Senator the Hon Katy Gallagher

SALLY SARA, HOST: Well, the Federal Government is preparing to release its latest Intergenerational Report, which the Treasurer says contains some confronting elements. The 2026 Intergenerational Report covers forecasts on demographic and technological trends including that Australia's population will come close to 40 million people by 2066 as Australians live longer but have fewer children. Katy Gallagher is the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Women. The Senator joined me earlier. Minister, welcome back to breakfast. 

KATY GALLAGHER, MINISTER FOR FINANCE: Thanks for having me on, Sally.

SARA: Before we get to the Intergenerational Report, the Coalition has released its new fuel policy, which would see the fuel excise halved whenever the global price of Brent crude averages more than 100 a barrel over a fortnight. Is it a good idea from the government's perspective?

GALLAGHER: Look, we don't think so. And again, it's an unfunded, uncosted promise from Mr Taylor.

SARA: The opposition says it will be funded by changes to the tobacco excise.

GALLAGHER: Yes, but I think if you also look back and see all the other range of promises they have made since the election, there are hundreds of billions of dollars in unfunded promises and this adds to that list. This is not something that we have been considering. Obviously, we've helped when the war started with some changes to the fuel excise, but we've shifted, including in the budget, to providing more permanent cost-of-living arrangements, including through the tax system, to make sure that that ongoing cost-of-living help is there permanently, not just in these one-off arrangements which, when we've got higher inflation, could be difficult in the economy.

SARA: Will the government make any further cuts to fuel excise if the global price of oil increases further again?

GALLAGHER: Well, we haven't been considering that. As I said, the sort of thinking we've done, including in the budget, is how do we make cost-of-living for households permanent? And we do that through the tax system. We've got some more tax cuts coming, essentially through the working Australian tax offset and the $1,000 instant deduction, so they are built into the system, but also in our increased funding for Medicare and bulk billing and medicines and things like that. Really the approach, is to try and build that into the system so people have that permanently. And I mean, we make decisions from budget time to budget time based on what's needed in the economy. So, we always keep thinking how can we help households is a constant challenge and something we consider through the budget process. But at the moment our focus has been on making sure that permanent cost-of-living help flows through the system while people are doing it tough. And we acknowledge that.

SARA: So, just to understand clearly, given the situation is deteriorating again in the Middle East, are cuts to fuel excise, are they off the table at the moment?

GALLAGHER: Well, like I said when you asked me this earlier, that's not what we're currently considering. Our decisions have been built and baked into the budget to make sure that that cost-of-living help is permanent. You know, the sooner this war in the Middle East stops, the better. Not only for all of the people involved in that war, of course, but including on the very significant global impacts that the war is having and continuing to have. And the longer it goes, the harder that's felt here at home, including at the petrol bowser.

SARA: Let's talk about the Intergenerational Report. The Treasurer has used the word confronting to describe some elements of the report. Which parts would you consider most confronting?

GALLAGHER: Well, I'll let the Treasurer talk about that a bit later today when he's making a substantial speech on that. But I think what the IGR tries to do is give a longer-term view of what's happening across Australia and across our economy. And to think about that, when people are under pressure right now, seeing some of what's predicted in 2065 is difficult to get your head around. But, I think also the speech that the Treasurer will give later today is also one of optimism about the strengths, the natural strengths Australia has to deal with some of these challenges. But, it goes through a whole range of things and some of what I've been seeing in the clips in this morning, but, the population will be a bit lower than was forecast in the last IGR, fertility rates will be revised back, life expectancy will be raised up. The fiscal story is one of an improving fiscal situation in terms of our budget. So, you know, the budget will be stronger, debt will be a bit lower, but it also points out that some of those pressures that are hitting the budget, particularly in the care economy, in aged care and people living longer, which is a good thing, comes with costs that the budget has to meet. So, for those that are interested in this sort of long-term advice coming from the Treasury and others. It's an interesting read.

SARA: Many listeners will remember former Treasurer Peter Costello talking about kids. One for mum, one for dad and one for the country. Does the government say, do you see that increasing the number of children that are born, is that something worth investing in? Because even though you're talking about cost of living support there due to housing and cost of living, many Australian families are limiting the number of kids they have because they feel they can't afford to have more.

GALLAGHER: So, yeah, I mean our government doesn't get into deciding choices for individual families. But we recognise that people making those choices should be supported. And so that's why we've been, instead of, I think what was a baby bonus back then, the kind of approach we've been taking is how do we make those choices available for people if they want to have children? How do we support that? And that can be through our investments in early education and care, our three-day guarantee, our extending PPL, our ensuring that dads or second parents can take it, putting super on that so that people don't have that economic hit when they have children.

SARA. So, will there be any further policy settings to try and encourage people to have more kids?

GALLAGHER: Well, again, the approach we've taken is looking at how we can help. When families decide to have a child, how do we make that a choice that can be financially supported. And we've done that routinely since we came to government, even our housing changes, to make sure that first home buyers, younger people, maybe before they've started having families, can get into the housing market. I mean it's all part of a similar approach to try and help people, support them with the choices they make rather than tell them the choice that they should make.

SARA: Minister, as Minister for Women on a separate issue, three women have been killed in separate alleged domestic violence related incidents over a 10-hour period in NSW. At the weekend, police are investigating a further case involving children in the Blue Mountains. How will the government be responding?

GALLAGHER: So, firstly, I think our thoughts are with the women, the families and the loved ones affected by these series of horrible events over the weekend. I think anyone reading the stories, you know, just it's hard to get your head around the level of violence across, particularly aimed towards women and children in families across Australia. This is something that is on our desk every single day. Tanya Plibersek and my desk every day. It's not something that we look at when there are terribly sad, awful, horrific stories in the media. But governments can't alone deal with this. It's a whole of community effort in every workplace, in every organisation, in every government. Governments have to lead and take responsibility and we do that and we're continuing to do that. We've got the second action plan consultations finalising in the next little while. The PM's got it on the agenda at National Cabinet to consistently raise with First Ministers. This is something that we have to just keep pressing on with. There is no easy solution. If there was one, we would have already put it in place and more money's part of it. We're doing that. But again, it's a whole community response that's needed to end violence and to stand up and talk about the level of violence in our community right now, which is at unacceptable levels.

SARA: The Prime Minister was asked about the situation with child protection failures in some parts of WA, and he said, we're not about to intervene against the WA government. Does the Federal Government see the protection and protection against violence for women and children to be a federal issue or a state issue? And why is the government not stepping in in this WA cases?

GALLAGHER: Well, I saw the Prime Minister's response and child protection, the actual statutory child protection system is managed by the states and territories. The Commonwealth does not have statutory child protection powers. We don't run that system. So, it is appropriate that the WA government respond in that statutory sense. I was with Malarndirri McCarthy on Friday in the Northern Territory, where she answered questions about this. And the First Nations Children's Commissioner is heading to WA to speak with people, and I think there's a roundtable planned over the next week to bring together all players. Now, that will feed into advice to the Federal Minister about any further response that the Commonwealth can give.

SARA: Minister, thank you very much for joining me this morning.

GALLAGHER: Thanks for having me on, Sally.

SARA: Katy Gallagher is the Federal Minister for Finance, the Minister for Public Service, Government Services and the Minister for Women.