Andrew Leigh

Prime Minister Julia Gillard gave a wonderful speech last night to the Community and Public Sector Union National Leaders' Conference. I thought it was a lovely statement of the important role of unions and also the work done by public servants to assist the Australian community. As an Australian Labor Party politician from the ACT, these are two areas that are important to me and I thought I'd share the Prime Minister's words here.

PRIME MINISTER
SPEECH
“A LIFE IN PUBLIC SERVICE”
CPSU NATIONAL CONFERENCE
28 AUGUST 2011

Yours is the model of a modern labour union.

Committed to the oldest union principles.

Sharing, sticking together, the strong in the workplace protecting the weak.

Organising always, working with the employer when you can, fighting when you must.

And committed to the future of unionism too.

To responsible leadership which sees the future, understands where change is necessary, ensures change is delivered for the many, not the few.

When people ask how should modern unions drive change in their members’ interests I say: look at the way the CPSU engages its members and delivers for them.

And you do it in two distinct and vital ways.

Your contribution to the cause of labour through the movement and the Party is enormous.

Your contribution to the cause of Australia, in the Australian Public Service and your other workplaces, is indispensable.

In the same way, here addressing you all, I do wear two hats.

When I get along to dinner with the “tee dubs” or the “miscos” I can safely tell them to stand up for themselves and not to go easy on their boss.

Here, I’m not quite so gung ho!

But for all that, I know that here, I’m among friends: because of the values we share.

The values I have always seen in the CPSU and your predecessors, in my life’s work in the labour movement – the values I recognise in all of you here tonight – the same values I see in the public servants I work with and rely on every day.

A bright passion and a deep enthusiasm for the life of public service.

That enthusiasm and passion in you is the same fire that drives me on, that drives everyone in my Government on, every day in office, to build a strong economy, to make a fair society.

What you do matters to Australia and to every Australian.

Ours is a remarkable nation. That didn’t happen by accident.

Australians worked for it, you worked for it, our public sector worked for it.

Of course some of our advantages are natural – natural wealth and location.

But I see our greatest advantages as human ones.

In world terms, we’re a top ten country on many measures.

Openness to international ideas, public institutions that operate free from corruption, the list goes on.

And we’re a top two country on measures that are most important to us.

Like political stability, social mobility, human development.

We’ve worked for those things and we’ve done it our way.

We don’t work exactly as others do.

We’ve always seen the public good, the public interest, the public sector, in our own distinctively progressive and Australian way.

Just one example: the way we regulate banks, very different than the US for instance.

It works, we’ve got four of the ten ‘AA minus’ rated banks in the world here.

And it works because of you.

Those banks are regulated by public servants.

The same is true of so many areas where our nation has achieved good things.

No developed country emerged from the global financial crisis stronger.

The political decision to take strong and immediate action was the vital beginning.

But make no mistake, the best thing we did then was to get the best advice.

The Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz called our stimulus packages:

One of the most impressive economic policies I've seen.

But he went on:

Not only was it the right amount, it was extraordinarily well structured, with careful attention to what would stimulate the economy in the shorter run, the medium term and the long term …

When I look around the world, it was, I think, probably the best-designed stimulus program in the world and you should be happy that in fact it worked in exactly the way it was designed to work.

That was a Nobel Prize winner talking – and he was talking about you.

That stimulus was designed and implemented by public servants.

And the same is true across so much of Australian life.

Who got the relief payments to the flood victims? A public servant.

Who makes sure older Australians are cared for and safe in aged care homes? A public servant.

Who keeps our planes flying and our airports safe? A public servant.

Who helped Australians caught up in the earthquakes in New Zealand or Japan – who works to alleviate the suffering of the world’s poorest in the Pacific or Afghanistan? A public servant.

For that matter, who shows a group of school children a Sidney Nolan painting of Ned Kelly?

That person is a public servant too.

And to put it mildly – none of those people is in it for the money.

I know you make sacrifices, you move your families between cities, your forego higher private sector salaries.

And perhaps the most demanding sacrifice of all – all the time you spend at work and away from those you love.

You do it all for a reason.

For that passion, for that enthusiasm, that we share.

So I really do want to salute you for your life in public service.

And like anything that’s important, the stakes are high, and sometimes the decisions are hard.

That’s true of the decisions we make together, as public servants and ministers, true of the advice you give us, true of the work you do to implement our plans.

That work is sometimes hard but we get through it together.

That’s also true of the areas where we negotiate as employer and employees.

Big decisions we work through, changing our workplace, improving how government works, and of course, balancing budgets.

You’ll have discussed a lot of those issues while you’re here and I’m sure you’ve been frank.

And it’s important that I say clearly, I believe the latest round of APS bargaining showed us that we need a clearer bargaining framework and that before the next round more pre-bargaining work should be done.

And that I say, we will work with you to develop a more flexible and fact-based approach to lifting public sector productivity, through the Public Service Commission and the Strategic Centre for Leadership, Learning and Development.

And to achieve increased commonality of terms and conditions for APS employees.

I know you’ll keep pressing us in areas where we don’t agree and where you’re making a case for change.

Whether that’s how the efficiency dividend works or how agencies fund pay rises or the balance between agency and central bargaining.

We’ll keep talking about all of it and I know you’ll keep working for your members’ interests.

With all that understood, I’m proud that the Australian Government is a good and fair employer of around 170 000 Australians.

As a Labor Prime Minister, fairness at work is central to my task.

What I see as I look around Australia today, is that this is at risk. Profoundly at risk.

The decisions made by new State Liberal Governments in the past eighteen months have shown that dramatically.

First, remember what State Liberals say before their elections.

Barry O’Farrell: “we will need more public servants, not less”.

Ted Baillieu: “absolutely no reduction in public servants”.

Campbell Newman: “no forced redundancies”.

Then, look at what they do after elections.

In NSW the Liberal Premier has cut.

Almost 250 police. Funding to 272 special needs schools.

More than 400 hospital beds. 100 child protection workers.

In Victoria the Liberal Premier has cut.

$481 million from the education budget. $300 million from TAFE. $25 million from community health services.

In Queensland the Liberal National Premier has cut.

$400 million from roads. 30 beds from the Prince Charles Hospital in Chermside.

$80 million from Metro North Health District. $22.8 million from the education budget. $2.5 million from services to protect vulnerable children.

He’s even dismantled BreastScreen Queensland, a cut so brutal I honestly didn’t believe it when I first read the reports.

The bottom line?

10,000 public sector jobs in NSW gone.

25,000 public sector jobs in Queensland – gone.

That’s how the Liberals roll.

Now, I would come here to warn you that Tony Abbott will do to the APS what the State Liberals are doing to their public services.

Because first term conservative governments are like that.

But amazingly, it’s actually worse than that.

Last week the Coalition announced plans to gift core Federal responsibilities to the Liberal States.

They won’t just copy the Premiers – they’ll actually hand you over to the Premiers.

In their own words, “to cut thousands of federal public servants from the payroll”.

Again, take their word for it, from Shadow Minister Robb: these plans are not “incremental” – they are “huge” – they are “more radical” than what happened when the Howard Government was elected in 1996.

Now – think about those brutal cuts delivered by State Liberal Governments which promised “more public servants, not less”.

And think about what they’re doing to the industrial conditions of the public servants who remain.

What is going to happen if a Federal Liberal Government is elected which in Opposition already boasts of huge, radical cuts and from Opposition already promises thousands of public servants will go?

The difference could not be more plain.

Labor stands for jobs, the Liberals stand for cuts.

And in the words of your own campaign – cuts hurt.

I am just astonished by the total disrespect of conservatives for the public service, for expert advice.

Andrew Robb, who wants to be Finance Minister, tells the Australian Financial Review that much of the bureaucracy does no more than "leave a paper trail, to cover backsides".

That the problem in the public service is “bad apples”.

Campbell Newman, the Queensland Premier, is asked in Parliament why he’s cutting public service jobs and says that his job is to “get the poopa scoopa out every day of the week”.

