CATHERINE KING MP
MINISTER FOR INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORT, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT
MARK DREYFUS KC MP
ATTORNEY-GENERAL
MEMBER FOR ISAACS
JODIE BELYEA MP
MEMBER FOR DUNKLEY
CASSANDRA FERNANDO MP
MEMBER FOR HOLT
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
PRESS CONFERENCE
MELBOURNE
WEDNESDAY, 2 APRIL 2025
SUBJECTS: Infrastructure Planning Funding for Western Port Highway; Crime; Airport Rail; Cranbourne Rail; Inland Rail; High Speed Rail; Disaster Relief Funding.
CASSANDRA FERNANDO, MEMBER FOR HOLT: Good afternoon, everyone. We are here in Lyndhurst with the Minister for Infrastructure, Catherine King, and the Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus and the Member for Dunkley, Jodie Belyea, for a big announcement down here in Thompsons Road.
CATHERINE KING, MINISTER FOR INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORT, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT: Thanks Cass. Thank you. Terrific to be here in Lyndhurst with the Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, of course, Jodie Belyea and terrific Cassandra Fernando, our MPs for Isaacs, Holt and Dunkley. And we're here on the Western Port Highway. $10 million for planning money and safety upgrades for the 100 kilometres of this highway. We’ve seen huge amounts of housing development come into this part of the world. It crosses these three electorates. It's a really important part of really making sure that we can get commuters home safely. We know that over 10,000 people are using this road every single day, and you can hear heavy vehicles behind us, in front of us as well. This is part of the $1.2 billion investment we're making with the Victorian State Government on roads. We're also announcing today over $250 million - I'm going to visit it shortly after here – the Mickleham Stage Two are really important for our western and northwestern areas as well, to really upgrade the roads there. I've been out in Drouin this morning, $3 million we're announcing there today. And again, this is all part of the significant investments we are making in infrastructure in Victoria after a decade of neglect of the LNP Government, really not investing in Victorians roads, not investing in Victorian rail, and really selling the people of Victoria short here. Particularly in Lyndhurst we know that we have seen huge new housing developments and they are just going to continue to grow and grow and grow. And really making this investment today is an investment into the future of these regions, as well as housing growth.
JODIE BELYEA, MEMBER FOR DUNKLEY: Thanks, Catherine. It's great to be here today, and this particular project extends on the work and the funding that we have organised for the extension of the Thompsons Road intersection in Patterson Lakes. We know, through doorknocking and being out in the community that that particular intersection in Patterson Lakes and Thompsons Road is fraught with danger, so we are committing to fixing that.
MARK DREYFUS, ATTORNEY-GENERAL AND MEMBER FOR ISAACS: Thanks very much, Jodie. It's wonderful to be here with my local colleagues, Cassandra and Jodie, and also to be here with Catherine King for this terrific announcement today about the Western Port Highway, the Dandenong Hastings Road. Everyone who looks around here can see what a busy road this is and how it actually does need an upgrade. It needs to be made safer. This $10 million investment is a first step towards improving this road, making it safer for all of our community. And of course, as Catherine has reminded us, we had nine years of Liberal government who starved Victoria of necessary funds for infrastructure. Victoria got a fraction of the amount of infrastructure funding of other states, and we, as a Federal Government, have corrected that. There is funding for Victorian projects, and this is an example of funding for Victorian projects. Federal Labor cares about our communities, wants to support Victoria in building necessary infrastructure, and that's what you see with this initial funding for an upgrade of the Western Port Highway.
JOURNALIST: The Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has already begun campaigning on law and order. He's targeting crime, particularly here in Victoria while he's here. Are you concerned that this is the major talking point whilst he is here in Victoria? Are you surprised, and will Labor also be following up with any specific crime policies?
ATTORNEY-GENERAL: I'm not really concerned about anything that Mr Dutton does. I think Victorians understand that what he's actually on about is cuts. We are going to see more cuts to services from a Dutton led government and Victorians appreciate the risk that is posed by Peter Dutton. If he wants to talk about making our community safer that is something that I am prepared to talk about every single day. The Albanese Government is committed to making our communities safer, and I've shown that as Attorney-General, I've got programs like U25 Go and the other programs, Youth Empowerment Programs, all of which are directed at crime prevention and assisting state governments right across Australia. Of course, crime prevention is primarily a territory and state government responsibility, but we will do what we can, the Albanese Government will do what we can, to make our communities safer.
