Andrew Leigh

CHARITIES SUFFER AGAIN UNDER CHAOTIC COALITION

Australian charities are once again collateral damage of the crisis and division within the Coalition.

For the past five years, the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government has waged a war on charities, prompting two open letters to the Prime Minister of the day, and wasting endless hours of time as charities push back against the Coalition’s retrograde agenda.

Zed Seselja is the government’s sixth minister with responsibility for the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission, following Kevin Andrews, Scott Morrison, Christian Porter, Michael McCormack and Michael Sukkar.

INDIGENOUS READING PROJECT GRANT GIVING CEREMONY
 
CANBERRA
 
MONDAY, 3 SEPTEMBER 2018

Like Auntie Violet, I acknowledge the Ngunnawal people, the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, and pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging. 

It's great to be here with Dan Billing, Professor Marcia Langton, ACT Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith and so many other strong supporters of this great program.

Five fresh facts you might not know about inequality

The Canberra Times, 1 September 2018

Superyachts are getting longer. Recently, we learned that one of Australia’s richest men has progressed from a 21-metre long sports cruiser to a 27-metre flybridge cruiser. His latest is a 73-metre Hasna superyacht, worth $75 million. But it’s not the biggest privately-owned yacht in Australia. Another rich-lister owns a 74-metre Italian-made yacht.

In the world of luxury boats, one expert observes that ‘the client who 15 years ago would have been satisfied with a 40-metre yacht, which would then have been one of the largest yachts in the bay, is now surrounded by dozens of yachts of 60-70 metres, and this plants the seed that he really ought to upgrade.’ The world’s largest yachts now include multiple swimming pools, submersibles, jet skis, concert halls and dance floors. Running costs alone can be millions of dollars per year. Yet as investment banker Mark Carnegie notes, no matter how large megaboats get, ‘someone’s always got a bigger one’.

At the other end of the income spectrum, recreation looks a little different. As one low-income person put it, leisure spending ‘depends on the situation with bills and gas and electric and so forth’.  Another said that their only leisure is to smoke cigarettes. Recreational activities tend to involve walks and bicycle rides, with one study estimating that for poor Australians, spending $20 a week on recreation was a ‘generous amount’. When his friends go out for a meal to celebrate, one young unemployed man said ‘it’s quite embarrassing - I’ll just sit there and not eat’.

CHRIS BOWEN MP
SHADOW TREASURER
SHADOW MINISTER FOR SMALL BUSINESS
MEMBER FOR MCMAHON
 
ANDREW LEIGH MP
SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER
SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION AND PRODUCTIVITY
SHADOW MINISTER FOR TRADE IN SERVICES
SHADOW MINISTER FOR CHARITIES AND NOT-FOR-PROFITS
MEMBER FOR FENNER
 
MADELEINE KING MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR CONSUMER AFFAIRS
SHADOW MINISTER ASSISTING FOR SMALL BUSINESS
 
LABOR ENSURES SMALL BUSINESS GETS A SEAT AT TAX OFFICE TABLE

Labor is committed to giving all taxpayers – particularly small businesses – a fair appeals process when dealing with the Tax office.
 
Genuine concerns have been raised about engagement with small businesses about tax disputes, including the lack of a perceived and real structural separation within the Tax Office of officials who make tax assessments from those who handle disputes and appeals.

CHRIS BOWEN MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR MCMAHON
 
ANDREW LEIGH MP
SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER
SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION AND PRODUCTIVITY
SHADOW MINISTER FOR TRADE IN SERVICES
SHADOW MINISTER FOR CHARITIES AND NOT-FOR-PROFITS
MEMBER FOR FENNER
 
DID ATO WASTE TAXPAYER DOUGH DIGGING DIRT FOR SLOMO?

The full extent of Scott Morrison’s politicisation of independent institutions remains unknown with the Australian Tax Office refusing to provide details of work done for the now Prime Minister, months after being asked.
 
In May, The Australian newspaper reported on costings of Labor tax policies as part of a heavily biased drop seemingly from the former Treasurer.
 
The Tax Office was asked later that month whether it had done the costings at the behest of Mr Morrison’s office, but remains unwilling to answer even three months on, saying it would be a “an unreasonable diversion of resources” to provide a response. That could suggest that Scott Morrison has laboured the ATO with a lot of costings requests of Labor policies.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TV INTERVIEW

SKY NEWS AGENDA

WEDNESDAY, 29 AUGUST 2018
 
SUBJECTS: Tony Abbott, Closing the Gap, Wentworth polling, ASIC investigation into Stuart Robert.

KIERAN GILBERT: With me now is Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Andrew Leigh. Given think it's fair to say in the past we haven't utilized the capacity of Australian prime ministers as well as we should, like the Americans have done for years with their presidents, why is this not a good move to put the prime minister – young former prime minister's energy into something constructive?

