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

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP
STRATHPINE
THURSDAY, 10 APRIL 2025
 
SUBJECTS: Public Service; Budget.

ALI FRANCE, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR DICKSON: Well, good morning everyone. Behind us here is Services Australia in Strathpine. I want to thank the Minister for the Public Service, Katy Gallagher, for coming here today. I also really want to just thank, for those watching, if they are, the people who work in this building. We really, really value what you do. All of us rely upon the services provided by Medicare, aged care services, the PBS, the NDIA, Veterans' Affairs. And I'm so pleased that the Albanese Labor Government has invested in the public service, replaced contractors and other workers with full time jobs, good full time jobs that has meant reduced waiting times for calls, for claims to be processed and also help for the most vulnerable people in this community. Peter Dutton would have you believe that we don't need 41,000 of these public servants, many of them working here in this community, and many of them working from home. But Queenslanders have seen this before. When Peter Dutton talks about reducing public service, we see Campbell Newman 2.0.
 
KATY GALLAGHER, MINISTER FOR FINANCE, WOMEN, THE PUBLIC SERVICE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES: Thanks very much and it's great to be here with Ali France, our extraordinary Labor candidate for Dickson. We're so thrilled that Ali put her hand up to run and we've been watching her with admiration as she campaigns relentlessly to get a better deal for Dickson. So, we need to talk about the public service cuts. Peter Dutton has said he wants to cut 41,000 jobs from the public service. He's repeated this week that those savings, $7 billion in savings from cutting those tens of thousands of jobs, is locked in. So, that means the cuts are locked in and what that means for Queensland is about five and half, or just under five and a half thousand jobs would go. That would be the Queensland component of those 41,000 jobs. The majority of those jobs would be in places like Services Australia, the big employers across the state, not just here in Brisbane, but in other big regional centres across the state.
 
That's what would happen. Five and a half thousand jobs would go. And we know what that means, as Ali said, for services. It means that your claims won't get processed as quickly as they are. It means that veterans would be sitting waiting for their compensation payments. It means that when you're a new parent, your PPL claim wouldn't be processed as fast, for pensioners, of which there are over 13,000 in this electorate alone, there would be delays in processing pensions. And that's a real outcome from having those jobs go. It's all very easy to talk about just cutting public service jobs. But what that means when it actually comes to service outcomes is it touches everybody. And when Peter Dutton cuts, you'll pay.
 
We also know on working from home, for a lot of families that work in areas like this, working from home has really given them the opportunity to balance all of the other pressures of being modern families. We know that for women in particular, it's meant that we've been able to get more women working, participation rate at record highs, closing the gender pay gap. And that's partly because women can take on more hours if they're able to manage those other pressures. So, the cuts that Peter Dutton has locked in and confirmed this week are real, they'll hit every part of Australia and they would return us to the days of Robodebt and PwC and 42,000 unprocessed veterans' claims. That is what Peter Dutton wants to return to.
 
Now, can I just make a couple of comments on this announcement about funds today by the Opposition? They are saying that they would establish two new off-budget funds to funnel money into, instead of paying down debt on the Budget. And we've seen that before. When we came to Government, the Coalition had doubled the debt before Covid. We had significant deficits across the forward estimate years, we've managed to lower that debt. We've lowered the interest payments on that debt because we have banked the upward revisions to revenue straight onto the budget. Now, what it seems Peter Dutton and his colleagues are promising is to establish two funds, but to abolish a fund that's building housing and then establish funds that basically entrenches National Party pork barrelling across the country. That is the offer from Peter Dutton. That is the risk that's presented by these shambles of an Opposition that's caving in on policies and then dreaming up once where they haven't actually thought them through. It would be bad for the Budget, bad for gross debt and bad for the budget overall, which would lead to the cuts that we know he wants to do to pay for his nuclear policy. Happy to take questions.
 
JOURNALIST: Minister, where would the Government find savings if an economic downturn caused unemployment to rise? Or would you keep increasing national debt.
 
GALLAGHER: Well, we've actually paid down debt. We've paid debt down by about -- it's $177 billion lower, and that's a mix of things. We found $95 billion in savings and where we've got upward revision to revenue, we've paid down debt. So, we are actually paying $60 billion less in interest over the next 10 years because of that approach. Look, Treasury forecast our economy to grow. They released PEFO on Monday, which is the pre-election fiscal outlook. In that, they had considered some of those initial impacts from some of the global uncertainty we're seeing, and their forecasts remain the same. They expect the Australian economy to grow.
 
JOURNALIST: Does it trouble you -- this is my last question -- trouble you as Finance Minister that the Prime Minister in the Sky News forum this week said that he sees no reason to reduce spending?
 
GALLAGHER: Well, I think the Prime Minister was pretty clear. I was at that Sky News forum. He was clear about the need to manage the Budget properly and do what we have been doing since we came to government, which is finding savings, getting rid of the rorts and waste from the Coalition and making sure where you are spending that, it's quality spending into Medicare, into services that people need into education, into lowering HECS debts. So, governments need to spend, they need to spend efficiently and effectively and you need to manage the Budget overall. And that's what we've done. We've found $95 billion in savings. The Coalition, in their last year, did none. None. No savings, nothing. And we've managed to turn that around, turn the Budget around, two surpluses, lower debt, lower interest payments on the debt because we've made all those decisions. But Australians also need help with the cost-of-living and that's why investments are important as well. Thank you.
 
ENDS