Minister Katy Gallagher on Grief, Power, and the Moment Her Life Changed Forever

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It was a doctor just saying to me, you're going to have to snap out of it in like in two months, you're going to have a baby and you have to look after this baby, and you're in you can't look after yourself, Like what are you thinking? And it was that doctor speaking very bluntly to me that made me kind of go, I have to get my shit together.

Katie Gallaher's life has been shaped by heartbreak and resilience. She lost her first partner while she was pregnant, and those early experiences of grief and raising a child taught her about empathy, determination, and the kind of groundedness that comes from living through real struggle. Politics wasn't something she set out to do. Instead, it found her, but she brought her whole self to it, shaped by life not ambition.

Well, just there's loads of busy women right around the country.

But it's lovely to be here. Really. What does your day look like? What have you done today?

So today has been a pretty normal day. So lot on I did. Started with a radio interview, jumped on a plane to Sydney, done some meetings at different ends of Sydney. So I've been marching around with a giant umbrella, knocking in puddles and stuff and then I've come here. So it's been a full day and lots of different you know, lots of different subjects, different meetings. I did an ABC News interview at one of my meetings, squash

The days are start at what time, oh, pretty early.

If I'm not doing an early radio interview or TV interview, I'd be talking with GYM or the PM or.

Some colleagues pretty early.

So I'm usually I get up and I'm just there's no kind of lounging and having a you know, having a sip of coffee or slowly waking up eyes open. I'm not the option to snooze, not really. Occasionally, when you do have a day where you can do that, it is super nice luxury, it is, and you really appreciate when you talk.

About where you're traveling from, is that Canbra.

Yeah, So I'm really fortunate in that regard. So when Parliament's sitting, I'm Canberra based.

And also born and raised in Canberra, which made me think you really had no choice but to end up in politics. Did you grow up immersed in that world.

A little bit like my parents, but more from my parents and their influence. Like my parents were both interested in politics. My dad was a public servant, but my mum was a community worker.

That's Betsy, Yeah. And your dad Charles Charles. Yeah.

And they had moved from the UK. They moved to Canberra in the late sixties.

And why did they choose Canberra.

Well, as parently to do with my dad's asthma, so that from the UK. I don't know why then Canberra because it is freezing for dry, Yeah, it is.

Dry, but very dry. In fact, it's so dry.

The rain today in Sydney has been so nice. But yeah, So they had moved. I think Australia was a place of opportunity, away from far, away from their previous life. And they just started together vine New Zealand. They actually met on a boat going to New Zealand. Oh I loved you ten pound poems. Was that that or after that? It was? It was after that And they were just separately going to New Zealand and met on the boat, fell in love, lived for a while in New Zealand and then.

Moved to Canberra.

And then you came along my sister in New Zealand and then I came along shortly after that, so I was born in nineteen seventy so yeah, they'd been in Canberra about a year and my dad had a job in the Parliamentary Library, so he was around politics. But I never, I don't know, I never thought I would be a politician.

What did you think you would do? So you were quite musical growing up? Yeah, I did. I did play the cello.

My mum wanted I think she really wanted us as children to learn the piano and the cello or anything any music. And I was I was kind of I don't know, I wasn't a rebellious child. So you know, your mum goes, Katie, Yeah, learning the cello, I was like, oh okay, well okay, I'd go lugging this giant instrument around, bigger than you.

Sometimes I wish for a violin. Yeah, you know, I played the violin horrendously. Well, I just.

Loved the look of everyone walking around with their little violin bags.

Then that would be me and this thing. So at what point did you so your mum, Betsy was I think renowned for having a very active social conscience. Is that right to and what how did that manifest in your life?

So, yeah, Mum was a big yeah, just involve. I think she got to Canberra and she ended up having four children under five. My two brothers came after Claire and I and they were the first house in the street. There was no services, no supports. She was from the UK.

Sounded horrendous.

But so she went about sort of building services and supports, like getting women together, getting children together, and from that, you know, she just became this kind of community dynamo that if there wasn't something there, she would build it or get other people to kind of create the social infrastructure that helped people.

And so I think for her, even.

As we got older, she was always rescuing things, whether it be animals or children, And so we grew up with a lot of different animals and a lot of different children in our house who she usually was trying to give the mum a break to make that relationship work. Yeah, we're never too sure what you were going to come home to or who you were going to come home to.

Two weeks, three weeks. And you could have a dog, yes, without it being registered with the council. And you could have a cat that was allowed to go outside.

