Minister for Finance and Women Katy Gallagher has described how she hit the “bottom of the bottom” after her fiancé was killed in a cycling accident when she was pregnant with her first child in 1997.
Speaking on Julia Gillard’s A Podcast of One’s Own, Gallagher said that she was 27 years old when her fiancé, Brett, was hit by an unlicensed woman in her late 80s who was driving at over 100km per hour.
Gallagher said she went out looking for him when he didn’t return home and heard about the accident on the radio.
“I’d tuned to the local radio station and they’d put a call out to say police were looking for somebody who knew this cyclist who’d been killed, and so that’s how I actually heard about it,” she told Gillard on the podcast.
Gallagher also opened up about taking antidepressants and the “deep shock” she experienced at the time.
“The whole thing was so traumatic, and I ended up…really retreating,” she said.
“I spent the rest of the pregnancy in pretty bad shape and had a lot of interventions…some pretty serious psychiatric interventions. I really did go into the bottom of the bottom.”
She said that it culminated in a doctor telling her “you’re going to have a baby in six weeks and you’re not going to be able to care for it”.
“And that’s the moment that I sort of thought, “God, Katy, get yourself back together.” Because I thought I can’t now lose the baby,” Gallagher recalled.
“I thought right this is for real now. I’ve got to get myself back together. So, I started taking antidepressants, which pulled me out of the hole I was in, and by the time Abby was born, there was no one who was going to take that baby from me. I was in much better shape.”
Gallagher talked about how having her daughter helped her to reconnect with other people.
“I transferred all this love to her, and she became the most important thing and that allowed me to reconnect with other people,” she said. “She was the bridge that I needed to get back and then, you know, people were incredibly kind and supportive.”
On the podcast, Gallagher also shared the story of how she was first elected to the ACT Legislative Assembly in 2001, and the next decade she spent holding the portfolios of Health and Treasury, before becoming Deputy Chief Minister and then Chief Minister.
“Once I got elected, I didn’t set out to be anything like a minister, I didn’t have a political strategy at all,” she said.
And on the state of play for women in politics today, Gallagher said she has seen a lot change for the better over her career.
“I was talking to Penny Wong about this. I feel like our generation was about getting a spot at the table and holding that spot, whereas the women coming behind us, they take that spot, that’s theirs, that’s for granted,” she said.
“And now…they’re taking it a step further, it’s not just about holding or being a part of this. They’re actually challenging some of what goes on. Which is really heartening to me to watch.”