And that’s all of a piece with a populist politics that rejects expertise and independent advice, whether it’s from scientists, economists, lawyers, engineers, architects, pretty much anyone they don’t agree with.

The public service doesn’t deserve that.

Just like you don’t deserve another 1996.

You don’t deserve it – the country can’t afford it.

My vision in Government, my Labor vision, is very different.

And the reality of how we’ve governed and worked with you is very different.

The Australian Government and the Australian Public Service has worked together.

And we’ve worked with the whole public sector.

Many of you here tonight, Telstra, Australia Post, Medibank, the ABC, and of course the two Territory government services.

You’ve all served the Australian public.

To deliver better services, to engage better with citizens, to make government simpler and more efficient, to build your skills.

And the Government has relied enormously on your advice and expertise to meet the big challenges to our nation’s wellbeing.

To restore balance to Australian workplaces.

To grow jobs and to build a strong economy.

To set the nation on the path to a clean energy future.
To get equal pay for caring workers.

To build hard infrastructure for the future, like the NBN.

To achieve hard policy reform for the future, like the MRRT.

And we’ll only need you more for the work ahead.

In our plans for school improvement.

In our plans to care for our ageing generations.

In our plans for a National Disability Insurance Scheme.

There’s much more to do.

I look forward to doing them together.

In the Global Mail today, I have an article that expands on the argument kicked off in my first speech: that Labor is the natural party of both egalitarianism and liberalism. I'm an economist, not an historian, so thanks to a raft of people, including Dennis Glover, Emily Murray, Tim Soutphommasane, Macgregor Duncan, Louise Crossman, Troy Bramston, Dennis Altman, Damien Hickman, Nick Terrell, John Hirst, Nick Dyrenfurth, Judith Brett, David Lowe, Michael Jones, Barbara Leigh and Michael Leigh for valuable comments on earlier drafts. Note that several of these people strongly disagreed with my conclusions, so responsibility for errors of fact and argument are mine alone.

And yes, I haven't missed the irony of praising the Global Mail for not raising the opinion/news ratio, and then writing a essay for them. In my defence, editor Lauren Martin does an excellent line in arm-twisting.

(Comments on the Global Mail website, please.)

Labor’s Best Strategy: Become A Party For True Liberals

By Andrew Leigh

The Global Mail, August 27, 2012

In December 2007, there were 445 Labor representatives in lower houses across federal, state and territory parliaments. Before the August 23 NT election, there were 305. In less than five years, 140 Labor parliamentarians — one in three — have lost office.

At the same time, Labor is shedding members. In the 1950s, more than one in 100 adults were ALP members — now it is less than one in 300. The trend is common to other Australian political parties, and to political parties around the globe. Across the developed world, mass parties are under threat.

For the Australian Labor Party, one of the world's oldest progressive parties, a sense of realism about the challenge shouldn't diminish a sense of pride in our achievements. Significant migrant inflows and strong economic growth allow Australia to undertake reforms such as a price on carbon pollution and building a National Disability Insurance Scheme.

But we must also recognise that parties need to renew. For the Labor Party, I believe that our renewal may be drawn from an unlikely source: by becoming the party of egalitarianism and social liberalism. Liberalism means standing up for minority rights, and recognising that open markets are fundamental to boosting prosperity. To borrow a phrase from journalist George Megalogenis, Labor needs a commitment to markets and multiculturalism.

To recognise why Labor's future should include liberalism, it's first important to say something about Labor's past.

Exiled in the Polish town of Poronin in 1913, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin had plenty of time on his hands. Having already spent three years in a Siberian jail, he was biding his time until he was able to return to Russia. So the man who would soon serve as Russia's first Communist leader turned his attention to the antipodes.

Like many progressives around the world, Lenin was struck by the way the Australian Labor Party had swept into parliament. Just a few months after the party's formation in 1891, Labor won 36 out of 141 seats in the NSW Legislative Assembly. In 1899, Labor won government in Queensland (it lasted a week). In Australia's first national elections, Labor won 14 out of 75 seats in the House of Representatives. In 1903, Labor's share of the vote doubled. In 1904, Chris Watson became Labor's first Prime Minister. Other parties were struck by the strength of support for Labor, and by the energy and youth of its leaders.

And yet Lenin was puzzled. In 1913, he wrote:

"What sort of peculiar capitalist country is this, in which the workers' representatives predominate in the Upper House and, till recently, did so in the Lower House as well, and yet the capitalist system is in no danger? … The Australian Labor Party does not even call itself a socialist party. Actually it is a liberal-bourgeois party, while the so-called Liberals in Australia are really conservatives."

A century on, and Lenin's characterisation of Australia's two major parties stands up better than most of his ideas. Unlike many other commentators, Lenin discerned that Labor was not solely driven by a belief in egalitarianism. Even in its early decades, the ALP was also a party of social liberalism.

In my first speech to parliament, I argued that the Labor Party stands at the confluence of two powerful rivers in Australian politics. We believe in egalitarianism: that a child from Aurukun can become a High Court justice, and that a mine worker should get the same medical treatment as the mine owner. And we believe in liberalism: that governments have a role in protecting the rights of minorities, that freedom of speech applies as much to unpopular ideas as to popular ones, and that all of us stand equal beneath the Southern Cross. The modern Labor Party is the heir to the small-L liberal tradition in Australia. As my friend Macgregor Duncan likes to put it, "Labor is Australia's true liberal party".

Alfred Deakin was one of the earliest Australian leaders to make the distinction between liberals and conservatives. Deakin argued that liberalism meant the destruction of class privileges, equality of political rights without reference to creed, and equality of legal rights without reference to wealth. Liberalism, Deakin said, meant a government that acted in the interests of the majority, with particular regard to the poorest in the community.

Deakin's Australian version of liberalism drank deeply at the well of the British Liberal Party. In the late 19th century, Deakin's speeches frequently noted that the British Liberal Party was a positive force that sought to resist and overturn economic and class privileges throughout society. To Deakin, two of the British Liberals' greatest achievements were the legalisation of unions in 1871 and removal of 'religious disabilities' tests levelled against non-conformists and Roman Catholics.

As a member of Victoria's pre-Federation parliament, Deakin began sketching out the parameters of antipodean liberalism. Deakin was a great supporter of the Anti-Sweating League meetings, highlighting the exploitation of women's labour (or 'sweating') in that state's factories. He introduced into parliament the first factory act in Victoria, regulating hours and providing compensation for injury. And in his campaign for Federation, Deakin's vision and idealism helped the movement overcome setbacks and bypass the blockers.

On race and trade, Deakin's views were shaped by the time. He supported discriminatory migration policies and high tariff walls. Looking to the Asian region, he saw only danger. When I read back through Deakin's writings, I find myself thinking (perhaps naively) that if he had better understood the role that migration and trade could play in alleviating poverty, he might have been a Keatingesque internationalist. Given Deakin's extraordinary career, sparkling writing, and strong political philosophy, it's surprisingly easy to amputate his more illiberal views.

In the early years after Federation, it was conceivable that Deakin and his supporters might make common cause with the Labor Party. As Troy Bramston has pointed out, Deakin argued in 1903 that "more than half of [Labor's] members would be Liberal Protectionists". In 1906, he said that Labor and the Liberals were united on "seeking social justice", with the only difference being that Labor wanted reform to proceed "faster and further".

By contrast, Deakin regarded the Anti-Socialists and hard Conservatives as little more than wreckers brought together by their "attitude of denial and negation" to progressive reform.

When George Reid began to take his party down the anti-Socialist route in the 1906 election, Deakin said that his platform amounted to nothing more than a "necklace of negatives" (a line that echoes down the decades, even if it was a mite exaggerated).

In another speech, Deakin said the forces of conservatism were: "a party less easy to describe or define, because, as a rule it has no positive programme of its own, adopting instead an attitude of denial and negation. This mixed body, which may fairly be termed the party of anti-liberalism, justifies its existence, not by proposing its own solution of problems, but by politically blocking all proposals of a progressive character, and putting the brakes on those it cannot block."