Yes, you could have all that. We had, kangaroos, we had sheep. It was all in our back garden. Yeah, guinea pigs, mice, you know, you name it. We kind of was the house where everything was happening.

And so you had this template because I often think parents is often an emphasis, and particularly I think for women of you know, we like to say I tell my children this, and I tell them that, and I tell them they're self worth. And but what we learn most from is what is modeled for us, I think. And so through your mother you had this modeling of if something didn't exist, you build it. And also you welcome, Yeah,

My dad was a much more introverted character, but he still demonstrated sort of the same thing that the same work mum did, but in different ways. So he was a lifeline counselor and he was you know, he would support prisoner families because we didn't have a prison in the Act server runs. If you're a prisoner, you got sent to New South Wales and.

He would do a lot of work there.

So they definitely demonstrated to me and my siblings it wasn't enough to just exist in a society. You had to participate, you know, you had to involve yourself, you had to be a part of it. And so we all grew up like that, like my sisters and nurse you know, has spent her entire life caring for others in a hospital, and I started in in community work, so working with people with a disability and I loved that.

So was that like social work or yeah, it was.

It was like a community worker we would break with disability, you know, care advocate, so I became a formal advocate where you advocate on a person with the disabilities behalf. So we were closing down sheltered workshops and big institutions and it was a really kind of exciting work and I loved that. Then you know, life happens, events happened.

Who was in power then.

That was under Bob Hawk, Yeah, and it was Susan Ryan, who was kind of lead as a minister was leading that. But again I'd put the two things together. I could see how politics could change people's lives and in this case for the better, and that interested me. And I'd been at Union done a politics degree, so I understood politics, but I hadn't joined a political party. But it was at that point that I was like, that's where I belong. That's the party that represents my values. And that's when

What was that moment for you?

Well, that was when so my partner died in a Yeah he at the time, yeah, yeah, So he was very active in the labor party. He and I were going to get married. I was pregnant with our baby.

How old were you then?

I was twenty seven, right, yeah, twenty six, probably twenty six, twenty seven. And he would if you'd known us back then, he would have been the front person in that, you know, he would have been the active kind of I could definitely imagine him as a politician. He was more extroverted, absolutely, and yeah, just involved in everything, whereas I was your average branch member, just going along having a nice glass of wine, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. And what was his interest? What was Brett's interest in politics? Yeah?

Well he was he was a big union guy. So he he'd worked as a union officer, he'd worked for the nurses union.

Just before the accident.

He was about to work with the Public Service Union, so he'd very much come from a kind of workers' rights you know, position Act you wish, Yeah, so the equivalent in the Act. But he was well connected, you know, and he was great with people, and he was enthusiastic, and it was all the things that you can see people working their way up through the labor party.

He had all of that and obviously other personal attributes as well that made you fall in love with him.

Yeah, yeah, I mean interesting, you know, yeah, I mean it's been a long time since he passed away, but yeah, we were just like any other young couple in there, you know.

So you're age, everything's ascendant. Really, it's one of those sweet spots in life. Both of you are on an upward trajectory with each other and with your lives. I did not know this about you, didn't you. I did not know, And it explains I think so much of how you're described, which is always very empathetic and someone who has a very grounded understanding of life. And I think that often that comes from people because they also have an understanding of death. And that is what happened

And there is something in experiencing death at a young age that shapes you. I definitely think that is true.

So Brett had ridden.

He was a bike rider, like road bike rider, and he and I had been down to essentially near was in Mount Beauty, so around there Beautiful in what was called the ord As Challenge.

I think it's like a two hundred kilometer bike rade. My husband has ridden. He's also a cyclist. Yeah, and so when I was discovering this about you, it was chilling. Yeah.

So he'd just done that race and we decided to kind of take the slow road back to Canberra, which was through the coast road, so up the south coast.

So you're coming from the high country in Victoria exactly, you're making your way back.

Yeah, And we thought we'd have an extra night away, so we stopped at Marimbula and for the night and then we're going to stay. I think we were going to stay a couple of nights and then head back to Canberra. And he went out for a bike ride that morning. So the first morning we were there and we arranged to meet at the beach he would finish his ride and have a swim. I would wait for him at the beach and he just never showed up, and you know, I had to go and try and

How did you know where to start to look?

Well, Mimenbial is pretty small, and I knew he was going for about an hour.

And a half, so i'd be along the coast, probably around them.

