10/02/2025 

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

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP
PARLIAMENT HOUSE
MONDAY, 10 FEBRUARY 2025

SUBJECTS: Senate; wages for public servants; donation reforms; Budget; long lunches for bosses.

JOURNALIST: It's going to be a busy week in the Senate. What have you got in terms of the production tax credit deal? Are you hoping that it to go through with The Greens on board?

SENATOR THE HON KATY GALLAGHER, MINISTER FOR FINANCE: Look, we're pretty optimistic about production tax credits. So, obviously, the Opposition are not supporting it which is - I can't really work out why, considering it's a massive increase in investment in WA. So, really important we get it done. We'll be working with the rest of the Senate, but we're pretty optimistic. We've got it listed first, and we'd like to get it done as early as we can this week.

JOURNALIST: The Coalition's got some new PBO costings out this morning, claiming you have an 11 billion or sack 20,000 public servants. Is that a fair assessment?

GALLAGHER: No. I mean, I haven't seen the costing and I don't know what they asked the PBO to cost. But it's not my fault if the Opposition can't read the Budget papers. The Budget papers are clear about where the extra investment in the public service has gone and for how long, and all public service wages, along with indexation and all the rest of it, are accounted for in the Budget papers.

JOURNALIST: Is there any update on the donation reforms in talks with the Coalition? Are you still hopeful of getting some agreement this week?

GALLAGHER: Well, we've got that listed later in the week. Again, we're hopeful. We're working with the Opposition to try and get that done. We do think it's really important to get big money out of politics and to be more transparent and in better time, faster time. But it does rely on the Opposition, so we'll be looking for them to get that through this week.

JOURNALIST: Housing is clearly going to be a major election issue. There are some calls, The Grattan Institute today, saying that an extra 1.6 billion or, if everybody took it up to its maximum extent, $10 billion.

JOURNALIST: So, there is no adjustment in that process? I mean the Treasurer's got a PhD, he'd be familiar with research design of course. There was no adjustment made given the government's own work in compliance etc, over the past two years, following the PwC stuff to really think, well, how might that play out and enhance the compliance space?

GALLAGHER: Well, I mean, I think part of the issue with the free lunch policy is it would be very difficult to enforce any compliance around it based on the lack of information that anyone has about what Peter Dutton's free lunch policy is. So it was, you know, some analysis that was provided. It was analysis that's important, as the costings had not been provided by the Opposition. Thank you.

ENDS