Funny Toasts to an Elecyed Politician Who Will Not Run Again
- Politics
- Federal
- Dejeuner with the AFR
The time to come finance government minister who's treated like a rock star
Opposition spokeswoman for finance Katy Gallagher dislikes the limelight. But that's hard to avoid when you're a big fish in a politics-obsessed town.
At 1.50pm, without warning, Katy Gallagher reaches for her phone, flips open up the red leather example and says, "Oh no. Information technology'south not time even so."
She has given me her total and unguarded attention for the past hr and 20 minutes. Simply the imminent inflow of news on whether the Reserve Banking company of Australia will raise interest rates for the starting time time in 11 years has plain been playing on her heed.
Katy Gallagher: "In terms of the speed and the voraciousness of federal politics, being chief minister was a encarmine walk in the park." Liv Cameron
This will, afterward all, be i of the moments that make up one's mind the ballot. As opposition finance spokeswoman, the news that interest rates will rise past 0.25 of a percentage bespeak – which arrives at two.30pm – is both expert and bad for Labor, and mostly bad for the Coalition.
Gallagher and I are having tiffin at A Bite To Eat, a nondescript local cafe in suburban Chifley, Canberra.
I'm seated in an outdoor courtyard when she arrives. Before she has a gamble to sit down, a man in his 40s approaches.
"Pitiful for interrupting, only I but wanted to thank you for all your public service," he says to Gallagher.
They shake hands, then he wanders off, a little star-struck it seems.
Does this happen often? "All the time," she says.
Gallagher is a famous face in a smallish city that is obsessed with politics.
Before moving into federal politics in 2016, she was primary minister of the Australian Capital Territory for v years, succeeding her mentor, Jon Stanhope. She'd been in the legislative associates since 2002.
Gallagher has the upper mitt in her habitation town. In 2019, she collected 106,330 first preferences, or 39 per cent.
It is a scenario that is unlikely to repeat itself.
Gallagher is dressed impeccably in a beautifully cutting black pantsuit and a delicate foam shirt with a ruffled neckline. She has mesomorphic silver rings and manicured nails.
She has brought me to A Bite to Eat because this is the local shopping area where her female parent, when she arrived from the UK via New Zealand, came to use the public payphone. At the fourth dimension, she was pushing a pram with two small children, from the treeless, serviceless new suburb of Waramanga that was emerging out of an old sheep paddock.
Katy Gallagher in 2015, when she was ACT chief government minister. Rohan Thomson
If the polls are right and Labor wins the majority of seats in the May 21 election every bit is beingness predicted, Gallagher volition become Australia's best-credentialed finance minister since old NSW premier John Fahey held the task in the mid-1990s.
Having run the territory'southward economic system successfully for 5 years, she has the experience that few finance ministers can bring to the portfolio. Simply it volition be her power to manage colleagues' expectations, as they come cap in hand for some other handful of coins from the public purse, that will be tested like never before.
Being chief minister was an excellent apprenticeship, says the 52-twelvemonth-quondam Gallagher, simply it was a walk in the park compared with the federal arena.
"Information technology was good preparation in terms of getting experience in running and administering things and understanding how government works," she says. "That was useful.
"But in terms of the speed and the voraciousness of federal politics, being master minister was a encarmine walk in the park. I don't even know why I lost sleep during those times."
The waiter comes to take our social club. A Seize with teeth To Eat has an all-day carte du jour that is trans-global in approach: cured salmon and pickles, lamb kofta, pumpkin risotto, chicken burger, and eggs on toast.
Gallagher, a vegetarian, elects for avocado on toast and a pot of Earl Greyness tea. I opt for the harvest basin and an iced latte.
Pocock'due south the hot topic
The conversation turns to the topic de jour: David Pocock. The quondam Wallabies captain has turned his considerable talents to politics and is contesting the election in the ACT Senate.
Does he pose a threat? On current polling, Pocock could hands displace Liberal senator Zed Seselja.
Pocock, Gallagher says, volition "prune anybody's tickets" including her own "because progressive voters have options".
The Greens are likely to collect between 15 per cent and 17 per cent of the vote. Human being rights activist Kim Rubenstein volition besides become a scattering. Although the Liberals are usually assured of about thirty per cent of the vote in Canberra, Pocock might be able to pull that back to 26 per cent, perhaps less, which would make Seselja exit the race.
Because Labor has always been a shoo-in for ane of the 2 Senate seats, Gallagher is concerned that people volition choose Pocock over her.
"He's in with a chance, a real chance," she says.
"We've had people with profile run for the Senate before and they haven't come close. But David doesn't strike me as someone who goes into a race he tin't win. That's just not his matter. Besides, he'southward an incredibly decent person and would make a fantastic senator."
Gallagher is pure Canberran. Born here, attended school and academy here, worked here, cruel in love here – she has never lived anywhere else.