Yeah, And I thought i'd follow the main roads because I think he would have been on those, like he wouldn't have gone off on a track. And anyway, I couldn't find him. I rang the hospitals. Nobody, you know, the two kind of local hospitals. Nobody could help me there, And so I just kept driving and driving, getting more and more worried because time was, you know, was our time to meet up had significantly elapsed, so I knew something was wrong, and I turned on the local radio station.

I heard on the radio that the.

Police were looking for the relatives of a cyclist who'd been killed earlier that morning, and that's how I found out. So yeah, I mean, even when I talk about it now, it's Abby, our.

Daughter, who was amazing.

I was about fourteen weeks pregnant, so it was reasonably early, but people knew and we'd been sort of celebrating that. It's about it's twenty eight years ago now almost twenty nine, and yeah, it's still like when I talk through it, I can still viscerally remember that day and how it was.

And then how do you how do you transition out of a period like that that is marked by so much grief, grief for the loss of bread, grief for the loss that you were going to have, the life you were going to have. But at the same time, you're pregnant with your first child. How was that? How did you approach that?

So I was terrible, Like, the real and honest answer is I was terrible.

I was.

I've never I hope to never experience that again. But I sunk into a very deep depression.

So as you say.

I'd gone from thinking, you know, this is my life, I'm on this path, and all of a sudden something happens. Brett was hit by a car and by someone who'd had a restricted license as well, so I shouldn't have actually been driving. So there was a lot of this, a lot of this how could this happen? So I went through that this is very awful, unfair, kind of selfish grief, but I don't mean that in a negative way,

I ended up in hospital dehydrated.

I ended up only being let out if I agreed to see a psychiatrist. And then I got in the high risk pregnancy clinic and they didn't know what to do with me. So all of that happened, and in the end, I went on antidepressants at the right time, and that got me in reasonable shape, along with some therapy and being left to myself. Really I moved into a house by myself because I couldn't go back to where we lived, and I just bunkered down.

And where were your parents and your family in that period, and your union family and your ALP family. So they were all around.

I mean Dad had passed away a couple of years before that, and they were all wanting to help, but I was so into my grief nobody really could. I had, you know, friends would wait outside for me to open the door, and I just wouldn't open the door because I couldn't confront what was going on. Like I just felt so sideswiped and it was so diffent, you know, it was just unimaginable. And then to have people looking at me and feeling sorry for me would tip.

Me over the deep.

And so I think that was really hard for my family and friends because at that time they wanted to help me a lot, and I couldn't accept their help. I had to and I'm still a bit like this. When something difficult happens, I have to work through it

I didn't.

I mean I didn't do anything about delivery, you know, labor and delivery.

Class So how to go to the classes? I couldn't. You couldn't.

You couldn't, So I knew nothing, which is probably better.

And also because if you went into the classes and you didn't have the man who was the father of your baby with you, you would have to do so much explaining that just the thought of that, yeah it's not cropping. Yeah.

So I didn't do any of that. I had no connection to anything. And in fact, the day I went into labor, I rang my sister and told her I had a stomach ache, and she like, Katie, I think you have more than a stomach ache, and went and that's when it dawned on me, like I was so dislocated. It's really odd. I don't know how to describe it. Anyway, the minute that baby came out, I tell you, everything, everything went up, you know everything, I just I had something else.

You return to yourself.

Yeah, it was almost almost immediate. Like I was still very lonely and on my own and wanting to do that, but I had this amazing thing baby, and yeah, and she was precious not just to me, but to Brett's family, to my family. And even though it's a lot to ask a little baby to do, she did a lot of healing without knowing. She didn't know, she didn't know, but she did. And she continues to be like that.

And babies are like that anyway. When a baby comes into your orbit, it's like staring at a fire. Everyone just you can't help. Yeah, there's something magical about it.

Totally and everyone, everyone almost felt like a whole Camber rejoiced when he was born. And she was healthy and gorgeous and brought a lot, you know, brought me back back to the real world.

After the break, Katie, She's house. Stepping back into the real world was her unexpected pathway to politics. When you came back to the real world, what was that process for you?

It was hard to kind of reintegrate still because you know, I didn't like being the center of things and it felt it just felt very exposed because of you know, everyone knew your story. But a lot of people had really helped me when I was unable to help myself.

So the Labor Party locally had been enormous help. The Union movement had.