JOURNALIST: I have some questions about the $10 million upgrade on the Western Port Highway for the minister. So, is the Federal Government contributing the entire $10 million, or is the state government?
KING: This is part of $1.2 billion. The $10 million comes out of that bucket of funding, so it has some state funding in here as well. The $10 million is really to do two things, plan for the next stages of upgrades to this highway. You can see some parts of the road. It's already dual carriageway. It's separated. You've got good shoulders. It's relatively safe. There are some intersections that are not, clearly, and not coping with the volume of traffic. There are other parts of the road where it again narrows down to non-grade separated road. So, looking at those, trying to look at what safety treatments we can put in, then for future planning the full duplication is really what we're looking at. That's what the money is going to.
JOURNALIST: So, this the first step? So, is the Federal Government contributing to the second step?
KING: So, what we do is, what we've really been at pains to do through the investments that we made, is not to do what the previous government did. They underfunded and underestimated how much funding projects were going to take. They didn't work with the Victorian Government. They basically stood and made announcements and then I've had to try and clean up that mess, that decade of mess that was left in the infrastructure investment pipeline of projects that were simply not able to be delivered. What we've done is said we're going to do planning money first, provide that opportunity to ensure we know how much something costs, what services are there, how do we need to what do we need to actually do. And then, if we're committing planning money, you can be assured that we will be looking to commit construction money when we know exactly what it is we're going to do with this particular announcement. We know already there are needs for safety upgrades. They are relatively simple to do when you're putting barriers along, when you're increasing the siding so that you're making sure people being able to, if something happens, they can move off the road. Those sorts of things we can do relatively quickly. But bigger infrastructure investments, that's what the planning component of this $10 million will do for the Western Port Highway.
JOURNALIST: Will the Federal Government fund the extension of the Cranbourne metro line, because a lot of the residents here really want to see extension?
KING: So, again, we work closely with the Victorian Government around those investments. And you have to work in partnership with state and territory governments across the country in order to make sure you understand where the investments are needed and also how much they cost. And also because the state governments are going to be the ones that are delivering them. And that's the problem here in Victoria. You've had a Liberal National Party government that has treated Victoria with contempt for over a decade. It did not fund any of the big scale infrastructure projects here. It funded things, or partly funded things, that the state government said we are not ready to invest in yet. And they sat on the infrastructure investment pipeline for over a decade, money not being spent on actually improving roads or rail. They were vanity projects, some of these, and the previous Liberal National Party government they knew they could never deliver without having a proper partner with the state government. They are incapable of working with the Victorian State Government and have treated us with contempt for over a decade and Victorians are paying playing catch up on our infrastructure. That's what the Albanese Labor Government has been trying to do in each and every Budget, increase the amount of infrastructure funding coming to Victoria so it gets its fair share.
JOURNALIST: So does that mean there is no current plan for the extension?
KING: We work with the Victorian Government. If they bring that to us as a priority we will work with them in Budget cycles to see whether the Commonwealth will invest. But those decisions about whether a rail extension will occur, they are with the Victorian State Government, and we work in partnership with them on new projects.
JOURNALIST: Sorry, if I could ask, just on another matter in New South Wales, the High Speed Rail and Inland Rail projects, very valued by the communities there. However, we didn't see much in the way of the Budget, and after all this talk about the Suburban Rail Loop, and I guess the uncertainty here, what can you say to these communities that would directly benefit?
KING: So, they're two separate projects. Inland Rail, obviously a really significant project that is being built as we speak. What we have said, as a Commonwealth, what we want to get, and we're investing and prioritising and getting Inland Rail to Parkes, the Commonwealth can then start to get a return on that investment. Because when you unlock Parkes, and we're investing in the Intermodal terminal at Parkes, when you unlock Parkes what that then delivers is you're able to get freight on Inland Rail right the way over to the west, into the port of Botany and into the port of Newcastle, and that will start to see a return on Inland Rail’s investment beyond Parkes. There is building work already happening, construction work already happening on Inland Rail, and all of that planning work is continuing to be done for the rest to the New South Wales border and then on through up into the Queensland part of Inland Rail. So, all of that investment is continuing. We've again had to clean up what was a significant mess with the Schott Review. We had to go and look at how do we make sure we get the Inland Rail well and truly back on track. When it comes to High Speed Rail this government has been the government that has worked incredibly hard to get this project off the ground. What we've got is the business case currently with Infrastructure Australia on High Speed Rail. There's another two year development phase where we actually then start to do land acquisition, services movement. We'll have some announcements to make about that, and that sort of investment is something that, you know, we'll talk about a little later in the campaign. But High Speed Rail is well and truly something that the Albanese Labor Government wants to see come to fruition.
