Andrew Leigh

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RADIO INTERVIEW

5AA MORNINGS WITH LEON BYNER

WEDNESDAY, 16 JUNE 2021

SUBJECTS: Multinational tax avoidance and tax havens; tax fairness.

LEON BYNER, HOST: Now, ever wondered how your Netflix statement bills to a company in the Netherlands and gets to you, why people who place Facebook ads are charged by a company in Ireland, and why the tiny island of the Bahamas is the sixth-largest foreign owner of Australian farmland? Bet you didn't know that, eh? Back when most multinationals produced manufactured goods, taxation was pretty straightforward: profits were taxed in the country where the goods were produced and where the firm was headquartered. But these days, firms are sneakily shifting profits into low-tax jurisdictions. Two-fifths of multinational profits now pass through tax havens and so-called investment hubs, and of course, that means that a lot of those places, I would have thought that the place where you do business is where you pay your tax. Not necessarily. I want you to meet, again, a bloke who I think is one of the finest economic minds we've got. He's the Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury, Dr Andrew Leigh. Andrew, this seems to put an unfair burden on the ordinary taxpayer, doesn't it - and good morning.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: G'day, Leon. Yes, you're absolutely right. When multinationals don't pay their fair share, that doesn't take away the need to spend on schools and hospitals, it just means the shortfall has to be made up for by pay-as-you-go taxpayers and regular small businesses. Your typical Adelaide business can't hide profits in the Cayman Islands, so they end up being stung more when multinationals pay less. It's in the interest of the whole economy to make sure that multinationals pay their fair share, but I don't see very much enthusiasm about that from the current Federal Government.

IT'S HIGH TIME TO MAKE THE BIG MULTINATIONALS PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE OF TAXES

Daily Telegraph, 16 June 2021

Ever wondered why your Netflix statement bills to a company in the Netherlands, why people who place Facebook ads are charged by a company in Ireland, and why the tiny island of the Bahamas is the sixth-largest foreign owner of Australian farmland?

In the era when most multinationals produced manufactured goods, taxation was straightforward: the profits were taxed in the country where the goods were produced, and where the firm was headquartered. But these days, firms have become adept at shifting profits into low-tax jurisdictions. Two fifths of multinational profits now pass through tax havens and so-called “investment hubs”. Over half the corporate profits recorded in Ireland are shifted from other countries. In recent years, frustration with the slow pace of debates over multinational tax reform has led more than 40 nations to enact or announce new digital sales taxes on technology firms such as Facebook and Google.

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RADIO INTERVIEW
2SM MARCUS PAUL IN THE MORNING

TUESDAY, 15 JUNE 2021

SUBJECTS: Biloela family; Scott Morrison out of step with G7 on climate action; Liberals attack on charities; Importance of a UK trade deal that works.

MARCUS PAUL, HOST: Right now, Andrew Leigh. Good morning to you, Andrew.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Good morning, Marcus. Terrific to be with you.

PAUL: Thank you, mate. Did you enjoy - do you get a long weekend in Canberra?

LEIGH: We do indeed, yeah. A lovely big chunk of time with our three little boys, so that was fabulous.

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RADIO INTERVIEW
2SM MARCUS PAUL IN THE MORNING

TUESDAY, 8 JUNE 2021

SUBJECTS: Indigenous Marathon Project and the Cairns Ironman; Liberal Government’s failures on vaccines; renewable energy project at Liddell power station; Liberals’ Medicare cuts; multinational tax avoidance.

MARCUS PAUL, HOST: Let's go to Canberra now. Andrew Leigh joins us each and every Tuesday. Morning, mate.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Good morning, Marcus. Great to be with you.

PAUL: Congratulations, by the way. You competed your Ironman race, and you raised - how much money did you raise?

LEIGH: We're at $17,000 so far. We were aiming for $22,000, so if any of your listeners would like to chip in it's not too late to support Rob De Castella's Indigenous Marathon Foundation.

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RADIO INTERVIEW
2SM MARCUS PAUL IN THE MORNING

TUESDAY, 1 JUNE 2021

SUBJECTS: Morrison Government’s failure on quarantine and vaccinations; Morrison Government failing to assist Victorian workers; Christian Porter; Reconciliation Week.

MARCUS PAUL, HOST: Andrew Leigh is a Labor MP. Good morning, Andrew. How are you?

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Good morning, Marcus. It's great to be with you.