Been you know, things like helping you pay for funerals and stuff like that you'd never made. You'd never even thought about. People stepping in and helping getting legal advice, you know, all the stuff that I needed to do because of the situation that I was in, and so they had been amazing. And when I did start getting my got myself back together, I got back to work, I needed to repay a bit of that I felt. And that's what got me into politics.

That's a long way of how I got it.

Because then there was not enough women standing for election in Canberra at the time. So this is for the local assembly like this territory parliament, and a lot of women didn't want to put their hands up and we were trying to make sure we were getting women into politics, and I'd been part of that just as a member, and all of a sudden everyone was looking at.

Me, going, well, hang on a minute, what are you doing. Why can't you do it?

And I was like, oh, I've got a lot on But I realized also that if we wanted more women elected, women had to put their hand up in the first place, otherwise it wasn't going to change.

So it wasn't just me.

There was a group about eight of us that stood as candidates in that election, and two of us got elected, and I was one of them. Wow, And I was told I wouldn't win, and I just needed to.

Do it, go through the emotions, and you know, well, it is one of those things I think politics that often people will have a tilt at it, thinking well, I'm not going to win this time time anyway. But then at least I blooded myself and I know what comes yeah next. But you actually I won by like you.

One, I don't know by some It's a it's a very complicated electoral system in the act called hair Clark with Robson rotation. It's the same electoral system as Tasmania. But this is like homo, Yeah, I was gonna say, it's like a moro anyway, hard electoral system, hard to get elected. I was told it wouldn't happen, but like it was like seventy votes out of seventy thousand cars, you know, like it was.

I was.

I basically scraped over the line and it was a surprise to everyone, including other people in the parliament, none of whom I knew.

Like I was just like, oh, hi, Katie's I'm here. I don't know what this is about.

But yeah, and I would say the other great thing because it is about putting yourself out there and that that campaign was art for me. It was hard to stand on the corner of street store, so.

You really were like door knocking it introducing yourself and that is hard. And so how did you sell yourself, by the way, what was it that you were offering?

Well, I guess it was I kind of campaigned on the areas of strength that I felt I had. So I had a young child, so I did a lot of campaigning around childcare, you know, because it was sort of issues that people could connect with authenticity to me and the fact that we needed some women in the parliament.

A lot of women were elected, so.

There was a very strong vote of women wanting to see change happen in their parliament. And I think I just happened to be one of those people in the right place at the right time. And I was a local too, and I think that probably helped me with those seventy votes. Like you know, people go, oh, I went to school with her, or I knew Betsy. I bet Betsy was a bit of a vote puller. So there was a bit of that going on as well.

And so then so you've got how old's abby at this point she was four. Then you embark on what's the start of your political career? I mean, everything seems, you know, self evident in retrospect, but at the time, what did you think you were going to be doing or how long did you think it was going to last. I had no idea. I really didn't. I didn't know.

How to speak publicly. I didn't know how to give a speech.

I didn't know. I was so unprepared for that job. But do you also think that that's kind of a strength. Yeah, I think in hindsight, But at the time, you know, when we're all you just saw your shortcomings.

And you know it's probably at my age. I was, you know, just thirty, and I was like, there was all these people more knowledgeable. So it's a bit of that imposter syndrome that we all get from time to time.

So it was a but yeah.

But as it turned out, the fact that I wasn't like that turned out to be a strength in terms of certainly the support I got while I was there, because I was there for about another four elections and ended.

Up chief minister, which is a big job.

Yeah, it's a mayor and other things in Cambra.

Like, it is a big job. I don't want to diminish it. It is a big job. It's a big job. Yeah, And then what happened with you personally in that time? So I guess I've always thought of politics as being so consuming that there's not much opportunity for your personal expressional love or romance or whatever. But I'm wrong, aren't I? Yes, I've been very lucky.

I mean, I think you know, to have a you know, to experience love in a long lasting way, and to experience that twice in a life, you are pretty fortunate. So yeah, I met Dave through this will be funny, but he worked at the Assembly in the kind of public service side, not the political side, and that's how I met him. But also because he had a beagle and Abby and I had a beagle. Oh and so we had this beagle catch up and that was our first day, was to introduce the beagle.

Hang on who suggested the beagle catch up? Because that is the that's a ruse. If ever, I've heard one for someone who liked someone. I know.

It was pretty tragic, isn't it? When you think I can't remember? It was just like, oh, so you've got a bagel, I've got a beagle. Let's get the beagles together, which we did.

Did the beagles get on? They did? Tommy and Bubba had great life together. Big sniffers beagles, and.

