Andrew Leigh

This morning I spoke with Fairfax Media's Tim Lester for Breaking Politics, exploring news of the day. I was asked about on-going revelations Coalition MPs, including Prime Minister Tony Abbott, have repaid  tax payer funded outings, the impact of the US Congress budget impasse and about the rights of West Papuans to express their concerns.  Here's the full transcript:

BREAKING POLITICS – FAIRFAX MEDIA

TIM LESTER: When is it legitimate for an MP to claim his or her travel expenses on the taxpayer? Going to weddings for example. There are some numerous and now some notorious cases out there. To help us fathom this issues and others, our regular for Monday, joining us this week on a Tuesday because of holidays is Andrew Leigh, the MP for Fraser, Labor MP. Thank you for coming in Andrew.

ANDREW LEIGH: Thanks.

LESTER: Tony Abbott attended weddings several years ago. Now, one of them was Peter Slipper's several years ago now. He claimed the costs. The taxpayers paid for him. He's now paid it back seven years later when the issue surfaces as contentious. Has he done the right thing or the wrong thing?

LEIGH: Mr Abbott's seems to have a fairly expansive view of entitlements and you're beginning to see a bit of a pattern here. Like the Howard Government which had seven ministers resign early on as a result of various scandals including travel expenses scandals. There are now four Coalition cabinet ministers, including the Prime Minister who are under investigation here. I guess what worries me is that if they're taking that sort of approach to these cases that we know about, what approach do they take to public expenses more broadly? That plays into a broader question over schemes such as paid parental leave which I think demonstrate an even more cavalier approach to the public finances.

LESTER: So, the various cases of weddings that we've seen here where these MPs have gone along and claimed on the taxpayer, they should not have done that?

LEIGH: I certainly don't believe so. I mean it's great to see Coalition MPs going to weddings. They’re so excited by them, you wonder how they can be against same-sex marriage. But this strikes me as an entirely personal matter and I'm surprised they've claimed for it.

LESTER: So, let me check that you're confident about your own circumstances, you wouldn't have comparable claims for private events..?

LEIGH: Certainly nothing that I am aware of Tim.

LESTER: So, how common is the practice of MPs claiming expenses from what are pretty clearly private events.

LEIGH: Well, everyone applies the rules themselves. You simply call up and book a flight and it's a matter of members of parliament making sure that they're exercising due concern when they're doing it and that they are not, for example, claiming something that's really substantively of a private nature or attempting to make a private expense look like a public expense.

LESTER: So, do you believe these cases that we're seeing are rare or normal?

LEIGH: I certainly hope they're rare. I'm pleased to see they've been paid back. But let's be clear about why we're here Tim. Mr Abbott has spent the last few years calling in the Australian Federal Police whenever there's any suggestion that someone has misused their entitlements. It's him who has suggested that this ought to be escalated to a criminal matter in other cases, and now he shouldn't be surprised when the chickens come home to roost.

LESTER: Peter Slipper has fallen from the speaker of the House of Representatives to political ruin, not even in the house of reps anymore based on a claim of a little more than $900. I know there might be some legal technical differences here. But where's the moral difference between what Peter Slipper did and what's been done now and numerous other cases?

LEIGH: Well, that's a matter for the Australian Federal Police as to where they choose to investigate and where they don't.

LESTER: [Is there] A moral difference?

LEIGH: As a parliamentarian, I'm pretty careful with what I do with my entitlements and I can understand Peter Slipper being somewhat surprised to see that Mr Abbott has now been able to repay travel expenses to attend Mr Slipper's wedding, but the same opportunity wasn't given to Mr Slipper. They're different circumstances. The federal police have treated them differently, but I can understand Mr Slipper's concerns.

LESTER: Can you understand the public scratching their heads and going, you know, there's a double standard here.



LEIGH: I can. I suspect Mr Slipper doesn't attract more public sympathy than the typical member of parliament, but I certainly think that it's important that we're frugal in our travel expenses. For my own part, I try to save money, certainly, by taking economy class short flights where I can. I don't think that I need to be booking business class flights if I'm going to Sydney or Melbourne for example. And that seems to me a reasonable action if you're trying to minimise the cost to the tax-payer.

LESTER: Couple of other issues before we let you go. How dangerous is the US government impasse for the world economy and therefore for us in Australia?

LEIGH: It's a very serious issue Tim. We're going to see an impact on the US government's day-to-day activities, but then there's also the looming debt ceiling issue that's coming up. That's frankly pretty terrifying because the notion of the world's largest economy defaulting on its creditors is almost too large to behold. The US Democrats have been quoting back to their Republican colleagues the words of Ronald Reagan - who spoke about what a disaster it would be if the US defaulted on its debts. But this is something of a pattern: we saw in Australia last year the Coalition saying that Australia should be reluctant to raise its debt ceiling. A position which I now see Mr Hockey has back-flipped on. When Wayne Swan referred to the ‘cranks and crazies’ in the Tea Party, Mr Abbott was quick to slap him down. I'd be surprised if Mr Abbott takes the same view of Tea Party Republicans since they've stopped Barack Obama meeting him at APEC.

LESTER: Should Australians be deeply worried about what's going on in the United States for the sake of Australia, let alone the US?

LEIGH: US debt default is extremely concerning. That's the deadline that's approaching and that has a massive effect on consumer confidence around the world. The difference between this, of course, and what's going on in Europe is that in Europe, you have economic fundamentals. You have extremely high debt loads, unsustainable public finances, where debts as a share of GDP are ten times Australia's and more. But in the US, this is just entirely avoidable. The US Republican House leadership simply needs to allow a vote to take place, and as I understand it, there are the numbers in the House for a budget bill to pass.

LESTER: OK, how feasible is it for the Abbott government, do you think, to quickly negotiate a free-trade deal with Beijing?

LEIGH: I'd like to see a free-trade agreement concluded. We were aware when Labor was in government that one of the key issues was a desire on the Chinese side to see more access to being able to invest in Australia. The problem Mr Abbott has is he went to the last election saying that he would lower the foreign investment review board threshold on Chinese enterprises. That's going in the opposite direction from what the Chinese want. I suspect that's going to be a major sticking point if not entirely a stumbling block in these negotiations.

LESTER: What, the Coalition's difficulty on foreign investment?

