Andrew Leigh

Campaign Media Release

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus

Member for Fraser Andrew Leigh

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus QC and Member for Fraser Andrew Leigh today announced new funding for the Women's Legal Centre ACT and the Welfare Rights and Legal Centre ACT.

The Rudd Labor Government will provide an extra $200,000 to the Women's Legal Centre ACT for the next four years and an extra $240,000 for the Welfare Rights and Legal Centre ACT over the same period.

“Access to legal advice and support is essential to strengthening our local communities and our democracy,” said Mr Dreyfus.

“The Rudd Labor Government is deeply committed to a fair go under the law and this funding for the Women's Legal Centre ACT and the Welfare Rights and Legal Centre ACT will make a real difference to people in Canberra.

“Legal services have not yet fully recovered from savage cuts under the former Coalition Government but, in a tough budgetary period, this is a significant boost.”

“This additional funding means the centres can help meet demand for domestic violence, anti-discrimination, property and family law services,” Dr Leigh said.

“This will make a big difference especially to Indigenous women and clients of non-English speaking background.”

“The Women's Legal Centre ACT and the Welfare Rights and Legal Centre ACT will be able to employ more frontline lawyers and staff to help with family law, mortgage stress, employment law, child protection and care matters, and consumer law,” Dr Leigh said.

“Having briefly volunteered for the Welfare Rights and Legal Centre ACT back when I worked as a lawyer, I know first hand the valuable work they do for the Canberra community.”

This funding is included in the budget and is part of an extra $33.5 million over four years for community legal centres across Australia.

The new funding for community legal centres is in addition to the $32 million already provided annually under the Australian Government’s Community Legal Services Program.

27 AUGUST 2013

CANBERRA





Communications Unit: T 03 8625 5111 www.alp.org.au





Authorised by G. Wright, Australian Labor Party, 5/9 Sydney Avenue, Barton, ACT, 2600

On 26 August 2013, Bill Shorten delivered the 13th Fraser Lecture on the topic “The Battle of Ideas and the Good Society”. The video begins with an introduction from me, and concludes with Bill taking questions. A full transcript of the speech is over the fold.

Introducing Bill Shorten’s Fraser Lecture
Andrew Leigh MP
26 August 2013

I acknowledge the Ngunnawal people, on whose lands we meet today.

Thank you to our hosts for today: ANU Labor Students’ Club, and their president Charlotte Barclay.

One of the standard tropes you hear in election campaigns is that there’s no difference between the parties – that it’s a choice between the Popular People’s Front of Judea and the People’s Popular Front of Judea.

But elections do change history. Imagine if the Howard Government had remained in office for the past two terms.

We wouldn’t have DisabilityCare and a seat on the UN Security Council

We would not have apologised to the Stolen Generations, tripled Australia’s marine park network and raised universal superannuation.

Our economy would be smaller, and unemployment would be higher, as we recovered from the recession of 2009.

Perhaps no issue better illustrates the differences between us and the Coalition than parental leave.

We introduced parental leave – a fair and affordable scheme, which has been used by over 300,000 families. Every parent gets the same deal.

But the Coalition don’t want equal treatment.

When they see a kid born with a silver spoon in his mouth, their first thought is – what he really needs is a gold spoon to go with it.

And by the way, here’s a plastic one for the working class kids.

Last year, Joe Hockey lectured us from London about the need to end ‘the age of entitlement’.

Now, the Liberals tell us that millionaire families deserve $75,000 for having a child because ‘it’s not welfare – it’s an entitlement’.

It’s a window into their thinking.

When a minimum wage worker gets a hand up, it’s welfare.

But when a millionaire gets money from the government, it can’t possibly be welfare – it must be their ‘entitlement’.

* * * *

Now, to our speaker for today.

In 1940, George Orwell wrote an essay about Charles Dickens in which he points out that for all the discussion of working class life that you get in novels like Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens never really seemed to regard slum-dwellers, servants, criminals and agricultural labourers as equals.

Orwell makes the same criticism of Tolstoy – someone who seemed fascinated on the problems of poverty, yet averse to breaking bread with the poor.

I used to think this didn’t matter much. But now I do.

There’s a story that the people who clean the Prime Minister’s suite were not invited to the PM’s Christmas Party for 11 years from 1996. Then in Christmas 2007, they were invited, and have been ever since.

Here in my electorate of Fraser, I’ve seen Bill Shorten chat comfortably with people with disabilities – making them feel at ease immediately.

I’ve seen him speak to building workers in Belconnen, talking about the economic incidence of company taxes. Bill told me afterwards: ‘Andrew, don’t ever underestimate your audience’.

