Andrew Leigh

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TV INTERVIEW
AFTERNOON BRIEFING WITH GREG JENNETT  
WEDNESDAY, 17 MAY 2023

SUBJECTS: PwC scandal, deductible gift recipient listings, Stage 3 tax cuts, Housing Australia Future Fund

GREG JENNETT (HOST): Andrew Leigh, thanks for coming back on the programme. Why don't we start out around multinational taxation? Because it does seem with each and every further investigation by the Parliament, the PwC scandal only grows. For those who aren't familiar peddling ill-gotten information and profiting from it, AusTender shows that PwC still has on foot, millions of dollars worth of contracts. Will they pay a price with this government, financially, I mean, because of this sorry episode?

ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR COMPETITION, CHARITIES AND TREASURY ANDREW LEIGH: Well, the first thing to say, Greg, is this was an appalling, shocking breach of trust by PwC. To effectively take this insider information and to use it to peddle a scheme for their clients is utterly outrageous. And I think the reaction you've seen across the community reflects that. I'm glad they set up an inquiry with Ziggy Switzkowski. I'd urge them to fully release the results of that inquiry. In terms of what it means for PwC's tenders, Katy Gallagher, as Finance Minister, has asked for a review of the conditions under which tenderers are selected and whether such a code of conduct should go to behaviour of this kind.

The Albanese government will provide a Measuring What Matters Statement to mark Australia's progress on important social, financial and environmental criteria. 

Traditional economic indicators provide important insights, but not a complete picture of wellbeing. We're introducing a Measuring What Matters Statement to help us assess our national progress on a broad range of social and environmental indicators, alongside traditional measures of economic strength.

Economic measures such as GDP play an important role but they are not the only things that matter. They won't tell us, for example, whether certain groups are getting a fair share of national opportunities and prosperity. Including a broader set of measures of economic wellbeing will help us focus on factors that are important to community cohesion and longer-term prosperity.

Because we want these measures to reflect what matters to you, we want you to be involved in our public consultations about measuring what matters.

Our online Measuring What Matters virtual townhall meetings will be convenient and interactive. Sign up for either of the two sessions at the links below.

• Wednesday 24 May | 6.00 pm - 7.00 pm (AEST) | Register HERE
• Friday 26 May | 10.30 am - 11.30 am (AEST) | Register HERE

Joint media release with
The Hon Amanda Rishworth
Minister for Social Services

GETTING MORE YOUNG PEOPLE BACK INTO VOLUNTEERING

The Albanese Labor Government is investing in the future of the volunteering sector with a funding boost designed to connect 5000 young people with volunteering organisations across the country.

This National Volunteering Week, a total of $1 million in additional funding will be given to Communiteer this financial year with the task of building the number of youth in volunteering roles.

Research shows that young people who engage in volunteering prior to entering the workforce are more likely to have a lifelong connection to volunteering.

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RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC CANBERRA WITH ADAM SHIRLEY  
MONDAY, 15 MAY 2023

SUBJECTS: Diversity in the public service

ADAM SHIRLEY (HOST): Dr Andrew Leigh is the Assistant Minister federally for Competition, Charities and Treasury. Dr Leigh, sounds like you’re going to lose someone – at least one person – who’s texted in this morning because they’ve had it with the culture. How much does that concern you?

ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR COMPETITION, CHARITIES AND TREASURY ANDREW LEIGH: It certainly concerns me, Adam. We need to make sure that the public service is a model employer that attracts and retains great people. It’s one of the principles of the APS reform agenda that we’ve got in place. We want an APS that embodies integrity in everything that it does. And just as when the Commonwealth walks into a court room it aims to be a model litigant, so, too, when it’s dealing with employees it needs to be a model employer.

Discrimination must be eliminated from the public service

Canberra Times, 15 May 2023

Every day, Centrelink staff help people who are down on their luck, CSIRO staff research cutting-edge science, and cyber security experts assess potential threats. Anyone who's worked closely with Australian public servants know how dedicated, hardworking and thoughtful they are.

Yet despite the many strengths of the public service, it can still do better, and one area that it can improve is diversity.

In a recent analysis, economists Robert Breunig, David Hansell and Nu Nu Win studied promotion prospects across the Australian public service. Their data source is extraordinarily detailed, comprising essentially every public servant over a twenty-year period, from 2001 to 2020. With more than 100,000 public servants in each year, the dataset runs into millions of observations.

