Andrew Leigh

CRACKING THE CONFUSOPOLY

DevPolicy Blog, 15 March 2019

Okeny Secondo is a disability support worker in his early-30s who lives in Redbank Plains, a suburb of Ipswich. Born in Sudan, he fled to Uganda as a child, then migrated to Australia. Mr Secondo and his wife, who works as a meat industry processor, send almost one-third of their income back to help friends and families in Africa.

‘I know what it’s like to live with uncertainty in a war-torn country’, he says. ‘I’m very happy to be able to support my family and friends to make them more secure. Sometimes we get urgent requests for emergencies and it’s great to be able to get money to them immediately.’

Mr Secondo is among thousands who send remittances to help people in developing nations. With international migration projected to account for a growing share of the population in the future, remittances will only grow in importance. When a grandparent falls ill, or a child needs to pay school fees, families in developing countries often turn to generous relatives in countries like Australia to send over some cash.

BRENDAN O’CONNOR MP

SHADOW MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS

MEMBER FOR GORTON

ANDREW LEIGH MP

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION AND PRODUCTIVITY

SHADOW MINISTER CHARITIES AND NOT-FOR-PROFITS

SHADOW MINISTER FOR TRADE IN SERVICES

MEMBER FOR FENNER

CORINNE MULHOLLAND

LABOR CANDIDATE FOR PETRIE

LABOR WILL BACK OUR SUBBIES IN PETRIE

Today, we met with sub-contractors in Petrie to discuss the benefits of Labor’s Tradie Pay Guarantee.

Subbies working on federal government projects will be protected from being left unpaid when dodgy businesses go bust through the implementation of Labor’s Tradie Pay Guarantee.

A Shorten Labor Government will require large Commonwealth construction projects to establish a specially structured account – using a cascading statutory trust - that ensures all businesses down the supply chain get paid on time.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP

MANLY, BRISBANE

TUESDAY, 12 MARCH 2019

SUBJECTS: Labor’s plans to give Australians hotels control over their businesses, Nationals chaos and LNP civil war over coal, Adani.

JO BRISKEY, LABOR’S CANDIDATE FOR BONNER: Jo Briskey here, Labor's candidate running at the federal election for the seat of Bonner, where I'm welcoming Andrew and Ed and also Richard from the Accommodation Association here at the Manly Marina Cove Motel down in Manly in the wonderful electorate of Bonner, talking about Labor's policy today around making it easier and fairer for customers and local businesses and importantly for families being able to get some really great local accommodation, good accommodation for those family holidays. So I'm absolutely thrilled to be here this morning, welcoming these lovely gentlemen to the wonderful Manly harbourside. Andrew, would you like to say a few words about today’s announcement?

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER AND SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION: Thanks, Jo. It’s a real pleasure to be here with my friend and colleague Ed Husic and Jo Briskey, a terrific candidate for Bonner, and with Richard Munro, who has been campaigning hard on behalf of the accommodation industry for these vital changes. Labor wants to put power back in the hands of Australian tourists and Australian hotels. Right now, the duopoly of multinational booking providers going under various names - Expedia, Hotels.com, Kayak, Booking.com, Priceline, Wotif -  have been dominating the market for online bookings. They’re charging extremely high booking fees - they can range up to 30 per cent. They're able to maintain their market share through what's called price parity clauses, by requiring small hotels like this one to not offer a cheaper price to guests on their own website. The result of that has been that up to a third of the cost of accommodation is going offshore to these large multinational firms. In a time when we've got wage growth in the doldrums, we've got retail sales down, where we've got disappointing growth figures, we don't want to see more policies benefiting the top end of town over Aussie small businesses.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

ABC CANBERRA BREAKFAST

TUESDAY, 12 MARCH 2019

SUBJECTS: Labor’s plans to support sustainable public transport in Canberra, federal ICAC, Labor’s plans to give Australians hotels control over their businesses.

DAN BOURCHIER: Although the date for the next election hasn't yet been set, it's largely seeming like it will be at some point in the later half of May. But we've seen lots of election promises on both sides of the aisle - everyone really make commitments right across the nation.  Today Opposition Leader Bill Shorten will announce a $200 million investment towards stage two of Canberra's light rail track to Woden, if Labor's elected the next federal election. Federal MP for Fenner is Andrew Leigh, he's with us on the phone. Good morning.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Good morning Dan. You're sounding as though you’re a bit croaky at the moment?

BOURCHIER: I'm a little, a little bit congested, but I’ll persevere onwards and upwards. 

LEIGH: I hope you’re on the mend soon.

BOURCHIER: Tell me, why is Labor making this commitment?

