Source: Australian Executive Government Ministers
STEVE AUSTIN: Catherine King is the Federal Minister for Infrastructure in Australia. Minister, thanks for joining me this morning.
CATHERINE KING: Very good to be with you.
STEVE AUSTIN: Can you tell me this is by Infrastructure Australia? Does this mean that you as the final decision maker will bump these off the priority list yourself?
CATHERINE KING: No, so, it’s a bit of a beat up of a story this morning, and it seems to be a bit of confusion about what the role of Infrastructure Australia is versus the role of the Australian Government that, of course, funds through the budget infrastructure projects in Queensland, some nationally significant, those very, very large infrastructure projects that operate where there are big missing links in freight routes, where there are big missing links in electricity transmission or water transmission, right the way across the country. And so it is, at that higher level of project. And so it’s really refining its list there. It doesn’t represent the funding decisions or the totality of all of the projects that the government, the Federal Albanese Government, is investing in and Infrastructure Australia it’s not, never has been an actual funding body. So that’s sort of revising its list. What it’s doing at the moment is it’s consulting with states and territories. I have not seen its list. Obviously, states have been given a draft to comment on and to look through, and states can work their way with Infrastructure Australia to look at projects of that nationally significant scale, to put back on the list, if that’s what they what they want to do, or to make sure that they’re on the list, or that, as I said, that it’s separate to the budget process. And it does seem, I did think was a sort of passing strange story today.
STEVE AUSTIN: So because it’s off the Infrastructure Australia list doesn’t mean it’s off the agenda of the federal government or you as the Minister?
CATHERINE KING: Yeah, correct. And in fact, what actually they do do is where a project already has a or has a full or partial commitment infrastructure, Australia says, well, our job’s done now like that. We’ve had that major piece of work done. We’ve analysed the cost benefit in the business case that states have put to us. It’s been on the infrastructure priority list. And again, these are only for really big projects. They’re not for the suburban roads or the bridges that we’re doing or a range of those things. And then what it does is, if it’s attracted funding, it says, okay, well now we will take that off the list, and we’ll put a new priority on at that scale. And so some of the projects that you mentioned at the start of your story already have really substantial federal funding attached to them, and that’s partly why I suspect Infrastructure Australia is removing them, or has removed them from the draft list. But again, they’re working with good faith with states and territories at the moment, and if the Queensland Government wants to submit projects to do that, it needs to have done the work. It needs to have really done the work. Because, of course, this was really about making sure, with Infrastructure Australia, that the Commonwealth Government gets good independent advice which take the politics out of infrastructure investments. We make sure that we got good, proper advice in which to make investments.
STEVE AUSTIN: I spoke with the mayor of the Sunshine Coast earlier this morning, Rosanna Natoli, and she’s worried about what the list means, particularly for the Sunshine Coast, which is under huge development pressure from increased population there, particularly for things like some of the big roads, but also the rail project, the Beerburrum to Nambour rail upgrade. Can you state what your position is on that today, please?
CATHERINE KING: Well, of course, in terms of many again, of the projects that were referenced, there is already significant investment being made. For local councils where they want to put their views, they need to do that via state governments. They have every opportunity to do that, and we really encourage them to do that. But again, we’re investing really significantly, whether it’s Logan to Gold Coast faster rail, the Sunshine Coast rail line, direct sunshine coast, the Coomera Connector, the Bruce Highway investments. When we came to government, there was significant underfunding. There was $18 billion committed to Queensland from the previous government. We have upped that to $28 billion including the recent announcements to fix the Bruce Highway. No funding cuts at all to Queensland. In fact, substantial investments in Queensland.
STEVE AUSTIN: So does that mean that Beerburrum to Nambour rail upgraders, it will be funded for the Sunshine Coast region?
CATHERINE KING: In terms of that particular project that already has a total of $606.7 million from the Australian government committed to it. It’s a project of a funding total of a billion dollars. It is currently, as I understand, early works are being completed in pre-construction design, so the Commonwealth is already funding that project.
STEVE AUSTIN: Is there anything else you want to get on the record in relation to Queensland? Given the sort of the changes in infrastructure Australia’s priority list, you’re the final person who’ll say yay or nay?
CATHERINE KING: So I’m not the final person. So Infrastructure Australia, again, independent of the government, I don’t say what’s on the list.
STEVE AUSTIN: No, I know. I know you will have to say as to what gets built and what doesn’t get built. As the federal infrastructure minister.
CATHERINE KING: Yeah, so I will through the normal budget process. We do it every year. States write to me and they say, this is what you know, they want funding for, this is where we’ve got substantial cost pressures. The new Queensland Government has just done that recently, and we through the budget process systematically go through that. I seek advice from Infrastructure Australia as to whether something is investment ready, has the cost benefit work being done? Because what we had inherited was, frankly, a lot of press releases, a lot of press releases telling me that there was money set aside for projects – chronically underfunded, and what we’ve had to do is really make sure we’ve got a disciplined process to look at Commonwealth investments. But again, as I said, we started when we came to government, $18 billion committed to Queensland. There’s now $28, billion committed to Queensland. I think we’ll stand on our record of the substantial investments we make to improve infrastructure in Queensland.
STEVE AUSTIN: Minister thanks for your time.
CATHERINE KING: Really good to be with you.