Sen. Gallagher Interview on Triple M Hobart Radio

Minister for Finance, Minister for Women, Minister for the Public Service

TUBES, HOST: It's Triple M Breakfast with Kaz and Tubes, it's seven minutes to eight, after eight o'clock we'll talk to Suzi Quatro, but right now, the Minister for Finance, Minister for Women and Minister for the Public Service, the Senator and Honourable Katy Gallagher joins us live. Good morning to you, Senator.

SENATOR THE HON KATY GALLAGHER, MINISTER FOR THE PUBLIC SERVICE: Good morning, thanks for having me on.

TUBES: It's great to have your company. The Tasmanian Public Service is one of the largest employers in the state of Tasmania and your government, the Federal Government, has made the claim that services are to be worse in Hobart under Peter Dutton if elected at the next election. Tell us why the Government has made these claims.

GALLAGHER: We've been investing in the public service, in services like Veterans' Affairs, Centrelink, Services Australia, Medicare, all those types of things. And you need people to run those services. And Peter Dutton keeps saying that he's going to cut back 36,000 public servants, of which thousands of them work in the regions outside of Canberra. And Hobart and Tasmania will be no different. You'll see those jobs cut out of those important service delivery areas. So, part of my job is to go out and talk to people about what this might mean when they're calling Centrelink or when they're trying to get their child added to their Medicare card, all those sorts of important services.

KAZ: But Minister, with these jobs that are being cut, do they need to be cut? We've all rang these services, we've all been passed around and around and around, there's a lot of ineffective public service people working at the moment. Their jobs - they're not making it easy for us. Is this just a case of getting rid of some of them and working smarter?

GALLAGHER: I mean, I know that people get frustrated with waits, but that's often because those customer service centres are dealing with millions of calls coming in from around the country. And yes, you can always improve your public services and improve efficiency and working smarter, that's all part of it, but you also need people to do the work. And we know what happened under Robodebt, when people were removed from the equation. There were horrible outcomes where people were hunted down for money they didn't owe by their own government. And so, part of the public service means having people in those places like Hobart. There's about 1,200 locals at Hobart that work at Services Australia. That's an important part of making sure people in Hobart get the services they deserve.

TUBES: So if elected, how do Labor propose to improve those services and the effectiveness of those public service people, workers?

GALLAGHER: Exactly, so that's an ongoing piece of work, but essentially we know lots of people want to transact online. So, having MyGov and all those services operate as best they can and always adapting new technology. It's making sure you've got people that are trained to do that work. If people do have to come into service centres, that they're there and available. You have to come at this in different ways, but yeah, my job as public service minister is to really focus on how do we make the customer, the Australian citizen, the centre of everything we do and that everyone's focused on delivering for them. And to do that, you need people and you need people in those towns and cities where that work is done.

TUBES: We know there are challenges here in Hobart and around Tasmania given our regional nature. The Minister for the Public Service, Women and Finance, Katy Gallagher from the Federal Government, it is always a pleasure to chat to you, thank you so much for your time on Triple M.

GALLAGHER: Thanks for having me on.

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