waiting, I guess, for the Tasmanian Government to say, you know, "This is what we want to do for that money", and I suspect that's going to cost a lot more than that, and that's something we'll have to work our way through, but as part of the planning for this precinct, that corridor is important.

We've already committed, and I was really delighted to commit more money into the ferries. I think the network of ferries you've got and the opportunity of ferries I think are really significant, and so we've committed money already to that, so that's flowing, or will start to flow to the ‑ I think it's to the council, I think who are building the jetties alongside the northern side with the Tasmanian Government.

But what we really want out of this precinct is that – that transport corridor planning will need to be done. In terms of funding for that and whether there's a commitment federally for that, there's $35m on the table already, and then the Tasmanians will need to come back to us in terms of what they want to do next, bearing in mind that we don't fund bus networks, we can fund infrastructure for your bus networks, your roads, but not the buses themselves, so they'll need to work that through with us.

LEON COMPTON: That is interesting. Is what I'm hearing that you're open‑minded, because $35m would represent 10 per cent of the low‑side estimates; will it be the cost of ripping up the rail, concreting it and allowing buses to operate there, it would be only 5 per cent of the forecast cost for light rail, trams effectively, to run at along that line.

Would you be open‑minded to further funding that when a hard proposal is put in front of you? 

CATHERINE KING: Well, we do that all the time. So really part of what people would have heard I've also announced over the weekend is a major review into the infrastructure investment pipeline that the Commonwealth has. We have national partnership agreements with every state and territory, and schedules of those for projects.

The problem I've got at the moment is that the previous Government basically have over‑promised and under‑funded a number of commitments in that pipeline, so I don't have a lot of head room for new projects, but every budget every year, we come to the states and we say, "What's happening with your existing projects; where are we experiencing cost pressures, and then what are the new projects you want to bring on board?" And we do that every single year with states and territories.

So, of course, if the Tasmanian Government came to us and said that they needed additional – you know, this was a priority for Tasmania, that corridor, and they needed money for that transport, then of course we would look at that seriously.

LEON COMPTON: You mentioned Mac Wharf No.6 that would allow the Nuyina to berth properly in Hobart. Is it your expectation that a plan for delivering that will be delivered along with the stadium and the transport project? 

CATHERINE KING: Yes. That is one of the commitments that we've asked of the Tasmanian Government to look at the wharf upgrade and to include that as part of the precinct plan.

LEON COMPTON: And again, that $240m would need to be spread into that cost as well? 

CATHERINE KING: Well, again, how that's allocated across the commitments that the Tasmanian Government's made and we've made, then, you know, we're open to that; we've committed the money to the precinct overall, but as I said, for us it was really important that it was a precinct and that it has actually included housing, included opportunities to recognise the importance of the site for First Nations people, made sure that those transport connections were undertaken rather than it just being simply a stadium, and I think, as you said, if you look internationally, and examples right the way across Australia, really that's what's happening; it's actually a precinct that's being developed and the stadiums are sort of the anchor tenant, but really the precinct itself is what's important in terms of economic and social activity.

LEON COMPTON: The place that we seem to be at at the moment though is that after 10 years of talking about Macquarie Point, and this latest plan is barely more evolved than something that exists on a napkin.  So, my question to you is where are you up to or thinking about an Antarctic precinct that was long talked about, and is there still capacity for an Antarctic precinct to be located at Macquarie Point? 

CATHERINE KING: Look, there's no money in the ‑ we've made no money available in the budget for moving basically, I think it was the proposal was for the CSIRO, and for the Antarctic division within Tanya Plibersek's portfolio to move, that's quite an expensive thing to move those two substantial departments, and there's no money in the budget, but they would be matters for those departments, those ministers to determine whether they wanted to find money to move their departments into their area, and so that's not something that we've got on the table at the moment.

I think there was a business case as part of the city deal; there was some money to look at the feasibility around that, but I think you're talking at least a billion dollars to move those two departments, and that would be a matter for those two portfolio ministers to say whether they wanted to move their Government departments into that precinct.

LEON COMPTON: Catherine King is our guest this morning, Federal Infrastructure Minister. Marinus Link, are you still committed to the costs, and I think we're talking about potentially what, $4b to build a second connector to carry power and fibre to the mainland. As you look at your infrastructure costs as a Federal Government, are you still committed to Marinus Link? 

CATHERINE KING: That's a project that sits under Minister Bowen's portfolio, who's the Energy Minister, so energy Infrastructure sits with him, but you know, certainly that's an incredibly important project in terms of the whole country's link as we move towards renewals and that project is obviously significant for the entire country. But really, those questions are better directed to Minister Bowen.

LEON COMPTON: So, you mentioned that you're doing an audit of, sort of a brief audit, I should say, of some of the promised infrastructure that you may be able to save on. Are any Tasmanian projects on the chopping block? 

CATHERINE KING: Well, we're not saying these particular projects in these particular states, that's really what the review is about. The problem I've got is that I've got, we're committed to a $120b pipeline of Commonwealth investment over the next 10 years, but there are projects sitting on that pipeline at the moment that were announced years ago, almost as late back in 2016 in the case of some, that have got no funding partner, billions of dollars under‑funded and just will simply never be delivered.

So, I've got a hard decision to make. Do I say, "Well, look, we're going to remove the money from that project, you know, it may come back on later when it's fully funded and we've got funding partners, but do I remove that money now and do I actually then allocate that to a project that can actually be delivered within the next 10 years?" And that's really what the review is looking at.

We don't have particular targets. We're not, you know, saying it should be small or large projects. We're really wanting to get ‑ I'm wanting to get proper independent advice on a project‑by‑project basis about what is able to be delivered and whether we've got the money to actually be able to do that, and we've had a couple of issues happening; we've had, unfortunately over the last Government, the National Party in particular are going around using the Infrastructure Investment Pipeline during election campaigns to make big announcements about various road projects in seats that they might have wanted to win, but then we've found that they're substantially under‑funded; there's not been a proper business cost or cost benefit analysis done, substantially under‑funded, and we've really not been able to deliver them, and really it's about trying to make sure we've got head room in the pipeline for the increase in costs of projects that are currently under way as well as creating room for new projects that are really critically important.

LEON COMPTON: Just a final question to you, Minister, before we let you go. On the issue of what that transport corridor looks like, there are a lot of people championing, that want to see the existing rail line used for effectively a tram or a light rail, as it's known through the northern suburbs and beyond. There are other competing views on what would be the best use of money. Do you have a firm view on what should be done there? 

CATHERINE KING: No, I don't, and at the end of the day it will be the Tasmanian Government that has to let the tender, that has to do the design work and do the contract, and I can ‑ I like light rail, I like rapid buses, I like heavy rail as well. I'm the Transport Minister, I like all forms of transport. Really at the end of the day it will be a matter of the Tasmanian Government determining what their budget can hold and then what's the best solution there.

As I said, we committed in the election campaign to the ferries, it was one of my favourite projects in the election campaign to be able to commit money to, I think Senator Brown came and did that announcement in Hobart. I think the ferry note work has been really under‑done in Hobart, and I think the opportunities that that poses is a really good one. So really, at the end of the day it will up to the Tasmanian Government to determine what that looks like, and then we'll look at whether we can also co‑invest with that.

LEON COMPTON: Appreciate you talking with us this morning.

CATHERINE KING: Really good to be with you.

LEON COMPTON: Catherine King, Federal Infrastructure Minister. You're on Mornings around Tasmania.