Andrew Leigh

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TV INTERVIEW

SKY AM AGENDA WITH KIERAN GILBERT

MONDAY, 19 SEPTEMBER 2016

SUBJECT/S: Syrian airstrikes; Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement; Turnbull Government’s migration message.

KIERAN GILBERT: This is AM Agenda coming to you live from New York this morning and joining me now Labor front bencher, Andrew Leigh. Andrew coincidently a lot is happening on the international stage and the bungled Syrian air strikes having reverberations at the UN. I know Labor supports the Australian involvement there. Isn’t it the fact that it’s a brutal reality that in a messy conflict like Syria that mistakes like this can happen?

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Morning Kieran. It’s good to be with you, and I hope all is well in New York. Certainly what’s going on here is of deep concern. It reflects the fact that the Free Syrian army has now largely collapsed and this is now a conflict between the Syrian military and Al Qaeda and Daesh. That means of course that this is a serious blunder but it also highlights the fact that this is a conflict that has now been going on for more than five years.

GILBERT: The stalemate continues and hopefully the ceasefire will hold. I want to ask you about the Trans Pacific Partnership arrangement. The Prime Minister urging the Congress to support it but that window is closing with the Obama administration having not long to go and both Trump and Clinton opposing the TPP, as it’s known? 

Fearless Comedy, The Chronicle, September 6

For one night, on the Canberra Theatre stage, a bevy of Australia’s top comedians came to tell stories, sing and dance.

Penny Greenhalgh showed how to ice skate without ice, using only an audience volunteer for balance. Sammy J sang in praise of nerds. Vanessa Conlin rhapsodised about single life in family-friendly Canberra. Adam Richard and Juliet Moody borrowed audience members’ phones and created songs using their text messages.

Last week’s Fearless Comedy Gala was an unusual event – a comedy night to raise money for the ACT Domestic Violence Crisis Service. By performing for free, the entertainers showed their commitment to this significant cause.

In the words of organiser Juliet Moody, herself a survivor of family violence, ‘There is no fear in real love.’

According to the Prime Minister, today caps off a year of “great achievement”.

It was the year Malcolm Turnbull‘s Government stuffed-up the Census.

First, they failed to effectively address community concerns about the increase to the period for which names and addresses will be retained.

• Then they wasted millions of hours of Australians’ time by urging us to log on to the Census website even after it had crashed.
• Finally, they tried to avoid taking responsibility for the debacle by blaming the hard-working public servants whom the government had stripped of funding and resources.  

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TV INTERVIEW

SKY NEWS TO THE POINT

MONDAY, 12 SEPTEMBER 2016

SUBJECT/S: Shadow Ministry; Omnibus Bill; Botched 2016 Census; Same-sex marriage legislation; Coalition losing votes in the House; Trove – the National Library’s digital archive; The Senate has nothing to do; Turnbull running scared.

PETER VAN ONSELEN: The Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Dr Andrew Leigh, joins us live from Canberra, thanks very much for your company. As of last week, you are now officially the only unpaid member of the Labor Frontbench. Have you thought about putting the cap around? Kristina Keneally thinks that we should start a social media campaign and see if we can do some crowd funding.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: You always were a great one for political trivia, Peter. I suspect that the three of us might be the only ones in Australia who care about this issue.

VAN ONSELEN: I don't know about that.

KRISTINA KENEALLY: I think you undersell yourself Dr Leigh, as we speak, I am setting up the GoFundMe campaign for your frontbench position.

VAN ONSELEN: Genuine question though –

LEIGH: Genuinely Kristina, if you're raising money raise it for homeless people. Don't raise it for someone who has slipped from the top 1 per cent to the top 2 per cent. Nothing to worry about.

Today marks one month since the Turnbull Government oversaw Australia’s worst Census ever.

So the revelations this week that Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) executives have warned staff that the return rate of Census forms is at “crisis” levels should surprise no one.

The fact that Michael McCormack, the Minister made responsible for the Census by Malcolm Turnbull, has kept avoiding the Australian people is an indictment on the Turnbull Government.

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RADIO INTERVIEW

ABC RN DRIVE

WEDNESDAY, 7 SEPTEMBER 2016

SUBJECT/S: Senator Dastyari’s resignation;  the lack of women in the Liberal Party; political donations; Australia’s weak GDP growth and decline in living standards since 2013.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Andrew Leigh joins us now. Thanks for your time.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: It’s a pleasure Patricia.

KARVELAS: You've seen that he just stood down. Shouldn't he have done that a few days ago?

