The Hon Catherine King MP
ABC Alice Spring Breakfast with Stewart Brash
STEWART BRASH: Well, there is a NT election just around the corner. Can I count it less than 30 days? Probably is, because today is the 24th and we will be going to the polls for the NT election on August 24. Now, we do like to see federal politicians with chequebooks in hand visiting our part of the world. And I’m not saying there’s a coincidence between that and the NT election, because you go back a year and a half, there are a lot of federal politicians. We had the Central Australian Plan, the $250 million for Central Australia. Now the Minister for Infrastructure is in town because there’s an opening out of the Pat Gallagher netball courts. There’s been a big resurfacing project. I think $1 million has come from the Federal Government. The Minister joins us. Minister, good morning.
CATHERINE KING: Good morning, it’s really lovely to be here on a slightly chilly day.
STEWART BRASH: Yeah. Down to three degrees in the town of Alice Springs. Hey, tell me. I mean, I know there’s other things to announce, but resurfacing of a netball court. Is that enough for the Federal Infrastructure Minister to wing their way to Alice Springs?
CATHERINE KING: Well, we’re, of course, doing a lot more than that. There’s obviously the $250 million Central Australia Plan. There are also investments that are coming out of my portfolio. I’m meeting with some of the Mayors and CEOs in the region today also, to see how some of those projects are, the money that’s gone into the CBD plan. Part of what I do is encouraging councils to get on with the activity that we’ve invested in and getting some reports on that, but also hearing how some of those things are going. A lot of money going into roads as well, which we’re also going to have a little bit of a look at today. But while I’m here, the netball courts are opening. There’s an exhibition match about to happen, so I’ll be excited to go and have a look at that.
STEWART BRASH: You’re a player?
CATHERINE KING: I was when I was younger, but the knees won’t hold up to it now.
STEWART BRASH: Let’s talk about the roads funding. It’s interesting, the nine – I know you’ll also make mention – the $9.6 million for the Schwarz Crescent intersection. It’s a diabolical intersection as it stands. It will be realigned so that Smith Street, the Stuart Highway and Schwarz Crescent will run into each other. And there’ll be a set of headlights. Will $9.6 million, which I think is nearly all federal money. Will that pay for the whole project?
CATHERINE KING: Yes, it will. And really, what we’ve been doing since we did a big review of the infrastructure program is really putting quite a lot more discipline into when the Commonwealth releases money. So, we put money into planning, we require business cases. There’s a whole raft of things that state and territory governments now have to do. And then, when I release the money, we really are pretty sure of the costs. You know, occasionally, as we are seeing, there are some cost overruns. But putting that discipline back into the pipeline has been really important, because it just means if we don’t have that, we can’t fund new things.
STEWART BRASH: You mentioned the – because there was – it must have been late last year, November I think, the infrastructure review came out. At the time, it was touted that the states certainly would be subject to, rather than 80/20 split for work in rural and remote areas. It would go to a 50/50 split. Those 50 per cent of the money would come from the states. There was concern that a place like the Northern Territory was – let’s be honest, we’ve got a lot of infrastructure needs. We have not got a lot of revenue. We’re going to be moved to that. Has there been an agreement with the NT Government over maintaining the 80 per cent federal to 20 per cent Northern Territory Government split to infrastructure and roads?
CATHERINE KING: What we’ve said across the country is that the Commonwealth, you know, this wasn’t sort of locked in stone. And if you looked at road projects all over the country, there was varying splits, to be honest. In some, there were 100 per cent Commonwealth funding and others there was 40 per cent Commonwealth funding. So, it was varied across the country as well. What we’ve said, particularly in general, overall in terms of those projects, is that we now want a really clear level of responsibility coming from state governments because what that means is that we’re sharing the risks of the costs. We were seeing pretty substantial cost overruns in some of the 80/20 projects. Not a lot of discipline in those projects either. And we’ve said that. But we’ve also said very clearly that we recognise that the Northern Territory in particular has difficulty in raising revenue and that expectation from the Commonwealth around 80/20 and in some instances 100 per cent, that will continue. And we’ve put that to the Northern Territory that we’re in the process of negotiating the next Land Transport Agreement – a partnership agreement between the states and territories. And those discussions are ongoing.
STEWART BRASH: Will that be an inked agreement regarding the, say, the 80/20 split between the feds and the NTG? Will that be something, regardless of who wins the next territory election that will be maintained into the next government?