But with the conservative-liberal 'Fusion' in 1909, Deakin's liberals finally made common cause with the conservatives. Much as he might have wanted to ally with the ALP, there was little appetite for such an alliance in Labor ranks. Moreover, Deakin felt uncomfortable with the tightly binding 'pledge' that Labor candidates were required to sign. The difference seems trivial in an era when all political parties requiretheir parliamentary representatives to implement their party platforms.

If anyone needed proof that the scales of history could have tipped the other way, they need only have looked to UK politics after World War I, where the collapse of that country's Liberal Party led to a surge in electoral support for British Labour. Bramston calls Fusion in Australia "a marriage of convenience … in order to counter and challenge the rise of Labor".

Since its founding in 1944, the Liberal Party of Australia has regarded itself as the rightful heir to Australian liberalism. Addressing its inaugural meeting, Robert Menzies said "We took the name 'Liberal' because we were determined to be a progressive party, willing to make experiments, in no sense reactionary, but believing in the individual, his rights and enterprise, and rejecting the Socialist panacea."

According to Senator George Brandis, Menzies never once used the word 'conservative' to describe his party. In 1960, Friedrich Hayek wrote his famous essay Why I Am Not a Conservative. At the time, most in the Liberal Party would have agreed with him.

Yet under the leadership of John Howard, liberalism ceased to be the raison d'etre of the Liberal Party. Instead, Howard argued that the Liberal Party was the custodian of two traditions: "It is the custodian of the Conservative tradition in Australian politics. It is also the custodian of the progressive Liberal tradition in the Australian polity". Howard, who had once said, "I am the most conservative leader the Liberal Party has ever had", was breaking with his party's liberal past. As George Brandis has noted: "Alfred Deakin, Robert Menzies, Harold Holt, John Gorton, Malcolm Fraser were all happy to describe themselves simply as liberals. Howard was the first who did not see himself, and was uncomfortable to be seen, purely in the liberal tradition."

Current Liberal leader Tony Abbott has taken the Liberal Party further down the conservative road, writing in Battlelines: "'Liberal National' might actually be a better description of the party's overall orientation than simply 'Liberal'."

By 2010, Abbott had further watered down liberalism, nominating three instincts that animated the Liberal Party: "liberal, conservative and patriotic". It was a special irony that Abbott chose the Deakin Lecture as the venue to declare that liberalism's stake in the Liberal Party had been diluted from 100 per cent to 33 per cent.

What is occurring today is the undoing of the Fusion movement — the divorce of liberals and conservatives. Small-L liberals like George Brandis and Malcolm Turnbull are distinctly in the minority. Ironically, the Liberal Party's "Modest Members" are anything but self-effacing, with its representatives expressing views that often bear little resemblance to the open-market ideas of Bert Kelly in the 1970s. It is little surprise that genuine liberals like Malcolm Fraser and John Hewson spend more time criticising than praising the party they once led.

A century on from the conservative-liberal fusion, Deakinite liberalism is back on the auction block. Increasingly, the Liberal Party is defined by what it stands against, rather than what it stands for. The spirit of progressive liberalism —described by Deakin as "liberal always, radical often, and reactionary never" — is in need of a new custodian.

Labor has always contained a liberal strain — partly indebted to Chartist and Fabian traditions, but also influenced by the type of social liberalism that Deakin and his followers advocated in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This fact was not lost on astute foreign observers, such as Lenin. Australian philosopher Tim Soutphommasane argues that the social democracy of Anthony Crosland and H.C. Coombs owed more to liberalism than Marxism, summing up a review with the words, "we are all liberals now, comrade".

Throughout the 20th century, social liberalism joined together many of Labor's achievements. Broad-based income taxation under Curtin. A Race Discrimination Act under Whitlam. Trade liberalisation and a floating dollar under Hawke. Enterprise bargaining and native title under Keating. Removal of much of the explicit discrimination against same-sex couples under Rudd. Carbon pricing and disability reform under Gillard. Whether through support for individual liberties or the belief in open markets, social liberalism has a prominent place in the story of the Australian Labor Party.

And yet Labor's future is still up for grabs. The debate over the future of the British Labour Party has seen many reject the economically-liberal reforms of the Blair years. Labour leader Ed Miliband has engaged parliamentarian Jon Cruddas to conduct the party's policy review. Cruddas writes beautifully about his party's proud traditions. He also points out the vacuity of polling gurus like Philip Gould — whose caricatures of "Mondeo Man" and "Worcester Woman" drew more from advertising agencies than political philosophy.

But Cruddas also throws away too much that is valuable. In his yearning for Labour to reconnect with Britain's romantic and patriotic traditions, he is too ready to discard market economics and social liberalism. I fear that British Labour is making the same mistakes Kim Beazley's opposition made in the late 1990s, when the ALP distanced itself from many of the economic reforms of Hawke and Keating, and advocated illiberal policies such as abolishing the Productivity Commission.

Labor will always be the party of egalitarianism. Too much inequality can tear the social fabric, threatening to cleave us one from another. A belief in equality is deeply rooted in Australian values, and underpins policies such as progressive income taxation, means-tested social spending, and a focus on the truly disadvantaged. This marks Labor apart from many in the Coalition, who maintain that inequality does not matter, that economic outcomes have more to do with effort than luck, and that government can do little to reduce poverty.

But in also taking on the mantle of social liberalism, Labor would be stating our commitment to open markets as the most effective way of generating wealth. Labor would be pledging ourselves to the belief — grounded in the reforms of Hawke and Keating — that tax cuts are preferable to middle-class welfare. In social policy, we would engage in more of what Franklin D. Roosevelt called "bold, persistent experimentation". We would be at least as concerned about the nation's low entrepreneurship rates as the decline of manufacturing. We would permanently reject impediments to international trade. And we would acknowledge the power of market-based mechanisms to address environmental challenges, from water buybacks in the Murray-Darling basin to a price on carbon pollution.

A commitment to social liberalism would also pledge Labor to an open and multicultural Australia. Listening to the first speeches of Labor members, I sometimes wonder what my party's founders would have made of the paeans to multiculturalism and migration that are common to almost all Labor maiden speeches in recent years. Many of Labor's founders regarded Asia's peoples as the biggest threat to their living standards. By contrast, social liberalism recognises that Australia benefits from immigration (including circular migration).

It also acknowledges that national growth isn't like the Olympic medal tally: prosperity in China, India and Indonesia will boost Australian living standards too.

The modern Liberal Party is not the party of liberalism. Instead, it is the creature of John Howard, and his intellectual heir Tony Abbott. It is, in the words Tim Fischer once used to describe his favourite High Court judges, a party of "capital-C conservatism". And that leaves social liberalism free for just one party: the ALP. It is time for Labor to grasp this mantle with both hands: becoming the party not just of egalitarianism, but also of liberalism.

Andrew Leigh is the federal member for Fraser, and a former professor of economics at the Australian National University.

In the Global Mail, I argue that Labor should combine both egalitarianism and social liberalism.

Labor’s Best Strategy: Become A Party For True Liberals
The Global Mail, August 27, 2012

The Liberal Party under John Howard and Tony Abbott has abandoned the mantle of social liberalism — and Labor should grasp it with both hands.

In December 2007, there were 445 Labor representatives in lower houses across federal, state and territory parliaments. Before the August 23 NT election, there were 305. In less than five years, 140 Labor parliamentarians — one in three — have lost office.

At the same time, Labor is shedding members. In the 1950s, more than one in 100 adults were ALP members — now it is less than one in 300. The trend is common to other Australian political parties, and to political parties around the globe. Across the developed world, mass parties are under threat.

Liberalism, Deakin said, meant a government that acted in the interests of the majority, with particular regard to the poorest in the community.