JOURNALIST: What do you make of Dutton saying that the wheels are falling off the Allan Government?
KING: Well, you know, here we've got yesterday, on April Fool's Day in a vineyard somewhere where some planes might be flying over, you've got Peter Dutton standing there saying, we're going to axe Airport Rail. Frankly, what an absolute insult to the people of Victoria that they're going to say basically by failing to invest in the Sunshine Precinct that they're going to axe Airport Rail because be in no doubt the Sunshine Precinct, untangling that network, making sure you increase the amount of platforms for dedicated lines going through Sunshine is the part that unlocks Airport Rail. Without Sunshine Precinct, the full Sunshine Precinct, Airport Rail will not be usable. They are focusing on trying to get people from the CBD to the airport. They have completely neglected the fact that there are so many people in the West that need the Sunshine Precinct to get to the airport. Let alone the electrification of the Melton line, which is critical to unlocking not just the capacity of the Melton line, but also all those regional lines from Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong that all coalesce at that Sunshine Precinct. So frankly, for Peter Dutton to, you know, fly into a vineyard in Victoria to make such an announcement is pretty galling.
JOURNALIST: To another development out of Queensland. Of course, the flooding in Central Queensland has been quite devastating, and we can only imagine what the infrastructure impact to that will be. Has the Government got enough funding set aside to actually rebuild these essential connections in thes?
KING: Yes. So, we've got Jenny McAlister. She's been on the ground, emergency management and services management. She's doing an amazing job. The Disaster Relief recovery arrangements will kick in. That money is, you know, we work in partnership with the state and territory governments on that. At the moment, the flooding is still occurring, so we're actually in, still in the phase where the flooding is there. Assessments will be done about what road repairs need to be done, and we'll work closely with the Queensland Government on that. That is part of our disaster recovery arrangements. But one of the things I'm very proud that we have done as a government, and I think the minister behind me might have had a little bit to do with this, is actually then building in that $200 million Disaster Resilience Fund every single year, to actually start to build more resilient infrastructure in the first place. Build those safety mechanisms in place, whether it's levies, so that we can actually help people avoid disasters or avoid the damage of disasters in the first place. And then, also under the disaster recovery arrangements, we were just building the same thing again and actually being able to build better, and build back better after a disaster again, is a hallmark of this government. The setting up of the National Emergency Management Agency has been, again, a game changer when it comes to the way in which we coordinate between states and territories and local government on emergencies, and Jenny McAlister is leading that charge. But this is really an all in effort that we all make when we actually have disasters. And that's a signature of the Albanese Labor Government. All of those things have happened because we've been in power, and they're the things we've done. And you know how underprepared we were in some of the emergencies in the past.
JOURNALIST: In terms of the funding arrangement, I guess, like $200 million every year. It's a suitable amount of money. But also, we're seeing like a major cyclone go through Western Australia, then another cyclone in Southeast Queensland, in the most populated area a cyclone can hit, and we're seeing flooding all within the same sort of six month period. And is there any risk that this money won't be enough and that we will have to dip into other announcements such as, you know, the billions going to Bruce Highway?
ATTORNEY-GENERAL: We've got very well established disaster relief arrangements. We've shown how smoothly those disaster relief arrangements kicked into place after ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred. There's not only Australian disaster relief payments for households, for individuals, there's other Australian Government disaster relief that works together with state governments and local governments immediately after cyclones, or any disaster. And then, longer term, as you just heard, my colleague, the Minister for Infrastructure, talking about this. We want there to be building back better, and we've done a great deal in our term of government to make sure that when the Federal Government steps in in these well established disaster relief arrangements, that when we come back to help state governments and local governments build back the bridges that have been washed away and build back the roads that have been washed away, that we build higher and better so as to withstand the next disaster that occurs. I'm very confident in the disaster relief arrangements that we now have in place. I know that our colleague Jenny McAlister, the Minister for Emergency Management, has shown by her work after Ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred and is showing now because she's looking into what exactly can be done in Central and Southern Queensland to cope with this unprecedented flooding disaster that they are experiencing there. I've got every confidence that we will be there by the side of the Queensland State government and local government.
ENDS