And I’ve been with him in Civic, at an event in the kitchen of a local hotel. We were there to talk with the chefs, but Bill immediately went over to introduce himself to the man washing the dishes.

Bill has been at the centre of many of the government’s big reforms.

He’s thoughtful, articulate and funny.

But what’s most important is that for him, progressive reform isn’t just about passing laws – it’s also about helping people.

Reaching out.

Hearing their stories.

And acting on them.

Ladies and gentlemen, Bill Shorten.

Minister for Education and Workplace Relations Bill Shorten

2013 FRASER LECTURE

‘THE BATTLE OF IDEAS AND THE GOOD SOCIETY’

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, CANBERRA

26 AUGUST 2013

*** CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY ***

Introduction

I am honoured that Andrew Leigh has asked me to deliver the 2013 Fraser Lecture.

Andrew is a big ideas man and someone who advances those ideas in the public sphere.

Andrew is what I call a warrior for Labor on the great national battlefield of ideas.

Last Friday I had the honour to share a stage with another big ideas man.

One of the giants of the Australian Labor Party – Paul Keating - at my Maribyrnong campaign launch.

Keating was in vintage form: smart, funny, incisive.

Paul reminded us that Labor was on the side of the “angels”.

“The angels”, he described as “the men and women of Australia … who make the place what it is, the ones who've got nothing to sell but their labour, nothing to sell but their time. No capital, particularly, and who need the support of the political system to give them a better standard of living, a better way of life and a better future.”

How right he is.

Ask yourself: who made the reforms and investments necessary to ensure that the political system gave the men and women of Australia “a better standard of living, a better way of life and a better future” and did so by opening up the economy?

As Keating remarked, memorably, Australians moved up from the Commodore to the Audi.

We did of course.

The Australian Labor Party did.

We’re the dreamers, doers and fighters.

We have ideas, and we don’t just want to talk – we’re prepared to fight to make them a reality.

That’s what we do.

We don’t slavishly follow overseas fashions.

The Power of Ideas

That’s why Australia avoided the excesses of Thatcherism and what in America became known as Reaganism.

Ideas are powerful. They can change the world. But in the wrong hands, they can be dangerous.

When Sir Keith Joseph, the so-called power behind Margaret Thatcher’s throne, addressed the 1976 British Tory Conference he said:

‘Scorn not the vision; scorn not the idea. Power grows out of the barrel of a gun. A gun is certainly powerful, but who controls the man with the gun? A man with an idea.’

When he said those memorable words, Joseph was mocked, not least from within his own party.

But Joseph enjoyed the last laugh.

Thatcherism took the free-market theories of Hayek and Friedman from the eccentric fringe to mainstream reality.

I’m not anti-market by any stretch of the imagination.

In fact, I’m pro-market, pro-competition, pro-innovation.

But I don’t think the economy has to be at the expense of society.

On the contrary, I believe the two are linked – that you can’t have a strong economy without a strong society.

Friends, make no mistake: we are at a crossroad.

Once again, people are telling us we have to prioritise either the economy or the society.

And the correct answer is not either / or, but both.

And that’s why – unless we want to risk the Australian way of life and end up with the lack of social mobility that we can see in Britain and America – Labor has to prevail in this battle of ideas.

The stakes are high. Our nation’s future is on the line.

Today I want to talk about four fronts of the battle of ideas.

First, I want to talk about why ideas are so important to our democracy.

Second, I want to talk about why ideas are so central to the labour movement we hold so dear and why our ideas are more often than not superior to those of our opponents.

Third, I want to talk about why the Labor Party was put on this earth: to build the Good Society.

And finally, I want you to know what this Rudd Labor Government has been doing to win the battle of ideas.

Because we need to clear about why our Labor ideas are right for Australia.

Because our ideas have a vision, an over-the-horizons purpose to build the Good Society.

We know, Margaret Thatcher declared there was no such thing as society.

Many of her Conservative Australian disciples still feel the same.

Labor feels differently. Always have, always will.

We pursued free-market reforms.

We led the way – floating the Australian dollar to financial deregulation and opening up the Australian economy.

But, unlike Thatcher, we didn’t declare war on working people.

Hawke working with Bill Kelty and the labour movement and business, built a consensus around his government’s policies.

Just like Kevin Rudd is doing with the BCA and ACTU now.

Labor introduced a ‘social wage’ – Medicare, superannuation, expanded higher education and cut tax.

Australian Labor invented what Bill Clinton and Tony Blair later called ‘the Third Way’.

As economist Tim Harcourt has recently argued, the Third Way is really the Australian Way.

And the Australian Way works.

Australia is the best performing economy in the OECD.