For the Australian Labor Party, one of the world's oldest progressive parties, a sense of realism about the challenge shouldn't diminish a sense of pride in our achievements. Significant migrant inflows and strong economic growth allow Australia to undertake reforms such as a price on carbon pollution and building a National Disability Insurance Scheme.

But we must also recognise that parties need to renew. For the Labor Party, I believe that our renewal may be drawn from an unlikely source: by becoming the party of egalitarianism and social liberalism. Liberalism means standing up for minority rights, and recognising that open markets are fundamental to boosting prosperity. To borrow a phrase from journalist George Megalogenis, Labor needs a commitment to markets and multiculturalism.

To recognise why Labor's future should include liberalism, it's first important to say something about Labor's past.

Exiled in the Polish town of Poronin in 1913, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin had plenty of time on his hands. Having already spent three years in a Siberian jail, he was biding his time until he was able to return to Russia. So the man who would soon serve as Russia's first Communist leader turned his attention to the antipodes.

Like many progressives around the world, Lenin was struck by the way the Australian Labor Party had swept into parliament. Just a few months after the party's formation in 1891, Labor won 36 out of 141 seats in the NSW Legislative Assembly. In 1899, Labor won government in Queensland (it lasted a week). In Australia's first national elections, Labor won 14 out of 75 seats in the House of Representatives. In 1903, Labor's share of the vote doubled. In 1904, Chris Watson became Labor's first Prime Minister. Other parties were struck by the strength of support for Labor, and by the energy and youth of its leaders.

And yet Lenin was puzzled. In 1913, he wrote:

"What sort of peculiar capitalist country is this, in which the workers' representatives predominate in the Upper House and, till recently, did so in the Lower House as well, and yet the capitalist system is in no danger? … The Australian Labor Party does not even call itself a socialist party. Actually it is a liberal-bourgeois party, while the so-called Liberals in Australia are really conservatives."

A century on, and Lenin's characterisation of Australia's two major parties stands up better than most of his ideas. Unlike many other commentators, Lenin discerned that Labor was not solely driven by a belief in egalitarianism. Even in its early decades, the ALP was also a party of social liberalism.

In my first speech to parliament, I argued that the Labor Party stands at the confluence of two powerful rivers in Australian politics. We believe in egalitarianism: that a child from Aurukun can become a High Court justice, and that a mine worker should get the same medical treatment as the mine owner. And we believe in liberalism: that governments have a role in protecting the rights of minorities, that freedom of speech applies as much to unpopular ideas as to popular ones, and that all of us stand equal beneath the Southern Cross. The modern Labor Party is the heir to the small-L liberal tradition in Australia. As my friend Macgregor Duncan likes to put it, "Labor is Australia's true liberal party".

Alfred Deakin was one of the earliest Australian leaders to make the distinction between liberals and conservatives. Deakin argued that liberalism meant the destruction of class privileges, equality of political rights without reference to creed, and equality of legal rights without reference to wealth. Liberalism, Deakin said, meant a government that acted in the interests of the majority, with particular regard to the poorest in the community.

Deakin's Australian version of liberalism drank deeply at the well of the British Liberal Party. In the late 19th century, Deakin's speeches frequently noted that the British Liberal Party was a positive force that sought to resist and overturn economic and class privileges throughout society. To Deakin, two of the British Liberals' greatest achievements were the legalisation of unions in 1871 and removal of 'religious disabilities' tests levelled against non-conformists and Roman Catholics.

As a member of Victoria's pre-Federation parliament, Deakin began sketching out the parameters of antipodean liberalism. Deakin was a great supporter of the Anti-Sweating League meetings, highlighting the exploitation of women's labour (or 'sweating') in that state's factories. He introduced into parliament the first factory act in Victoria, regulating hours and providing compensation for injury. And in his campaign for Federation, Deakin's vision and idealism helped the movement overcome setbacks and bypass the blockers.

On race and trade, Deakin's views were shaped by the time. He supported discriminatory migration policies and high tariff walls. Looking to the Asian region, he saw only danger. When I read back through Deakin's writings, I find myself thinking (perhaps naively) that if he had better understood the role that migration and trade could play in alleviating poverty, he might have been a Keatingesque internationalist. Given Deakin's extraordinary career, sparkling writing, and strong political philosophy, it's surprisingly easy to amputate his more illiberal views.

Labor will always be the party of egalitarianism. Too much inequality can tear the social fabric, threatening to cleave us one from another.

In the early years after Federation, it was conceivable that Deakin and his supporters might make common cause with the Labor Party. As Troy Bramston has pointed out, Deakin argued in 1903 that "more than half of [Labor's] members would be Liberal Protectionists". In 1906, he said that Labor and the Liberals were united on "seeking social justice", with the only difference being that Labor wanted reform to proceed "faster and further".

By contrast, Deakin regarded the Anti-Socialists and hard Conservatives as little more than wreckers brought together by their "attitude of denial and negation" to progressive reform.

When George Reid began to take his party down the anti-Socialist route in the 1906 election, Deakin said that his platform amounted to nothing more than a "necklace of negatives" (a line that echoes down the decades, even if it was a mite exaggerated).

In another speech, Deakin said the forces of conservatism were: "a party less easy to describe or define, because, as a rule it has no positive programme of its own, adopting instead an attitude of denial and negation. This mixed body, which may fairly be termed the party of anti-liberalism, justifies its existence, not by proposing its own solution of problems, but by politically blocking all proposals of a progressive character, and putting the brakes on those it cannot block."

But with the conservative-liberal 'Fusion' in 1909, Deakin's liberals finally made common cause with the conservatives. Much as he might have wanted to ally with the ALP, there was little appetite for such an alliance in Labor ranks. Moreover, Deakin felt uncomfortable with the tightly binding 'pledge' that Labor candidates were required to sign. The difference seems trivial in an era when all political parties require their parliamentary representatives to implement their party platforms.

If anyone needed proof that the scales of history could have tipped the other way, they need only have looked to UK politics after World War I, where the collapse of that country's Liberal Party led to a surge in electoral support for British Labour. Bramston calls Fusion in Australia "a marriage of convenience … in order to counter and challenge the rise of Labor".

Since its founding in 1944, the Liberal Party of Australia has regarded itself as the rightful heir to Australian liberalism. Addressing its inaugural meeting, Robert Menzies said "We took the name 'Liberal' because we were determined to be a progressive party, willing to make experiments, in no sense reactionary, but believing in the individual, his rights and enterprise, and rejecting the Socialist panacea."

According to Senator George Brandis, Menzies never once used the word 'conservative' to describe his party. In 1960, Friedrich Hayek wrote his famous essay Why I Am Not a Conservative. At the time, most in the Liberal Party would have agreed with him.

Yet under the leadership of John Howard, liberalism ceased to be the raison d'etre of the Liberal Party. Instead, Howard argued that the Liberal Party was the custodian of two traditions: "It is the custodian of the Conservative tradition in Australian politics. It is also the custodian of the progressive Liberal tradition in the Australian polity". Howard, who had once said, "I am the most conservative leader the Liberal Party has ever had", was breaking with his party's liberal past. As George Brandis has noted: "Alfred Deakin, Robert Menzies, Harold Holt, John Gorton, Malcolm Fraser were all happy to describe themselves simply as liberals. Howard was the first who did not see himself, and was uncomfortable to be seen, purely in the liberal tradition."

Current Liberal leader Tony Abbott has taken the Liberal Party further down the conservative road, writing in Battlelines: "'Liberal National' might actually be a better description of the party's overall orientation than simply 'Liberal'."

By 2010, Abbott had further watered down liberalism, nominating three instincts that animated the Liberal Party: "liberal, conservative and patriotic". It was a special irony that Abbott chose the Deakin Lecture as the venue to declare that liberalism's stake in the Liberal Party had been diluted from 100 per cent to 33 per cent.