LEIGH: Sam wasn't guilty of lying, cheating or stealing. He made an error of judgement. A mistake for which he has now paid the price. I think he's shown his ability to put the team ahead of himself with his statement that he didn't want to be the reason that the Turnbull Government escaped proper scrutiny. And there are plenty of things we need to be scrutinising them over. From the mucking up of the Census to the decline in living standards that were reported today. From their ongoing attempts to cut Medicare to their failure to act on multinational taxation in the G20. We need to be an effective opposition and Sam's statement today recognised the primacy of that role for the Opposition.

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RADIO INTERVIEW

ABC NEWSRADIO

WEDNESDAY, 7 SEPTEMBER 2016

SUBJECT/S: G20 meeting; Growth targets; Trade policy; Superannuation; Sam Dastyari.

MARIUS BENSON: Andrew Leigh can I begin by asking you about the G20 meeting which has concluded in China. The message was the same from the G20 leaders; free trade is good, more free trade is better. But that seems to ignore a couple of things. One is that the same message has not been matched by the promised growth for some years. And the other is there has been a shift in world opinion, you can see it with Donald Trump, you can see it with Brexit, you can see it with Pauline Hanson advocating protectionist measures here. But that protectionist view, that change in world opinion ignored by world leaders. Is that a problem?

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Marius, you've gone to one of the biggest concerns about where the global economy is going which is that we need to confront those protectionist views head on. In recent years we've seen trade barriers come down around the world and that's put thousands of dollars into the pockets of the typical Australian household and benefited people around the world. But the rise of protectionism does demand that we have a strong social safety net. I've always thought that you can't be a free trader unless you're also committed to a strong social safety net because trade adds to the total pie but the benefits don't flow evenly. We need to make sure that we have the fairness measures in place in order to make trade work.

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DOORSTOP

PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA

WEDNESDAY, 7 SEPTEMBER 2016

SUBJECT/S: Malcolm Turnbull’s failure on multinational tax avoidance at the G20 summit.

ANDREW LEIGH SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Good morning. My name is Andrew Leigh, the Shadow Assistant Treasurer. The G20 meeting has just wrapped up and again we have a disappointing statement coming out of one of the world's premier economic bodies. Back in 2014 the G20 committed to 2 per cent more growth and we now see Australia with 2.5 percent less growth. So too, the latest communiqué on multinational tax is disappointing. The language simply refers to what's being done elsewhere. It doesn't demand further action from the world's governments on multinational tax avoidance. 

One of the challenges for Australia is that unlike any other country at the G20, we are led by a Prime Minister who has a significant share of his own personal investments in tax havens. We know that Malcolm Turnbull was a director of a British Virgin Islands based firm which was named in the Mossack Fonseca papers. We know that he has chosen to invest in the Cayman Islands, a jurisdiction which has been classified as a tax haven by the Tax Commissioner.

Now why do tax havens matter? Well they matter because the very existence of tax havens makes it harder for us as a country to make sure that firms pay their fair share. The existence of tax havens is the reason that firms work so hard in order to try and move profits offshore. We need to shut down tax havens, but we can't do that when we're led by somebody who is himself a significant investor in tax havens. Malcolm Turnbull should divest from tax havens so Australia can take a stronger stance on tax havens. 

We need stronger domestic laws. Every time Labor stands up calling for loopholes to be closed, we have Malcolm Turnbull saying that those loopholes are defensible. Saying for example, that Labor's proposals to reduce debt shifting by multinational firms are going to be a risk to the economy. Frankly the only thing that's a risk to our tax base is a Government which is always on the side of the multinationals rather than middle-class Australians. 

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW

FIVEAA MORNINGS WITH LEON BYNER

MONDAY, 5 SEPTEMBER 2016

SUBJECT/S: 2016 Census

LEON BYNER: We've got a bloke who's got his finger on the pulse on all this. He's the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Dr Andrew Leigh. Andrew, what do you make of where we're at now with all this?

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Good morning, Leon. Good morning to your listeners. I think – a couple of weeks on from Census night – it's still a bit of a shemozzle. Of the 17 Censuses that have been carried out in Australia since Federation, this is clearly the worst. The Turnbull Government should be able to get the basic things right, and running a Census is just one of the basic aspects of government. We've been doing them for about 2,500 years and you'd think they could manage to organise things so they were of minimal hassle to Australians. That the website worked, that the response rate was good, that people were engaged in the process – and none of that has happened in this Census.

Today’s effects test announcement shows the extent to which Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison have sacrificed good economic policy in order to keep the National Party on side.

As a member of the Abbott Government, Malcolm Turnbull opposed an effects test in Cabinet. So did Julie Bishop and George Brandis.

The only reason the Turnbull Government is announcing an effects test today is that it was a condition of the secret agreement between the Liberals and Nationals for Mr Turnbull to become Prime Minister.