Katy Gallagher in 2011 with then prime number minister Julia Gillard. Alex Ellinghausen
However, she was disqualified from federal parliament nether section 44 of the constitution in 2018 because of her immigrant parents.
It was a bitter accident, given that Gallagher had taken steps earlier the 2016 election to renounce her citizenship. But the U.k. Home Office blimp up and did not formally register this until after the election.
Her family had moved to Australia when her father was offered a job at the parliamentary library. Her English language parents, Charlie and Betsy Gallagher, had met and fallen in dearest on a boat to New Zealand. Charlie was looking for respite from the cold and polluted skies of Stoke Urban center, where potteries blasted bilious fumes from chimneys. Betsy was going to visit her family to escape the hurting of a broken human relationship.
"Talk nigh isolated. She went from living and working in London and holidaying in Europe to this new suburb in Canberra with nothing: no friends, no family unit, no machine, no services."
To cope, her mother became a colonnade of the local community, gathering people around her, forming childcare groups, and founding community service centres and women'south refuges. Betsy is included in a big landscape of local heroes on one of Woden's main transit routes.
In the Gallagher household – which included elder sister Claire and their two adopted brothers, Richard and Matt – politics and customs activism were discussed around the dinner table.
"I grew up in a family of lefties," Gallagher laughs. "My mum was left of my dad. She drove around with nuclear disarmament stickers on the car, which drove dad mad.
"Dad had these funny cut-through sayings like, "If [Malcolm] Fraser gets his razor gang out, we are off to New Zealand." I remember thinking, 'Wow, that sounds terrible! A razor gang. Whatsoever that is.'"
To understand Katy Gallagher, one must know that profound tragedy reshaped her life's trajectory. When she was 27 and xiii weeks pregnant, her fiance, Brett Seaman, was cycling on a road near the NSW south coast boondocks of Merimbula when an 87-year-erstwhile woman in a car hit him at 110km/h. He died instantly.
"I was completely destroyed," she says. "It was so unexpected. So traumatic and so the opposite of what I expected my life to be. It absolutely smashed me. For a long time."
Katy Gallagher with her family in the tally room in 2012. From left: Evie, Charlie, partner Dave Skinner and Abby. Graham Tidy
Gallagher'south coping mechanism was to shut down. She never went dorsum to the firm in Lyneham where the couple lived. She didn't go into the suburb for 10 years. She never went dorsum to her job. She stopped eating and drinking and was hospitalised for dehydration a couple of weeks after the tragedy.
"I was completely disconnected from the pregnancy. I was not involved in information technology at all," she says.
Family and friends would drag her to appointments and buy the necessary gear for the baby's arrival. She was put on anti-depressants.
"An obstetrician, who was very kind, just took a look at me and said: 'I become it, but you've got a man to look after in a few weeks and you are in no shape to do it. You have got to get some help.' That cut through."
Baby Abby was built-in in 1997.
"She was there and she wasn't abstract any more," Gallagher says. "I had a reason to get up in the morning.
"I recall my sis dropping me and Abby off at dwelling house from hospital. I was sitting on the sofa and she's in one of those carry bags and I'm only looking at her and thinking, 'Oh, OK, here we go.'"
I inquire if Abby saved her. "I don't want to put that sort of responsibility on her," she says.
"Only nosotros are very shut. I'm close with all my kids, but the umbilical string [with Abby] was never snapped, let's but say that. And she has been proficient to me, considering the accident inverse me forever."
Mutual responsibleness
Abby, she says, feels a sense of mutual responsibility, ever touching base so Gallagher knows where she is. On a gap yr in Europe, she phoned in twice a twenty-four hour period.
"People say things like, 'Don't worry, that'll never happen' or 'She's fine'. Just I have a very clear case in my life where that'due south bullshit. And part of the lasting injury you get from going through something similar that is catastrophic thinking. Well, it'south catastrophic, just it's been normalised by personal experience. It's non an unreasonable place for your brain to go."
Gallagher somewhen plant a partner – fellow unionist Dave Skinner – with whom she has two children, Charlie and Evie. They live in Lyneham.
"I was cautious and conscientious, only Dave was there for the long haul," she says.
Gallagher describes herself every bit "an accidental politician". When her fiance died, she was working in the disability sector. The Customs and Public Sector Union – for which Brett was working – found a task for her to help her out.
She was working as an organiser for the CPSU in 2001 when it was suggested that several women should stand for the Human activity legislative assembly.
"A couple of them came and said, "Look, we've been looking effectually for people who could run and basically it's non that flash. Nosotros call back yous should have a crack."
She had joined the Labor Political party a few years before, having been inspired by her father'due south loyalty and the practical work of federal politicians such as Susan Ryan, besides from the ACT. Ryan had introduced the sexual practice discrimination bill, funded advocacy services and thrown her support backside disabled and disadvantaged people.