No recession for 22 years despite the global financial crisis which was really a global recession for many nations.

By contrast, Britain has an unemployment rate of 7.8 per cent, compared with our rate of 5.7 per cent.

In the United States, it’s 7.4 per cent.

In Spain, it is an astonishing 26.3 per cent.

Their youth unemployment comes in at 56 per cent.

We’ve retained our AAA rating.

Interest rates are at record lows.

Inflation is under control.

The other night Paul Keating reminded us about one of the enduring legacies of his government.

He reminded everyone about how much real wages have improved since 1991.

Real wages have gone up 36 per cent – at a time when they have stagnated or gone backwards in many other developing economies – including the United States and Britain.

We’ve got bigger profits, more cooperation and better productivity.

And who made all that possible?

Labor’s Australian Way.

It wasn’t about luck.

It’s about better ideas and people.

Labor ideas and people.

Australian Labor: A Movement of Ideas

From day one, in 1891, the Australian Labor Party has been a movement of ideas.

Simple but important ideas.

Like our belief in a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.

And bigger, sweeping nation-building ideas.

Like the National Broadband Network – lifting superannuation to 12 per cent – the Better Schools Plan – and the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Like Gough Whitlam and the Family Law Act, bringing troops home from Vietnam and engagement with China.

Like the plans for industrial expansion drawn up by John Curtin and Ben Chifley during the dark days of World War Two.

Like Andy Fisher – one of Labor’s early and greatest Prime Ministers - building a transcontinental railway.

We’re the dreamers. The doers. The fighters.

William Kidston, then a humble Rockhampton bookseller who became the world’s first Labor treasurer, summed up our creed.

In 1891, he wrote a poem for the striking shearers gathered under the Tree of Knowledge in Barcaldine.

He urged them to shun extremism and seek ballot-box justice.

The title of his poem consisted of five simple words.

‘The ballot is the thing’.

Five simple words, one magnificent idea.

Claim your democratic rights.

Form a Labor party.

Win government.

Make Australia a better place.

Australia must be the Good Society.

Just eight years later, Queensland Labor stunned the world by forming the world’s first Labor government.

It only lasted a week but it whetted the appetite of our predecessors.

Five years on, Chris Watson formed the world’s first national Labor government, albeit a minority one.

In 1910, Andy Fisher’s party won government in its own right, another world first.

Then, as now, that year’s federal election was not simply the pursuit of power for power’s sake.

Of deciding who would form the next government of the Commonwealth of Australia.

William Spence, a fellow former AWU national secretary and Labor MP, boasted at the time:

“[t]he Labor movement in Australia has now become an almost dominant factor in the political life of the community.”

He argued that this coming triumph entailed more than churning out vote-winning policies.

Spence insisted that Labor was “a political as well as a propagandist movement.”

In other words, Labor had to have the better ideas and be able to communicate that to voters.

Labor must not aspire to be a party that merely reflects public opinion.

Voters needed to believe in our ideas.

It was ever thus.

And you know this belief – call it faith if you like – informs my political outlook.

I can think of three great causes in my life.

The first is my absolute conviction that we are born equal and unique. Each of us has something special within.

Our individual humanity deserves to be expressed fully, not stifled because of the postcodes and circumstances of one’s life.

And then there is my family. They give me my passion to look forward 10, 20, 30 years ahead.

Beyond the 24 hour media cycle.

My other cause is the Australian Labor Party. I joined at the age of 17.

I’ve devoted all of my entire adult life to serving the nation through this great Australian institution.

I joined because it was in my family’s DNA.

My Dad, a Geordie-born seafarer, had unionism and dockside politics pulsing through his veins.

My mum, the eldest daughter of a printer and trade unionist, was a freethinker who led an amazing career as a high school teacher and Supreme Court prize winner and historian.

So joining Labor was a gut feeling, a decision of the heart.

But my decision also came from the head because Labor was and remains the great Australian party of ideas.

From an early age I knew that elections weren’t just about power, or who gets what.

Or defending privilege and resisting change.

But about which side of politics has the ideas to confront the challenges that Australians faced.

Who has the ideas that can address the problems that Australia will confront in 10, 20 and even 50 years from now.

I was seduced by the Hawke-Keating-Kelty vision of consensus. By the length and depth and breadth – not to mention ambition – of their ideas.

Labor wanted the men and women of Australia to have a fair go.

A fair share.

A better future.

That was our ambition. Still is.

Labor wants Australians to get ahead in life.

And – unlike our opponents – we recognise that no one ever gets by just on their own.

We all need support.

We need strong families and strong communities if we’re going to have a strong economy.

And our opponents can’t beat that.