David's bagel was very naughty and mine was very well behaved, so a metaphor.

Perhaps.

And the other thing was Dave was a you know, he didn't have children, so and I don't know that it ever really like he wasn't one of those people dying for children, and so that was that was an added element which I actually again turned out to be really wonderful because Abby has a very Abby is a raving extrovert and just loves everybody. That's her personality style,

Kept but you haven't. You're not married, No, we're not married. It's very modern.

Yeah, I think there's sort of a I noticed a lot of my niece, my niece and her generation are all getting married again.

Yes, it's like come full. I feel like my.

Generation it was part of our kind of feminism and not being owned and not having those traditional structures around our relationships or not feeling the need to. You know, I've never felt the need to be married, and so we just never have.

We bought a house together. I thought that was more do you feel the need because no, I think men are often a little bit more traditional in that sense than this generation of women.

Anyway, No, I think he was completely fine with that. And for he and I when we bought a house together, I really felt that was our married paper.

That's the And then we've been very fortunate.

I got two children, Charlie and Evie, right, who are eighteen and almost twenty, So there's ten years between top and bottom, which means I have been a parent for my feels like my entire life.

But I'm almost through it now. How well you we think that, Well, I'm through that kind of real intense mothering. Yes, stage. How was it with Dave when you had Charlie, so first boy having had a daughter, and his first biological child, though he obviously had had Abby, had decided that that was her Abby Dave very early on. How was that? It was lovely?

Charlie was so Dave's the eldest in his family. So Abby and Charlie were the first grandchildren in that in the line that came so yeah, people, I mean Charlie's he's just adorable. Was wonderful to have, you know, so again, just experience all that in a much happier way. Although my mother died when I was pregnant with Charlie, so I did have a kind of another traumatic episode when I was pregnant, but that was more like she'd been unwell with cancer for a long time, so that was more expected.

But Charlie was.

Another gift in that way to the family, another healing part of life and happy and healthy and easy. And Dave kind of rolled his sleeves up and had some parental leave.

Because what was happening with your career at this point.

Oh it was madness. So it was like it was around. So Charlie was born in two thousand and six. I was Deputy Chief Minister then and we had an election. Oh so he was born mid cycle. So that was kind of good timing, right, thank you, thank you. Very convenient. Eve came along. Not so convenient. She came along about eighteen months later. But yeah, it was busy, but it was containable in the sense that I don't unlike other jurisdictions.

There's not a lot of travel in the eight Well.

You travel from one end of the Act to another in half an hour.

So we just managed it.

We're a busy family juggling lots of different things, but we managed.

And then when did the calling, like the federal ALP calling come.

So that would have been in twenty fourteen, around twenty fourteen, and it was really the retirement of Kate Lundy, who was the senator for the Act then, and a few people federally sort of tapped me on the shoulder and said, we'd like you to join our team.

So and how is that? That was a discussion, Well, I was more.

I mean, I'd always said in the family, oh yeah, in the family, yeah, I mean, I think we'd all realize, like I'd been in Act politics for almost fourteen thirteen years. By then, I'd been chief Minister for nearly four years, and so I had felt I had already made up in my mind that I wouldn't contest another election. I felt like I'd done what I could and there's no

You know.

And when you get those people ringing you saying, please consider coming up here, we want you to join our team, you think about it.

At that point, what did you want to be your contribution to public life.

So it was at the time also where there had been a change of government. The Labor Party was in all sorts of bother post the Gillard.

Yes, yes, the tap dance, the musical chairs, and.

So there'd been sort of there was, you know, it was a very hurt and fractured party that Bill was trying to rebuild. So there was that sense that you could be part of something that was really about rebuilding the Labor Party federally. There was also because I had

And that was important to me as well, but also interesting because obviously in politics you have your main political rival, but also within the Labor Party, as you alluded to before, it was so fractious and so such a house divided, you must be very good at navigating a lot of shifting tectonic plates.

Well, I learned a lot joining the federal team in that I feel like I'd been in this love. You know that Act Labor, which was a very small party in a small jurisdiction, operated very differently from Federal Labor, which was a much bigger machine. Across the country. The factions were very involved in decisions which hadn't been my experience locally. So I had a lot to learn, and I found that interesting as well, like you sort of did need a guide to help you navigate with some of that.

Even I imagine that if you're talking to the wrong person at the wrong time, and I mean, it's.

So or if you don't understand long histories of yeas and do you understand those or did you understand those?

