Andrew Leigh

Andrew Leigh, Gai Brodtmann and Senator Kate Lundy have condemned the Abbott Government’s first budget as an attack on Canberra that Liberal Senator Zed Seselja has failed to stop.

The Abbott Government will cut 16,500 jobs from the Australian Public Service, with over 7000 of those jobs slated to go in the next financial year.

This is an even bigger cut than the Coalition promised. It demonstrates that Senator Seselja is a limp defender of Canberra.  

In her terrific book Dirt Cheap, the late Elisabeth Wynhausen decided to take leave from her journalism job and try life as a low-wage worker. In one job, Wynhausen moved to a country town and worked packing eggs. She earned near minimum wage in a job that started at 6am, left her body aching at the end of the day, and where the smell from the nearby chook sheds was constant. Three weeks in, the manager, a millionaire several times over, came to tell the workers they were losing their jobs.

I thought of Wynhausen's story again last night as I looked at the budget papers.

Today I spoke in Parliament about the National Day of Mourning and the importance of workplace safety.

Kane Ammerlaan was a 16-year-old building apprentice when his boss asked him to do some cash work on the weekend. His job was to carry overloaded buckets of concrete up to a roof with no safety harness and no railings. If he carried to the buckets half full, his boss would throw concrete at him and send him back down to fill up the bucket. One day the buckets were overloaded and he fell. Concrete went into his eyes. He told his boss it was hurting, but his boss laughed and told him to get back to work. Eventually, he phoned his girlfriend rather than an ambulance and, by the time he got to the hospital, the concrete had set on his eye. He lost 100 per cent vision in his eye.

I led off the Matter of Public Importance debate in parliament today, focusing on the issue of inequality.

This morning I received an email from one of my constituents which read in part: 'I am 48 years old and unemployed. The fact that I have not been able to find another job makes life difficult but just manageable because my husband works. He is 52 years old and works for the federal government. He is very good at what he does but unfortunately the program he works with has been cut and he finds out today if his job has been cut.'

TELEVISION INTERVIEW
BREAKING POLITICS - FAIRFAX MEDIA 
MONDAY, 12 MAY 2014

SUBJECT/S:  Budget to axe or privatise Commonwealth agencies; Deficit levy.

CHRIS HAMMER: Well, the federal budget is now just one day away and you have to wonder what's left to announce, so comprehensively has features of it been leaked during the past week or more. Joining me to discuss it is Andrew Leigh, the member for Fraser here in the ACT, the Labor member.  

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER, ANDREW LEIGH: Morning Chris. 

HAMMER: Also Shadow Assistant Treasurer. So a big week for you. And from Brisbane, Andrew Laming, the Federal Member for Bowman. Andrew Leigh to you first, the stories in the papers today are about cutting or merging government agencies and depending on which paper you believe, somewhere between 50 and 70 government agencies are going to be either abolished or merged. If that's delivering the same services with greater efficiencies, surely that's something to be supported. 

LEIGH: That's a big ‘if’ Chris. We look at the Preventative Health Agency, an agency which is investing and making sure that we reduce of rates of obesity, rates of smoking – including cigar smoking – and other preventable health conditions. We look at Indigenous Business Australia which is aiming to increase the number of entrepreneurs in the Indigenous community. These are just some of the agencies that are on the chopping block with no clear plans to replace them. Then there's the expert agencies. [This is] a government that thinks it doesn't need experts to provide advice on climate change. Now we've seen the National Water Commission being cut into and corporate advisory groups which provide vital advice to governments on markets. You just let it all rip, guided only by your big business donors and your gut. Good governments take advice from great experts and they draw-in a wide range of views which is why these bodies were established.

Minister for Business Services and Consumers Gail Gago today called on the Abbott Government to abandon its plans to axe the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC).

Ms Gago today joined Federal Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh and Uniting Communities Chief Executive Simon Schrapel to highlight the potential of the ACNC to cut red tape and support the work of local charities.

“Charities need a nationally consistent approach, which is why the ACNC is so important,” she said.

“The charities commission strengthens organisations that work with some of our most vulnerable citizens.

Six years ago, as he was taking on the job of Anglicare CEO, former premier Lynn Arnold said that the job of the charity should be ‘‘to empower and leave alive the spirit of aspiration in people’’.

It’s a simple line that perfectly sums up the valuable work being done in not-for-profits across Australia.

Lynn Arnold may be an exceptional leader, but his decision to devote a significant stage of his post-political career to charitable work shows something that is common in South Australians – a commitment to a vibrant community sector.

To ensure that this sector remains strong, Federal Labor in 2012 established the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission.

Federal Labor urges the Abbott Government to act on new research claiming supermarkets are not complying with a national unit pricing code and are therefore hurting consumers.

It’s up to the Government to verify the research and enforce unit pricing so consumers can get the benefit of competition.

Unit pricing involves retailers providing a price per unit measurement on the price tag, for example – dollars per kilogram – in addition to the sale price.

Under the code, unit pricing information must be prominent and legible, in close proximity to the selling price and unambiguous. 

Over recent months, I've asked Canberrans to fill out my survey on attitudes to trade unions. Over 400 people answered the survey. Here's a rundown of the results.

My Chronicle column this month offers a bit of advice to those finishing high school this year.