LEIGH: That's right, and you understand why the Coalition finds itself in this spot. They have the agrarian socialists in the National Party pushing very strongly against foreign investment. When foreign investment over a 30 year period grew from 5.9 to 6 per cent of Australian farms, Barnaby Joyce said it was an ‘exponential’ increase. So when you've got that sort of scare-mongering around ‘the Chinese buying up our farms’, as they say, it's very hard for the sensible economic wing of the Coalition to pursue policies that are in Australia's national interest - getting more investment into Australia and allowing more trade with other countries.

LESTER: To close, Tony Abbott said yesterday that those who wish to protest the West Papuan cause against Jakarta are not welcome in Australia. They need not bother; they need not carry out those protests. This at a time when a new report has suggested that genocide is going on, and has been going on in West Papua. Is Tony Abbott going too far in ruling out the expression of free speech in this country, or is he right to protect our relationship with Jakarta in this way?

LEIGH: Our relationship with Indonesia is a vital one. But I think we do ourselves a disservice if we try and clamp down on issues of human rights in order to preserve relationships with other countries. If we look back into history we can see examples of South African and East Timorese protesters being able to exercise their rights of free speech in Australia. West Papua is an enormously complex issue. But I think Mr Abbott should be careful in stepping on the rights of others to free speech. He has spoken of that right to him personally in the past and the right to free speech includes the right to protest against your government in your own country and overseas. If Mr Abbott believes in that right to free speech he needs to respect it, even and especially in the case of causes that are unpopular and that he disagrees with.

LESTER: So, you'd say to the West Papuan activists, 'Go for it'?

LEIGH: There's a right to protest in Australia. There's a right to have your voice heard. Australia is a country that ought to welcome a diversity of issues, particularly on complicated foreign policy questions.

LESTER: Andrew Leigh, as always, we're grateful for your time.

LEIGH: Thanks Tim.

ENDS

On Sky AM Agenda, I spoke with host Laura Jayes and Liberal minister Mitch Fifield about the Coalition's odd policy of liberalising trade and restricting foreign investment, and about the four cabinet members who have claimed travel allowance to attend weddings.http://www.youtube.com/v/ABkxsHm2rtQ?version=3&hl=en_US

My Chronicle column looks at the implications of the federal election result.

Legislation Shows Labor Stamp on National Identity, The Chronicle, 1 October 2013


In my lifetime, Federal Labor has only lost office on three occasions: 1975, 1996 and 2013. Unlike 1975 and 1996, the last election did not see Canberrans electing any Coalition members to the House of Representatives. So like Labor supporters across Australia, the typical Canberran is probably feeling a little bruised by the election result.

So the question for the ALP and our supporters is: where do we go next?

In answering this, I’m guided by the stories of two women who spoke to me last month. Joyce, an octogenarian from Ainslie, wrote to say that she remembered living through the Great Depression as a child. She wanted me to know how grateful she was to the government for preventing Australia going through a similar slump in 2008-09.

And then there’s Deb, whose carer pushed her wheelchair up to me on polling day, when I was handing out at Lyneham Primary School, so she could simply say: ‘Thank you for DisabilityCare’.

Joyce and Deb helped remind me that Labor in office did a great deal that was right. Saving hundreds of thousands of people from unemployment was worthwhile, even if we did have to take on some debt to do it. DisabilityCare is a vital part of our social safety net, recognising that each of us is just a ‘shaft of fate’ away from a permanent impairment.

Likewise, Labor was right to put a price on carbon, reducing emissions at the lowest cost. We were right to campaign for – and win – a seat on the United Nations Security Council. And history will judge us well for finally apologising to the Stolen Generations.

Labor would not have performed better if its policies were closer to those of the Greens Party. Nationwide, the Greens Party vote was down 3 percent, perhaps reflecting the electorate’s harsh judgement of a party who voted against the Murray Darling Basin Plan and whose unfair paid parental leave plan looked a lot like that of the Coalition.

But neither does the solution lie in becoming ‘Liberal Lite’. Since Labor was founded in 1891, our party has played a unique role in Australian politics. Our role is to develop new ideas and forge new solutions. What is known internationally as ‘the Australian model’ is in many respects ‘the Labor model’. From the age pension to Medicare, floating the dollar to superannuation, expanding university places to capital gains taxation, Labor reforms have helped shape Australia for the better. It would be a grievous mistake for the ALP to descend into negativity.

So over the next three years, you can expect to see Labor both holding the government to account, but also proposing positive solutions. And as your local representative in Parliament House, I’ll be continuing to take your ideas and concerns up wherever I get the opportunity. If I can help, don’t hesitate to give me a call or drop me an email. I’d love to hear from you.

Andrew Leigh is the federal member for Fraser. His phone number is 6247 4396 and his email is Andrew.Leigh.MP{@}aph.gov.au.

I was interviewed yesterday by the doyenne of the parliamentary press gallery, Michelle Grattan. Among other things, we discussed Labor's future, same-sex marriage, economics, and the Greens. Here's a podcast.

On ABC24 Capital Hill, I spoke with host Andrew Greene and Liberal Senator Zed Seselja about the benefits of fibre to the home, the Labor leadership campaign, and proposed paid parking in Parliament House. A transcript is over the fold.

E&OE

ANDREW GREENE: Now to our panel, joining me in the Parliament House studio is the newly elected Liberal senator Zed Seselja, and joining us from Melbourne today is Labor MP Andrew Leigh. Welcome to you both.

ANDREW LEIGH: Thanks Andrew.

Let's begin with the new-look NBN board and the Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has put his own mark on NBN Co's management appointing former Telstra chief Ziggy Switkowski to the role of Chairman.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: In appointing Dr Switkowski to the board as Chairman, we have appointed one of the most experienced telecom executives in Australia. This has been a shockingly misconceived exercise in - wasteful exercise in public policy. We are endeavouring to recover value for it and get the job completed as quickly and cost effectively as we can.

GREENE: Andrew Leigh, could you firstly, I would assume that as a former Telstra boss, would you be consider Ziggy Switkowski well qualified to be running the NBN?

LEIGH: I've certainly got no issue with Mr Switkowski's competence and ability to handle complicated issues. But I would take some issues. But I would take some issue with Malcolm Turnbull's characterisation of the National Broadband Network. This is the equivalent of the Snowy Hydro scheme, of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, of the rail networks and road networks of generations gone by. The reason that Labor constructed a National Broadband Network with fibre to the home is that when you're running signals down glass, the speeds can increase and increase as compression technology gets better. But if you stop that glass at the cabinet down the street and do the last stretch to the home with copper you get an inferior signal. You can't conduct a video conference in the same high definition pictures that your viewers are seeing at the moment.

