Doorstop interview – Coffs Harbour
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: It’s fantastic to be here at the construction site for the Coffs Harbour Bypass, the last piece in the puzzle to fully duplicate the Pacific Highway. This project will make an enormous difference. A project which will consist of three channels, will consist of 14 kilometres of road which is fully duplicated, and which will create some 12,000 direct and indirect jobs, take some 12 minutes off the trip by removing 12,000 vehicles, both cars and heavy vehicles from the centre of Coffs Harbour. This is good for productivity, it’s good for our economy, but it’s also good for road safety – and that’s why this project is so important. And it’s been a great opportunity today to speak to the workers who are making a difference here with this very exciting project. When I was Infrastructure Minister, I came up here and started the works on the Sapphire to Woolgoolga section on the Kempsey Bypass, on T2E, on Glenugie, on so many of the upgrades for the Pacific Highway. This was a big passion of mine as Infrastructure Minister, and I’m very pleased that work is now progressing and will ramp up over the next year in particular to make sure this project can be completed.
JOURNALIST: Seeing the progress today, what’s your confidence like in the project timelines and how it’s going?
PRIME MINISTER: Very confident. The project was delayed under the former Government but it is on track. All of the studies have been completed. We did need to make sure, of course, it’s a complex project, a complex series of engineering works here. But what we’ve seen is a tunnel that looks very like the tunnel that’s on the T2E project up near Byron Bay on the highway. And the experience that has been got on the upgrade to the Pacific Highway will mean that experience and knowledge can be put into practice here on this project. It is an exciting project. It will employ many thousands of people directly, but up to 12,000 indirectly as well. And there is a source of pride in the workers that I spoke to here on site because they can see the product of their work taking place each and every day. And as long as the weather stays like this, then the project will certainly be speeding ahead.
JOURNALIST: There have been concerns about housing in Coffs Harbour and the Bypass seems to be adding pressure to that. What are your comments on that?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, this Government is focused on the supply of housing and that’s why we put forward so many initiatives. Our Housing Accord will see a million homes built over five years, that is in partnership with businesses like the Master Builders Association, the Housing Industry Association, state and territory governments, homelessness and other housing organisations at the welfare end, all coming together to have a sense of that common purpose. The key to dealing with the housing issue is supply. And that’s why my Government is focused with the Housing Accord. That’s why the Government put an additional $2 billion into social housing just a couple of weeks ago, that’s available to state and territory governments right now. That’s why in the Budget we put in an incentive for build to rent that will result in between 150-250,000 additional rental properties being constructed over coming years. We’re absolutely committed to doing what we can to boost supply. You can’t do it overnight, but we do need to do it as a nation. And the Senate needs to pass our Housing Australia Future Fund bill, which will result in an additional 30,000 housing units that’s currently being held up by a coalition of the Nationals, the Liberals, the Greens and One Nation all saying no, but other crossbenchers joining with Labor in understanding why this Housing Australia Future Fund is important. That’s backed by all of the housing organisations.
JOURNALIST: What do you say to the two thirds of voters who think you’re not doing enough to ensure affordable and secure rentals and doing enough to improve the cost of living?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we know that there are cost of living pressures on Australians. That’s why in our Budget we had a range of measures in place. Cheaper medicines, we’ve already made one lot of difference with our changes that reduce the cost of medicine from $42.50 down to $30 in January. That’s why we put in place a $3 billion partnership, our Energy Price Relief Plan with state governments. We did that with the co-operation of the former Liberal Government here. Dominic Perrottet’s Government supported that and we worked closely with them to put that downward pressure on energy prices. We also have 480,000 fee-free TAFE places. There’ll be workers on this project who will gain their apprenticeships with fee-free TAFE as a result of our initiative, again putting downward pressure on prices. The Treasury estimated that our Energy Price Relief Plan alone will reduce inflation by three quarters of a percent. We are using all measures at our disposal to put that downward pressure on inflation. And that’s why in our Budget – we turned around what was predicted a year ago under Scott Morrison’s Budget in March of 2022, predicted a $78 billion deficit. We’ve turned that around into a $4.2 billion surplus. That’s how you get fiscal policy working with monetary policy to take pressure off inflation. And that’s what we’re doing.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, I just wanted to get back to the issue of housing. What can you say specifically about where this sizeable workforce will be housed within this region? We know vacancy rates remain very low, rental and housing rates. What can you say specifically about plans to house the workforce?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we’re doing our bit to increase housing supply. That’s what we can do, by providing those tax incentives to the private sector, by providing direct funds for additional social housing, by making sure that planning is changed as well to make sure that dwellings can be approved faster, we’re working with every state and territory government to make sure that we can do that. There are pressures on housing, not just here in Coffs but around Australia. What we’re doing is making sure we put in place measures to boost supply.
