Senator the Hon Katy Gallagher

SASKIA MABIN, HOST: Minister for Finance, the Public Service and Government Services, as well as the Senator for the ACT, Katy Gallagher, joins me. Good morning and welcome to the program.

SENATOR THE HON KATY GALLAGHER, MINISTER FOR FINANCE: Thanks very much for having me on.

MABIN: Now, with all of those responsibilities, we've racked up quite a few topics to talk about this morning. Let's start with the ANU. Your fellow Senator, independent David Pocock, has called on ACT Labor reps to talk more about what's happening at the ANU. He's referring broadly there to job cuts, program cuts, and also governance, with serious allegations that were made under parliamentary privilege at a Senate hearing the other day of bullying, threats and intimidation from Chancellor Julie Bishop and other members of the executive when Council conduct was questioned. Julie Bishop rejects these allegations. But do you agree with David Pocock that she should step aside while they're investigated?

GALLAGHER: So, on the first point around that we should talk more. I mean, I'm not going to criticise David, although there's implicit criticism in what he says about Labor members. I've probably had, I think, five meetings this week on ANU matters, and I know my colleagues are doing the same. Because anyone that comes to me and asks to meet with me about ANU, I am meeting with. Including yesterday, with the Canberra Symphony Orchestra, who are very concerned about the cuts to the School of Music. I've also met with Genevieve Bell. I've met with the union. I've met with staff on both sides of the Renew ANU, you know program, including those that, you know, are feeling under pressure because of criticism about what's going on. So, I am doing everything I should be doing as a Senator. I choose not to play that out in the media, because I'm choosing to try and get outcomes on this. I think there are significant problems with the way that Renew ANU is going, and I've raised those directly with the Vice Chancellor, and I've raised them directly with the Minister, as have all of my federal colleagues. So, we're trying to get outcomes here. You know, the union came to me and said they'd never met with the Vice Chancellor. I said to the Vice Chancellor, you need to meet with the union. They have now met. I said to the Vice Chancellor, you need to meet with staff. She's now holding round tables with staff. Now, it's not enough. More needs to be done. But you know, you can make a choice about whether you run all your arguments through the media and choose a side, or you can actually try and deliver some outcomes here, because this is so important to the people of the ACT and the ANU as a facility.

MABIN: On that though, you know, there is a lot of anxiety in the community, and obviously we're talking about what you've done now. But wouldn't it be worth your while, given the outcomes that you've described you've managed to achieve so far, to tell the community what you're doing?

GALLAGHER: Well, again, you know, if anyone had asked me I would have told them that. I'm, you know, I do plenty of media interviews. I've been clear that I have been meeting with others. But, you know, it's pretty easy to do a media interview. It's a different story to try and actually correct what some of the issues are that are going on and try and get it into a better place. And I don't believe that prosecuting that through the media is the best way to achieve an outcome. Now, you know, people will choose their own paths on this, and I certainly am not criticising people for going to the media, but my role as Senator for the ACT and as a community leader is to try and work through everything that's going on and try and get this into a much better place than it is right now. And that is the focus of my work, and it's the focus of Alicia, Dave and Andrew. All of- we met yesterday about this. We had a discussion about it. We're raising issues all the time with the Minister for Education, and of course, there is the work underway by the regulator. But I'm not going to call for anyone's head right now which is, you know, what some people want, whether it's the Chancellor or the Vice Chancellor. Governments have to be very careful about how they involve themselves in interfering with universities, and there's been a lot of good reasons why that's the case. And so, we have to be careful and thoughtful. But anyone who wants to meet with me over ANU has had an open door.

MABIN: The ANU is a unique university, though, in that it does receive a significant amount of funding from the federal government. No doubt, in your conversation with your colleagues yesterday, the topic of Julie Bishop and these serious allegations came up. Are you saying you don't think she should step aside while those are investigated?

GALLAGHER: Look, I watched Dr Allen's testimony and went back and read the testimony that she provided, and it's deeply distressing and awful to watch. And nobody should go to work and feel like that. We need to provide safe workplaces everywhere, and ANU is no exception to that. And I've had people in similar positions to Dr Allen come and talk to me directly about how they are feeling the change process is going at ANU and whether or not their voices are heard. You know, I know that I think the council and the Chancellor has to respond to some of these issues. I think that, you know, now that they are being played out in the way they're being played out. I think there is a responsibility for the Chancellor to respond to those. And I think the Vice Chancellor and her executive team need to have a think about how this process is being undertaken. Because in my time in politics, and I've said this directly to ANU, I haven't seen such emotional distress and anger at any change management process, and I've seen a few of them.