LEIGH: It's really important that we get going on light rail all the way through from Gungahlin to Woden. As you recall, Dan, when we were last in office Labor funded the Majura Parkway, an important piece of road infrastructure taking pressure off our roads. This is a vital commitment that a Shorten Government would make - $200 million towards to stage two. So that’s light rail from the city through to Woden. It'll create hundreds of jobs and it'll ensure that people are able to move swiftly through the city as modern light rail projects do. It's been championed by Alicia Payne, our candidate for Canberra, and I know she'll continue working on those issues with the route if she is elected.

LABOR TO PUT AUSSIE HOTELS BACK IN CONTROL

Local accommodation providers will have greater control of their own businesses under a Shorten Labor Government, making small businesses more competitive and reducing the price of a weekend away.

If elected, Labor would ensure that Australia’s accommodation providers would have the ability to set their own prices so they can compete with the multinationals behind the world’s largest online booking sites.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

ABC RN DRIVE

TUESDAY, 12 MARCH 2019

SUBJECTS: Labor’s push to give Australians a living wage, Josh Frydenberg’s backflip on the recommendations from the Banking Royal Commission, Labor’s plans to give Australians hotels control over their businesses.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Dr Andrew Leigh is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer and he joins us. Welcome back to RN Drive.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Thank you, Patricia. Great to be with you.

KARVELAS: So the Federal Government has abolished the plan to dump trail commissions for mortgage brokers because of concerns around competition. They're going to get the ACCC to review it and they've got another review in three years. Why not review it given so much of the sector says that they worried about competition and that this will favour the big banks?

LEIGH: You just have to look at Kenneth Haynes’ report, which said on the issue of trail commissions ‘to put it bluntly they are money for nothing’. Now that’s a pretty damning indictment on their system. Trail commissions have been removed in other contexts and we believe it's appropriate to follow the Hayne Royal Commission’s advice on this.

WHAT IF CASH REFUNDS FOR FRANKING CREDITS DIDN’T EXIST?

Australian Financial Review, 11 March 2019

Suppose that Australia - like every other country in the world - did not provide cash refunds of franking credits to anyone except pensioners.  

Now imagine that a government decided to implement such a policy. 

How would it fund it? For starters, the cost would be significant - nearly $6 billion a year. That’s over $200 for every man, woman and child in Australia. So it might raise income taxes on middle-income earners or increase the GST. Or it could rip money out of the health or education system.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

ABC MELBOURNE

THURSDAY, 7 MARCH 2019

SUBJECTS: Labor’s plans to crack down on dodgy directors; Australia’s per-capita recession; Labor’s plans to close tax loopholes.

JON FAINE: Andrew Leigh is the Assistant Treasurer from the Federal Opposition and he thinks he has found a formula for dealing with this. Mr Leigh good morning to you.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Good morning Jon, great to be with you.

FAINE: I first reported on this 25 years ago when I was working on ABC TV's The Investigators, no one has been able to crack this nut for the decade since, what do you think you can do about it now?

LEIGH: Phoenixing is a bit like tax avoidance: you've got to constantly be updating the laws to keep up with the wrongdoers. But we've put together a pretty comprehensive plan: a Tradie Pay Guarantee with so-called ‘cascading trusts’ which ensure that on big Commonwealth projects people who do the work on time, get paid on time. We'll beef up the funding to ASIC to run cases going after dodgy phoenix directors, not only to catch them but send an example to the rest of the industry.

ANDREW LEIGH MP
SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER
SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION AND PRODUCTIVITY
SHADOW MINISTER CHARITIES AND NOT-FOR-PROFITS
SHADOW MINISTER FOR TRADE IN SERVICES
MEMBER FOR FENNER
 
SIMON CURTIS
LABOR CANDIDATE FOR LA TROBE
 
LABOR TAKES THE WHEEL FOR MECHANICS IN LA TROBE

Labor is driving a better deal for car owners and independent mechanics in La Trobe with a plan to make timely access to technical information a reality.

Whether you drive a Holden or Ford, Porsche or Prius, everyone should be able to choose where they get their car serviced. But independent repairers are struggling to get fair access to the standard service information they need.

DODGY BUILDERS UNDER A SPOTLIGHT

Dodgy building firms who deliberately avoid paying workers will be forced to face the consequences of their actions under a Shorten Labor Government.

If elected to government, Labor will work with states and territories to cancel the building licenses of companies which have been caught phoenixing, a practise where dodgy directors deliberately burn companies in an attempt to avoid their obligations to employees, government and honest businesses.

Not only does phoenix activity hurt hard working Australians, their families and their communities, but it costs the economy billions of dollars. On one estimate, phoenixing costs the Australian economy in excess of $5 billion per year, which is more than $200 for every person in Australia.