Minister for Finance, Minister for Women, Minister for the Public Service
PATTY, HOST: Joining us on the show is Senator Katy Gallagher, the Minister for Finance, Women and Public Service. Thanks for joining us on the show today, Katy.
SENATOR THE HON KATY GALLAGHER, MINISTER FOR THE PUBLIC SERVICE: It's great to be here, thanks for having me.
PATTY: So, what brings you to the Northwest coast of Tasmania?
GALLAGHER: A couple of things. One, I've got my Minister for the Public Service cap on, so I've been down in Hobart and in Sorell and up here today talking about the importance of public servants and the jobs that they create in local, regional economies and also the services they provide to people and how some of that's under threat if Peter Dutton wins the election, because he wants to sack 36,000 public servants. And in places like Tassie and the North coast of Tassie, that's hundreds of jobs and means people won't be getting as good services as they should. So, talking about that, but also meeting up with the PM this morning who's in town to make some announcements about Devonport CBD.
PATTY: There's a major announcement today that you and the PM are in town for - the Devonport's Living City, which will receive $6 million to help deliver stage 3 of the project. Can you speak more on that?
GALLAGHER: Yeah, so this is the local council's Living City project, and I understand that stage 3 is the last piece of the puzzle. But it's essentially to provide the investment that will allow for the better utilisation of the CBD. So, it might involve some, you know, road and infrastructure changes, but essentially allows for better use of the CBD, a better visitor experience, but also for locals as well. And it'll unlock some land for social housing, which we know is really important, and as part of that, also as part of our announcement today, a community health and wellbeing hub at Circular Head. Yeah, there's a lot to be done today. Good announcement and it's great to be working with the council, who are so in touch and they know kind of all of the things that need to be done to make cities great places to live and work.
PATTY: That's really good to hear. We've been looking forward to this Devonport Living City announcement for a while now. Now, on Monday as well, the PM announced that he's going to be injecting $3 billion to finish upgrades to the National Broadband Network, how does that affect the Northwest coast?
GALLAGHER: This is a really important announcement. I know Peter Dutton, the Opposition have called it a complete joke, but I don't think people who are relying on low-speed or unreliable broadband think that it's a complete joke. Essentially this investment will allow for us to get rid of the old copper network and make sure that people have access to fibre. So, that allows reliable, high-speed internet into premises, whether it be homes or small businesses, and we know each household on average has 20 connected devices now. We know that that's going to increase exponentially and people need that option of having high-speed, reliable, fixed fibre services. And so, this is what it'll do, right across the country, we're gonna fix it. But here in the Northwest coast, I think it's around 10,000 more homes and businesses will be connected, certainly in the electorate of Braddon. And I think that fixes an issue that I think Anne Urquhart hears whenever we go around, is people complaining about dropouts or having unreliable internet and we're really hopeful that across Queenstown, East Devonport, Wynyard, all of those issues will be fixed.
PATTY: Well, really important stuff that you're doing here on the Northwest coast of Tasmania, especially in the year - well, it's an election year, so I'm assuming there's lots of announcements that are going to be happening over the next couple of weeks as well, very busy for you.
GALLAGHER: It is. It's busy but exciting. It's great to come back and I love coming to Devonport and Launnie and just seeing how the cities are changing and growing, it's a great place to live and work. You're very lucky to live here.
PATTY: We're lucky to have you as well. Minister, thanks for joining us on the show today and enjoy your time in Tasmania.
GALLAGHER: I'm going to, thanks so much.