For them, it’s all about the individual.

For us, it’s all about the individual and the community.

Only Labor can do both. Only Labor.

Our values, our traditions, combine a belief in individual aspiration with the knowledge that we are all together in this life.

As the influential British Labour thinker Maurice Glasman recently said of his party: ‘Our tradition is our future.’

My favourite motto is the great Jesuit dictum, ‘be a man for others’.

It’s the ideal that I’ve always sought to live up to.

And it goes to the core of what I see as Labor’s enduring mission in political life.

What it was put on this earth for.

What the Rudd/Gillard Labor governments of the past five and a half years have pursued.

Building the Good Society.

It’s the reason I got into politics in the first place.

To leave this place a better place then we found it.

What is the Good Society?

First and foremost the Good Society is a prosperous, productive, competitive and diverse economy.

An economy where men and women are working in good jobs, treated decently, and are reasonably remunerated.

So that they can raise their children and lead long lives full of meaning.

Where well-being and resilience are central.

Where entrepreneurs and innovators can turn ideas into successful enterprises.

A Good Society means that people don’t merely work hard for their whole adult lives, only to retire poor.

A Good Society sees a cooperative relationship between business and unions as crucial to the creation of a competitive, dynamic Asia-focussed 21st century economy.

Housing should be affordable, whether people are buying their own homes or renting.

Our Good Society should have the best health system in the world, accessible to all, regardless of an individual’s wealth.

A Good Society must look out for those most in need –unemployed, Indigenous, pensioners and the disabled and their carers.

A Good Society means equal treatment of women.

A Good Society reveres education and the special role of teachers.

We also want our communities to be multicultural, tolerant and safe places sustained by respectful relationships, free from fear.

We want our communities to be well served by transport and infrastructure.

We want a clean environment so that our kids can one day dream of creating their own good society.

And not have to remedy problems their parents neglected to address.

Government cannot possibly ensure that nothing bad ever happens to people.

But we can help build resilient families and communities to get us through when life’s shafts of fate strike.

The Good Society is there to ensure that all are empowered to, lead meaningful lives.

Labor has played a leading role in building the Australian Good Society over 122 years.

And our mission is never finished.

We must continue to put ideas into action.

Ideas into Action: The Work of this Labor Government

There is a case to be made for the re-election of Labor on September 7.

Let’s look at education.

Labor legislated for Better Schools, initiated by Julia Gillard and Peter Garret, followed through by Kevin Rudd.

These are the most far-reaching educational reforms in decades.

It’s based on a simple idea – Labor believes in the transformative power of education.

Education has always been the door through which national and personal progress has been made.

For Australia to take advantage of its greatest opportunity since the Gold Rush – the Asian Century – education is the key.

So we believe that funding should be based on need for every student in every school.

We believe that education means that young people will:

Have a better job

Earn more

We know that the hourly wage gain from an additional year of schooling for Year 12 alone is around 11 per cent.

When participation effects are taken into account, annual earnings are 30 per cent higher.

But it’s not just the individual benefits that are profound.

A highly educated workforce is more productive which benefits all of us.  But it’s not all dollars and cents.

Investing in higher levels of education means our children are more likely to:

Be healthy

Live longer

And be more fully engaged in society.

Education is about discovery, friendship, excitement, pleasure, a sense of identity and cultural enrichment.

Education teaches us how to live together and to work together to build a better future.

In short, building the Good Society.

Now consider the National Disability Insurance Scheme known as DisabilityCare – an idea that I had the privilege to collaborate on.

Again built on a simple yet powerful idea – that all Australians deserve to be treated with dignity, to be full citizens and we are all worse off if their potential is wasted.

We’ve also introduced Australia’s first Paid Parental Leave Scheme.

Based upon the simple idea of equality for all women.

Then there’s the Labor invention of superannuation.

Based upon the simple idea that people should retire with dignity.

Oh and carbon pricing.

Based upon the simple idea that our planet is precious.

Our Prime Minister began the National Broadband Network.

Based upon the simple idea that our economy, and equality of opportunity, will flourish or wither on the vine of technology.

We put WorkChoices where it belonged – in the wheely-bin of Australian history.

We provided unfair dismissal protection for 7 million Australian workers.

The first ever national asbestos strategy.

Finally doing something about workplace bullying.

All based upon simple Labor ideas.

Because of the efforts of Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan we saved 200,000 jobs during the GFC, and created nearly a million new jobs since coming to power in late 2007.

And we now have a plan to grow jobs, build up new industries and invest in our economy beyond the China mining boom.

By contrast here are the ideas that the Liberals believe in:

They believe in ending fundamental workplace rights.

They believe in stalling and taxing superannuation.