MABIN: A few weeks ago, ACT Labor members unanimously passed a motion from the National Tertiary Education Union to amend the ANU Act. Now there was a lot within that motion, but some of the things that really stood out to me was introducing a binding mechanism for a vote of all staff to spill the positions of Chancellor and Vice Chancellor and to call on the ANU to institute a moratorium on further job cuts until the release of the 2025 Annual Report. Were you part of this group of Labor members who passed this motion?

GALLAGHER: Unfortunately, it was the first conference that I've missed, I think, in 27 years as a member of ACT Labor. So, I wasn't at the conference. But, you know, I've been to enough to know that motions get passed. You know, that's the job of the conference is essentially to pass motions, and we look at those past resolutions or motions seriously. And look, you know, the specifics of that motion, I mean, we've got a governance review that's underway, the Labor members and I have met with the Chair of that review. There's a Senate inquiry underway. There's a matter of ANU before the regulator. I think all of those things need to play out before we consider what other steps might need to be taken. But in the meantime, there is an opportunity to reset and get this in a much better place than it is now. And I have said that directly to the Vice Chancellor. I think there is an opportunity to get some independent mediation, to get an agreed set of facts about what's going on, and to bring people together. And I have said that directly, so I'm not saying anything that I haven't said to Genevieve Bell herself.

MABIN: Was she receptive to that request?

GALLAGHER: Look, she listened. She definitely listened, and she responded in a couple of areas about meeting the union and about meeting staff. Now, I've had feedback from staff about how they feel those things are going, but it does show that ANU did respond to those areas where I, certainly, and my colleagues had raised concerns. But in the, you know, certainly in the last week, and following Dr Allen's testimony, and I did a coffee catch up yesterday with Alicia Payne at a cafe, and we had at least probably 10 ANU staff attend that and talk to us about how they were feeling. And I think, in all of that to me, my view was something needs to change. Something needs to get this into much better place than it is now. And so those issues I raised with the Vice Chancellor about a reset, about some independent mediation, about getting an agreed set of facts, about what's trying to happen here, what the state of the budget is, what the response to that is, all of that remains as, I think, a pathway through to bring people together.

MABIN: On a different topic, Katy Gallagher, wearing your Minister for Finance hat now. The CPSU is asking you to overturn a decision made by your very own department to allow PwC to compete for government contracts again. Are you considering doing this and following through on what the union is asking of you?

GALLAGHER: I’ve got a lot of time for the CPSU. We work very closely together in a whole range of matters on the APS, as you would expect. But no, I'm not going to respond to that. And that's, I mean, not unusual and I don't think the CPSU would find that unusual either, even though they might want a different outcome. There are good reasons why governments and ministers, executive government, doesn't get involved in who can bid for government work and who can't. You can understand some of the integrity issues around that. And matters of procurement and how people are selected for work and what companies get work, is at arm's length of executive government for good reason, and I'm not going to change that.

Now on the matter of PwC, there was a voluntary agreement to not bid for work. That has expired, and in the time – because Finance cannot ban them from work, if they were on or if it was subject to going on to one of the procurement panels, there may be a way that that could have happened. But this was a voluntary undertaking by PwC at the time all of the problems emerged that they agreed not to bid for government work. That time has elapsed. Now, what Finance has done in the meantime is a review, including access to, you know, very detailed information about PwC’s operations now, as opposed to what they were back then. We’ve also got to acknowledge that Scyne, the company that kind of peeled off from PwC to do management consulting is a different company and are already able to do work, and they have an agreement with PwC not to bid for work till 2028. So that remains in place. But if you think about it, PwC before all of the problems emerged, all of the issues that are under various investigations, they were receiving up to about $250 million in government contracts in some years. Last financial year, the figure was $38,000. So there has been substantial impact on PwC’s operations for the way they conducted themselves. None of the individuals who were there at the time are at PwC now. And if the situation changes, if there is one – they are under a lot of scrutiny by the Department of Finance about how they conduct themselves – and if there is one problem, it will be swooped upon. But I don't accept there hasn't been any change, and I also believe procurement matters – who can and who can't bid for government work – should remain at arm's length of an executive minister.