EMPOWERING CONSUMERS AND SMALL BUSINESSES THROUGH A DESIGNATED COMPLAINTS FUNCTION

As part of the Albanese Government’s Better Competition election commitment, consumer and small business advocates will be empowered to raise systemic complaints within the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) from July 2024. 

Currently there is no formal mechanism for consumer or small business advocacy groups to lodge complaints, to which the ACCC is obligated to respond. 

The Designated Complaints function will enable consumer and small business advocacy groups to submit a complaint to the ACCC where they have strong evidence of systemic market issues under the consumer law.

Condolence Motion Allan Gyngell
House of Representatives, 11 May 2023

Allan Gyngell was one of Australia's greatest public servants. He was happy to be a member of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's famous class of 1969, alongside Sandy Holloway, Rick Smith and John Dauth.

I first met Allan 30 years after that, in 1999. I was the Labor Party's trade adviser, reaching out to experts on behalf of my boss, Senator Peter Cook. As a 27-year-old staffer I was just the conduit for the shadow trade minister, but Allan took an interest in me and helped mentor me in my career. I'm not sure I ever knew anyone so influential yet so modest.

Condolence Motion John Kerin
House of Representatives, 11 May 2023

The last public event that I did with John Kerin was to introduce him as the guest of honour at ACT Labor's dinner celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Whitlam government at the Canberra Labor Club in December 2022.

John was physically frail but intellectually lively, and he told the stories of serving with Gough. And what better person to regale the dinner than a man whose first stint in federal parliament had coincided exactly with the Whitlam government? Elected in 1972 as member for Macarthur and unelected in 1975. At least his dismissal was by the voters. When John returned to parliament in 1978 it was as Gough Whitlam's successor as member for Werriwa. John won a three-way preselection contest and served the people of Werriwa until 1993.

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TV INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS AFTERNOON AGENDA WITH KIERAN GILBERT
THURSDAY, 11 MAY 2023

SUBJECTS: Federal budget, inflation, migration, Opposition Budget reply.

KIERAN GILBERT (HOST): Now the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury, Dr. Andrew Leigh is an economist by trade. I spoke to him earlier and I asked him whether he thinks this week's Budget would make the inflation challenge worse.

ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR COMPETITION, CHARITIES AND TREASURY ANDREW LEIGH: Can you imagine, Kieran, as a Labor Government if we hadn't dealt with some of these cost of living pressures right now? You know there's people doing it really tough and I think it would -

Joint Press Conference with
Senator the Hon Katy Gallagher
Minister for Finance
Minister for Women
Minister for Public Service

Alicia Payne MP
Member for Canberra

David Smith MP
Member for Bean

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ACT LABOR PRESS CONFERENCE
PARLIAMENT HOUSE
WEDNESDAY, 10 MAY 2023

SUBJECTS: 2023/24 Budget; Investments in Canberra; Income support; Housing affordability; Bulk billing; APS jobs

SENATOR THE HON KATY GLLAGHER, MINISTER FOR FINANCE:  Okay, well thanks for coming everyone. This is a really strong Budget for Canberra. Obviously a lot of the key measures in the Budget will flow through to Canberrans, so support around energy relief, the investments in Medicare, the cost of living package will flow through. Importantly, there's a couple of other areas that are really strong for Canberra which is the announcement around our National Cultural Institutions, over $600 million flowing into the ACT to deal with a decade of delay and of neglect and under resourcing and underinvestment in those important institutions. That was one of the key things that all of us as federal members in the ACT wanted to see. And indeed, it was one of the top issues that the Chief Minister had raised with me around areas he wanted to see further investment from the Commonwealth. The other area is in the public service. It's our big employer in town. So what happens to the public service matters to this city because a lot of the small businesses and other industry that's located in Canberra is linked to the strength of the public service. So in the last couple of Budgets we have addressed again, a decade of neglect from the former government, of under-resourcing, of underinvestment and that significantly impacted on services, not just to people in the ACT, but around the country. So in these two Budgets in October, and in May, you'll see that we've fixed up some of those issues around lack of staffing. We're addressing some of the conversion issues from contractors and labour hire back into permanent workers in the APS. And we're making sure that key service delivery agencies, many of them located here, actually have the money to do the work that the people of Australia need them to do. Whether it's processing passports, visas, looking after veterans, or supporting pensioners with their engagement with Services Australia and Centrelink. And so this matters to Canberra, it matters to Australia, but we've taken a really responsible approach to the APS and that will have significant impact on Canberra's economy. I might hand to my colleagues now and they'll make a few statements and then happy to take questions.