What is occurring today is the undoing of the Fusion movement — the divorce of liberals and conservatives. Small-L liberals like George Brandis and Malcolm Turnbull are distinctly in the minority. Ironically, the Liberal Party's "Modest Members" are anything but self-effacing, with its representatives expressing views that often bear little resemblance to the open-market ideas of Bert Kelly in the 1970s. It is little surprise that genuine liberals like Malcolm Fraser and John Hewson spend more time criticising than praising the party they once led.

A century on from the conservative-liberal fusion, Deakinite liberalism is back on the auction block. Increasingly, the Liberal Party is defined by what it stands against, rather than what it stands for. The spirit of progressive liberalism —described by Deakin as "liberal always, radical often, and reactionary never" — is in need of a new custodian.

Labor has always contained a liberal strain — partly indebted to Chartist and Fabian traditions, but also influenced by the type of social liberalism that Deakin and his followers advocated in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This fact was not lost on astute foreign observers, such as Lenin. Australian philosopher Tim Soutphommasane argues that the social democracy of Anthony Crosland and H.C. Coombs owed more to liberalism than Marxism, summing up a review with the words, "we are all liberals now, comrade".

Throughout the 20th century, social liberalism joined together many of Labor's achievements. Broad-based income taxation under Curtin. A Race Discrimination Act under Whitlam. Trade liberalisation and a floating dollar under Hawke. Enterprise bargaining and native title under Keating. Removal of much of the explicit discrimination against same-sex couples under Rudd. Carbon pricing and disability reform under Gillard. Whether through support for individual liberties or the belief in open markets, social liberalism has a prominent place in the story of the Australian Labor Party.

And yet Labor's future is still up for grabs. The debate over the future of the British Labour Party has seen many reject the economically-liberal reforms of the Blair years. Labour leader Ed Miliband has engaged parliamentarian Jon Cruddas to conduct the party's policy review. Cruddas writes beautifully about his party's proud traditions. He also points out the vacuity of polling gurus like Philip Gould — whose caricatures of "Mondeo Man" and "Worcester Woman" drew more from advertising agencies than political philosophy.

But Cruddas also throws away too much that is valuable. In his yearning for Labour to reconnect with Britain's romantic and patriotic traditions, he is too ready to discard market economics and social liberalism. I fear that British Labour is making the same mistakes Kim Beazley's opposition made in the late 1990s, when the ALP distanced itself from many of the economic reforms of Hawke and Keating, and advocated illiberal policies such as abolishing the Productivity Commission.

Labor will always be the party of egalitarianism. Too much inequality can tear the social fabric, threatening to cleave us one from another. A belief in equality is deeply rooted in Australian values, and underpins policies such as progressive income taxation, means-tested social spending, and a focus on the truly disadvantaged. This marks Labor apart from many in the Coalition, who maintain that inequality does not matter, that economic outcomes have more to do with effort than luck, and that government can do little to reduce poverty.

The modern Liberal Party is not the party of liberalism. Instead, it is the creature of John Howard, and his intellectual heir Tony Abbott.

But in also taking on the mantle of social liberalism, Labor would be stating our commitment to open markets as the most effective way of generating wealth. Labor would be pledging ourselves to the belief — grounded in the reforms of Hawke and Keating — that tax cuts are preferable to middle-class welfare. In social policy, we would engage in more of what Franklin D. Roosevelt called "bold, persistent experimentation". We would be at least as concerned about the nation's low entrepreneurship rates as the decline of manufacturing. We would permanently reject impediments to international trade. And we would acknowledge the power of market-based mechanisms to address environmental challenges, from water buybacks in the Murray-Darling basin to a price on carbon pollution.

A commitment to social liberalism would also pledge Labor to an open and multicultural Australia. Listening to the first speeches of Labor members, I sometimes wonder what my party's founders would have made of the paeans to multiculturalism and migration that are common to almost all Labor maiden speeches in recent years. Many of Labor's founders regarded Asia's peoples as the biggest threat to their living standards. By contrast, social liberalism recognises that Australia benefits from immigration (including circular migration).

It also acknowledges that national growth isn't like the Olympic medal tally: prosperity in China, India and Indonesia will boost Australian living standards too.

The modern Liberal Party is not the party of liberalism. Instead, it is the creature of John Howard, and his intellectual heir Tony Abbott. It is, in the words Tim Fischer once used to describe his favourite High Court judges, a party of "capital-C conservatism". And that leaves social liberalism free for just one party: the ALP. It is time for Labor to grasp this mantle with both hands: becoming the party not just of egalitarianism, but also of liberalism.

Andrew Leigh is the federal member for Fraser, and a former professor of economics at the Australian National University.

I spoke in parliament about privacy reforms, and their tie-in with Labor's tradition of consumer protection.

Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Bill, 23 August 2012

Personal information is becoming more sensitive and valuable in the expanding online world. Protecting the privacy of personal information is a real concern for consumers and business. On one estimate, identity theft and fraud affects half a million Australians every year. In 2007, my friend Joshua Gans wrote in his blog about his own experience of identity theft. He wrote that somebody had obtained his details using his birthdate, which was available on his CV. They then obtained a Medicare card and began to open bank accounts in his name. He discovered later that he was among the victims of a large scamming operation which has since been shut down by the authorities. He was pretty shocked by the experience. Joshua's experience shows the importance of privacy protection and why we need strong legislative protection of personal information.

The Labor Party has a tradition of consumer protection, and it is in this tradition that we are strong believers in protecting privacy. We understand that to protect individual freedoms, you need appropriate privacy laws. Consumers deserve protection from the disclosure of credit-reporting information and its use in direct marketing. Businesses will benefit from a credit-reporting system that is accurate and up to date. In this bill we are striking a balance between the needs of consumers and businesses to operate and adequate protections of the disclosure of personal information and credit reporting.

It was the Labor Party which, in 1990, introduced credit reporting. The Privacy Amendment Act  was directed at the activities of credit-reporting agencies. A number of other bodies, such as consumer groups, have expressed concern about the potential for breaches of privacy by the users of the agencies and about the inaccuracy of some of the information held by agencies. This inaccuracy has usually resulted from incorrect information being passed to the agency or from a failure to update information under such circumstances—for example, when a person has subsequently paid a debt on which they had previously defaulted.

Labor is committed to containing the growing level of unmanageable personal debt, and we want to make sure that credit providers have access to a wider range of information about an individual's financial situation. Credit providers themselves are an important check on individuals taking on unmanageable debt. So, in reforming credit reporting, we introduced requirements that records be kept of inquiries made by credit providers for payments that are overdue by at least 90 days. We limited the maximum period for which information can be kept to no more than seven years. We empowered credit consumers by enabling a person to request that their information be altered if they disagree with the information held by a credit-reporting agency.

This government also introduced the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009, which implemented a new consumer credit regulation framework to replace the state based regulatory framework known as the Uniform Consumer Credit Code. That reform addressed the problems that emerged with the operation of the Uniform Consumer Credit Code to guarantee consistency among jurisdictions. We knew that there were risks associated with the continued lack of comprehensive government supervision of finance-broking practices, and that is why we took action to protect consumers from onerous mortgages.

The Law Reform Commission's 2008 report For Your Information: Australian Privacy Law and Practice informs the measures proposed in this bill. The report argued:

‘As a recognised human right, privacy protection generally should take precedence over a range of other countervailing interests, such as cost and convenience.’

It noted that rapid advances in information, communication and surveillance technologies have created a range of previously unforeseen privacy issues. It also noted that regional political and economic blocs, such as the EU and APEC, have created pressure for Australia's privacy protection regime to align with those of Australia's key trading partners.

The Australian retail industry has noted the rapid rise of online shopping. According to Australian Bureau of Statistics data, in 2008-09 just under two-thirds of Australian adults had used the internet to purchase goods and services in the previous 12 months. The wife of one of my staff has said that, when she wants to buy new clothes for her baby daughter, she does it through Etsy. Etsy is a perfect example of the interconnectedness brought about by online retailing. Dresses from the United States, toys from Italy and hairclips from Turkey can all be purchased online—and, of course, online retailers are holding email addresses, credit card details and other personal information.

