Transcript - TV interview - Sky News Afternoon Agenda with Kieran Gilbert

KIERAN GILBERT [HOST]: Welcome back to the program. The Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton has again criticised the volume of the Prime Minister’s overseas travel. He made this comparison earlier today with the schedule of the former Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

[Excerpt begins:]

PETER DUTTON: I think the PM’s on a mission to circumnavigate the globe as many times as he can while you’re paying for it. Scott Morrison didn’t go away during the time when he was needed. That was over the period of COVID. Well, I just think the PM needs to be at home at the moment to deal with these significant issues. The High Court issue, cost of living, families are under all sorts of pressures. You’ve got a Prime Minister who wants to be anywhere but in Australia.

[Excerpt ends]

GILBERT: Joining me now is the Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories, Kristy McBain. Minister, thanks for your time. Is it something that the PM does have to be cautious about, given those cost-of-living pressures the Opposition Leader alluded to?

KRISTY MCBAIN [MINISTER]: Good afternoon, Kieran. Great to be with you. The Opposition Leader is just, like a re-run of Liberal Party tactics. The lines used in opposition to the Voice were the same lines used in opposition to the Republic. The lines used against Prime Ministers Rudd and Gillard are the same being used against Prime Minister Albanese. The fact of the matter is, and I know sometimes the Opposition Leader doesn’t worry about the facts, but the facts of the matter are that Prime Minister Albanese has travelled less than Prime Minister Morrison did in the first twelve months of his Prime Ministership. There are communities right around the country who went through the Black Summer bushfires. To say that Prime Minister Morrison never left the country when the country needed it is a slap in the face to all of those members of my community and many others across the country who lost homes, who lost livelihoods, and for so many families who lost loved ones. To be so reckless with the truth on that was ridiculous.

GILBERT: You are the Minister for Regional Development, as I mentioned in your introduction. I know the Government and you have announced in recent days a boost to the Roads to Recovery Program. The Black Spot Program is getting a boost. It just seems to me the Government’s got its messaging a bit wrong here. You’ve got the Infrastructure Minister announcing those cuts, starting a fight with the states, and then you’ve got this other positive news which has been buried in terms of the Roads to Recovery and the Black Spot initiatives. Should the Government have reversed the order of those various commitments?

MCBAIN: There hasn’t been a cut to the Infrastructure Investment Pipeline. We said from day one that we would keep the $120 billion commitment to the pipeline. What we have done though, is look at the projects that are actually ready to be done, have the funding to be done, and we want to proceed with those. For so many communities across the country, they were given a press release or a media grab saying that there was going to be this infrastructure project, but there wasn’t enough dollars to actually get the project off the ground, which is a slap in the face to communities who have done a tonne of hard work. In the 18 months that I’ve been the Local Government Minister, we’ve done a tonne of engagement with over 250 councils.

I’ve been at every state and territory local government conference. All of them are struggling with road maintenance on the back of bushfires, droughts, flooding, rain and a number of storm events. We recognise that it’s a challenge and we recognise the best way to help local communities is to empower the local councils to get more road maintenance done. We’re doubling the Roads to Recovery figure from $500 million to $1 billion over the forward estimates. We’re putting more money to the Black Spot Program, we know that there are a number of communities that are asking for more money there. We’re also increasing the Heavy Vehicle and Freight Productivity Program and the Bridges Renewal Program. We’re combining that into a new, Safer Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program and adding an additional $50 million towards that. That’s $200 million a year. Every community across the country has spoken to me about roads and it’s incredibly important that we back their local priorities, and this is one way we can do that.

GILBERT: But you’ve even got Labor state governments blowing up at the Federal Government and the Minister, Catherine King. In hindsight, could all of that have been managed a bit better so you can tell them the positive story that you’ve got to tell in terms of road support?

MCBAIN: It’s no doubt that there’s been some tough calls as part of that Infrastructure Investment review. There were 800 projects in that Infrastructure Investment Pipeline, up from 150, but no additional dollars had been put into that pipeline by the previous government. It’s important that we do work with state and territory governments and deliver infrastructure right across the country. The investments that we are making in road maintenance for every local community across the country will pay a huge dividend. Not only to make sure that we get people to work, to school and to sport safer, but it’ll have a huge productivity knock on. It’s really important that we are making sure our roads can take the freight that we need to get to market from our farms.

GILBERT: Minister for Regional Development, Local Government. Kristy McBain. Thanks. Talk to you soon.

MCBAIN: Thanks, Kieran.