SENATOR THE HON KATY GALLAGHER
MINISTER FINANCE
MINISTER FOR WOMEN
MINISTER FOR THE PUBLIC SERVICE
MINISTER FOR GOVERNMENT SERVICES

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
PRESS CONFERENCE
PARLIAMENT HOUSE
THURSDAY, 24 APRIL 2025

SUBJECTS: Dutton’s Cuts; Women’s Safety; Fiscal Outlook; Early Voting; Medicare.

KATY GALLAGHER, MINISTER FOR FINANCE: Well, thanks everyone for coming. Yesterday, we saw Peter Dutton give us this insight into just the beginning of the cuts that he would make if he was successful on 3 May. He has confirmed that he'll make it cost more for students through higher education, he said he'll make families pay more for childcare, he's announced that he will cut housing programs, infrastructure, energy policy, and of course he said that he will cut the public service, and that will impact on all of the services that Australians rely on. But we know this is just the beginning. We see again, he's changed his position on electric vehicle charges just like he did on working from home. When he got a sense that working from home wasn't working well for him, they tried to crab walk away from their decision to force everybody back into the [workplace]. But these cuts that the Coalition confirmed yesterday are just the beginning of the cuts that would need to be made to pay for Peter Dutton's nuclear reactor scheme. We know that when you've got to pay $600 billion for seven nuclear reactors built around the country on sites that he won't even go near, that you are going to have to cut more into services. So, we would see what happened last time, where he would have to hack in to health funding in order to pay for his nuclear reactor scheme, and we know that further cuts would have to be made because the numbers just simply don't add up when it comes to the promises the Coalition are making. Their commitment to nuclear reactors around the country and the fact that they would have to work out a way to pay for that would mean cuts to all of those services, including Medicare, just like he did last time. You can't believe a word that Peter Dutton says when it comes to promises he's making because the numbers just don't add up, and when he cuts, you will pay. Happy to take questions.
 
JOURNALIST: Minister, the Coalition's today announced its $900 million policy to tackle domestic violence. Are there elements of that that the Government would look at matching? The national database for DV offenders, for example?
 
GALLAGHER: Well, it's already operating. And this is what we've seen with Opposition that hasn't done the work over three years or haven't paid attention to all the work that has been done in ending violence against women and children in this country. There's the national criminal intelligence system, we put $100 million into that in the 24-25 Budget, precisely so that system that is used by police across jurisdictions can have additions made to it where a flag will be placed against an individual's name if there is domestic violence concerns around it. So, that national register that they've announced today is already being funded and enhanced through the National Criminal Intelligence System, as are the – from what I've seen this morning about, particularly, new offences – it's already an offence to use, a carriage service to menace another individual. Those laws have already been put in place. And when it comes to bail laws, that is work that's already been commissioned through National Cabinet and is a matter that the states and territories are working on in conjunction with the Prime Minister through our National Cabinet approach.
 
JOURNALIST: That second offence, it's around installing spyware. Would Labor back a new offence in that?
 
GALLAGHER: Well, I think, and I said in my speech when we announced the extra effort that we want to put into domestic and family violence, that you have to continue to adapt our responses to domestic and family violence, because the use of technology is changing the way that violence is perpetrated. Not only on surveillance devices, but also in the way that financial institutions and financial mechanisms are being used to weaponise and perpetuate violence. So, this is all work that we have underway. It's either being implemented or is part of our next approach. And I would hope that there are – and traditionally, this has been an area I think where there has been largely bipartisan support. It's a national crisis. It deserves our attention, but we also have to acknowledge the huge amount, $4 billion that's gone into preventing violence against women in this country that is already been rolled out through the National Cabinet processes.
 
JOURNALIST: Until today, women's safety has had a relatively low profile in this election campaign from both major parties. Why do you think that is?
 
GALLAGHER: Well, I don't accept that. I mean, this is something I talk about all the time. It may not have got the coverage through the press coverage of the day to day of the campaign, but as Minister for Women, this is something that's on my agenda every single day.
 
JOURNALIST: The Prime Minister could be out there talking about this and isn't as much as he is on other issues.
 
