SENATOR KATY GALLAGHER
MINISTER FOR FINANCE
MINISTER FOR WOMEN
MINISTER FOR THE PUBLIC SERVICE
MINISTER FOR GOVERNMENT SERVICES
SENATOR FOR THE AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
ABC NEWS BREAKFAST
THURSDAY, 1 JANUARY 2026
SUBJECTS: January 1 measures; Cheaper Medicines, 3-day child care guarantee, response to Bondi terrorist attack.
OLIVIA CAISLEY, PRESENTER: Finance Minister, Katy Gallagher joins us now from Canberra. A very happy New Year to you. It's wonderful to speak to you this morning. Let's go to a number of these legislative changes that are coming through today. Some are easing pressure, others are adding costs. Passport fees have risen again. A 10-year adult passport now costs $422, why? Why do we have one of the most expensive passports in the world?
SENATOR KATY GALLAGHER, MINISTER FOR FINANCE: Good morning, Liv to you and everyone at News Breakfast, happy new year, it's lovely to share this moment with you early on New Year's Day. Look, we have routinely, those increases and adjustments to some of the fees and payments to Australian Government programs like passports – it's the quality of the document and its cost recovery essentially for producing those important travel documents that people rely on. It is a small adjustment, but this is something that we do every year just to keep up with the costs of providing them.
CAISLEY: Okay, on the relief side of things we're seeing some changes to PBS prescriptions, they're now capped at $25, that’s down from $31.60. For someone who's managing a chronic condition, for example, or multiple scripts, what does this mean in terms of weekly or annual savings. What kind of benefit will they reap from this change?
GALLAGHER: That's right. This is an important change that's coming in today. It's really that the price of PBS medications now is going to be to lowest it's been since 2004. They'll be coming down to $25. This is part of our investment into Australians' healthcare. It compliments programs like the Medicare Urgent Care Clinics, the tripling of the bulk-billing and this makes sure that when you have a condition that requires medication that you're able to meet the costs of that. For concession card holders, pensioners, those on healthcare concession card, the payment is actually $7.70 and that will be capped until 2030. But this is all about making sure people can get the healthcare they need when they need it and also be able to afford to manage those conditions, as you say, particularly those chronic health conditions that have ongoing medication. And there's also the 60-day scripts so you can actually get two of your packets of medication for the price of one for certain medications. But it's been an important priority for the Albanese Government to focus on health and making sure we're helping people with the costs of healthcare.
CAISLEY: Another big priority has obviously been childcare, and today the 3-day childcare guarantee begins so that gives families access to three subsidised days regardless of work hours. Who is going to benefit the most from this, and in areas where centres are already full how are they likely to see changes from this?
GALLAGHER: Yeah, so this, as you say, it's an important priority again for the Prime Minister and the Albanese Government. Is making sure we're getting as many children into early education and care as we can. We know that it's really good for their development and in the past, you've had to meet certain work or study tests get eligibility to three days or to subsidised childcare. This actually takes that away and says that the child's needs come first. We want you as a child to be able to access that care regardless of what your parents are doing. You're right around the pressure in early education and care though and the key to that is our fund to build more centres, particularly in areas where there are childcare droughts. But also to invest in the workforce because you can build all the centres and provide all the entitlement you want to, but if you don't have the educators to provide that care then there's no point. We've been investing in that workforce as well, making sure they're getting paid properly for the first time and making sure their pay links to the quality or to importance of the work they do. It all comes together really. I mean, you don't have to see one of these things in isolation, we need to get them all right to make sure the early education and care system works properly.
CAISLEY: We know there's an aspiration for the Albanese Government to create universal childcare. On that point, is any modelling under way, any policy development, happening in the background that you can let our viewers know about?
GALLAGHER: Well, what I have just told you about is really foundational steps to the way to universality because you can't deliver that unless you have the centres, the workforce and the care at an affordable price in order to deliver that. These really are the big moving bits that we are investing in now to make sure we're building the system that can in time, in the future, can be universal.
CAISLEY: Given these investments, I wanted to ask you, obviously last year there were terrible reports about abuse in childcare centres across the country. They were deeply disturbing. You're at the moment trying to scale up access to childcare. Is the government, though, willing to have, I guess, a review of the national standards when it comes to the industry. As we know that was one of the recommendations from the Productivity Commission. Is the government open to that and is it something they're considering?
GALLAGHER: So we're doing a huge amount of work, the ministers in relation to this. The early education ministers have been meeting including with the states and territories who have many of the licensing responsibilities for the childcare system. So there is a huge amount of work under way including looking at national screening of workers and also how we train and support workers in early education and care about ensuring children are safe, and Jason Clare has been leading that work and that will continue into 2026.
CAISLEY: What about those specific calls for an independent review of national standards?
GALLAGHER: Look, I can't answer that. I don't have that information with me right now. What I do know is from the work that Jason Clare's been doing how much work is going into ensuring that the response to some of those allegations that we saw raised last year are being dealt with and dealt with urgently and dealt with systematically across the whole country.
CAISLEY: I just wanted to turn now to these calls for a Royal Commission into the Bondi attacks. Obviously, a number of voices have been calling for a specific Commonwealth-led inquiry into this. This something that the that the Prime Minister has repeatedly ruled out but today we have seen in two different papers a former chief of army, Peter Leahy and Jack Rush KC, who was a commissioner on the Bushfire Royal Commission saying it is really a necessary step so that the country can heal and also to inquire more fully into anti-Semitism. Has the government got this right here?
GALLAGHER: Well, we've been working 24/7 really since the 14th of December on the response to an anti-Semetic terrorist attack at Bondi Beach. There are four processes under way already. There's obviously the criminal case against the alleged gunman. There is the Royal Commission that the New South Wales government will establish which the Commonwealth has said we will cooperate with. There is also the Richardson Inquiry, of which we have released the terms of reference into that, and I don't think you can doubt the role that Dennis Richardson will play or the fact that he is probably the top person in the country to undertake that work, and then there is implementing the Gillian Seagal Report. So we have four processes under way. The Prime Minister's position around this, supported by all of us who have been working with him on it, is that we need urgent action now, urgent response now, and that's what these four processes will do including the Richardson Inquiry, which will report at the end of April.
CAILSEY: Katy, thank you very much for your time and see you back in Canberra.
GALLAGHER: Thanks very much, Liv.
ENDS