No?

I didn't at the time. I understand a lot more about it now, And I think when I joined there'd been the reckoning had happened, and it was about how to rebuild host the Gillard Rudd years. When Bill came in and went to the twenty sixteen and the twenty nineteen election, A lot of rebuilding happened during that time, and a lot of people who were around during the difficult years learned the hard way about what happens when political parties implode like that.

And also the people don't want it because the people believe and looked to Bill Shorten and went no if she maybe possibly just because he'd survived so many, so many nights of the long knives.

Well, I think there was a lot of things that make people's minds up at an election. But I mean, I think with Bill a lot of credit should be given to the sort of structural stability he provided, because post Tony Abbott coming into being PM in that election twenty fourteen election, it could have got a lot worse, you know, and I think Bill managed and that's part of his Union background of being people together and all of that. Bill managed to kind of write the ship.

So one of the things that I'm curious about is when you're part of a machine, by necessity a machine, but you also have your personal integrity and your personal beliefs when they're at odds with the party or with the government, that you're a part of. How do you reconcile that and how do you keep your sense of integrity and navigate your way through that.

Yeah, so it's a great It is a great question, and it's one that a lot of us in politics think about a lot deeply about because for the most part, it's not a problem for you know, in your day to day kind of operation. You know, it's like any other workplace. But sometimes there are big things that are going on where you know you would have liked a bit more action, a bit sooner, or things to be done a bit differently.

And I take the view, and I have had.

This discussion with a lot of people who criticize the Labor Party on different positions. I've taken the view that I, for me, it's better to be inside an organization, changing it from within and arguing for change than it is to be outside throwing stones at it where you have no voice to actually influence the decisions the party takes.

You know, in the Act.

We passed laws which got overturned unfortunately by the High Court, but we led on that. I went to in the Federal Parliament, in the Federal Labor Team. It took a lot longer to get Federal Labor to a position that I believed in, but I was part of working to affect that change, just like Penny Wong was who for years had stuck with the position even though she disagreed with it while she worked for change and good change happens.

Well. I think during the last election it became really apparent that there was discipline in the ALP. I think more than a lot of the population we're expecting to see. Actually it yields results.

Yeah, I think a mix of remembering what happened in the last time we were in government and the you know, all of the division and where that where that landed us. But also I think Anthony's got a lot to take credit for there because of his style of leadership. Where again he's someone that likes, I think, governing with consensus. He doesn't like pitting people against each other. He wants to deliver change from the center, and certainly our cabinet,

Well as Minister for Women. Now, when you get a portfolio like that, is that a good portfolio to get and is that a portfolio that you'd want? I loved it. I loved getting it because I know there is some that are a bit of a shit sand with people like I'm very honored to take the portfolio, but I'd rather not.

How great to be Minister for women though in it, like for the whole country it traditionally has been a job that's maybe been tacked on or a junior port or done by men. They were those heady days, yes, So the great thing about it was the combination of portfolios of finance and women together. So what Anthony the Prime Minister did with that appointment was he lifted women

Paid parentals exactly, through all of that. So and there have been profound changes for women under your watch, and as you said before, things that they take a long time sometimes to get the wheel moving. But the biggest I think issue for a lot of women in Australia that's not directly necessarily pertaining to them, but one that consumes us is domestic violence. Totally yeah, I agree. And the rates of the murders of women by intimate partners, it is terrible, It is terrible, terrific.

Yeah, on any level when you look at the individual cases and you get to, you know, see what happens to women and children affected by violence. But when you look at the numbers, the statistics, even if you have a sort of de identified look.

At it and the thing. So I totally agree.

And I'm always asked if there's one thing you could change for women, what is it? And that is always I said, if there, if I had a magic one and I could remove violence from women's lives, women and children's lives, that is.

What I would do.

That would because I think that single thing would then have benefits across the board education, skills, jobs, health, you know, savings, assets, everything you look at that affects women negatively from violence is right across the economy and every aspect of social life, and of course permeates into the next generation with the children who are affected and witnesses to that.

Yes, and safety for women is the shadow that always is around us anywactly. And if you are fortunate enough to be in a home situation where you feel safe, your outcomes in life at every level are very different than if you aren't afforded that.

Yeah, and again you look at it, you look at you know when people talk about the fastest growing group in homelessness older women, And why is that so when you look down, Well, it's because usually if it hasn't been a violent you know, violence ending the relationship, it might be divorce. And it's the fact that women don't have super they get done over on the assets they have saving to children, they haven't earned as much exactly, they don't have as much savings.