They hate the idea of reducing our carbon footprint.

They believe in a Labor-lite Better Schools Plan. Christopher Pyne calls it a ‘Conski’ but a few days later supports us.

They are threatened by ideas of change. And don’t have the plans or burning ambition to build the Good Society.

When you wake up, hung over or not, happy or not, on Sunday September 8.

Whoever has won, if even Clive Palmer or Christine Milne or Barnaby Joyce has won, in the world you wake up to, one thing won’t change.

Labor will still be the party of ideas fighting for the Good Society.

Conclusion

You know, conservative writers, and vested interests, shout we can’t win on September 7.

They cry out that Labor has had its day.

They attack unions as no longer relevant.

They say working people have nothing to worry about.

They allege that the Good Society is a given.

But they’re wrong.

I believe, and you believe, Labor’s best days are yet to come.

The work of a great progressive movement – such as ours – can never be done.

Must never be done.

Never forget William Kidston’s words:

‘The ballot is the thing’

Five simple words which tell us what Labor is all about.

Five simple words which tell you how Labor changed Australia.

Five simple words which, I hope, tell you what I am fighting for.

Friends, right now the fight before us is this federal election.

We have 11 days to go.

11 days to win another election that many consider unwinnable.

We have a conservative Coalition hungry for power – contradicting themselves with a bleak ‘cut at all costs’ philosophy, masked by a reject shop sale of slogans.

To abolish the mining tax.

Create an unfair, unaffordable paid parental leave scheme.

Pay cash for boats.

We must fight tooth and nail to explain what we as Labor women and men are doing and why we are right.

Because if anyone says that to fight doesn’t get you anywhere, that politics can’t make a difference, that all parties are the same.

Then let them look over what our great Australian Labor Party has achieved over 122 years.

And over the past five and a half years.

So we over next 11 days must win every argument, great and small, and win the greatest battle of them all.

The battle of ideas.

We’ve done it before. We can do it again.



ENDS

On Fairfax TV today, Chris Hammer hosted Liberal MP Kelly O'Dwyer and myself. We discussed the need to invest in jobs and education, the Coalition's admission that they'll follow Labor's path to surplus, and why flat-rate paid parental leave is fairer and more affordable than a plan that gives the most to those that have the most. Here's a vodcast and here's a podcast.

This morning, I joined Bill Shorten and Gai Brodtmann for a tour of Questacon before announcing some funding certainty for the popular Parliament and Civics Education Rebate (PACER) program. The funding will deliver a steady stream of young patrons to the capital's vital national institutions:

MEDIA RELEASE

Minister for Education Bill Shorten, Member for Canberra Gai Brodtmann, Member for Fraser Andrew  Leigh

Minister for Education Bill Shorten joined the Member for Fraser Andrew Leigh and the Member for Canberra Gai Brodtmann on the steps of  Questacon today to announce a further $6.5 million for the  popular Parliament and Civics Education Rebate (PACER) program.

PACER provides a subsidy for schools travelling more than 150 kilometres to visit the national capital as  part of a civics and citizenship education  excursion.

Federal Labor believes it is important to assist Australian schools to engage students in civics and citizenship education at national democratic, historical and cultural institutions.

Schools must visit Parliament House, Old Parliament House and the Australian War Memorial, and participate in an education program at these institutions. The program also allows students to visit other national institutions like Questacon where they can learn about science in a fun and interesting way.

Federal Labor firmly believes that all students should receive a first class education and learning experience, irrespective of where they live or what their parents earn.

PACER provides financial support ranging from $20 to $260 per student, for students in Years 4-12, and according to the distance travelled to reduce the costs for individual students.

PACER has benefited over 600,000 students since the program commenced in 2006-07 and over 2,000 schools are expected to be supported by PACER in 2012-13.

PACER is popular with regional schools with more than 38 per cent of the schools accessing PACER in 2011-12 from outside metropolitan Australia.

Demand for PACER exceeded available funding from 2007 through to 2011 and supplementary funding has been provided to ensure no school eligible for the rebate missed out.

In 2012, additional funding of $3.2 million was made available to meet expected demand and to help more students visit the nation’s capital.

Funding for this commitment is already included in the budget.

For more information please visit www.civicsandcitizenship.edu.au

CANBERRA

26 AUGUST 2013





Communications Unit: T 03 8625 5111 www.alp.org.au





Authorised by G. Wright, Australian Labor Party, 5/9 Sydney Avenue, Barton, ACT, 2600

MEDIA RELEASE

Minister for Education Bill Shorten, Member for Canberra Gai Brodtmann

The Centre for Quality Teaching and Learning will deliver professional learning programs and research from next year under a new agreement signed with the University of Canberra.

