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Catherine King has largely flown under the radar in Albanese’s cabinet.
But the transport minister’s decision in July to reject Qatar Airways’ bid to double its flights to Australia has come under intense scrutiny in recent months – not least in the past week – and vaulted her onto newspaper front pages.
Transport Minister Catherine King is known as methodical and intelligent among colleagues.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
A former social worker and senior manager at KPMG who held high-ranking positions within the Department of Health and Aged Care before her election in 2001 to the seat of Ballarat, King is regarded within the party as a methodical minister across her brief rather than a factional warrior.
Labor MP Julian Hill, who along with King is a member of the party’s Victorian Left faction, says she is a “wonderful person”.
“The only complaint anyone could make is Catherine is such a bloody stickler for the rules, proper process and discipline, [and that] it can be to the point of irritation, as she simply won’t approve anything that’s not thoroughly thought out and properly done, but ultimately of course that’s a good thing,” Hill said.
King was also in the news in 2014, when the Australian National Audit Office found that as regional services minister, she had approved $108 million in funding for projects that an advisory panel didn’t consider value for money.
King’s allies say that controversy was formative in her meticulous approach to fulfilling Labor’s election commitments.
She has otherwise remained largely inconspicuous during her political career.
But this week she has faced accusations of obfuscation in response to a barrage of questions on the floor of parliament and from the media over the basis for her rejection of Qatar Airways’ application.
While the opposition has accused the government of a “sweetheart deal” with Qantas, King has justified her decision as being in the national interest, and not in the commercial interests of any one airline.
The 57-year-old Richmond AFL fan and weekly CrossFit participant, who lives in Ballarat with her husband Mark Karlovic and teenage son Ryan, is the first woman to represent her seat, which she took with a 5 per cent swing in an otherwise solid election win for the Howard government.
“When I was preselected as the Labor candidate for Ballarat, some people told me that Ballarat would never elect a woman. Of all the things I was concerned about in the election campaign, this was never one of them,” she told parliament in her first speech.
“I want to do everything I can to help other women realise their potential and to encourage them to take their place in this parliament and others around the country.”
During a lengthy press conference at Canberra Airport on Thursday, King revealed the invasive searches of Australian women at Doha’s main airport in 2020 were a factor in her decision to turn down Qatar Airways, after a number of the women implored her not to accede to the airline’s request.
“Certainly, for context, this is the only airline that has had something like that happen, and so I can’t say that I wasn’t aware of it, but certainly, it wasn’t the only factor – it was a factor,” she said, also telling media she had consulted colleagues and industry stakeholders ahead of the decision.
There was reportedly not an utterance of the controversy at Labor’s caucus meeting this week. Colleagues are confident her tenure is safe, and that King’s reasoning stacks up. But with a Senate inquiry due to start on Monday, she is sure to remain in the spotlight a while longer.
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