And so all of I mean, part of what we're trying to do.

We've got obviously a specific focus on ending violence against women and children in a generation, and we've put.

Four billion dollars into that.

We four billion dollars into legal services so that they can provide support through community legal services, a packageing health. Driving the gender pay gap down like everywhere, making childcare

And in some I heard you say in an interview it's not just up to the government, which I agree is the case. It's a societal problem. But you're the Minister for Women and you're operating under this promise that was publicly made that we will end.

Yeah, it's end violence against women and children in a generation, and it was agreement by stakeholders, so the women's sector and governments and state and territory governments have all signed up to that, and that's it's hard to explain, but that was the agreed terms because we couldn't agree on a time. But you can't say I want it to end in five years knowing that that's unlikely.

The other thing that I think is that though you are the Minister for Women, that women cannot achieve what we need to achieve in the freedom that we should have here in Australia without men and without without encouraging our men to be and a young men to become the sort of older mean that we need them to be. Yeah, and then I think there's pornography and which plays soch a massive part. I know, where do we.

Begin, Katie Galla, I'm just I'm just telling you stuff. No, and it's all It's all things I think about and my colleagues think about as well. And because you know, and it is I know about kind of using government language and what appropriate terms and things like that, it sometimes does make it hard. But when you do talk about gender equality, that is about not cutting men out of the picture, not demonizing men, not talking to men

And there are so many, so many good men.

I just don't know that we've always been thoughtful about how to involve them.

And I don't necessarily see like I know obviously here at Mamma Mia and the mission here at Mauma Mia is to make the world a better place for women and girls. I believe that's also your mission. But there doesn't seem to be the same momentum from men. There doesn't seem to be the same I don't know. Maybe it's because they feel helpless, or maybe it's because of feminism, or I don't know what it is, but there seems to be a silence that's not helpful. Yeah, I think there is something in that.

And so how we involve men in discussions about you know, building the world that we want and building the society we want, and you know, even in terms of probably gender equality, because that actually means that men and women

Women.

We're very good at talking about our health. The health system needs to We're very good at talking. We are good at We're great at talking. And so I think more and more you'll see, Yeah, you'll see changes like that which try to bring men to the table in a lot more of these discussions, because you're right, we can't do it on our own. We shouldn't do it on our own. That's not the world we want to create.

You know that in the context of bringing men into our world, there does seem to be kind of a divide between stuff that's labeled as women's business by men.

I'm not sure I have the perfect answer for that, or a good answer. I think this is an area where there's more work to do, you know, and I am a big believer in not making the equality discussion a woman's issue or a women's issue that women have to solve.

Not only are we.

Often the victims of the or not victims, or that we suffer from the inequality, or we experience the inequality. It's then up to us to work out how to solve it.

And even this conversation will enrage some women because I know they're like, but we shouldn't have to do it. Yeah, but at some point, you either want what you want or you want to be right. I think so. I think so. But with men, I think we have to work.

Out a better way of involving them in all of the discussions about the world that we want to build, not not on a women versus men spectrum. It doesn't have to be women gain at the expense of men. This is all about getting a fair treatment for everybody and creating a community in a society where that is a realistic possibility. And at the moment, on any of

I think at the moment we haven't quite got that now to be And as we know, men are great at solutions.

So maybe it's up to us to work out how to get them involved.

Maybe we need a Minister for men.

Well, like I said, where the Minister for Men or the Special Envoy for Men's Health is the first kind of foray into that and structurally.

You guys get it together in a in a policy. Yes, absolutely, yeah.

Well and again you know, if if Dan can deal with some of the issues about around men's health, that that would make a big improvement in men's lives. Also would have flow on effects for women who are you know, their wives and their mums and they're all the rest of it. I mean, it's it's it's important that we have a whole of community focus on equality and that involves men being part of that discussion.

Absolutely. What do you want to have happened at the end of this political term?

God, so many things, so many in the women's portfolio.

Do you think for you? Well, like, what's a what's a measure success for you? Yes? What is yours? I think it would happen in mind? This will haunt you? Yeah, I know it will. I can see your cogs.

I'm trying well because I think about this a lot, and partly it's hard to measure, like I would like to see a big change in domestic and family violence, like a reduction in it, because I think that would make all these other areas where women are behind a lot easier to solve if we didn't, if we weren't constantly pouring money an effort into trying to deal with the crisis and of domestic and family.

