Radio interview Assistant Minister White, Afternoon Briefing - 19 June 2026

Media event date: 19 June 2026 Date published: 19 June 2026 Media type: General public PATRICIA KARVELAS, HOST: Lots of reactions still coming in from Pauline Hanson's National Press Club speech. Assistant Minister Rebecca White in the Albanese government is with us. Welcome to the program.

REBECCA WHITE, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING: Thanks very much for having me. Of course, Pauline Hanson this week has been a focus for lots of reasons - she's leading in the polls. She talked about lots of issues that pertain to your portfolio including childcare where she said you needed a big audit, essentially, of childcare.

Do you think we need an audit into how much money we spend on childcare? I don't think we need to take advice about that from One Nation or Pauline Hanson. We've seen a significant increase in investment in childcare and early childhood educators in Australia to support parents return to the workforce, but also to support our young children to get the best start in life.

And that has included an increase in the wages for early childhood educators. And I did note the comments by Senator Hanson really questioning that, along with questioning the wages for working people more generally. What we know is that we've made significant improvements to the safety and quality in childcare settings.

And alongside that, we've also made investments in the staff which has seen improvements for all parents who use and rely on this service. The other thing she talked about was abortion. And of course, many of our debates around abortion happen - just to be clear with the audience - at a state level.

But then there are some laws federally, access to RU486, the so-called abortion pill, other kind of medicines like that – that sort of thing happens at a federal level. She raised that on the agenda again. Labor promised a couple of elections ago to make abortion access easier, you've since walked away from that.

Does it give you pause to revisit those sorts of proposals? You’re quite right, abortion from a surgical point of view is the responsibility of the state hospital system, and we don’t want to change that. Our responsibility falls to medical abortions; our government’s changes have made it easier for women to access medical abortions across the country.

We have seen increase through GP’s, particularly as we move to make access to GP’s more affordable across the country for women to be able to get a prescription for this service, and also for more pharmacists dispensing it. And that is a good thing, because abortions will continue to happen. There's no such thing as banning abortions.

You just ban safe abortions. And we don't want to see that in our country. And I'm pretty sick of women's rights being politicised.

We fought really hard to win rights when it comes to our reproductive healthcare system right across this country. And I really push back on comments from Senator Hanson where she's put this back on the agenda. Rebecca White, thank you so much for joining us.

There were a few audio issues there - not your fault but frustrating for the audience - but we heard most of what you had to say. Thanks for joining us. The Hon Rebecca White MP Women's health Is there anything wrong with this page?

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