Andrew Leigh

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

WEDNESDAY, 7 FEBRUARY 2018

Dr LEIGH (Fenner) (17:13):  I move:

That all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

'whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1) is of the opinion that with Government debt soaring ever higher, it’s time the Turnbull Government abandoned its plan to give big business a multi-billion tax cut;

(2) notes that the Government is debating legislative fixes that are a result of its slapdash approach to policy making; and

(3) calls on the Government to commit to a post-implementation review of this measure'.

Labor will support the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan Base Rate Entities) Bill 2017, but we will not do so without calling the attention of this House to the Treasurer's litany of mistakes.

Just over 21 years ago, English Premier League side Southampton fielded a substitute player, Ali Dia, who had just arrived at the injury-depleted side with virtually unknown footballing credentials. In a match Southampton lost 2-0, Dia himself was substituted after a shocking performance and released from his contract within two weeks.

As it turned out, he'd bluffed his way into the job by getting a university friend to impersonate Ballon d'Or winner George Weah in a phone call to manager Graeme Souness to extol the player's skills. Souness's misplaced faith was mocked for decades to come. The player whom Dia replaced, Matt Le Tissier, spoke of the new substitute's performance in the following terms: 'He ran around the pitch like Bambi on ice. It was very, very embarrassing to watch.' Souness defended the decision on the basis that his playing stocks were depleted, but nonetheless confessed that the experience was 'a kick in the bollocks'.

TREASURER PATCHES UP HIS OWN PATCH-UP

Another day, another muck up by Scott Morrison.

Since its announcement, Labor has supported cutting taxes for businesses with a turnover below $2 million.

However, as early as September 2016, tax experts have warned that the actual legislation itself was unclear about whether or not bucket companies earning so-called passive income would be eligible for this tax cut.

The Turnbull Government initially denied that there was a problem, then after more than a year, they admitted that their legislation was faulty, and introduced a bill to fix it.

We were assured that this would be the end of it. But today, we will see the Turnbull Government patching up their patch-up. They have to amend their own amending bill, admitting - yet again – that they can't get the basics right.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP

PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA

WEDNESDAY, 7 FEBRUARY 2018

SUBJECTS: Productivity Commission’s draft report on Competition in the Australian Financial System; Turnbull Government’s latest fumble on tax policy: PC endorses more transparency for the Council of Financial Regulators; Barnaby Joyce; share market volatility.

CHRIS BOWEN, SHADOW TREASURER: Well good morning everybody, thanks for coming.

This morning, yet another damning indictment of Scott Morrison’s management of negative gearing in the housing market.

Today we see the release of the Productivity Commission’s draft report into banking competition. Now of course competition in banking and financial services is vital and we said that the Productivity Commission should be commissioned to undertake this review. But what has the Productivity Commission found?

Let us remember that Scott Morrison has for months been saying the answer to Australia’s housing affordability problems is to leave all the heavy lifting to the regulators, to leave all the heavy lifting to APRA, who would engage in macro-prudential regulation and that would fix everything. He told us there was no need to fix negative gearing. He told us that as recently as yesterday.

The Productivity Commission report has found that because Scott Morrison has left the heavy lifting to the regulators, to APRA, that in fact banks have increased their profit margins and that has been subsidised by the tax payer due to negative gearing.

The Productivity Commission has said that this has led to a windfall for the banks. Their words, ‘a windfall; for the banks. And half of that windfall has been subsidised by the Australian tax payer through negative gearing. Now we’ve said all along that negative gearing must be fixed. Evidence mounts day after day for months now, that negative gearing has to be fixed. It appears that Scott Morrison is the only person who doesn’t want to fix negative gearing. Cabinet, of course rolled him when he dared even suggest it be considered.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

ABC MELBOURNE

TUESDAY, 6 FEBRUARY 2018

SUBJECTS: Stock Market; Corporate Tax Cuts; Workplace Laws; Adani

RAF EPSTEIN: We are joined by one of the members of Bill Shorten's economic team, Dr Andrew Leigh he is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer. Good afternoon.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Good afternoon, Raf. Great to be with you.

EPSTEIN: Just on the stock market, America and here - it doesn't look like it's going to end too soon. Is that a big worry or a simple correction?