To rebuild, and it's been shattered.

And through the hospitals, through the courts, through the schools, through counseling, through services, through everything where so much money is poured into dealing with the crisis of this. But having said that, saying I'd like to see a reduction, I know that part of what we're going through at the moment is that we're seeing those numbers look worse or in some indicators, materially worse. And part of that is people reporting more and pursuing more through the courts,

Your daughter EV is neurodivergent. She certainly in a number of diagnoses.

Yes, she's a lot. EV love, I love that kid, But she's a lot.

How do you have a kid who's a lot when you have a lot on your plate?

Ah?

Well, I imagine you've got When you said you have four children, I kind of took a sharp intake of breath because I said, oh my god, how could I like, I've got three? Four sounds terrifying. You Just deal with it, you know, it is she's I mean, labels help explain EV.

But EV is just my daughter.

And so the family absorbs and you know, copes with all the different personalities in it. EV's required a bit more hands on and kind of contact than the other two. But she's been a wonderful you know, her autism, her ADHD, dyslexia, all the other things that are going on have also

What do you love about Australia?

I love I was thinking about this the other day because I was cleaning the tomb of the Unnamed Soldier in the War Memorial and before it opens, MPs and senators can go and clean it and just spend some time. And I was thinking things like a ceremonial, no, just on your own, you're just in the oh yeah, in that part of the War Memorial. And do you know, I was thinking, in any other country, you'd probably have some pomp and ceremony about around this, like there'd be you know, military standing.

On guard and bugles and things.

I love the fact that we're all we come from a very egalitarian you know, no fast, no friels, kind of care for each other, look after each other. And I think we saw that a bit in the election campaign, which really validated I know, the Australian spirit to me, which was, we don't really want to be divided and angry. We wanted we want to work on a society that's

And are you coming in today?

Yeah, just being able to come in exactly. We've got such freedom around it. But it's not something we should take for granted because it can be taken away, and it can be taken it's fragile. Democracy is fragile, and you know, so we should be protective of it because ultimately the best thing about democracy is that people make the rules and make the decisions for the people. And if the people don't like you, they beat you out and they bring in someone they do like, and again

Your I guess groundedness or your every womanness resonates with people. But some people also say I mean, I think we always want people to be better than us and more elusive if we want to put them on a Peter stall. Do you think that politics might work better for people like yourself who were not led to it because of a desire for power or some kind of you know, modern I don't, literally.

I think politics needs a lot of different things, Like you need a lot of different people in politics to make it work. And some of it is some of that is my style of politics, which is, you know, you know, I hope to be like very accessible, very down to earth, you know, you see, what you see is what you get. I'll be pretty direct with people. But I also am pretty connected. I've got a background in community work, so I think I think there's definitely a role for me that type of person.

I would say that.

Because I'm in there better, But I do think there's definitely a role. But I think politics works best where there's a whole melting pot in a sense of different personality types and different backgrounds and different cultural backgrounds, different geographic backgrounds, all of that. When you get that right, then you truly represent Australia. And I think at the heart of political system, that's what it's about. So it's not about what it used to be, which was older

How do you handle it because a lot of it is it is a power play, and politics itself is about who's in power and who isn't. When you're challenged on something, at what point do you go, this is my ego reacting rather than this is actually what maybe I need to hear.

Yes, So I think that's a great question which I've kind of been thinking. I have been thinking about because someone asked me about it. How do you wield influence and how do you wield power?

And is that important in politics?

And I think where I've got to is in the position that I'm in, it is important to have a number of things. One is to wield influence is important.

If you're engaging with colleagues or political opponents that are very combative, how do you respond to that pretty calmly?

I think it takes a lot to get me to elevate my heart rate to you know, and I think maybe I've lent that over time, and it's a bit symbolic more characteristic of who I am, I think, which is when things get difficult and hard, I do go into myself and it's like a coping mechanism, I think. So it takes a lot to get me to lose it or respond in a similar way. And in a sense it's pretty effective because if someone's having a crack at you and you're remaining calm, that often infuriates them.

I think that's called passive aggressive. Well, Katie Gallaher, thank you, thank you for your service. Oh, thank you, thanks for having me on. So normally I'd rather be shot out of a cannon than talk to a politician, but Kati Galaher is slightly unusual. She's the woman who's not only front and center in some of the toughest jobs in government, but also a woman who's lived a life full of challenge, loss,