CATHERINE KING: Well, again, this wasn’t written anywhere at all. And so it’s not…
STEWART BRASH: [Talks over] Should it be?
CATHERINE KING: … it’s a matter for an incoming government. Well, I’ve said I think it should. And so that’s really what I’ve been saying. I think that the Commonwealth is now asking for the 50/50 split to be put in the agreement, and then we have said in the way, in which we administer that agreement that we recognise that the Northern Territory and Tasmania, for example, have some challenges in terms of their rate base. But what I don’t want happening, which has happened in some areas, is that, you know, when we make that sort of commitment, I then have governments going around saying, oh, that’s great, we can make election commitments and election announcements, and we know that the Commonwealth’s going to stump up 80 per cent of those. What I’ve required now is a 10-year infrastructure plan that’s reviewed every year, a 10-year infrastructure plan. So I’ve got line of sight of what’s coming our way. We’ve got a budget as well. We’ve got budgetary pressures as well are important that we fund those and also really important that the Commonwealth steps up in those big national projects. So making sure that we’ve got good freight routes. And one of the things that we did do in the last budget was put $1 billion into the Australian Rail Track Corporation. Some money’s coming from them, $500 million from us, to it, because we’ve had this, you know, rail line closed several times this year, our last year because of floods. And we haven’t built resilience into these really important national projects. And you know, there’s opportunity costs for me. If we’re spending a lot of money doing other things then we can’t fix those things. So...
STEWART BRASH: [Interrupts] And that will that make the Alice to Darwin Railway or the Adelaide Tarcoola to Darwin rail, will that make it flood proof. That 2021-2022 period where people were stuck. It was cut for six weeks.
CATHERINE KING: We couldn’t get food. Yeah. I mean, how ridiculous in today’s world in Australia that we couldn’t get food up to the top end. It was ridiculous. So that’s what that will go towards. So lots of building resilience into that Australian Rail Track network. And that’s really part of what I see, very much that lifting the Commonwealth’s role up into those really important productive spaces, and that’s the work we did through the review.
STEWART BRASH: One of the big questions, ever since February, when the Prime Minister and the chief minister announced the $250 million plan for Central Australia was is it actually making a difference? Is it actually hitting the ground now? There was $50 million. That was for remote infrastructure. There’s been one tranche gone out. There’s another tranche which you’re announcing this morning, and there is a huge number of things which are included cultural centres for Ti Tree and Yuendumu, a stage outside auditorium for Laramba, new visitor camps, oval upgrades, change rooms, grandstands at Yuelamu, change rooms at Atitjere, Engawala gets new public toilet, Willowra grandstands, re-establishing a farm at Willowra, community store at Pmara Jutunta, a new recreational hall at Nyuriya. So there is a swag of things. How much will this cost, this tranche, this number two tranche?
CATHERINE KING: So this one’s $28 million that’s coming out of this second tranche. And then there’ll be there’s still a small amount of money left. And the good thing about these projects, it’s really been the Central Australia Plans Aboriginal Leadership Group who’s determined, come to me, I’m the decision maker but have come to me through a long process of determining what is it that those communities need, what is going to best make an impact on the ground? Of course, these things take a while to build as well. It’s a little harder to build things in some of those remote communities than it is in the suburbs. But this is really important work that the leadership group has done to really identify what those projects are that will make a difference on the ground…
STEWART BRASH: [Interrupts] Are you making sure that the money is being spent and is delivering these projects? Because we know that so many of the issues about liveability of Bush communities, and that’s what this is about trying to rectify. In part, it’s also about, say, taking bush footy to bush communities because there have been many debates in this town about the impact of having community footy played mostly in Alice Springs. It’s now a hybrid season whereby bush games are split between Alice and Bush communities. Is that also part of this delivering sporting facilities so sport can be played at Bush?
CATHERINE KING: Oh, absolutely. And we also did that during the election campaign. So I think we put $1 million into a range of um, ovals on community. I was out at Yuendumu not long after the election looking at their oval there, where I remember we put a million – a billion – $1 million in. I wish it was a billion.
STEWART BRASH: I’m sure they will put the new Northern Territory team there.
CATHERINE KING: I could, I could for that. But $1 million there, and that really is about providing opportunities for things to do for young people in community. And I think that’s been one of the really big challenges, is that if you’re a young person and you don’t have access to Wi-Fi, you don’t have access to recreation activities, there’s nothing to do. Then Alice becomes a very attractive proposition to come in, and as we’ve seen, run amuck.