As announced in May 2013, the Rudd Labor Government is investing $26 million in the Centre for Quality Teaching and Learning to support the implementation of the Better Schools Plan in the ACT and beyond.

The Minister for Education Bill Shorten was joined by the Member for Canberra Gai Brodtmann at the University of Canberra today to celebrate the new partnership and witness firsthand the cutting edge teaching technology that the University of Canberra offers.

The $26 million Centre for Quality Teaching and Learning will support the Better Schools goal of being in the world’s top five in reading, numeracy and science by 2025.

Research has shown that there is nothing which influences student performance more than the teacher standing in front of the classroom.

By investing in teacher education and development, we are directly investing in the quality of the education our children receive.

With the agreement finalised, work is now underway to appoint a board and recruit staff for the Centre.

University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Professor Stephen Parker confirmed today that teachers could be updating their skills in the Centre as early as January next year.

Of the $26 million available over six years, $2 million is for establishment costs and the remaining funding will be allocated in equal proportions to Professional Development, and Research and Development into Teacher Effectiveness and Performance Feedback.

Minister Shorten congratulated the University of Canberra on being at the forefront of teacher education, particularly in the fields where Australia needs to improve.

The Centre is being established in association with the University of Canberra and the ACT Government to support the implementation of the reforms under the Better Schools Plan.

Federal Labor is investing in education because we know that it reaps dividends well beyond the school gate.

Funding for this project is already included in the budget.

On Sky AM Agenda, I spoke with host Kieran Gilbert and Liberal Senator Mitch Fifield. I outlined Labor's positive plan for education and infrastructure, and noted the Coalition's $30B of regressive spending - in the form of their $22B unfair parental leave scheme and their $8B restoration of the private health insurance rebate for higher income earners. I also discussed the impact that tens of billions in Coalition cuts would have on health, education and jobs. A transcript is over the fold.

KIERAN GILBERT:

This is AM Agenda, thanks very much for your company. With me now from Melbourne, Liberal frontbencher Senator Mitch Fifield and in Canberra, Labor MP Andrew Leigh. Andrew, first to you, I want to ask you about this commitment made by Tony Abbott yesterday. This plan, over a decade, to have surpluses of 1 per cent of GDP, defence spending back to 2 per cent of GDP and to have each year government as a smaller percentage of the economy. They’re all noble aims aren’t they?

ANDREW LEIGH:

The surplus pledge is a noble aim indeed, Kieran. And people may have noticed that it’s the same as you’ll see in the Budget papers. So after railing against Labor running small, responsible deficits, Mr Abbott is now committing to the same macroeconomic timetable as Labor has already done in the budget papers. But he has a problem, Kieran, I mean he has this extremely expensive parental leave plan, $22 billion. And then on top of that, he’s got $8 billion in restoring the private health insurance rebate to millionaires. Two policies that benefit the rich far more than middle Australia and which will blow a $30 billion hole in the budget. Now the back of my envelope says if you do $30 billion of cuts, you’ll drive up unemployment by about 1.5 percentage points. That’s nearly 200,000 Australians who’d lose their jobs to pay for these two policies which disproportionately benefit millionaires. And really is…

KIERAN GILBERT:

Okay, let’s get Senator Fifield’s thoughts on that. That specific point that Andrew made there about the cuts necessary to fund these big spending initiatives.

MITCH FIFIELD:

Kieran, it’s all we hear from the Labor Party are baseless allegations of cuts and seeking to draw analogies with other governments. Kieran, Labor are operating on the assumption that the Australian economy has reached its growth limits. That the Australian economy will never grow faster than it’s currently growing. We’ve got a plan to create two million new jobs over the next decade. We want to broaden and diversify the Australian economy. We want to see the limits that this government have placed on economic growth removed. So we don’t see the Australian economy as a stagnant equation. We see the Australian economy growing. We have plans to see that happen. We’re going to abolish the carbon tax. We’re going to abolish the mining tax. We’re going to cut company tax. We’ve got a great plan to introduce a HECS style scheme for apprentices where there are skill shortages. So we have a clear plan…

KIERAN GILBERT:

Ok, well let’s put that to…

MITCH FIFIELD:

…to see the economy grow. Kieran, Andrew and the Labor Party are assuming that the Australian economy can be no better than it currently is.

KIERAN GILBERT:

Let’s put that to Andrew then, because that’s the point here Andrew, isn’t it? You either, because the way you’re looking at that, is it not factoring in the possibility that the economy does kick back into gear and we do see strong growth over the next decade?