GREENE: Your views on the NBN are really known in terms of what the coalition is doing, but you certainly have no quibbles with what's been announced today?

LEIGH: I'm not sure it was necessary to overhaul the board to the extent that Mr Turnbull did. I think the board appointed by Labor was a highly competent board and I'd be interested if Zed had views to the contrary.

GREENE: We'll go to Zed on that. Is that a fair assessment from Andrew Leigh?

LEIGH: I think firstly it's an excellent appointment. I think that Dr Switkowski brings a wealth of experience. I think we'll do an outstanding job in what's a very challenging area. It's not just a challenging area of the breadth of this as an infrastructure project. It's a very challenging area because it hasn't been handled well to date. There wasn't proper cost benefit done at the start of this process.

GREENE: Did that justify getting rid of most of existing board?

SESELJA: Well, look, I think it's reasonable for an incoming communications minister to make judgements about who he believes are the best people. In the end it's going to be Malcolm Turnbull and this coalition government that needs to answer for the roll-out going forward and how it's managed from here. We're certainly not responsible for what has happened up to now and we know that there have been significant problems with this roll-out. Now, much of that goes down to the

government. The government made some very poor decisions at the start. They rushed many of these decisions. We know that they had a much smaller process in mind initially and then they very quickly changed, without doing the necessary work.

GREENE: Do you find it hard to explain to people in the ACT, the Territory you represent, that they won't be getting fibre to they won't be getting fibre to the home?

SESELJA: Well, I think people in the ACT, what they will be getting is they will be getting fast broadband much more quickly. What they would've been seeing under the NBN plan of Labor and that's even if we were to believe their roll-out figures, most of which were never achieved but if they had proceeded with that , people in Canberra, people in the south of Canberra in particular, would've been waiting for years longer and paying much more at the end of that. Under the Coalition's plan, they won't be waiting as long and they will be paying less for their product. So they will be getting value for money. That's what they will be getting from the coalition.

GREENE: We'll get your response to that Andrew Leigh. Is it a faster delivery of a project that was having some troubles while Labor was in power?

LEIGH: During the election, we ran a forum which Zed and I were present at. I asked those in the room to raise their hands in they didn't want fibre to the home. Two people out of a packed lecture theatre raised their hands. That I think reflects that people recognise that this is an essential technology for Australia in the 21st century. And that stopping it will generate a digital divide in our suburbs. There's going to be suburbs in the ACT like Downer who are just on the edge of the roll-out schedule, who won't get to see super fast broadband, and whose house prices on average will be about $5,000 lower as a result of not having the National Broadband Network. That will be replicated right across the country.

GREENE: If we stay with your side of politics now and Labor has decided to extend the deadline for rank-and-file members to vote on the party's leadership. The official cut-off was Wednesday, but the candidates Anthony Albanese and Bill Shorten had both today called for an extension.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: I'm aware that some of the mail houses where the Labor Party is sending out the ballot papers have been slow. I'm certainly calling for the ballot to be extended by at least a couple of days so that people in regional Queensland or people in Western Australia still have the chance to fully participate. The caucus meeting should also be delayed? Don't know if that's necessary. That will be a decision made by the caucus chair and the returning officer. But we do have a bit have a bit of room to move in terms of the members being able to get their ballot papers in a couple of days longer than was otherwise scheduled to do. There is that capacity without unduly delaying the whole process.

GREENE: So just to recap - the extension has now seen the deadline shifted from Wednesday to Friday for Labor's rank and file members. Andrew, there have been some grumblings, certainly publicly and privately, about this whole situation, that is a result of the changes Kevin Rudd brought in. Is it indicative now that we're seeing a few problems with the actual voting process that perhaps this process isn't entirely welcome?

LEIGH: I think that this is a good development today, Andrew. I would still urge Labor Party members watching your program to get their return ballot papers back in the mail as quickly as possible. But this gives us an extra two days for those ballot papers to get back to the Labor Party National Secretariat.

GREENE: Who would you be urging people to tick on that ballot paper?

LEIGH: I have spoken to both Mr Albanese and Mr Shorten and made clear to them who I will be supporting, but I'm not talking about that publicly. In part because I want my members to have the freedom to make a different decision from me. Both candidates gave excellent preparations in forums in the ACT. They've been hitting the phones to ACT branch members and as a result, there are now Labor Party members across Australia who've been directly canvassed by potential leaders for the Labor Party. I don't think Liberal Party can say the same. I challenge Mr Seselja to identify a regular rank-and-file Liberal Party member who's been phoned at home by Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott asking for their support. But that's strengthened our party. It's meant that we're a party now where more and more people are joining and where Labor Party people, members, feel included in the process.

GREENE: Zed Seselja would you take up that invitation and would you like to one day see that happen in the Liberal Party as well?

SESELJA: Well, let's look at why this came about. I mean this came about because the Labor Party kept sacking its leaders. So this wasn't about empowering the rank-and-file. This was Kevin Rudd's gift to the party on his way out, where he said he didn't want to be rolled in the same way that he'd been rolled in the past.

GREENE: The last Liberal leadership ballot Tony Abbott prevailed by one vote. Would it have been helpful for the party to say have the rank-and-file and have a voice as well?

SESELJA: I'm not convinced that after the loss of an election or in other periods where there's a majority who call for a spill that one month or more of a political party talking about itself, which is what we're seeing from the Labor Party, is necessarily the best thing. So look, the Labor Party can choose to conduct its affairs as it sees fit. It is talking about itself a lot now post-election. The Liberal Party has its processes. I don't see any particular reason why we'd follow the Labor Party on this, given it really did came about because they kept sacking prime ministers.

GREENE: If we can stick with the Liberal Party today in the ACT, a former President, Gary Kent, has resigned from the party. Partly in disgust at the process that saw you disappointed at that development?

SESELJA: No, look, I'm not and I said some months ago, I said that people who want to skiff then bag the Liberal Party publicly should consider whether they want to continue to be part of the Liberal Party. It's one thing to make constructive improvements and to have debates, it's another thing to go out there consistently and publicly bag the party which you belong to. I think in the end, people who clearly have those sort of ongoing significant differences probably should consider their positions and clearly that's what Mr Kent has done. Gary Humphries, a lot of people have a lot of respect for his time here in the parliament.

GREENE: Is there a role for Gary Humphries in public life? Would you like to see him given a role by Tony Abbott?