STEWART BRASH: And do you, as Minister, do you go line by line and say that has been completed, that has been detailed? Because a lot of people wonder and, for instance, and I’ve had this conversation with you and others that Dorrelle Anderson doesn’t make this available to us, so we can’t actually find out what’s happening with the plan. Are you across what’s happening and making sure the delivery of those projects?
CATHERINE KING: Yeah, absolutely. So my department is – so my department’s responsible for that. They contract directly with the proponent. And then there’s milestones and milestones for payments to be done. And then obviously as we’ve seen with the netball courts today, then requirements to actually make sure that we’ve seen that the finished product is done and ready for…
STEWART BRASH: [Talks over] You’ll see it yourself.
CATHERINE KING: Yeah.
STEWART BRASH: One of the- same with one of those promises, the election 2022 there was a promise to refurb – in fact, bring the Paul Fitzsimons Oval at CDU up to scratch. $10 million, still waiting for that.
CATHERINE KING: Yeah, that’s right. And that project, I actually went and made that announcement on site itself. It was really important there, so that’s contracted. The completion date is due for 2026. Again, that feels a little long to me, but that’s the date they’ve said to me that they can do that. That’s a project that we had to work through a little bit, whether the university was the fund holder or whether the council would be, and how that would all work. But that’s been done now and it’s contracted, and we should start to see some work on that shortly.
STEWART BRASH: One of the other election promises, though I think there was actually a – I can’t remember if it was the Labor Government took these over from a Coalition promise. Now, $440 million to support development of regional logistic hubs. Now, that was reiterated by your government in October of 2022. Still unclear, A, what they are, and B, when they’ll be delivered.
CATHERINE KING: Yeah. So again, they – I have asked – so there’s two things here. They were part of the commitment to Middle Arm. So there was Middle Arm and then the logistics hubs that sit with those as well. And they are really critically important to the movement of freight around not just the Northern Territory, but out for export and then into the rest of the country as well.
STEWART BRASH: [Talks over] So are they rail, are they road?
CATHERINE KING: They may be both, but we’re not sure yet. So there’s a mix – a piece of work being done. And I’ve forgotten the name of the department here in the Territory that does that. I think it’s one of the economic development portfolios. So they’re working with ourselves, with the National Intermodal Corporation and also Australian Rail Track Corporation to look at what they look like. And we’ll have more to say about those shortly.
STEWART BRASH: Okay. That’s a lot of money. Now, was that for Tennant Creek, Katherine and Alice?
CATHERINE KING: Alice, yes. That’s correct.
STEWART BRASH: Okay. So that’s serious money, but it – that still sounds like it’s very much in the preliminary stage.
CATHERINE KING: It’s probably a little bit more advanced than that. I just don’t have the details right in my fingertips at the moment. It’s a bit more advanced than that, and it’s just we’ve had – there’s been a bit of discussion about whether you separate that out from Middle Arm, which is still obviously got substantial environmental approvals and planning to go through. And whether you separate those out and run those separately, which is sort of my view that they should just be separate and we’ll just work our way through those.
STEWART BRASH: Okay. We’ll wait and see on that one. National Aboriginal Art Gallery is now called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Gallery of Australia, the ATSIAGA. Your government has promised $80 million, which has gone, I think, to $64 million left over from the Northern Territory Government, now, in speaking to a few people, and some other people have raised concerns that the $150 million we have on the table may in fact not deliver the gallery we are hoping for, and the designs we hope for. If the Northern Territory Government come up short and come knocking at your door, what will your reply be to those people wanting more money for the gallery?
CATHERINE KING: Well, let’s put – not pre-empt that. I don’t know. Certainly the Northern Territory Government haven’t told me that as yet. And that 80 million…
STEWART BRASH: [Talks over]I know, they’ll wait until they come to your door knocking.
CATHERINE KING: [Laughs] And so we consider all of those requests through normal budget processes, and we’ll have a look at that. I’ve been cautious about – like, sometimes people can want to build something that is just so huge that it’s not going to get the revenue in that they think it’s going to be. I think there’s also huge opportunities with this gallery to look at private sponsorship, and I’m not sure how much that’s been explored. So yeah…
STEWART BRASH: [Interrupts] They have. They even got someone on board, but nothing has come – that’s the thing. Nothing has come up. It’s all been NTG, mostly your money.