While it is terrific to be able to have access to a wider range of goods—and a wider range of goods is as important a benefit of trade as lower prices—it is also important to make sure that we manage the risks regarding the protection of private information. The Australian Crime Commission have described identity theft as one of the fastest growing crimes in Australia. They highlight how identity crime causes financial damage to consumers, lending institutions, retail establishments and the economy as a whole because of the confidence-sapping effect of identity crime and the tendency for victims to then cease engaging in online transactions.

Identity crime fuels other criminal activities. Criminals will sometimes use identity crime, for example, in order to rent a car to carry out another offence. It erodes the trust consumers have in service providers. It causes emotional distress for victims. Someone ultimately has to foot the bill, whether that is a business or an individual. It can even threaten the safety of people who have had their data exposed. We have seen some of these instances in the world of online socialising.

The sophistication and speed with which hackers can breach online security systems is, frankly, breathtaking. Here is a story from Wired magazine demonstrating how easily and quickly this was done to Mat Honan through breaching Amazon and Apple security systems. He related how in the space of just an hour his 'digital life' was destroyed. Here is his chronology:

‘At 5:02 p.m., they reset my Twitter password. At 5:00 they used iCloud’s “Find My” tool to remotely wipe my iPhone. At 5:01 they remotely wiped my iPad. At 5:05 they remotely wiped my MacBook. Around this same time, they deleted my Google account. At 5:10, I placed the call to AppleCare. At 5:12 the attackers posted a message to my account on Twitter taking credit for the hack. ’All of that happened in the space of 12 minutes. When we are up against hackers like that, it is critical that the law adapts as well, that we enhance the protections around the collection, storage, security and use of personal information in today's digital world.

With so many Australians conducting business online, dealing with identity theft through the internet and cybercrime are substantial concerns for this government and law enforcement agencies. On an online forum I found one story about somebody who had been a victim of internet identity theft. Told anonymously, it read as follows:

‘Not too long ago, I made a disturbing discovery. I received a statement in the mail for a department store credit card that I hadn’t authorized, and noticed a shipping address that was not my own. My name was listed on the bill, and my home address was recorded as the billing address – but the shipping address was for a location in an entirely different state.

‘I immediately called the credit card company to find out what was happening, thinking there must be some kind of mistake. I was connected with a helpful customer service representative who was able to quickly determine that I was a victim of fraud. Thankfully, she believed me when I insisted I had not authorized this card to be opened.

‘Once the customer service representative had notified her company’s fraud department, I asked if she might be able to give me any further information. She was very helpful and gave me the name of the person who had opened the account.

‘After hanging up with the credit card company, I immediately did a quick Internet search. Having the name of the women who opened the account, and knowing the state where the products were sent made my search rather easy. Soon I was able to locate a telephone number for the person who had opened this credit card in my name, without my permission.

‘I dialed the number and was a little surprised to hear an older woman’s voice on the phone. She was clearly unnerved when I told her my name and asked why she had opened an account using my identity. Out spilled her story of meeting a man with my name in an Internet chat room.

‘Nervously she shared how he had convinced her to open a few credit card accounts on his behalf. He gave her the necessary information and directed her to make store credit purchases at a major department store, a clothing store, and a toy store. I was a bit alarmed – the major department store was not the only place where an unauthorized credit card had been issued.

‘The woman continued to tell me that the impostor had convinced her he wasn’t able to purchase products from the United States on his own and needed her help. He told her she would be doing him a big favor if she would order items on his behalf, and have them sent to her address. Then, she was directed to ship the items to him at an address outside the country.

…   …   …

‘It did take a few weeks and some follow-up phone calls for the matter to be completely resolved with all the stores. However, it took longer to shake the feeling of being violated. It was unnerving to know that someone else had used my name and information to open a line of credit without my knowledge. It could happen again, and it could happen to anyone.’

And it does.

The extent and severity of identity theft and fraud in Australia are difficult to pinpoint, but one estimate from the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre found identity fraud costs $1 billion every year. That estimate is from 2003, so the cost is almost certainly higher now. The ABS conducted a personal fraud survey, as I noted earlier, and estimated about half a million victims of identity fraud over the prior 12 months.

We are tightening the rules on sending personal information outside Australia. Before an agency or organisation discloses personal information to an overseas recipient, it will have to take reasonable steps to make sure the recipient does not breach the Australian Privacy Principles. Under the reforms in the bill, the agency or organisation will remain responsible for the personal information even when it is in the hands of the overseas recipient. The security of personal information will be the responsibility of the overseas recipient only in limited circumstances.

This bill is part of the government's response to the For your information report. It introduces three key reforms to the Privacy Act 1988: new unified Australian Privacy Principles that will apply equally to the private and public sectors; more comprehensive credit reporting that will include positive information in consumers' credit reports; and new powers for the Australian Privacy Commissioner to handle complaints and give remedies to consumers. These three reforms will deal with the handling of personal information and include provisions for the collection, storage, security, use, disclosure and accuracy of information.

A new principle will give more power to consumers to opt out of receiving direct marketing materials—an issue that I know, Deputy Speaker Georganas, is close to your heart with your strong advocacy for a 'do not knock' register. This reform more tightly regulates the use of personal information for direct marketing. Companies will have to provide a clear and simple way of opting out. The reforms to consumer credit reporting, as I said earlier, sit very much in a Labor tradition.

These are reforms that will benefit consumers and benefit businesses. By minimising identity fraud and maximising confidence in online trading, we will ensure that Australians are able to continue socialising online and communicating with businesses with confidence that the laws that underpin their dealings are advancing as the technology of hackers moves on. We are providing new powers to enable the Australian Privacy Commissioner to accept enforceable undertakings and, if warranted, to pursue civil penalties for a serious breach of privacy. We understand that individual freedoms require the protection of well-made laws, and that is in the great Labor tradition of protecting private information and standing up on the side of consumers. I commend the bill to the House.

I spoke in parliament this week about electoral reform.

Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Improving Electoral Procedure) Bill, 22 August 2012

When I last spoke in the parliament supporting electoral reform, I noted my genuine delight in welcoming new Fraser residents onto the electoral roll. I spoke of how each month it is my pleasure to send enrolment forms and letters to potential and newly enrolled electors. But if we are to ensure we increase democratic participation we must also make it easier to vote. For the Labor Party, franchise and participation have always been important. Having as many votes as possible count in the next federal election matters to me and that is why this bill is important.

Since the introduction of compulsory voting in 1924, Australian citizens have had a responsibility to elect their state and federal representatives. Voting powerfully symbolises what it is to be part of the democratic process. While the majority of voters still cast their vote in person at a polling booth, more and more are choosing to cast a postal vote. That means we need to make it easier to apply for and process postal votes. In the 2010 election there were over 800,000 postal votes cast. That is in comparison with around 700,000 in 2007; 600,000 in 2004; and about 100,000 in 2001. The same trend can be seen in my electorate of Fraser. The number of postal votes increased by almost 60 per cent since the 2001 election from 3,293 in 2001 to 5,176 in 2010. As more people choose the option of postal voting, we need a more effective and efficient system for processing postal votes. We need to make sure that postal voting is a more accessible option and has minimal hassle while ensuring the safeguards that are critical in the electoral process.

The progressive side of politics has a long history of wanting to expand the franchise to ensure as many people as possible can vote and that voting is as straightforward as possible. In his book Australia's Democracy: a Short History, John Hirst wrote, 'In 1850 Australia did not look like a country that would rapidly become democratic.' He notes that there was a small band of dedicated democrats who called for a widening of the franchise—albeit that they were then looking at male franchise. He notes that in the space of just six years, 1850 to 1856, the share of adult males in Sydney who could vote rose from 34 per cent to 95 per cent. So in this six-year period in the middle of the 19th century we saw the franchise go from just a third of men to essentially all men.