SESELJA: Yes there is. I think that, I'm one of the people who respects Gary Humphries. We had a debate and we had a pre-selection process, and that was a difficult one. But Gary Humphries has made a great contribution to the Senate, to the ACT Assembly and so I'm sure that there'd be many

roles, many roles that he would be suited to and very well suited to.

GREENE: You're already in the senate, but when the senate changes over in July, the Coalition will need to negotiate with the Palmer United Party and senators from several micro parties if Labor and the Greens block legislation. Already the government's senate Leader Eric Abetz has made contact with each cross-bench senator and today he was making friendly noises towards the new Palmer United Party senators who will join the upper house in the middle of next year.

ERIC ABETZ: I think they will bring various life experiences to the Senate, and when you have a look at Mr Wang from Western Australia, Ms Lambie from Tasmania and Mr Lazarus from Queensland, different life experiences, different life experiences, different backgrounds, and they will undoubtedly add to the wealth of experience that will be represented in the Senate after the 1 July.

GREENE: To you, again, Zed Seselja - it's going to be like herding cats isn't it after July?

SESELJA: No, not at all. I mean obviously there's a range of parties that have got representation and that is our electoral system. Can I say it's great to have another Canberran in Glenn Lazarus coming back to the senate. He's someone who's well known here in Canberra. I think pretty well respected for the role he played here for the Canberra Raiders and as a national icon.

GREENE: Does that make him qualified for parliament?

SESELJA: Well, he qualified for Parliament because he got elected by the people. So that's the ultimate qualification for Parliament. I don't think that we should say that certain people from certain backgrounds don't belong in our Parliament. I think that people make a contribution, someone like Glenn Lazarus has made a great contribution in sport. I'm sure he will be looking to make a very strong contribution. The people of Queensland have given him their support and I look forward to working with him.

GREENE: Andrew Leigh, do you envisage the Labor Party embracing the likes of Palmer United, perhaps even Family First as you work to perhaps block pieces of legislation next year?

LEIGH: We'll obviously deal respectfully with all members of parliament but I think for us, we know very clearly what we stand for and what we bring to the parliament. We'll be looking to hold the Abbott Government to account on things like his attempt to hide the boats, to hide the budget update, to hide his ministers from public view or even to hide his Indonesian press conference from local journalists. Those sort of issues are ones which an opposition ought to be appropriately scrutinising, as well as working to develop policy for the next term. Labor occupies a unique role in Australian public life. We have traditionally been the key generator of policy ideas and it's important that we continue to do that.

GREENE: But what about some of the policy ideas Tony Abbott has put out there? Is it already time for the Labor Party to start considering support for schemes like the paid parental leave scheme?

LEIGH: I'd find it difficult to see a circumstance in which we would back a scheme which is five times as generous for a millionaire family as it is for a family on minimum wage. At worst, you've typically seen in the past conservative governments offering tax cuts to the top and taking away benefits from the bottom. This time they're doing that but on top of that they're offering additional

benefits to those at the top.

SESELJA: On paid parental leave – Andrew, here in Canberra [he] knows that around about 50% of the workforce gets access to a pay replacement scheme through the public service. I think that's a good thing. Fifty per cent of the workforce in the private sector doesn't. Why is that fair? Why is it that people who work for small business not to have their wages replace and only get the minimum wage? It's pertinent right around the country. I think here in Canberra, we see it particularly. If you accept that it's reasonable for public servants to get their wages replaced when they go on parental leave, as I do, then why is it not reasonable for people who work for small businesses?

GREENE: Before we go on, we have some breaking news on the Western Australian Senate count, and the Australian Electoral Commission in that State has announced that there will not be a recount, so Senator Scott Ludlam appears now to have lost his seat. Do you welcome that decision?

SESELJA: Look, it's obviously very close. It's a decision for the electoral commission. So I respect their processes. It will obviously be very disappointing for the Greens to have lost a senator in WA. But you know, there are new senators who have been elected, so in the end these things are tough, when it's that close when you're only talking about a few votes but I'm sure the electoral commission has considered all of these arguments clearly.

GREENE: Andrew Leigh, briefly to you, is the Parliament a poorer place with the loss of Scott Ludlam.

LEIGH: I always got on well with Senator Ludlam. But certainly I am very pleased to see my colleague Louise Pratt returned. Louise brings a wealth of experience to the parliament. She was one of those who argued passionately around same-sex marriage and around the reforms that Labor put in place to help transgender people. So having Louise back in the Labor Party room is something I welcome a great deal. I think I will be calling her 'Landslide Louise' after this one.

GREENE: Andrew, while we have you there, we should also look at the issue of paid parking, which today there has been an announcement here at Parliament that from next year, all visitors to Australia's Parliament will now have to pay for parking. Is that a fair concept for people wanting to see the house of government?

LEIGH: I will be watching with interest to see how the new government manages to implement this policy. It's going to be a complicated one to ensure fairness through the many employees who work in Parliament House. I will be consulting with my Labor colleagues and also encouraging those who are affected, whether they're members of the media, Labor staffers, Green staffers, even Coalition staffers to share their views with me about how this decision of the government is affecting them.

GREENE: This was a decision that began in the last budget which was handed down by Labor. Zed Seselja, do you support people from interstate, overseas, wherever having to pay for parking when they visit parliament?

SESELJA: I'm concerned about it. I think this is the people's house. Just today I was at the front of Parliament House and seeing tourists taking pictures, families there. We should make it as accessible as possible and this is a flow-on of the decision to implement paid parking in the Parliamentary Triangle. I would urge the government to actually reconsider this policy, because I think that it wasn't thought through by Labor and by bringing it in when they're planning to, I think

there could be some negative consequences.

Brendan Nelson has already highlighted the impact on the War Memorial, for instance. So the impact on our national institutions of this policy is real. I think we need to think through more how this might impact and what I don't want to see is people finding it more difficult to access their institutions because in the end, it's the Australian people who own the parliament and the War Memorial and these other great institutions.

GREENE: While you're lobbying your leader Tony Abbott have you had any more word own the ACT's same-sex marriage legislation?

SESELJA: No, look, there's no update on that. Obviously we know that Tony Abbott has said that George Brandis is seeking legal advice on that. I think that that is an important process. That we consider whether or not the ACT Assembly does have the constitutional ability to actually legislate for marriage, a power specifically listed as belonging to the federal parliament. My views on this are well known. The Coalition's views have been clear for a long time. But in this instance, what needs to be considered is, does the ACT Assembly have the ability, the constitutional power to actually legislate for marriage?

