Andrew Leigh

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 27 OCTOBER 2021

Just months away from the federal election, the Liberals have decided they want to change the rules to make it harder to vote. By requiring that voters present identification at the ballot box, the government would disenfranchise thousands of Australians.

Who will their bill hit? The poor, the homeless, Indigenous people, older people who've given up their driving licences, people who can't wait in the long lines that will result. They don't like what people have to say, so they're making it harder for them to say it. If you can't stuff the ballot box, tell disadvantaged voters to stuff off.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 27 OCTOBER 2021

On New Year's Day 2020, this city, my beloved home city of Canberra, had the worst air quality in the world. Bushfire smoke had blanketed the city, and what being outdoors did for your lungs was the same as what smoking a pack of cigarettes a day would do. Increased severe weather events had been warned about since Ross Garnaut's work commissioned by the Rudd and Gillard governments. Yet Prime Minister Morrison denied that there was any link between bushfires and climate change. It led to countries around the world shaking their heads at the inaction from the Morrison government on climate change. In 2020, the Climate Change Performance Index put Australia dead last for our climate policies.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 27 OCTOBER 2021

No advanced country is more affected by dangerous climate change than Australia. Extreme weather events, including floods and bushfires, have afflicted Australian agriculture and households. Australia has the highest emissions per person in the advanced world, yet we're doing the least to combat climate change. According to this year's Sustainable Development Report, Australia ranked last of 193 countries for action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. What little reduction there has been under the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments has occurred despite them, not because of them. Labor's renewable energy target and state government land-clearing policies have accounted for the lion's share of the emissions reductions, which nonetheless are significantly smaller than we saw under the six years of the Rudd and Gillard governments.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

2SM MARCUS PAUL IN THE MORNING

TUESDAY, 26 OCTOBER 2021

SUBJECTS: Glasgow climate summit; national integrity commission

MARCUS PAUL, HOST: Our #JobKeeperWarrior, we catch up with him every Tuesday, Andrew Leigh, good morning.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Good morning, Marcus. It's great to be with you.

PAUL: Thank you, mate. You, too. Look, the Prime Minister, I see today, has had his speech writers performing miracles in The Daily Telegraph. 'Australia will not force resources and agricultural industry to close and will incentivize heavy manufacturers to lower emissions under the federal government's plan to reach net zero by 2050. The PM says Australia will reject any mandate to force the closure of industries.' This is news to me, considering I thought we hadn't had the detail yet of what Nationals and Liberal MPs have been discussing behind closed doors. Albo, on the program yesterday, having a bit of a swipe at Coal Pitt - I'm sorry, Keith Pitt - on the program. He, of course, is being given a pay rise, as we're still yet to hear the Coalition's long-awaited plan to make Australia carbon neutral in less than 30 years. Of course, it'll be a part of the goodie bag that Scott Morrison takes to Glasgow. What do you make of it all?

LEIGH: Well, it's always the way with the Morrison Government, isn't it, Marcus? Big announcements, lots of ads, no follow through.

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RADIO INTERVIEW

2CC CANBERRA LIVE WITH LEON DELANEY

TUESDAY, 21 OCTOBER 2021

SUBJECTS: JobKeeper

LEON DELANEY, HOST: The Parliamentary Budget Office has revealed Australian businesses that actually increased turnover claimed almost $20 billion all together across the nation, and here in the ACT the figure was almost $200 million. Andrew Barr yesterday described it as one of the biggest wastes of taxpayer money in history, and I think that view is shared by the Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury and Charities and the local member for Fenner, Dr Andrew Leigh. Would I be correct?

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Absolutely, Leon. Good to be with you and your listeners, and yes, it's $20 billion nationally, $197 million here in the ACT, going to firms whose revenues were going up during the pandemic rather than down.

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RADIO INTERVIEW

5AA MORNINGS WITH LEON BYNER

THURSDAY, 21 OCTOBER 2021

SUBJECTS: JobKeeper

LEON BYNER, HOST: Andrew it's good to talk to you.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Great to talk to you again, Leon.

BYNER: I want to talk about some new data that suggests that almost $1 billion in JobKeeper payments were handed out to SA businesses that actually posted an increase in revenue. How did that happen?