Amusingly, Hirst then relates William Wentworth's reaction to the widening of the male franchise. A member of the New South Wales parliament, Wentworth was a conservative landowner who, along with his friends, was appalled at the success of democrats in expanding the franchise. When he ran for the seat of Sydney after a new rule had been introduced where you needed £10 of property to vote, Hirst writes: ‘he boldly told the new ten pound that he would never have given them the vote’. He only just scraped in. There were three members elected for Sydney and he came third.

The conservative aversion to expanding the franchise in the 19th century is something that we have sadly seen at other moments in history. We saw it with the Eureka Stockade, a powerful movement to which the expansion of electoral rights was central—the fight for the democratic principle of having parliament be representative of the people. And while the miners may have lost the fight on 3 December 1854, they continued to fight for the expansion of the franchise. In 1856 the Victorian parliament mandated white male suffrage. Peter Lalor went on to become the first member of the Legislative Council for the seat of Ballarat in 1855.

Thanks to those efforts, Australia led the world in expanding the franchise. Women received the vote in in Australia from 1902. Indigenous Australians gained the unqualified right to vote in federal elections in 1962. Queensland was the last jurisdiction to permit equal Indigenous voting rights in 1965.

This bill sits in that proud tradition of expanding the franchise and making it easier to vote. It amends the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 and the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Act 1984 to facilitate online applications and ensure that the Electoral Commissioner may use an automated system to receive and process applications for postal votes. In my last speech on electoral reform, I spoke about improving voter participation through making it easier to be on the electoral roll. This bill takes increasing voter participation another step forward. It will ensure that the Australian Electoral Commission can use automated systems to deal with applications for postal voting as quickly as possible.

The amendments have been written not just to take account of present technology but to allow for future technological changes. Complementary amendments increase the number of nominators for an unendorsed candidate from 50 to 100 electors. There is no change to the law with respect to endorsed candidates. This amendment seeks to strike the right balance between providing the opportunity for all eligible citizens to stand for parliament while at the same time putting in place some reasonable thresholds that candidates must meet.

And that is in order to deal with the practical issues of conducting elections. As we have seen, particularly in the New South Wales upper house, if candidate numbers are unchecked then printing the New South Wales Legislative Council ballot paper in a reasonable font size is going to become a real issue. In its submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, the Australian Electoral Commission noted that the 2010 New South Wales upper house ballot paper was 1,020mm wide, listing some 84 candidates. It was that size because that was the widest ballot paper the printers could manage to cut. To fit all the candidates, the font was reduced to a size that many voters found difficult to read. In one case, a candidate's surname was split over two lines.

Ultimately when you have ballot papers that are a metre across, and candidates listed in a tiny font, you end up increasing the informal voting rate. That additional complexity acts as a hurdle and ends up making it more difficult for the opinions of the electorate to be given practical effect in the parliament. So this measure puts in place reasonable requirements that a candidate must meet, and that strikes the right balance between allowing citizens to stand for parliament and minimising the complexity.

Labor believes that everyone who is eligible to vote should vote and have their vote count. If we do not have high voter participation then we are not truly representative of our electorate. That progressive tradition of supporting democratic participation is a foundational Labor value.

My electorate of Fraser was at the last election the second most populous electorate in Australia—and it is now either the most populous or the second most populous electorate. Some 94 per cent of enrolled voters in Fraser cast a ballot in 2010. But I want that number to be higher. I want to make it easier to register and lodge a postal vote in order to make sure that every voter in Fraser has the opportunity to have their voice heard–—whether that is for me or for one of my opponents, I want them to participate in the democratic process.

My electorate has a significant proportion of residents who are younger than the national average. That is a result of the many young people who move to Canberra to study at one of the great universities here—whether that is ACU, UNSW@ADFA, the University of Canberra or the Australian National University—or to work in the Australian Public Service. The changes in this bill will make voting easier for younger voters who want to be able to cast a postal vote online. A recent intern in my office, Rebecca Mann, said the suite of electoral reforms we have introduced will make it easier for her. She also pointed out that she may well be in the middle of exams when the next election comes around, and this will make it easier for her to get onto the electoral roll without stress. I would like to thank Rebecca for her work in preparing this speech and I would also like to thank Kyneton Morris, another intern in my office, for his research and comments.

Labor wants to ensure that every Australian has a say in their future and the future of their country. In June 2010 the Leader of the Opposition attempted to block legislation that would make it easier for Australians to vote by lowering the provisional age at which young Australians can register to vote. In response to this, the Member for Eden-Monaro stated:

‘I think that Tony Abbott needs to explain to the Australian people why he does not want to make it easy for them to enrol and vote in the forthcoming election.’

The Labor Party is committed to ensuring that everyone who is eligible has a say in our nation's future. For us democracy is about inclusion and having every Australian represented. We want to make sure we protect and enhance the right of Australians to put their mark on the ballot paper. We want to make it more convenient to vote and make sure that more Australians can have their voice heard.

We want all eligible voters to take their part in the 2013 election, because that will be an important election in deciding the future direction of this nation. We want to facilitate online applications, ensure that the Electoral Commissioner can use an automated system to receive and process applications for postal votes in a timely manner. We want to expand access to elections and expand the number of voices that are heard in this great democracy that I am proud to be a representative of. I commend the bill to the House.

See also my previous speech on electoral reform, which discusses similar themes.

I spoke in parliament this week about the MySuper reforms, using the insights of behavioural economics to make defaults better.

Superannuation Legislation Amendment (MySuper Core Provisions) Bill, 22 August 2012

Retiring with dignity after a lifetime's effort and contribution should not be a luxury for a few. Thanks to successive Labor governments and their vision for the future to introduce, enhance and defend the Superannuation Guarantee for all Australian workers, retiring with dignity is a right for Australians. Addressing the Australian Graduate School of Management in 1991, Paul Keating said of the Superannuation Guarantee:

‘It will make Australia a more equal place, a more egalitarian place and hence a more cohesive and happier place.’

Prime Minister Keating said it was the safety net most Australians would need when they retire.

The Labor tradition of looking after Australians’ retirement savings continued at the 2010 election. At that election our government made a commitment to introduce a simple cost-effective superannuation product to replace existing default superannuation products. That flowed out of the Cooper Review and the choice architecture framework in the Cooper Review. The Cooper Review was commissioned by Senator Nick Sherry, one of the greatest champions of superannuation that the parliament has ever known, on 29 May 2009 when he was then the Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law. The review, chaired by Jeremy Cooper, noted that all members want to make choices about their superannuation. It noted that the current assumptions that underpin the superannuation system are that all members want make choices about their superannuation and all members are interested in receiving a variety of superannuation services.

But the report noted that that was not always the case. It recommended that the government introduce a new, simple low-cost default superannuation product called MySuper for those who have chosen not to have direct engagement in their superannuation decision making. The philosophy in the early 1990s was that everyone would choose the best fund and choose the best plan within that fund. But behavioural economics has taught us that that is not always the way that people approach decision making. Most people take the default fund and the default plan.

So the focus of MySuper needed to be to make sure that defaults were good plans. By having lower fees and more efficiency, we maximise members' savings. On one estimate, the movement to MySuper products with lower fees can be the equivalent of an extra one per cent of earnings going into superannuation—that is, the philosophy of MySuper underpinned by behavioural economics. Behavioural economics has come strongly into the public policy world thanks in part to the terrific book Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. They came up with a concept they called 'libertarian paternalism' which is based on the notion that, as Milton Friedman said, people should be free to choose. Thaler and Sunstein like to say that libertarian paternalists want to make it easy for people to go their own way.

MySuper takes away no-one's freedom. What it does is recognise that in busy lives people are often attracted to default. As the Cooper Review noted, libertarian paternalism is: ‘the idea that the outcomes experienced by inert or disengaged consumers should have inbuilt settings that most closely suit those consumers' objective needs, as assessed by the expert providers of the product or service in question’. It went on to say, importantly:

‘This does not amount to a centrally determined boilerplate option for everyone, as it must at all times have regard to the collective characteristics of the particular consumers affected, any of whom can at any time opt out if they want to take more control for themselves.’