GREENE: Unfortunately, that is all we have time for tonight, we'd like to thank our guests here in Canberra, the Liberal senator Zed Seselja and in Melbourne, Andrew Leigh. Thanks very much. Thanks Andrew, thanks Zed. Thanks for your company tonight.

ENDS

On 1 October, I joined host Laura Jayes and Liberal MP Alan Tudge to discuss Prime Minister Tony Abbott's attempts to persuade Indonesia to accept boat buybacks and towbacks, and the importance of maintaining ethical standards if Australia is to continue to have a viable live animal export trade.

My op-ed in today’s Canberra Times says a carbon price has made a real and positive difference and Tony Abbott's carbon targets fall short.

Clouds over Climate Scheme, The Canberra Times, 1 October 2013

Media magnate Rupert Murdoch recently tweeted ‘Al Gore. Pls explain record increase in Arctic ice.’ Murdoch was responding to the finding from the National Snow and Ice Data Center that the minimum extent of Arctic ice rose this year from 3.4 to 5.1 million square kilometres. Alas, the average in the 1980s and 1990s was 6.7 million square kilometres. As Greenpeace’s Ben Stewart responded to Mr Murdoch: ‘It's like your papers’ circulation. Long term downward trend with occasional spikes’.

Cherry-pick the stats all you like, but the earth is warming. Australia has just had our hottest summer and one of our warmest winters, making the past twelve months the hottest on record. Early spring brought frightening bushfires. The fifth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirms what is well understood and focuses our attention on the challenges ahead.

It is clearer than ever that humans are responsible for emerging changes in climate in the atmosphere, ocean, ice and land. The revised projections of sea level rises are a major concern as all of Australia’s major cities except Canberra are coastal.

In announcing the draft report, the IPCC chairman Rajenda Pachauri backed financial markets as humanity’s best hope in the battle against global warming. “An extremely effective instrument would be to put a price on carbon. It is only through the market that you can get a large enough and rapid enough response.”

So, as bizarre as Mr Murdoch’s rejection of the scientific evidence is Environment Minister Greg Hunt’s rejection of the economic evidence. On 16 September, Mr Hunt told the ABC’s PM program on 16 September that the carbon price “fundamentally doesn't do its work”. And yet the introduction of the carbon price has been accompanied by a 7 percent fall in emissions in the National Electricity Market.

Our energy mix has shifted toward renewables and cleaner fuels. In South Australia one quarter of all electricity is now generated by wind power. According to a ClimateWorks Australia survey, the carbon price had a significant impact on the decision-making of four in five industrial energy users.

What's more, the nonpartisan Climate Institute believes “the carbon price has had an undetectable impact on the nation's overall economic performance”. The economy is continuing to grow. Whyalla is doing well. Lamb roasts don’t cost $100.

When Labor introduced the carbon price, our modelling predicted that the impact on prices would be 0.7 percent, less than one-third the impact of the GST. Subsequently, Westpac modelling suggested that the impact had been smaller still – around 0.5 percent. The real risk to household budgets is the government’s Direct Action plan, which could cost upwards of $1200 per household. No wonder the Coalition didn’t submit Direct Action for costing by the Parliamentary Budget Office before the election.

And yet while soil magic and a green army will drive up household costs, the biggest con in the Coalition’s climate change plan is that it only lasts to the end of this decade.

The existing legislation has put in place a mechanism to cut emissions to 80 per cent of 2000 levels by 2050. The Coalition’s plan only lasts until 2020. A seven-year plan for dealing with climate change makes the Coalition’s ‘copper to the home’ NBN proposal look positively visionary by comparison.

Mr Abbott and his team speak a lot about business certainty. They should know that the best way to give businesses certainty is to provide a long-term framework. That means a framework for several decades rather than just seven years.

Without a longer term target, it is difficult for companies to know which technologies are worth investing in and which are not.

Edmund Burke said that conservative governments should have in mind past generations, those who are living today, and those who are yet unborn. If he is truly a conservative, Prime Minister Abbott should be calm and methodical about the challenge of climate change, and listen to the experts.

The time for ‘people’s revolts’ is over. Instead, Mr Abbott should recognise that at the last election, both Labor and the Coalition campaigned on a mandate to scrap the carbon tax. This means moving to a floating carbon price – capping carbon pollution – as quickly as possible. Labor will back a floating carbon price from 1 July 2014.

On breakfast radio I spoke with Mark Parton about last night's Labor leadership debate, the NBN and the folly of the Coalition's ‘direct action’ plan to tackle climate change. Here's the transcript:

TALKING POLITICS WITH 2CC’S MARK PARTON

Mark Parton: Andrew Fraser is the Labor member, Andrew Fraser (chuckle), Andrew Leigh, is the Labor member, not the first time it's been done everyone. He's the Labor member for Fraser. We've got a lot that we wanted to catch up with Andrew about, he's on the line. Morning Andrew.

Andrew Leigh: Morning Mark. How are you?

Mark Parton: Not too bad. A good little forum involving Albo and Bill last night.

Leigh: Yes, I quite enjoyed it. To me it illustrated that whichever way we end up going on the leadership we can't go wrong. We've got two strong Labor figures who are not walking away from what we did in government. The challenge I think when you lose  government is that you've got to recognise that you made mistakes, but you don't' want to take your entire six years and say, ‘well let’s throw all that out and start again from scratch’. If we did that we wouldn't be the Labor Party.

Parton: Now I'm trying to think, I’m trying to delve through my memories about comments that have been made regarding this contest I don't recognise that you've indicated publicly which way you're going have you?

Leigh: I haven't. And part of the reason, I mean I've been upfront with both candidates about who I'll support, but part of the reason that I'm being a little coy publicly is just that my branch members get to have a vote, and I think it's terrific that they can make a different decision from me.

Parton: Alright. Well let's move on and talk NBN. Of course Canberra particularly in your electorate has benefited from the rolling out of the National Broadband Network and as we're discovering it may be that the north is ahead of the south on this if Malcolm Turnbull has his way.

Leigh: It's a real worry isn't it Mark? We have the National Broadband Network rolling out across Gungahlin, fastest take-up rate anywhere in Australia; which I think reflects the fact that Gungahlin has been poorly served by internet technology in the past. And yet Malcolm Turnbull it seems is looking at trying to stop all that in its tracks. He said that if there aren't contracts in place then it's going to stop and in fact suggesting now that even if there is a contract in place if the construction hasn't started then he's going to stop it there. So that'll mean that for suburbs like Nicholls or Downer that are not in the first tranche of suburbs getting their National Broadband Network they'll miss out, and they'll have fibre to the box down the street rather than fibre coming right to the home.