ANDREW LEIGH:

Kieran, I’m entirely with Mitch in being committed to policies that further strong growth. But those policies, as the mining investment boom tapers down, involve more investment in education. A six year plan which requires the states not to take school funding out, rather the Coaltion’s four year plan which says that it’s okay for states to rip out schools funding as the Federal Government puts money in. And if you really believe that you want to boost the economy’s growth potential, then you’d want to keep the current industrial relations settings rather than to go back to WorkChoices, the lousiest period of productivity growth over the last generation. And you’d want to continue investing in the National Broadband Network, because that’s the infrastructure of the 21^st century. I’m yet to meet anyone when I’m out doorknocking who says the real problem with the NBN is the fibre ought to stop in the cabinet down the street rather than come straight to my home. And that’s because people realise the productivity gains that you get from the National Broadband Network.

KIERAN GILBERT:

Well there’s one, there’s a flaw though in your argument though, because, the argument about WorkChoices, it’s irrelevant, they’ve never, Tony Abbott has made it pretty clear that that’s not where they’re heading. So that’s one big component of your argument there which has a flaw in it. And I put it to you again, that if the economy does grow, much more strongly admittedly than Treasury’s forecasting, that they will be able to meet those goals anyway. And they’re saying they’re going to take the burden of those taxes, carbon and mining taxes off, red tape off and then that will foster growth in the economy. What do you make of that argument?

ANDREW LEIGH:

Kieran, I’m all for growth. As you know, my background’s an economist, we love growth. But you need to have clear policies that are going to do that. The Coalition’s policies, giving the private health insurance rebate back to millionaires won’t boost growth. As Saul Eslake has pointed out. Giving $75,000 to millionaire families to have children, that’s not going to boost growth. The Coalition, they look at a kid born with a silver spoon in his mouth and they say the real problem is you don’t have a golden spoon. Here’s a golden spoon for you and by the way here’s a plastic one for the working class kid down the road. That’s not going to boost growth Kieran. And at the same time, the savage cuts that they have to impose, that will hurt growth.

KIERAN GILBERT:

Let’s bring in Senator Fifield on the cuts, because this is the question that’s being asked. I spoke to Christopher Pyne about it. I suppose people are just wondering where the numbers are going to come from. It’s not going to all come from the public service, is it? You’ve said they’ll be 12, I think it was $5 billion saved through cuts to the public service. But where’s the rest of the money?

MITCH FIFIELD:

Kieran, we will have responsible savings. We’ve announced $17 billion of savings so far. We’ll have a little more to say about savings later this week. And we’ll produce our full reconciliation after we’ve announced all our policies. And we’ll do so before Labor did in the last two campaigns, five o’clock the Friday before the election. Don’t worry, we will do much better than that. But Kieran, I’ve just got to pick something Andrew said before. He said ‘we’re all for growth’ and they’re for surpluses too. The only problem is they’re incapable of delivering stronger growth. They’re incapable of delivering a budget surplus. It’s great to be for something but you’ve actually got to have the capacity to do it. And this government, not in a single budget has delivered a budget surplus. And what they’re saying to us is, look we know we couldn’t deliver a budget surplus in our first term, we know we couldn’t deliver a budget surplus in our second term, but no, wait, trust us, believe us, in our third term or fourth term, maybe, maybe, we might deliver a budget surplus. The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. These guys can’t manage money.

KIERAN GILBERT:

What about the cuts that are out there already, this $5 billion cut that’s been put out there, booked, when it goes to the public service, Senator Fifield. The Government argues that advice from the Parliamentary Budget Office suggests that to get $5 billion in savings, it’d have to be 20,000 bureaucrats would lose their jobs, not 12,000 as you’ve previously said.

MITCH FIFIELD:

Kieran, it’s quite strange. This government say that they’re for surplus budgets. They say they’re for savings. But apparently the only savings which are good and decent are Labor savings. Apparently any savings proposed by the Coalition are inherently bad and evil. This is absurd. We all know that the government is living beyond its means. We all know that this current government is practising intergenerational theft. That they’ve refused to live within their means. They’re reaching their hand forward to take money out of the pockets of future generations. Government has to cut its cloth. We’ll do so responsibly. We’ll do so carefully. We’ll do so prudently. We did it under the Howard-Costello government. We repaid $96 billion of Labor debt. We did so responsibly and we’re going to do that again.

KIERAN GILBERT:

Is the government not trying to have it both ways here, Andrew Leigh? You say that they’ve got to provide the numbers and on the other hand you’re saying when they do provide savings that they’re making the wrong cuts. You’ve got to, it looks like, as I say, you’re trying to have it both ways here. They’re providing the savings and you’re critical of those when they don’t, well you’re critical anyway.