That is the philosophy: high quality defaults but choice if you want to exercise it.

A report by the Industry Super Network called Supernomics also focused on some of the new insights flowing out of behavioural economics. That report noted that only around three per cent of members switch fund every year. It noted that the majority of superannuation consumers are passive consumers, and indeed that most members who were either not aware that they had a choice or did not exercise a choice could end up being at a disadvantage. It noted the reasons for this passivity. There is myopia—a sense of focusing on the present, not on the benefits of retirement savings that will be felt in decades to come. The problem with this is that if young workers are myopic then they are making the wrong choices at the time it matters the most. Making a bad investment choice when you are at the beginning of your career means that you miss out on benefits that will continue to accumulate later.

The Supernomics report also referred to risk aversion, a shying away by young workers from investment choices, such as shares, that have a high risk but a higher long-term return. Research indicates that people place greater weight on avoiding losses than on achieving equivalents gains. We saw that, sadly, during the global financial crisis when — at the bottom of the market — a substantial number of superannuation switchers moved from shares into cash. That meant, of course, that they locked in their losses. There is a reluctance to switch funds, even when fund switching could benefit workers in the long term.

The Cooper review noted that members who got the default superannuation option in their fund did not have adequate protection from underperformance. They could be paying for services they did not need, did not request or did not receive. The Cooper review also noted that trustees of superannuation funds were not always focused on maximising members' retirement incomes in an efficient and cost-effective way. I commend those who worked on the super review, including Treasury executive director David Gruen—who, as it turns out, is the brother of Nicholas Gruen, possibly Australia's most passionate behavioural economist.

The solution that came out of the MySuper report is a single diversified investment strategy. It can be a life-cycle approach. Life-cycle investing is the notion that investment products should be riskier at the early stage and then move towards less volatile products as the person approaches retirement. MySuper emphasises that defaults ought to be simple and that consumers ought to be able to compare on the basis of the fees that a fund charges.

For employees who have not made a choice of fund, superannuation accumulation will be paid into MySuper. But we are not taking away choice. All members will have access to the same options, benefits and facilities. For a super fund to be named in an award, it must offer a MySuper product that is reviewed by Fair Work Australia. Funds can tailor MySuper products to employers with over 500 employees to meet the needs of their particular workplace. MySuper trustees must articulate the targeted rate of return over a rolling 10-year period, with the level of risk determined appropriate for its MySuper members. Fees are limited to the following: an administration fee; an investment fee, including a performance based fee; another exit fee, which must be limited to cost recovery; buy and sell spreads, again limited to cost recovery; and a switching fee, also limited to cost recovery. All the fees charged for a MySuper product must be able to be included under those standard descriptions. That will help members, employers and market analysts make direct comparisons—apples with apples—of MySuper products based on the actual fees paid.

The bill requires that in any performance based fee arrangement with a fund manager in respect to assets of the MySuper product, trustees have to include measurement of performance on an after-tax basis, a reduced base fee that reflects the potential gains the investment manager receives from performance based fees, and provisions for the adjustment of the performance based fee to recoup underperformance.

Trustees wanting to offer a MySuper product will be required to hold a specific licence issued by APRA. All APRA regulated funds will be required to offer life and total and permanent disability cover on an opt-out basis, and would consult on implementation. Trustees must at a minimum allow members to opt-out of life and total and permanent disability insurance within 90 days of the member joining a fund, or on each anniversary of the member joining the fund. That is important because we do know of instances in which members are being both under-insured and on occasion over-insured, by being defaulted into insurance options that they would not choose if they were not the default products. Members must be able to increase or decrease their insurance cover without having to leave MySuper product. In this sense we have unbundled the insurance and retirement adequacy components of superannuation, ensuring that individuals can make a choice of the right investment strategies and the right insurance options for them.

Those opposite, as has traditionally been the case, have taken a raft of different positions on superannuation. When Labor introduced universal superannuation in the early 1990, the opposition said it would be a bust to business. It said that businesses would never be able to sustain the cost of superannuation. That was wrong then and the coalition's opposition to superannuation is again wrong now.

The history of superannuation is that Labor universalises it and the coalition are unwilling to extend those increases. In 1996 we saw the Howard government block the planned increase of the superannuation contributions. On 23 March 2012 we saw the Leader of the Opposition say, 'Well, we strongly oppose the superannuation increase. We have always as a coalition been against compulsory superannuation increases.' The Leader of the Opposition now appears to be saying that if the coalition were to come to office they would continue the increases in superannuation. It is quite unclear what those opposite think about superannuation. But they ought to think first and foremost about the interests of retirement adequacy for Australians. Those opposite, as is the case for all members of this place elected after 2004, receive 15 per cent superannuation contributions. So, 15 per cent is appropriate for them, but somehow they believe that for their constituents nine per cent will do. We do not believe that. We believe that 12 per cent of earnings ought to be the bare minimum that Australians put into superannuation, because that is appropriate to maintain retirement adequacy.

In his opposition to compulsory superannuation, the Leader of the Opposition faces the challenge that he intends to repeal the mining tax, which funds the increase in compulsory superannuation. Yes, superannuation comes from earnings, but because it is taxed concessionally each additional percentage point of universal superannuation costs the government about a billion dollars. So, increasing compulsory superannuation does have a budgetary impact through forgone taxation, and those opposite are going to have to identify where the money is coming from if they support the increase from nine to 12 per cent, as they should.

We on this side of the House are proud to be the party of superannuation. We are proud to be the party that will see the superannuation system grow to $6 trillion by 2035. And in these reforms we are recognising the new insights in behavioural economics, which demonstrate that defaults must be great because most Australians do not spend a great deal of time focusing on their choice of fund and their choice of investment strategy.

We need higher superannuation contribution rates, from nine to 12 per cent, but, complementing that, we need a MySuper product, flowing from the work of the Cooper review, that ensures Australians get the best deal, have the lowest fees and the highest returns, because that is how we will ensure a dignified retirement.

Today, Gai Brodtmann and I held an NDIS forum at the Griffin Centre with Parliamentary Secretary Jan McLucas. Jan had three 'asks' of attendees: sign up at www.everyaustraliancounts.com.au, join the conversation at www.ndis.gov.au, and talk with your friends about the NDIS.

On ABC 666 Pollie Panel, I spoke with presenter Ross Solly and Liberal Senator Gary Humphries about muckraking in politics and the half-billion of planned investment in the resource sector. Podcast here.

I recently did a survey on increasing Australia's humanitarian intake. The response was overwhelmingly in favour of Australia lifting the number of refugees we take, with 82% supporting an increase.

For responses from my electorate of Fraser (taken from postcodes supplied), this was even more encouraging with 86% in favour.

Canberrans might be interested to know the geographic breakdown of the responses. 90% of respondents from the Inner North were in favour of an increase, with 88% in Gungahlin and 80% in Belconnen / West Belconnen. There were 327 total respondents with 211 providing postcodes in the Fraser electorate.

For responses either from outside my electorate or not supplying a postcode, 76% supported an increase.

I was pleased to see today that the Prime Minister and Minister for Immigration and Citizenship announced that Australia will accept 20 000 refugees each year and that we’re accepting 400 refugees from Indonesia immediately.

I am now a Welcome to Australia ambassador and look forward to welcoming more refugees to my electorate and to Australia each year.

My colleague, Member for Canberra Gai Brodtmann, and I are hosting Senator the Hon Jan McLucas, Parliamentary Secretary for Disability and Carers, tomorrow afternoon to talk about a National Disability Insurance Scheme.

The forum is at the Griffin Centre in Canberra City between 2pm and 4pm. Tea and coffee will be provided.

The forum is open to the general public, so if you wanted to find out more about what a National Disability Insurance Scheme might look like, I encourage you to come along.

Please RSVP to me by 12 noon tomorrow on Andrew.Leigh.MP {at} aph.gov.au