Parton: See this is an interesting one the NBN cause I've spoken as I know you have and I’m sure you've spoken to more than me spoken to quite a number of Gungahlin residents who're connected to the NBN band and, look, some of them are over the moon there and others who are extremely frustrated with the time that it took and all of the delays along the way and many of whom have said to me you know what it's not really any different from what I had before. So for a lot of people it doesn't affect their lives. I've spoken to others who it's had a dramatic effect on one of them in particular it's given him the opportunity to work from home which he didn't have before. So that's going to dramatically affect his life in a very positive way but I guess my question is under Malcolm Turnbull’s proposal that particular individual would have the option to pay to get the service to his home if it was going to change his life in that way. Can you hear what I'm saying?

Leigh: I can, and I guess to me the argument sounds a lot like sitting in Sydney in the 1920s saying ‘well look we've only got 50,000 cars, maybe it'd be better off if we just built the harbor bridge one lane each way because let’s face it, we just don't have enough traffic to bother and we can always expand it later’. The thing about a National Broadband Network that takes fibre to everyone's homes is you get the network benefits of everyone having the technology. Then say if you're a government you want to roll out remote access to medical specialists you can do that because of the confidence that everyone has fibre to the home – giving a connection that has anywhere from 4-40 times faster than what Malcolm Turnbull is proposing.

Parton: Just so much money though Andrew. It's so much money.

Leigh: Either party's proposal is significant. Malcolm Turnbull’s is not costed, he hasn't costed his, but he's saying some figure around $20 billion in order to get fibre to the cabinet down the street. Labor was saying $40 billion to get fibre all the way to the home. Our view is that extra investment is worthwhile because it has a big payoff in the future and in fact that the overall benefit to the community for every dollar you spend is smaller when you do fibre to the cabinet down the street. Because you can't do a high definition video conference where it looks like you’re watching TV in the evening. I've seen Harrison School hook up with a school in Hokkaido, and have a Japanese lesson where the whole classroom can see every other kid in the classroom. It just changes the quality of the learning experience.

Parton: Yeah ok. Have you had a look at any of Christopher Pyne's comments on the way that he wants to change higher education in this country?

Leigh: I haven't, no.

Parton: Alright, well then I'll leave that behind. Let’s talk about Tim Flannery and the Climate Commission and the Climate Council. It's been a remarkable couple of days, hasn't it?

Leigh: Pretty extraordinary. And I guess this is what you get when you have a Prime Minister who’s in the past said climate change is ‘absolute crap’. The attempts to dismantle the bodies that build consensus across the scientific community, broadsides against economists and the cheapest way of dealing with carbon pollution. The real problem is that household budgets are going to struggle to afford with Mr Abbott’s Direct Action plan, a much more expensive way of reducing carbon emissions according to every serious economist you talk to. And I know you've said in the past it's a fig leaf, he's going to take it away.

Parton: And he will.

Leigh: Ah, well, you know he seems keen to plough on with it. So you've got one choice or another…

Parton: I'll be surprised. I mean will you be surprised if they go the whole hog on this and implement it as they've outlined?

Leigh: My hope is frankly that we're able to hold the carbon price in place just for another couple of years. Then the Government comes to its senses, recognises the impact on prices has been very very small and implements a ‘no carbon tax’ promise by just moving away from the fixed price period. Once you go to the European price it's just a very small impost on budgets at the moment. The CPI went up less than half a per cent once we introduced it and once you go to the European price it’s even smaller still. So, I think you'd be nuts to get rid of that and replace it with a massively expensive command-and-control approach.

(noise of child in background)

Parton: (Laughs) I think you're required so we'll let you go, but thanks for coming on this morning

Leigh: (Laughs) Thanks Mark, always busy in the household in the morning.

Parton: Andrew Leigh, the Labor member for Fraser.

ENDS

In the latest issue of the Journal of Economic Literature, I review Ian McLean's terrific book on Australian economic history.

Review of Ian McLean, Why Australia Prospered: The Shifting Sources of Economic Growth
Journal of Economic Literature, 2013

In the 1990s, Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński was asked by his fellow citizens: ‘You’ve been all over the world. Isn’t there a country somewhere that has found a middle way – where market forces rule, but where the government looks after the kids and the old and the sick and the poor? Somewhere where the bosses give the workers a reasonable deal? Somewhere where people help each other instead of just looking after themselves?’ And Kapuściński told them: ‘Yes, it’s called Australia.’ (quoted in Knightley, 2001, 31)

In the scheme of things, Australia has fared pretty well. In the late-nineteenth century, it had the highest per-capita incomes in the world. In the early-twentieth century, it was the first country to allow women to both stand for office and vote (and can on this basis lay claim to have been the world’s first democracy). In recent years, it has defied the global slump, keeping unemployment below 6 percent and growing 14 percent since the end of 2007. In 2013, the OECD’s Better Life Index gave Australia top spot for the third year in a row.

Part of this success was luck. As Ian McLean points out, Australian convicts had similar education levels to the average Briton. Nineteenth century Australia benefited from two commodities – wool and gold – that required little processing and had high value for their weight. From the settlers’ viewpoint, land was free (Indigenous Australians saw the situation differently). Sheep were a self-replicating capital stock, requiring few additional inputs. Although a 13,000 mile ocean voyage separated the two countries, Australia’s economy was almost perfectly complementary to that of Britain, its colonial power.

Nineteenth century Australia also benefited from its openness to migration, which saw thousands of men travel to the antipodes to make their fortune. Because men have higher labour force participation rates than women, one driver of Australia’s affluence was surely its gender ratio. In 1890s Australia, there were 115 men for every 100 women (by contrast, China today has 106 men for every 100 women).

Then came the slump. The 1890s saw Australia hit by a severe drought. In the gold mining colony of Victoria, the housing bubble popped. As tax receipts fell, colonial governments were obliged to engage in Hooverite economics – cutting back spending in order to keep up with their debt repayments. (Painful as this was, McLean argues that it had a key advantage over the Argentinian approach of devaluation and debt restructuring, which was to maintain Australia’s creditworthiness in the eyes of the global financial markets.)

The two wars had markedly different impacts on Australia. World War I killed nearly one in 40 Australian men, and real GDP slumped by one-tenth. A nation dependent on loans and capital imports was badly damaged by the shipping restrictions of World War I. Indeed, McLean even goes so far as to speculate that the costs of World War I might have outweighed the benefits that colonial Australia had enjoyed from being part of the British empire.