ANDREW LEIGH:

You’re telling me we can’t have both transparency and accountability, Kieran? Certainly what we’ve seen from the Coalition is very different from what we saw from Labor in 2007. And even the Coalition in 2010. In both those campaigns, every time oppositions put out a policy, they laid out very clearly how it would be paid for. The Coalition’s done that with one of their policies. The repeal of the carbon price and the mining tax, all of their saves, $12 billion, add up to the $12 billion they lose there. That means their company tax cut is unfunded. It means their paid parental leave plan is mostly unfunded because the company tax levy covers less than half of it. And it means that their $8 billion of private health insurance rebate give back to millionaires, that’s unfunded too. And so the Australian people are entirely entitled to say, well you guys probably have in mind what Campbell Newman did in Queensland which cost jobs and drove up unemployment. Or what the British conservatives have done which has cost jobs and driven up unemployment. Kieran, we’re performing extraordinarily well by global standards. After the global financial crisis, we rose from the 15^th to the 12^th largest economy in the world. Took on debt equivalent to about 10 per cent of GDP at a time when other countries around the world have debt loads that well exceed their annual income. And we’re on track to pay down that debt over the next term of government, which is, let’s face it, the same debt timetable that the Coalition has committed to.

KIERAN GILBERT:

Twelve days to go. Senator Fifield, what’s the mood like in the Coalition.

MITCH FIFIELD:

Kieran, we’re just focussed on seeking to earn the trust of the Australian people and laying out our plan for jobs and for growth.

KIERAN GILBERT:

You must be pretty optimistic though.

MITCH FIFIELD:

Kieran, 12 days is a long time in an election campaign. We take nothing for granted. The Australian public expect political parties that are putting themselves forward for government to earn the trust every single day of the election campaign. And that’s what we will be doing. And we’ll be talking about plans such as for apprentices, to give them access to HECS style loans. We’re going to be talking a lot about jobs and employment. We need to lift the speed limiters from the economy, to see the economy grow, to see that more people get jobs. And that Australian businesses can look forward, hopefully, to seeing a change of government which will be the biggest boost to business and consumer confidence that they can get.

KIERAN GILBERT:

Andrew Leigh, only 30 seconds left as well, your thoughts, the morale within Labor. Next time we speak will probably be after the election.

ANDREW LEIGH:

We’re certainly the underdogs, Kieran, but I’ve found being out in the electorate just to be terrifically stimulating. Really enjoyed those local conversations in Belconnen and Gungahlin over the weekend. And I think there is a sense that Labor’s positive plan for an economy in transition is the right one. This is the time to build the National Broadband Network, to invest in education, to reduce the burden of the GST from small businesses.

KIERAN GILBERT:

Andrew Leigh, Senator Fifield, thanks if I don’t see you until after the election. All the best and we’ll chat to you then.

ANDREW LEIGH:

Thanks Kieran, thanks Mitch.

MITCH FIFIELD:

See you Kieran.

On ABC666 this morning, I joined a 'pollie panel' with other candidates for the seat of Fraser. We discussed the Coalition's regressive paid parental leave scheme, and their additional 12,000-20,000 job cuts, plus Labor's plans to invest in education and the NBN. Here's a podcast.

On Monday 26 Aug at 2pm, Bill Shorten will deliver the 13th Fraser Lecture at the Finkel Lecture Theatre, John Curtin School of Medical Research, Australian National University.

The title of Bill’s talk is “The Battle of Ideas and the Good Society” and is hosted by the ANU Labor Students’ Club.

The lecture is open to the Canberra community, but places are limited.

Please RSVP on 6247 4396 or Andrew.Leigh.MP {AT} aph.gov.au.

This morning, Liberal candidate Zed Seselja and I spoke with hosts Rod and Biggzy on Mix 106.3. Topics included risk management, Coalition costings, the sacking of Raiders coach David Furner, and catching Biggzy's cousin on one of my phonecalls to electors. Here's a podcast.

My letter to the Canberra Times today (with an apt heading):

Libs vow to decimate PS

Several commentators in The Canberra Times have recently argued that Labor is ''driving down the road'' towards the Liberals' promised public service job cuts.

This misses the fact that the Liberals' policy is to cut between 12,000 and 20,000 public service jobs at the point when they are elected.

The Liberals will not undo the efficiency dividend or our targeted reduction in EL/SES positions. Their cuts will come on top of our recent decisions, not instead of them.

A vote for the Liberals on September 7 is a vote for 12,000-20,000 fewer public servants. For Canberra, that means higher unemployment, more bankruptcies, and lower house prices.

Andrew Leigh, federal member for Fraser