"I'd never even spoken at a branch meeting. I call back my forcefulness was the fact that no one really knew me, so no one really disliked me," Gallagher says.
Katy Gallagher "wanted to exist part of the authorities that replaced Tony Abbott". Graham Tidy
She was assured that she wouldn't win but was told it was important symbolism that women be put upwardly. Amazingly, viii of the 17 women who stood got elected, including Gallagher, with just 4.38 per cent of start preferences.
"Information technology was a complete fluke. I got elected by 70 votes out of about 70,000 every bit the concluding member. I was listening to it on the radio and they become, 'Katie Gallagher is elected.' And I was similar, 'Oh, Jesus!'"
Despite her lack of ambition, Gallagher speedily rose through the ranks. She moved through a raft of portfolios, including those of education, youth and family unit services, women, and industrial relations, earlier becoming deputy chief minister in 2006 under Jon Stanhope. She became the Deed's third female chief minister in 2011, after Stanhope resigned.
'I like being in an orchestra'
Gallagher has an analogy that she returns to several times during our conversation. She's a cellist and likes to remember that is how she approaches life and politics.
"At school, I was never the forepart person," she says. "I was never the main focus. I liked being part of something merely not the principal allure.
"That'south why I similar beingness in an orchestra. I don't desire to be the get-go violin, I'm happy to play the bass line, holding it all together."
Gallagher'due south decision to motility from the position of Human activity chief minister to federal politics was not premeditated.
"There is no natural end to these jobs. There'due south no correct time to leave. I had been in that location for 14 years, I had 3 children, including ii small ones and while I loved being principal minister, it wasn't really my jam."
Again, we make it at the orchestra illustration.
"I loved working with Jon [Stanhope], he was no longer at that place," she says. "I never really wanted to exist first violin and I always felt my skills were better as a deputy."
Tony Abbott was prime number government minister at the time. Horrified that in the 2014 budget, he and treasurer Joe Hockey had cut funding to education and wellness also as to the ABC, Gallagher was approached to supersede Kate Lundy as a Labor senator for the ACT.
"I wanted to be role of the government that replaced Tony Abbott," she says.
"Beak [Shorten] rang me and was pretty persuasive. I had to make a quick decision and in that location was no turning dorsum. I felt the minute I started contemplating leaving as master minister was the moment I got out."
She fabricated the decision that morning and announced it that afternoon.
"It was washed. The caravan moves on."
The tragedy that reshaped her life also shaped her politics.
"Maybe that's one of my skills in politics. I move beyond the sound bite. I similar to understand bug in an emotional way, understand what's really going on."
Like the rest of the opposition front end demote, she has been out and about during the campaign, spruiking Labor's economical credentials, playing the cello to Jim Chalmers' start violin.
The 'mansplaining' incident
The limelight is not her happy place. But it is where she has found herself at least twice since her move to federal politics.
The first fourth dimension was when, during a Senate estimates hearing, she defendant and so Liberal senator Mitch Fifield of "mansplaining". The more than recent case was when she and boyfriend Labor senators Penny Wong and Kristina Keneally were accused of bullying their colleague, Kimberley Kitching.
The backwash of both incidents left her shaken – she was hit past a barrage of "unpleasant" emails and her electorate function was vandalised.
I ask if she ever feels unsafe equally a politician.
"God, the online abuse for saying that one word [mansplaining] was unbelievable and it escalated into, 'I'yard going to rape your daughter'. It's not worth it."
Her staff know not to tell her what is happening out in that location in the wild west of social media.
"Information technology just brings you lot downward and frightens you," she says.
"Mostly they're harmless. There'due south a lot of the keyboard warriors. But in that location is a lot of work going into keeping u.s. safe because one twenty-four hour period there is going to be something awful that happens to a politician here."
Gallagher'southward Twitter profile describes her as a "proud Canberran, female parent of iii, canis familiaris lover & Labor Senator for the Deed". I enquire her if that is in order of priority.
"Maybe I should take put the kids first," she laughs.
Information technology'southward 2pm and Gallagher is checking her telephone. "When is it going to exist announced?" she asks, somewhat rhetorically.
I go to pay and Gallagher heads out to expect for her automobile, phone open, refreshing the RBA folio. As I go out, I see another local has approached and engaged her in conversation, proving – again – that it's hard not to be first violin in a politics-obsessed town.
The bill
A Bite to Consume, viii Chifley Place, Chifley, ACT
Smashed avocado toast, $17
Harvest bowl, $xix
Tall iced latte, $five
Earl Greyness tea, $five.fifty
Total: $46.50
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Julie Hare Education editor Julie Hare is the Education editor. She has more than than 20 years' experience as a writer, journalist and editor. Connect with Julie on Twitter. Email Julie at julie.hare@afr.com
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Source: https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/how-tragedy-reshaped-accidental-politician-katy-gallagher-20220503-p5ai0h