By contrast, World War II delivered a positive shock to the Australian economy. Because more of the fighting took place in the Pacific theatre, there was a demand for Australian-made equipment such as aircraft and ammunition, boots and boats. This spurred industrialisation, with the manufacturing share of GDP rising from 19 percent in 1939 to 26 percent in 1949. Thanks to strong growth and the Lend Lease program, the government after World War II could start bringing down its debt load (which exceeded 100 percent of GDP for most of the first half of the twentieth century).

Although Australia slipped down the relative GDP ranking from the 1950s to the 1970s, McLean takes a benign view of this period. While others have suggested that underinvestment in human capital hampered growth in the post-war era, he prefers the view that other developed countries in this period were merely engaged in ‘catch-up’ growth. This strikes me as reasonable enough, yet it still leaves open the question as to why Australia fell off the international production possibility frontier. One answer to this must surely be that the ‘education revolution’ reached Australia a generation after it came to the United States.

Australia’s fortune is illustrated by the counterfactual histories that McLean briefly sketches. One is if the pastoral landowners (known as squatters) had dominated politics, entrenching a highly unequal distribution of land and restricting the franchise. A Latin American-style ‘squattocracy’ was only averted because of the influence of the British government in the Australian political system. By resisting the domination of the squatters, the colonial power effectively gave the upper hand to the liberal and democratic forces in nineteenth century Australia.

Another counterfactual history is elite domination of the mining sector. Perhaps for reasons of administrative simplicity, the colonial authorities initially chose to prescribe an extremely small claim size for goldminers: eight feet by eight feet. This spread the ‘lottery’ of gold mining across a large group of self-employed miners, who then helped spur the transition towards democracy. The alternative would have been much larger claim sizes, with mining carried out by wage labour. (In a similar vein, Acemoglu and Robinson 2013 recently contrasted Australia’s experience with that of Sierra Leone, where an elite monopoly over diamond mining set the stage for authoritarian rule after independence).

A third counterfactual is if the northern part of Queensland (Australia’s Texas) had been successful in creating another colony in the 1880s. McLean suggests that such a colony might have consisted of an aristocracy of white planters relying on indentured labour from the nearby Pacific islands. Such an experiment would have looked more like the Caribbean, or the antebellum south, and might well have produced similarly poor long-run growth outcomes. The decision by British colonial authorities to veto such a colony was regarded as a minor one at the time, but turned out to be an important turning point in Australian economic history.

McLean’s telling of Australian economic history is not only fascinating, it is also fresh. McLean dates the book’s genesis to time spent visiting the University of California Berkeley, and his analysis is thoroughly grounded in the US economic history literature. At times McLean is let down by the available data, as when he notes that estimates of the Indigenous population at the time of British settlement 1788 range from 300,000 to 1 million. And I occasionally felt that he might have pushed the available data a little further – for example, by comparing the cost advantages of Australian convict labour with estimates of the cost advantages of slave labour in the US during the same period (Fogel and Engerman 1974). But these are minor quibbles on a book that better integrates Australia’s story into mainstream economic history than any before it.

McLean also relishes critiquing some of the established historical theories about Australia’s development. He finds little evidence that the federation of the six Australian colonies in 1901 boosted economic growth, and questions the widely held view that high tariffs impeded post-war growth. Rejecting Blainey (1966), McLean argues that ‘distance was never a tyrant’ (p.250). Contrary to Kelly (1992), he contends that the economic liberalisation of the 1980s was not a dismissal of the ‘Australian settlement’ policies adopted at the start of that century, but merely an inflexion point in the arc of reform.

This is a book that should be read by any economic historian looking at Australia as a case study or a counterpoint. If it has a fault, it is that it is perhaps too kind to Australia and its policymakers. Indeed, McLean’s generosity even extends to policymakers of the late-1970s, though his argument here seems to boil down to saying that Australian economic decision-makers of that era were no more inept than others around the world.

For a policymaker like me, the subtitle to McLean’s book (‘The Shifting Sources of Economic Growth’) points to a key challenge of economic policy. For all modern economies, the sources of prosperity are in continual flux. Collier (2010, 98) likens this process to ‘running across ice floes’ – an analogy that vividly explains the economic concept, while pointing to why the politics are so difficult. When my voters ask me ‘where will the jobs of the future come from?’, I’m keenly aware that they’re unlikely to appreciate a lecture on the inaccuracy of employment forecasting models. The truth is that many of today’s school leavers will probably end their careers in jobs that do not exist today. Yet that’s probably not the reassurance most parents are looking for from their politicians.

A careful reading of economic history points to the role that chance plays in determining nations’ economic futures. Indeed, looking at the role that good luck and sound economic management have played in Australia over the past two centuries, I would be inclined to give a modicum more credit to luck than McLean does. From good political institutions to plentiful natural resources, Australians have, in the memorable phrasing of Cowen (2011), eaten our share of low-hanging fruit. But it’s possible I’m being unfair to past generations of policymakers. After all, as any cricket fan knows, separating skill from luck in a long-running game can be frightfully difficult.

Andrew Leigh is former economics professor and a member of the House of Representatives in the Australian Parliament. His latest book is Battlers and Billionaires: The Story of Inequality in Australia (Black Inc, 2013).

References

Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, 2013, ‘Economics versus Politics: Pitfalls of Policy Advice’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 27(2): 173–192

Geoffrey Blainey, 1966, The Tyranny of Distance: How Distance Shaped Australia’s History, Sun Books, Melbourne.

Paul Collier, 2010, The Plundered Planet: Why We Must – and How We Can – Manage Nature for Global Prosperity, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Tyler Cowen, 2011, The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All The Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better, Kindle Edition.

Robert W. Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman, 1974, Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery, Little, Brown and Company, Boston.

Paul Kelly, 1992, The End of Certainty: The Story of the 1980s, Allen and Unwin, Sydney.

Phillip Knightley, 2001, Australia: A Biography of a Nation, Vintage, Sydney.

On Fairfax TV today I joined host Tim Lester to talk about some of the issues of the day - the future of the NBN, new secrecy surrounding asylum seeker arrivals, reports of the heavy hand of the Abbott Government against consumer boycotts and the Labor leadership contest. The video is here. Here's the transcript:

TIM LESTER: Fairfax Newspapers have reported that the whole board of the National Broadband Network has offered its resignation to new Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull. What does that mean for the future of NBN and other issues related to the broadband network? Our Monday regular is Andrew Leigh - he's in the studio to discuss this and other stories that are around this morning. Andrew, thank you for your time.