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: I don't think anyone doubts Tony Abbott's energy. The question is whether that’ll be followed up with measures that actually help close the gaps. As you remember from earlier this year, the latest Closing the Gap report now sees Australia not on track to meet most of those Closing the Gap indicators. And as Richard Marles has pointed out, significant cuts to funding of Indigenous programs are one of the reasons why we're not closer to closing those gaps. I would like to see Tony Abbott energy's more productively utilized. I've been as disappointed, as have many Australians, at the way in which he's comported himself since stepping down as prime minister. But just visiting is going to be enough. We actually need the Morrison Government to step up and act.

GILBERT: He's already got a number of ideas, including in education - he wants to focus on greater attendance rates and even talking about possible penalties for Indigenous parents who children aren't showing up at school. Do we have to think outside of the box here in order to get some progress? Because he's quite right that the best start is to ensure a good education.

LEIGH: Attendance matters. As Woody Allen says, 90 per cent of life is just showing up. But I'm not sure a big stick is appropriate in this instance. I don't think the history of Indigenous affairs would lead you to think that we need more big sticks in Indigenous affairs. We need to be working in partnership with local communities, listening to them, and many Indigenous Australians are still reeling from the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government's rejection of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

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
 
PATRICK GORMAN
MEMBER FOR PERTH
 
HANNAH BEAZLEY
LABOR CANDIDATE FOR SWAN
 
PERTH RECONNECTED FORUM A SUCCESS

 
Today, we held a successful ‘Reconnected’ forum with Perth charities and not-for-profits, exchanging ideas to boost social capital and community engagement.

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
 
ANNE ALY
MEMBER FOR COWAN
 
LABOR TAKES THE WHEEL FOR MECHANICS IN PERTH

Labor is driving a better deal for car owners and independent mechanics with a plan to make timely access to technical information a reality.
 
Whether you own a Toyota Corolla or a Ford Ranger, 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.
 
Under Labor, car manufacturers will have to share the same technical information with independent mechanics that they currently provide to authorised dealers.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

2GB WITH ROSS GREENWOOD

WEDNESDAY, 22 AUGUST 2018
 
SUBJECT: Liberal Party leadership crisis, policy paralysis.
 
ROSS GREENWOOD: A man who will be a senior member of his team, no doubt, will be Dr Andrew Leigh who is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, who is on the line right now. Many thanks for your time, Andrew.
 
ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER; Absolute pleasure, Ross. That was quite an intro.
 
GREENWOOD: It was the day as it unfolded today and, as I said, if people think it's a schmoozle, it probably is. Let's go now to a Government that has no company tax cuts to the next election, it's had to drop those because of the political inevitability. It also doesn't have a National Energy Guarantee to take to the next election, or at least not in the form it wanted to. From Labor's point of view, it means that there is potentially more money in the tank to spend if you come to office after the next election. What will you do with that extra money?
 
LEIGH: Ross, it's never been about the extra money for us. It's always been about the choice - the decision to take money out of our schools and hospitals and give it to some of the biggest firms, despite the fact that there is very little evidence that it'll boost economic growth. It always seemed to us like a bad economic call. That's the number one policy that Malcolm Turnbull had in his 2016 budget and he's already said that he would be committed to it at the next election. Mathias Cormann said that ‘a moment will come when this Parliament will have to revisit the proposal’. I don't think anyone believes it’s off the table.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

2SER RADIO

WEDNESDAY, 22 AUGUST 2018

SUBJECT: Liberal Party leadership crisis, policy paralysis, Territory rights.

MICK RAD: Crazy couple of days in politics and we're all trying to work out what's happening and what's coming up next. I thought I would get a person who has been on the ground in Canberra observing it all going around because he is in the opposition and Andrew Leigh is the Federal Member for Fenner he is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Shadow Minister for Competition and Productivity, Shadow Minister for Trade in Services - it's a long list, he's also written a book. But the old adage that a week is a long time in politics certainly holds true this week, it's like an episode of Survivor right now with Peter Dutton challenging Malcolm Turnbull for the leadership but Andrew Leigh is on the phone from the city of roundabouts. How are you, Andrew?

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Very well Mick, maybe Hunger Games? They seem to be very interested in fighting among themselves, but not so interested in kind of issues like inequality, wage growth and climate change 

RAD: Or running the country.

LEIGH: Exactly.

RAD: But to be a fly on the wall and some of those Liberal Party rooms at the moment it's really there's a lot of squabbling going on within the Liberal Party at the moment we've seen the challenge yesterday morning of course. And now we hear Dutton's shoring up the numbers for another challenge. What's it been like the last couple of days to be in Canberra? 

LEIGH: Utterly crazy. As you say, the Liberal Party is riven between economic liberals and tinfoil hat conservatives, who don't believe in the science of climate change, who believe that don't believe in sensible economic policy. That divide down the Liberal Party is going to remain regardless of who they choose as leader. It's almost as though they're deciding whether they're a small-L liberal party or a capital-C Conservative Party.