Andrew Leigh

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP

MELBOURNE

MONDAY, 18 MARCH 2019

SUBJECTS: Ending the Coalition’s war on charities, wages growth. 

PETA MURPHY, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR DUNKLEY: Hi, I'm Peta Murphy, Labor's candidate for Dunkley. It's been absolutely terrific to have Andrew Leigh here today, the Shadow Minister for Charities.  We've held a roundtable with at least 20 organisations across the Dunkley electorate, talking about what makes a great charity, how community groups can get better support and better link with each other to help with volunteers, and generally talking about how a federal government can be of assistance to the amazing people that we already have here who are doing great work connecting and supporting other locals. So, thank you very much for being here today Andrew.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: It's a pleasure, Peta. A connection to community is what propelled Peta Murphy to stand for Dunkley. Her engagement with her local community, the strength of her civic connectedness is what marks her out as one of our extraordinary Labor candidates. We've appreciated today the insights from a range of different charities and not-for-profits in the Frankston area, working with Labor to ensure that we end the war on charities and begin the process of reconnecting Australia.

Those community leaders have shared important insights as to how charities and not-for-profits can build their donations base, attract more volunteers, use online platforms and grow civic society. Under the Liberals, the federal government has been at war with charities. Under a Shorten Labor Government, we would work cooperatively to build a stronger civil society.

I just want to make a more comments too about the Deloitte report that's out today. As the report says, ‘the economy is getting worse, but the budget is getting better’. The Liberals have ineptly managed the economy. We're seeing sluggish wage growth and rising household debt. And yet we've seen net debt now going to a new record high of $373 billion. What this report highlights is the Liberals’ wage forecasts are increasingly unrealistic. The report notes that ‘the gap between Treasury's forecasts of wages and ours (or for that matter those from the Reserve Bank) grows steadily over time.’ 

The fact is that the Liberals are not the superior economic managers they'd have you believe. Australia is seeing rising energy prices and declining home ownership, rising energy bills and declining real wages for some workers, rising government debt and slowing economic growth. The numbers that should be going down are going up. The numbers that should be going up are coming down.

ENDS

Authorised by Noah Carroll ALP Canberra.