ANDREW LEIGH: Pleasure Tim.

LESTER: How ominous is it that the board of the NBN would say en mass to a new minister; "we'll fall on our swords"?

LEIGH: Well it does speak to their confidence in the Coalition's NBN policy, doesn't it Tim? I mean the Coalition's NBN policy is dramatically inferior to Labor's NBN because it offers fibre to the cabinet down the street, rather than fibre to the home. That means you get about 25 megabits a second. Maybe a bit better than what some people have now, but certainly not the transformative technology you have when you get a hundred, a thousand megabits a second down the fibre cable to your home. That's when a video conference starts to look like the high definition TV picture that we see in the evening. That, for example, would make a big difference to Breaking Politics, which would then begin to not worry about whether people were on-site or off-site. But as your viewers would well know, they can easily tell when someone's using Skype on the current clunky connections, and it's not going to be much better under Malcolm Turnbull's NBN.

LESTER: What do you read, though, into the fact that the board would do this with the new Minister? Is this simply a, perhaps a matter of normal order, that they would say to a new minister "well, if you want us gone, we'll go"?

LEIGH: You know, I think it is an honourable course of action that they're pursuing, but it's a course of action they would not take in the circumstances that the Coalition had adopted Labor's NBN policy. A fibre to the Home policy which is, as best I can tell from my door-knocking, supported by everyone I spoke to in the ACT. Can't say that about any other policy frankly Tim. There's a lot of divergence on policies across the spectrum, but no one I spoke to said “the real problem with the NBN is they're bringing the fibre cable to my home, rather than stopping at the cabinet down the street".

LESTER: So does Malcolm Turnbull have to accept these resignations and put in a board that backs what he is doing, or might he say "no, press on with my plan"?

LEIGH: It's a decision for him, but I hope that he will use their wisdom and experience. I think the firings of departmental heads last week by Mr Abbott were a mistake, not just because of the fear that it spread through the public service, but also because Mr Abbott himself loses the stability of keeping on all the departmental secretaries as Labor did when we came to office in 2007.

LESTER: Would Ziggy Switkowski make a good new point person for what the Coalition plans to do with the NBN?

LEIGH: I think it's up to Mr Turnbull who he chooses. What I would urge him to do, though, is to re-think a policy that is going to build a digital divide through Australia. It's going to see my own electorate sliced up into patches of fibre to the home and, if you want the fibre to the home, you have to pay for it. That'll mean that houses on one side of the street have a value maybe 5000 dollars higher than houses on the other side of the street. People are understandably frustrated at not being able to get what is increasingly being regarded as a standard public service.

LESTER: Another of the Coalition's early changes, it looks like, will be an effort to reduce, if you like, the coverage of the arrival of asylum boats, by saying that they'll do weekly briefings on what's going on and not announce when asylum boats arrive. How practical is that?

LEIGH: Well, it's pretty striking isn't it, Tim? We've gone from "stop the boats" to "buy the boats" to "hide the boats". I think this is ultimately a media management strategy. It was flagged by Scott Morrison during the election. What it's meant is that when what we estimate is the eighth asylum seeker boat, arrived since the election yesterday, its arrival was heralded by locals on Christmas Island. But if he's going to make this work, he has to gag everyone. He has to gag the administrator of Christmas Island, Jon Stanhope and the residents of Christmas Island, who were the ones who got the news out today.

LESTER: Is it practical?

LEIGH: I don't think it's practical at all Tim and I think it speaks, really, to the Coalition's desire to bring secrecy back to government. Remember after we won office, in the wake of the Cornelia Rau affair, we had to bring in Andrew Metcalfe to do a review of the culture of secrecy the Coalition had built within the Department of Immigration. They are also looking at getting rid of the independent review of ASIO assessments for asylum seekers, again taking us back to the bad old days of excessive secrecy. In other spaces, they are looking at bringing back gag clauses for charities. It's a worrying trend right across government.

LESTER: But they are also looking, according to one article in The Australian newspaper this morning at allowing some action against some groups that try and carry out boycotts on products on environmental grounds like GetUp! or others who might try and lead those boycotts. What do you think of that action?

LEIGH: It's extraordinary, isn't it Tim, the notion that you would prevent consumers from getting together to say that they believe for ethical reasons certain products should not be purchased. This is what we saw during the Apartheid era where consumers got together and urged a boycott of South African products. We've seen in recently when there were concerns raised over Sherrin, the football manufacturer; consumers getting together to encourage better standards. Sherrin responded. The idea that we can't together with our fellow people and talk about environmental or other ethical issues as they affect product purchases is frankly is extraordinarily heavy handed.

LESTER: Okay. The last question before we close, the Labor leadership debates that Anthony Albanese, one of the candidates is talking as about possibly having in the last few weeks of the process. How do have you have genuine, full-on political debates, without at least some animosity and some invective, if you like, coming in to play, that there's so far, the two leadership contenders have been tip toeing around. It's almost a contradiction in terms.

LEIGH: Oh, I don't know. At our best I think we have managed to do Breaking Politics in that spirit! I certainly remember discussions with Fiona Nash, recently elevated, which were very congenial.

LESTER: Without arm wrestling from the party leadership though?

LEIGH: But I think, is that the thing you have with these two contenders is, Bill and Anthony are genuinely two people who like one another, who have worked constructively in the past and have a great deal to offer the Labor Party. We just can't go wrong in this leadership contest because they are people of such high calibre with a suite of great ideas to bring to the parliament. Anthony, with his experience in managing the parliament and his extraordinary personal story of growing up in very disadvantaged circumstances. Bill, with what his done with DisabilityCare, with bringing Better Schools together and with his ideas about building a ‘good society’. This is a great contest and one which is invigorating the Labor Party branch membership.

LESTER: Andrew Leigh, we're very grateful for you coming in and I should say you've got a new sparring partner each Monday, Andrew Laming, Liberal MP from Queensland who I believe you know.

LEIGH: Indeed. Andrew went through the Harvard Kennedy School the year before me. Because we have somewhat similar names, we're both Andrew L's, I was frequently mistaken for him when I was there in the early 2000s. We disagree on almost every policy issue but we've remained good friends even after entering parliament. So, I'm looking forward to jousting with him when parliament is in session.

LESTER: We appreciate your time today. Thanks Andrew.

LEIGH: Thanks Tim.