CATHERINE KING: Yeah.
STEWART BRASH: So how happy are you with how it’s going?
CATHERINE KING: Yeah. Look, I’m happy. I think the – where it is in terms of the design phase is, where I would expect it to be at this point, given the size of the build. I’m happy that there’s been progress made in relation to that. Obviously, if there’s requests for further money, we’ll consider that through the budget processes. And I do also- and I normally go back as I would with any government to say what other sources have you interrogated? What’s happening with that? How does this fit now with the business case? Again, putting some discipline back into the planning about that. It is obviously somewhere that they’re going to be wanting to make revenue out of that. What does that all look like for the projections? So we would ask all of those questions before making any decision.
STEWART BRASH: [Talks over] And I know…
CATHERINE KING: But again, I think it’s such an amazing project. And the fact that we don’t have something like this – Alice really, as I’ve said to you just before, I came here on holidays just a couple of weeks ago. And the amount of people around just the Territory at the moment who are travelling your roads, who are spending money in the communities at the moment is huge. Obviously this is the season for it, but well and truly the fact that there isn’t something like this here in Alice I think is such a hole in our cultural experience, and it will be amazing and looking forward to seeing it built.
STEWART BRASH: You made note of the states sometimes lacking discipline when it comes to delivering on projects, that essentially that they don’t quite keep within the parameters of spending. How good is the Northern Territory Government when it comes to doing that job? Are they one of the recalcitrant states or territories?
CATHERINE KING: No, not at all. In fact, they’ve been actually terrific. And it’s really not about the – I mean, there is some discipline required about it. But it’s – often what’s happened is that I’ve inherited a pipeline of projects where announcements were made to get a press release, and not- none of the sort of business case work done or the proper costings done before. And I’m now sort of requiring that, so we’ve got much more of a sense as we lead into making construction commitments, just how much it’s going to cost. And that’s been part of the problem of this pipeline. It was seen very much as a let’s make some political announcements rather than actually have a proper planned pipeline of projects going forward. But the NT Government has actually been really terrific in terms of that.
STEWART BRASH: Talking of NT Labor, and I’ll finish off with this now, NT Labor are facing a battle for re-election in a month’s time. The NT economy is, by many measures, the worst in the country. Population growth is moribund or in decline. Now – and a vast number of Territorians feel pretty much unsafe in their own homes. Why would and why should the NT, in your mind, vote for Labor on 24 August? I mean, obviously you’re a Labor Government, but given how poor our economy is, it’s surely very difficult for Labor to mount a case that they have been doing a particularly good job.
CATHERINE KING: Well, I think Eva Lawler is a fantastic leader. I’ve been dealing with her – obviously she was Infrastructure Minister previously to that. I think her absolute and steadfast focus on the way that we help people is to get everyone into work. Like, her focus on jobs, her focus on looking at economic opportunities. Like, Middle Arm is a really difficult project. It’s a politically difficult project for us down south, but it is really important for the Territory’s economic future, and I can see that. And that’s why she’s got a vision [indistinct]…
STEWART BRASH: [Interrupts] But given how poor the economy is going, because the economy is struggling in the Northern Territory, that will make it tough for Labor to get re-elected this time.
CATHERINE KING: Well, again, I think they’ve done the work. They’ve got the plan, they’ve got the vision to really lift the Territory into making sure that it is the gateway to Asia, the opportunities that you’ve got in terms of renewables that are here. And really trying to make sure that every Territorian has the opportunity to work and to have good paid work are the things that Labor here in the Territory has focused on. I know that at the federal level, that’s what Marion Scrymgour is definitely focused on. And I know Eva Lawler, and she’s a tough cookie, Eva. I’ve known her for, as I said, for a long time, and you couldn’t get anyone more passionate, more determined, and more absolutely focused on making sure the Northern Territory is the best place for people to live in this country.
STEWART BRASH: Catherine King, I think you’re probably due at about eight minutes to the basketball and the netball courts, Pat Gallagher Courts. So thank you.
CATHERINE KING: You’re welcome.
STEWART BRASH: We’ll undoubtedly see you again, because you do like to visit the Northern Territory. So thanks.
CATHERINE KING: You are welcome.
STEWART BRASH: Catherine King, Minister for Infrastructure – Federal Minister for Infrastructure – and many other portfolios. But yeah, on her way to open and be involved in the opening of that resurfacing project at the Pat Gallagher Courts.