GALLAGHER: Well, I don't think you can question the Prime Minister's commitment to women's safety. He's the first Prime minister that put it on the agenda in National Cabinet, not in an election campaign, but actually more than a year ago, to have the first National Cabinet dedicated to ending violence against women and children in this country. We launched our policy earlier this week. It didn't get a lot of coverage because it was also on the day, just the day after the Pope had passed, and so that's understandable. But we've made it very clear. We have a very extensive policy document, if you'd like to read it, on Labor's commitment to women, which focuses not just on domestic and family violence, but on the whole suite of measures that the Government should take because they impact on women's vulnerability to violence. So, making sure women get paid more, making sure women get good jobs, that they're able to balance their caring and particularly their unpaid caring responsibility. I mean, Peter Dutton yesterday announced the abolition of the HAFF. Thousands of houses that are going to be built through the HAFF are targeted to ensure that women escaping violence can actually go and have a house to live in. So, we see women's policy and addressing gendered violence as a whole-of-government effort across all portfolios. You can't just see women as victim survivors of violence. Women want to work, they want to get paid well. They want to have help balancing care. They want to be able to work from home, for example, if they choose to so that they can balance those busy lives.
 
JOURNALIST: Can I check, please, clarify on the $10 billion that Labor proposed last week for housing, how exactly that will be paid for? Whether that will be the black hole in the Budget and just more generally on criticism that both parties are indulging in the spend on ahead of the election that neither can pay for.
 
GALLAGHER: Well, you've seen most of our commitments have been reconciled through the Budget process or through the pre-election fiscal outlook. For the measures that we've announced since PEFO was released, we will be accounting for those and reconciling those. And you'll see our responsible approach we've taken through the Budget ever since we came to government about looking at ways to fund, particularly, investments, but also ensuring that we are keeping and getting the Budget into better shape. So, you will be able to see that, but if anyone cares about the Budget and fiscal responsibility, surely you are deeply concerned about $600 billion for nuclear reactors, and I know Peter Dutton can test that, but if you look at the Hinkley nuclear reactor in the UK, I think it's about 15 years late being built and has now got to for one reactor between $90 and $100 billion dollars. So, I think these are questions that Peter Dutton needs to ask. We would hope that his costings would come out to explain how he's going to bankroll that in relation to the $10 billion that you talk about for the 100,000 houses that we would build for sale to first home buyers, there will be a UCB impact of that, a relatively modest UCB impact on that. But the rest would be funded through grants and loans provided to the states.
 
JOURNALIST: You've been deeply critical of the Coalition for not being out there in detailing all of the savings that they'll make to pay for their policies. During the Channel 9 debate this week, Prime Minister said we'll continue to work on savings in terms of trying to bring the Budget down. Can you provide us any insights into what those savings are and if not, aren't you being a little bit disingenuous?
 
GALLAGHER: Not at all. Again, you've seen most of our, the election funding commitments we've made, as I said, have been in the Budget and we found savings in that budget again, and we've done that every budget or budget update, and you will see that continued approach. We will reconcile the difference between the pre-election fiscal outlook and the commitments we've made pretty shortly, pretty soon, and I have no doubt it'll be well ahead of when the Opposition are prepared to put their costings out because they'll be so dodgy and unbelievable that they'll want to leave that to the last minute.
 
JOURNALIST: Election laws mandate, I think, prepoll opens about nine days, ten days ahead. Why not change electoral laws reform to ensure that all costings, all budget bottom lines from electoral commitments are out there well ahead of when Australians go to the polls?
 
GALLAGHER: Well, we have the Charter of Budget Honesty. I mean, that's legislation that's been passed through the Parliament that has the requirements about what information needs to be published in the lead up to the pre-election period, and that's signed off by the Treasury and Finance secretary independent of government. So, I think they've pretty robust legislation in place already. I think the difference that we've been doing is as we've been announcing our policies where they have been announced beyond the pre-election fiscal outlook, we have been announcing those with our costings attached to those. We've been saying what it will cost and what impact it will have on the UCB and we'll reconcile that for people in the not too distant future. That hasn't been how the Coalition have been operating. I mean, they still haven't released their costings about their lunches for bosses policy when they're releasing or making statements. They're saying it might've been informed by the Parliamentary Budget Office but not actually analysed by them. So, I think there's a couple of different standards here. We've been held – and quite rightly, we have no problem with that – to a higher standard than the Opposition of following.
 
JOURNALIST: When did you release your costings in the last campaign? Wasn't it two days before polling day?
 
GALLAGHER: I'd have to check, but I think it was certainly in that last week, and I think it might've been the Thursday.
 
JOURNALIST: [INDISTINCT]
 
GALLAGHER: Well, I think at the time we were announcing our policies, we were actually announcing them with costings. That's not happening now. We reconciled them on that day when we pulled it all together, but we had been releasing our policies with costings and they'd been done by the Parliamentary Budget Office.
 