MABIN: PwC is still being investigated, though, by the AFP, Tax Practitioners Board, and the Tax Office. So, if any of those investigations were to find information that was of concern to you, would you reinstate the ban?

GALLAGHER: Well, certainly in the discussions I've had with Finance, that is very clearly the case because I've tested that. And Finance have also tested as much as they can, because obviously there's a fair level of secrecy – well, there's secrecy laws around what the ATO does in particular, but the Tax Practitioners Board and the Police are in a similar space. From the questions that Finance has asked those bodies, and have confirmed that, specifically in relation to the Police, that none of the people that are being investigated through their investigations are currently working at PwC. So we have tried to test that within the bounds of what those organisations can tell us about, you know, staff and current practice at PwC, and we've got as much information, or Finance got as much information as they can be to be comfortable with the decision to proceed. But of course, if anything comes out of those investigations that relates to current operations or current staff at PwC, then there would be a very swift response.

MABIN: I guess the CPSU has involved themselves in this conversation because they feel as though the workers they represent, public service workers, are better equipped to do the work in-house than PwC. And this is something that Labor really campaigned quite strongly on and had a message that was very different to the Coalition's message at the last federal government to cut public service jobs. I guess it might feel to members of the CPSU like Labor is changing its tune there and neglecting those public service workers. Do you accept that?

GALLAGHER: Not at all. And you know, I am on a unity ticket with the union and the public service more broadly on the role of public servants. And the fact we need to build, continue to build capability, and we need to continue to reduce the use of external labour in delivering key public and core public service work. I have no disagreement with the CPSU on that. I do, however, accept that there is a role for consultants and contractors in the APS. We've seen a significant reduction, I think, about $700 million in the value of contracts going to those big four or big five consulting firms since we came to government, We've put in extra ASL to build policy capability, which was a big hole when we came to government, and that is making a difference. And, you know, we went to the election with a $6.4 billion save across the forward estimates in the area of external labour. So, we're just going to continue marching along that path. But that doesn't mean that there will be no use of consultancies. We're just going to make sure that when there is, it's appropriate that it's done by an external firm.

MABIN: You’re listening to the Mornings program, my name is Saskia Mabin. My guest is Katy Gallagher, Minister for Finance, the Public Service, Government Services, Women and the Senator for the ACT. Yesterday, you hosted 27 local groups here in the ACT to talk about productivity ahead of the Albanese Government's Economic Roundtable next week. What were some of your main takeaways from that meeting of minds?

GALLAGHER: Well, for one, it was a fantastic meeting. And we feel – Alicia, Dave, Andrew, and I – feel so blessed that people were able to find that time and come along and have a chat with us. It was our way of providing an ACT perspective into that national discussion and we did have representatives from industry, the community sector, unions, a lot of our knowledge-based economy were there. And yeah, we left with a great set of ideas. So a lot was around how we can better utilise and connect our knowledge economy. Our foreign investment arrangements, or investment more broadly to give startups a better go and better access to capital. ACTCOSS were there to remind us about, you know, the human side of the productivity discussion and why we are all here and that's to make sure people don't get left behind. And of course, you know, subjects like AI, and the union was there to remind us about why workers are important in that discussion. Housing came up. You know, there was a whole range of issues around government grants and how we operate, red tape, approvals. So we left that meeting with a good long list that I can forward to the Treasurer and help inform some of those national discussions.

MABIN: One of the big headline grabbing things about the Economic Roundtable, at least within the last week, has been the ACTU’s argument that a four-day work week would increase productivity. Now, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has already said the government has no plans to introduce this. What's your view on a four-day work week?

GALLAGHER: Yeah, look, well I agree with Jim. Obviously, we work really closely on all of these matters, but I think he and I have also been pretty strident in the view that flexible work is really important. And how that's negotiated between employers and employees is going to be critical in terms of being able to retain workers in the, you know, the economy and the labour market that we operate in. So, you know, we're not doing any work on implementing a four-day week. You know, we've had our IR changes last term which certainly build on flexibility in the workplace and in the APS. It's something that I've been in constant discussion with the union and with the APSC about and I'm a big supporter of flexibility, because I think that's going to be more and more what workers expect and need in order to balance all their responsibilities. And so that's a discussion I'm sure that will come up at the Roundtable.

MABIN: Katy Gallagher, thanks so much for your time this morning.

GALLAGHER: Thanks for having me on, Appreciate it.