Catherine Fiona King (born 2 June 1966) is an Australian politician serving as the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government since 2022 and as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ballarat since 2001. She is a member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and briefly served as a minister in the Gillard and Rudd governments in 2013. She served as Shadow Minister of Health from 2013 to 2019 and as Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development from 2019 to 2022.
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Early life
King was born in Melbourne on 2 June 1966. She attended primary school in Burwood East and Glen Waverley, before completing her secondary education at Emmaus College.
King completed the degrees of Bachelor of Social Work at the Phillip Institute of Technology and Master of Public Policy at the Australian National University. She later completed a Bachelor of Laws at Deakin University in 2018, and was admitted as a lawyer in Victoria in 2021.
Working life
King worked as a social worker at Ballarat Children's Homes and Family Services from 1988 to 1992, and in 1991 was named Victorian Young Achiever of the Year in the field of community services. In the same year she spent six months working in Birmingham, England, which influenced her later decision to enter politics. King subsequently joined the Australian Public Service, working as an industry policy officer for the Australia New Zealand Food Authority (1993–1994) and as a senior officer in the Department of Health and Aged Care (1997–1999). She served as assistant director of the department's population health division and later as director of injury prevention. While in the public service she lived in Canberra, spending periods in Narrabundah, Hughes and Swinger Hill. King later moved back to Victoria and joined the private sector as a senior manager in KPMG's consulting division.
Politics
King joined the Australian Labor Party in 1993 and worked briefly as a research officer for Andrew Theophanous, the parliamentary secretary for health in the Keating government. She served as president of the party's Port Melbourne branch from 1998 to 1999. In 2000, she was selected to contest the seat of Ballarat for the Labor Party.
King is a member of Labor Left.
Opposition (2001–2007)
King was the only Labor candidate to win a seat at the 2001 election from the Liberal Party of Australia, and secured a 5.5-point swing, the largest swing to a Labor candidate in the poll. She was likely helped when the Liberals' initial candidate, Olympic gold medallist Russell Mark, resigned three months before the election, whereas King had 18 months to campaign. She maintained her seat at the 2004, 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016 federal elections.
King was re-elected in the 2004 federal election with a slightly reduced majority and was then appointed the Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development. In mid-2005 she was then promoted to Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Treasury.
Government (2007–2013)
King was re-elected for a third term at the 2007 federal election, increasing her majority from 2.2 to 8.15 points. In the 2010 federal election she increased her margin to 11.7 points.
King was appointed to serve in the Second Gillard Ministry and was sworn in by Governor-General Quentin Bryce on 14 September 2010 as the Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing and the Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure and Transport. On 25 March 2013, King was appointed to the Ministry as the Minister for Regional Services, Local Communities and Territories and the Minister for Road Safety and sworn in by Governor-General Quentin Bryce. Following the June 2013 Labor leadership spill, she was appointed as the Minister for Regional Australia, Local Government and Territories in the Second Rudd Ministry and promoted into the Australian Cabinet.
Opposition (2013–2022)
Despite the defeat of the second Rudd government in the 2013 federal election, King retained her seat with a margin of 4.9 points. Following the election of Bill Shorten as Labor Leader, King was appointed to shadow cabinet as Labor Health spokesperson. King was re-elected for a sixth time in the July 2016 federal election, increasing her margin to 7.3 points, and retained her position as Shadow Minister for Health. Following the 2019 election, she was retained in Anthony Albanese's shadow ministry and given the portfolio of Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development.
Government (2022–)
Following the 2022 federal election, King was appointed Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government in the Albanese ministry.
In August 2022 Qatar's civil aviation authority applied to double Qatar Airways' entitlement under Australia's bilateral air services agreement with Qatar, which limited the airline to 28 weekly services to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. King's department consulted only Qantas and Virgin Australia on the request; Qantas opposed it, as its then chief executive Alan Joyce later confirmed to a Senate committee. King refused the application in July 2023, saying it was not in the national interest. Qatar Airways told the committee it learned of the refusal from media reports, and that the letter subsequently sent to it gave no reasons.
King gave a number of explanations over the following weeks, referring at different times to the recovery of aviation capacity after the COVID-19 pandemic, Australian jobs, and the invasive physical examinations of Australian women at Hamad International Airport in Doha in 2020, which she said "wasn't a factor in the decision, but it was certainly context for the decision". Michelle Grattan wrote that King had struggled to give a consistent account of her reasoning. The former Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) chairs Allan Fels and Rod Sims criticised the decision, Fels calling it "a really bad decision by any standards" and "just looking after Qantas", and Sims saying that measures which reduced competition and maintained higher airfares required "really clear explanations". The ACCC chair, Gina Cass-Gottlieb, said additional Qatar services would have made airfares cheaper. King said she had not taken "the commercial interests of either Qantas or Virgin into consideration", and noted that the previous Coalition government had also declined to expand Qatar's access.
The Senate established a select committee on the decision, chaired by Bridget McKenzie, which reported on 9 October 2023. Its majority recommended that the government immediately review the refusal, finding that "the weight of evidence before the committee indicates the national interest would have been well served by agreeing to Qatar's request", and recommended that King be asked to give evidence. King did not appear before the committee, described the inquiry as a "ridiculous farce" and ruled out revisiting the decision; Labor senators dissented from the majority report.