LEIGH: It is significant. It seems to be led out of the United States, Raf, with business responses to their jobs report. The reporting that I've seen out of there suggests businesses are concerned that with a fairly tight employment market they might have to start raising wages and that's prompted a bit of a sell off on the US market which has flowed through to here.

Festival shows off our fun side

The Chronicle, 6 February 2018

What do Nordic folk dancing, African food and writer Poh Lin Yeow have in common? They’ll all be featuring at the Canberra Multicultural Festival, kicking off on 16 February.

One man who would have been proud of our colourful festival was King O’Malley, a member of the first Australian parliament who was a great champion for Canberra.

THE WAR ON CHARITIES CONTINUES

Representatives worried about the Turnbull Government’s war on charities gathered at Parliament House today to voice their concerns.

Along with my Labor colleagues, I met with dozens of representatives from organisations including:

• Australian Council for International Development
• CHOICE
• Red Cross
• Fred Hollows Foundation
• Oxfam Australia
• CARE Australia
• Consumer Action Law Centre
• Financial Counselling Australia
• Australian Council of Social Service
• World Vision Australia
• RESULTS Australia
• Pew Charitable Trusts

Two-thirds of Australian charities recently told Pro Bono that they are finding it harder to be heard by the federal government than five years ago.

Loneliness a Problem We Must Tackle Together

The Herald Sun, 4 February 2018

Berenice Benson has always wanted to go to New York. At age 85, and suffering from dementia, the walls of her nursing home room are covered with pictures of the famous city. She told staff at the Uniting Care Mirinjani retirement village that if she couldn’t visit, the next best thing would be to meet a New York police officer.

It took two years, but a few weeks ago the staff arranged for her dream to come true. Detective Howard Shank, visiting from New York, stepped into the nursing home in her uniform and introduced himself with a smile. Ms Benson burst into tears. When she recovered her composure, she said ‘this has been the best day of my life’. She felt 20 years old again.

LABOR BACKS SMALL BUSINESS, TURNBULL BACKS MILLIONAIRES

A stone’s throw from the train tracks in the Adelaide suburb of Ascot Park is Mr Leeing’s Café, a small business opened by John as a tribute to his father.

While Malcolm Turnbull obsesses over giving a giant tax break to multinationals and millionaires, Labor is on the side of small businesses like John’s.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

2GB 

TUESDAY, 23 JANUARY 2018

SUBJECTS: Malcolm Turnbull’s giveaway to the big end of town, Scott Morrison’s plans to tax middle Australia, US tax cuts, company tax cuts.

ROSS GREENWOOD: Let’s go now to Dr Andrew Leigh, Shadow Assistant Treasurer. Thanks for your time, Andrew.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Absolute pleasure, Ross.

GREENWOOD: It’s a great debating point and, as I say, the difference of opinion is one that Australians have got to make their mind up to as they head towards the next election. In regards to those jobs created last year – 400,000 jobs created in Australia, most of those full time jobs, overwhelmingly full time jobs – that surely, no matter which political party you’re in, has got to be good news for Australian families.

LEIGH: Ross, I’d always welcome improvement in the employment numbers. But the key question here is should we give tax cuts to some of the biggest companies in Australia? What would that do for growth? So let’s unpack the Treasurer’s “big pie” policy. His own analysis, brought down on the eve of the budget where they announced this corporate tax cut, said that if you funded it by raising income tax on middle Australia – which is what he plans to do – it would grow the economy by 0.1 per cent. So imagine that I told you I have a great plan for growing a pie. I’m going to grow the pie by one one-thousandth. You’d say ‘I’m not sure I can actually see that, Andrew. When I stare at the edge of the crusts, they don’t seem to have gotten very much bigger.’ But that’s what Scott Morrison’s own analysis says is the impact of his $65 billion give away to the top end of town. Labor instead believes that we ought to be giving a better deal to middle Australia. We won’t support Scott Morrison’s attempt to raise taxes on everyone earning from $21,000 to $87,000. We don’t think that at a time when wage growth has been stagnant and corporate Australia is setting profit records that the right thing to be doing is raising taxes on middle income households and lowering the impact on big corporations.