JOURNALIST: Are you happy with about a million people so far going to the polls without the full information about your offerings.
 
GALLAGHER: Well, election day is 3 May. People make a decision about whether they want to vote ahead of that. That's a decision for individual voters. We have been very clear, getting our major policies out well in advance of that, including outlining the cost of those policies. So, I'm sure the good voters of Australia are considering that when they go and put number one next to whoever they choose to vote for. But I think we are being very upfront with them about the costs that our policies are, and I think that stands in sharp contrast to Mr Dutton, who's not explaining what he's going to cut to pay for his $600 billion nuclear reactor scheme.
 
JOURNALIST: Senator, on prepoll voting, do we need to have another look at it? In terms of how, I know it's been cut back to two weeks this year, but we're going to have probably another five or six million people having voted by polling day. It's clearly being exploited beyond what its original purpose was. It's meant to be for people who couldn't make it on Saturday. Do you think both major parties, the Parliament as a collective, need to have a look at this, maybe limit it to one week or even less?
 
GALLAGHER: Well, it's no doubt that people voting at prepoll is certainly increasing, and we've seen that just in the last couple of days. All these matters get assessed and looked at through the JCEM inquiry that happens after every election. So, I imagine that committee will look at prepoll and any issues around prepoll and that would be a matter for the 48th Parliament.
 
JOURNALIST: Do you have a view, though? I mean you're a former Minister of State, you see the stresses it places on candidates and parties having to man these booths and stuff ahead of election day.
 
GALLAGHER: Well, I think we're pretty lucky here in our democracy. We're lucky that they are traditionally very peaceful and people have under a compulsory voting system – making voting accessible to people is really important. I think coming back from three weeks to two weeks is a good change, but obviously people are taking the opportunity that that flexibility provides to vote and going in and participating in our democratic process. I think any further change would need to be a matter for JCEM.
 
JOURNALIST: Just given that there will be a couple hundred thousand people that likely vote between now and when you release your latest budget reconciliation, can you just confirm will the net effect of your decisions since PEFO be a deterioration in the UCB over each of the four years of the estimates?
 
GALLAGHER: Look, it'll largely be the same from what people saw at Budget time and pre-election fiscal outlook time. And the approach that we've taken, including finding savings where we can, we've done that in every budget. You will see that as well. I mean, we are responsible in terms of how we manage the Budget. We make decisions about where to put in additional investments, but we also want to make sure that we are delivering services efficiently.
 
JOURNALIST: Just on major election announcements, Mark Butler was at the Press Club yesterday for the health debate. He admitted in his appearance that there would be a gap fee under Labor's Medicare plan. Has it been disingenuous for Labor MPs to be sharing on their social media that you can see a GP for free when your Health Minister is admitting there will be a gap fee? You're criticising the Coalition for misinformation. Is that misinformation from Labor?
 
GALLAGHER: Well, we want people to be able to access a doctor for free, and that's why we are making the most significant investment in bulk billing and in Medicare of any government since Medicare was established. And we do that because we recognise that Medicare was in free fall under the freezes and cuts of the former government, and we needed to invest in it. We've done it for concession cardholders and 16-year-olds. That has increased the numbers getting bulk billed, and we want to increase it further. Our advice from the Health department is that that would enable 90 per cent of people to visit a bulk billing doctor. And it's all about choice. Some people will continue under the arrangements that they have with their doctor, if their doctor wants to do a mix of bulk and private billing, and that might be fine. But for people that need to see a doctor and can't afford it or can't afford those out-of-pocket expenses, our job is to make sure we are funding the system properly so that they can access that type of care. And our evidence is, the modelling that's been provided by the Department of Health, is that our investments will do that.
 
JOURNALIST: But do you admit that that campaign slogan, 'see a GP for free', is incorrect, and to reach that commitment, does the $8.5 billion need to be expanded?
 
GALLAGHER: Well, our advice is the $8.5 billion will do that. And that's a mix of tripling the bulk billing rate, but also having a practise payment for those clinics that move to full bulk billing. And now we expect that a number of GPs will move to those arrangements because in a business model, it will be financially viable for them to do that. But for example, here in the ACT where bulk billing is so low, for many people, there is no choice. Our job is to fund the system that drives the change. That gives people the opportunity to see a doctor for free. That's what Labor's about. That's what we've always been about with Medicare, and that's what our commitment's about. Thank you.

ENDS