LEIGH: We all wanted JobKeeper to succeed, and it did save jobs. Many firms needed it, but firms got it that didn't need it, and that includes this $964 million that went to South Australian businesses whose revenues were increasing rather than decreasing. That's your taxes at work. That's money that will need to be paid back through higher income taxes for Australians for years to come. It didn't need to happen. The Treasurer was warned at the time, but he didn't do anything to stop the rot.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 19 OCTOBER 2021

Debates over trade have a long history in this place. At the time of federation, New South Wales Premier George Reid, who ran the one free-trading state, said that, for his state, going into a federation with the question of tariffs to be decided later was like a reformed alcoholic setting up house with five drunkards and leaving the question of beverages to be decided by majority vote. In the early years of the federation, my side of parliament allowed members a free vote on questions of tariffs, but, by 1905, we had decided to join with Alfred Deakin's Protectionists, and Labor supported tariffs—as, indeed, did the conservatives.  

Tariffs nearly doubled during the 1920s, the era of Smoot-Hawley, and by the late 1960s the Australian economy was, according to one analysis, 'the most protected economy in the advanced world'—what Black Jack McEwen called 'protection all-round'. Meaning that, if you wanted to sell a product in Australia, you either had to get an import licence or pay a tariff, which could often double the price of the product.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 19 OCTOBER 2021

Over recent months, Canberrans have rolled up our sleeves and got vaccinated. Today Canberra became the first state or territory in Australia to have more than 80 per cent of the over-12 population vaccinated. Ninety-nine per cent of Canberra's adults have had a first dose. Under the leadership of Andrew Barr, Rachel Stephen-Smith and Kerryn Coleman, we are on track to become the most vaccinated city in the world.

Why has Canberra done so well? It's true that Canberra is the most progressive jurisdiction in Australia: socially inclusive and internationally engaged. We're quick to take up new technologies and are enthusiastic about education. When I've spoken in this place about refugees, international development, marriage equality or climate change, I know I've been speaking for my electors.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 19 OCTOBER 2021

Judith Sloan, Janet Albrechtsen and Niki Savva are hardly Labor true believers, but they've been among the fiercest critics of the government's JobKeeper mismanagement, calling the overpayments 'irresponsible', 'inept' and 'inexcusable'.

JobKeeper saved jobs, but so much money was given to firms with rising revenues that the cost of saving each full-year job was up to $200,000. The Parliamentary Budget Office first estimated that $13 billion went to firms with rising revenues in the first six months of the scheme. Then the government said that figure was $14 billion. Now the Parliamentary Budget Office has looked at the full 12-month scheme, and they estimate that $20 billion went to firms with rising revenue. That's $2,000 for every Australian household going to companies that didn't need support—companies whose sales were higher in the pandemic than the year before. Among those who benefited from JobKeeper were offshore billionaires, such as Louis Vuitton's Bernard Arnault and Luxottica's Leonardo Del Vecchio.

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RADIO INTERVIEW

6PR MORNINGS WITH LIAM BARTLETT

TUESDAY, 19 OCTOBER 2021

SUBJECTS: JobKeeper

LIAM BARTLETT, HOST: Andrew Leigh is the federal opposition Assistant Minister for Treasury and Charities. He's been doing a lot of the front running on this, a lot of the research work and the back of house details. Andrew, good morning.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Good morning, Liam. Great to be with you.

BARTLETT: And you, too. You're in Canberra at the moment, but you've been through some of this new analysis from the Parliamentary Budget Office.

LEIGH: Absolutely. JobKeeper was an important program, but very badly implemented, as you know better than most, Liam. A program that was meant to be about keeping battlers in jobs ended up delivering too much cash through to billionaire shareholders. We now know, thanks to this new analysis from the Parliamentary Budget Office, that there was some $20 billion delivered to firms whose revenues went up rather than down, and in Western Australia that's $1.6 billion going to firms who had a better 2020 than 2019. Now, we wanted JobKeeper to succeed, Liam. Labor was constructive and worked collaboratively with the Government to get it in place, but the leakage of money to firms that didn't need it is unprecedented in the history of the Commonwealth.