JOURNALIST: So that those specific plans are they being worked out jointly by the Federal and State governments? Who has the oversight there?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, the State Government, of course, have oversight of housing under our Constitution, but what we’re doing is putting in place measures that will make a difference, that will encourage those issues of housing supply to be dealt with.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, given the westward expansion of Coss Harbour in the last couple of decades, there are some locals who feel that this bypass won’t completely solve the issues that Coffs faces with congestion. Are there any plans or is that an issue that you’re aware of at looking perhaps future works further west as far as a bypass is concerned?
PRIME MINISTER: We have one bypass being constructed. What we need to do is to make sure that we deal with this project. It is an exciting project. A lot work has gone into the planning. This is a project that’s been on the drawing board for some time. I would have liked for it to have been done faster. We were looking at fully duplicating the Pacific Highway and having it all open by now. But we lost government in 2013, and that slowed up the flow of funds to the Pacific Highway from the State Government, it must be said, as well as the Federal Government. So, this project will make a difference. It will take traffic off that main street of Coffs Harbour. And it will also be much safer, because when you have a fully duplicated highway and you have heavy vehicles and other passenger vehicles going at 110ks or 100ks an hour, and all of a sudden there’s one spot after hours of driving at that pace, you have that one spot in Coffs Harbour where they have to slow down, that is certainly not ideal. What this project will mean is that you can go from Hexham at Newcastle, right through to the Queensland border without hitting a stationary traffic light and that will be an enormous breakthrough.
PRIME MINISTER: Just lastly on that point, Prime Minister, you’re a noted infrastructure project enthusiast. You’ve held that portfolio previously. I guess, speaking nationally, the grander scale, what does it mean, I guess, for the country? Is it the biggest project, like road project, underway in the country at the moment?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, there’s quite a few very big road projects underway. This is one of the largest. But there’s substantial work underway in Victoria, in Western Australia, in Western Sydney as well, around the new airport that’s being constructed there. But this is a sizable project. This will make an enormous difference for this local community. But this is a nation building project as well. The key to infrastructure from a national government’s perspective is to do the big things that make a difference for productivity, that make a difference for the quality of life of Australians. So, that’s the job of the Federal Government. And that’s why I’m very proud that as the Infrastructure Minister, we invested $7.6 billion over six years in the Pacific Highway. That compares with the Howard Government that we replaced that spent $1.3 billion over twelve years, over twice the time. We got on with the job of duplicating the Pacific Highway as well as the major upgrades that we did on the Bruce Highway and we brought forward and completed the full duplication of the Hume Highway. Those three projects together make an enormous difference for the east coast of Australia. My Government is having a review of projects to make sure that every dollar that’s spent on infrastructure is going to the right project in the right place that will make a difference.
JOURNALIST: You’re here, obviously, to visit the Bypass. Are there any other issues or projects on your radar on the Coffs Coast that you’re taking a keen interest in?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I’ve spoken with the council General Manager while I’ve been here. I’ve been a regular visitor to Coffs. And when I arrive at the airport, we put some money into some of the upgrade of the airport. We then went past the international stadium, we funded the lights so that you could get city country games and you could get activities there. Then as you come into the city, there’s this amazing all-abilities playground that we funded there. We funded some of the foreshore upgrades at Coffs Harbour, but importantly, we put those substantial amount of funds into the Pacific Highway, North and South of Coffs Harbour, which have made an enormous difference to this great regional city. This is a great regional city. It’s a great centre for the community and it is a growth area. It’s one that can continue to grow into the future. And I look forward to coming back. I’ve had another invite today to come back in a couple of months time, so I look forward to coming back and continuing to engage with regional communities. I’m a former Regional Development Minister as well. I believe part of the key to our growth in Australia is taking pressure off the capital cities, making sure that you get jobs and economic activity in our regions so that young people, when they grow up in these communities, can stay here as well and continue to thrive and raise families here. That’s part of the key. I’m a big supporter of decentralised economic activity and I’m continuing to talk with councils in particular, as I did just a week ago at the Australian Council of Local Government that has been re-established by my Government so we get that direct engagement. You get better activity when you consult with people at the local level. And I notice as well, speaking of consulting people, that here in Coffs there’s been a Yes campaign group formed, and that is great news. This is an idea which arose from the bottom up. It came from Indigenous Australians themselves, with the Uluru Statement from the Heart rising from the national First Nations Constitutional Convention that was held at Uluru in 2017. All Australians will have the opportunity to vote Yes, to vote for constitutional recognition and also to vote to consult people who are directly affected by decision-making. That’s a good idea. And it’s one whose time has come. It won’t change it won’t be a right of veto. It won’t change our parliamentary structures. But it’s a good thing. And I’m very hopeful that people in regional communities in particular, who have such strong relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, will campaign for a Yes vote and get it done.