PAUL: All right, well, we can bet on a longer lockup. The blame game started. Of course, those conservatives those LNP rusted-on types are blaming Dan Andrews, it's all the Victorian Government's fault. I think perhaps if we had vaccination up to scratch and if we had quarantine facilities away from populations, and of course if we didn't go back on, you know, rules that were in place for government-controlled aged care facilities, we might have avoided this.

LEIGH: Absolutely, Marcus. Every outbreak from hotel quarantine is a direct result of Scott Morrison's failure to put in place a safe national quarantine system. We know quarantine is a federal responsibility because it's in the Constitution, which sets out things the federal government should do - Section 51(ix): quarantine. The Federal Government's lax pace of the vaccination rollout - we've had vaccination on slow-mo - has meant that the impact of the outbreak in Victoria has been much worse than it would otherwise have been. Other countries have half their populations fully vaccinated. We have around 2 percent fully vaccinated and only 18 percent have gotten one jab. We are not even in the top 100 countries in the world in terms of the vaccination roll out. Labor has also been urging Prime Minister to put in place a national ad campaign. It’s sort of strange that the guy who was once an ad man, before he was fired by Fran Bailey, won't put in place government ads persuading people who are hesitant to go out there and get vaccinated.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 26 MAY 2021

*** CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY ***

In the 1940s and 1950s, US Senator Joseph McCarthy began a regime of attempting to seek out so-called communist sympathisers. Over that period, some 10,000 to 12,000 people lost their jobs. People's lives were ruined. People were unjustly imprisoned. The claims were exaggerated, and did nothing to improve the national security of the United States.

INSTEAD OF A RACE TO THE BOTTOM, LET'S HAVE A RACE TO GLOBAL TAX FAIRNESS

The Canberra Times, May 25 2021

A few years ago, Scott Morrison was vociferously arguing that Australia was in a race on company taxes. Both Britain and the United States were cutting their company tax rates, and Morrison alleged that if Australia didn’t follow suit, ‘the Labor Party will leave Australian businesses stranded on a tax island — uncompetitive with the United States, with the United Kingdom, with Singapore’.

How things can change. The British Conservatives have now legislated to increase the company tax rate from 19 percent to 25 percent, taking effect from 2023. To pay for his infrastructure plan, President Biden is committed to increasing the US company tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent. A global race to the bottom in company taxes has been replaced with a recognition that firms should pay their fair share of tax. Those elements in the Liberal Party still pushing for Australia to cut company taxes are looking as old-fashioned as the climate change deniers.

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RADIO INTERVIEW
2SM MARCUS PAUL IN THE MORNING

TUESDAY, 25 MAY 2021

SUBJECTS: Territories’ right to legislate on voluntary assisted dying; Scott Morrison’s failure to address sexism and women’s safety.

MARCUS PAUL, HOST: Good morning, Andrew.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: G'day, Marcus. How are you?

PAUL: Not bad. Great to have your company this morning. Now, euthanasia - it's just one of those topics that, well, quite often we will ask MPs to vote on their conscience on. It's, as we know, it's controversial. It's very personal. My point earlier in the program was jurisdictions like the ACT and the Northern Territory, should be able to on their conscience vote on these issues without interference from the federal government. I mean after all, locals living in Canberra and surrounds vote people in within their own legislature, that is the local, not MPs, what are they called out there, MLAs. They are the ones who should decide these issues, not the federal government. That's my take anyway, Andrew.

LEIGH: That's right, Marcus. People will remember the history of this. In the 1990s, the Northern Territory was the first place in Australia to introduce voluntary assisted dying laws, and the Commonwealth Parliament said 'well, we can't have a territory going first, and so we'll ban the territories from legislating on euthanasia’. A quarter century on, we've now got half the states, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia, having passed euthanasia laws, Queensland is about to begin debating them, so it could well be a majority of the states have euthanasia laws in place, and yet the territories are still banned from legislating on it. We are now in a situation where 87% of Australians support euthanasia, including around four out of five Coalition voters, four out of five Protestants, four out of five Catholics. It's one of those issues where the federal parliament is lagging behind public opinion.

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RADIO INTERVIEW
2CC CANBERRA LIVE WITH LEON DELANEY

MONDAY, 24 MAY 2021

SUBJECTS: Territories’ right to legislate on voluntary assisted dying; Upper Hunter by-election; Prime Minister’s focus on photo ops instead of vaccines.

LEON DELANEY, HOST: The Federal Member for Fenner, Andrew Leigh, is today at some point introducing a motion into the federal parliament to seek the restoration of territory rights in matters of determining assisted dying laws. Andrew Leigh is on the phone now. Good afternoon.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Good afternoon, Leon. Good to be with you.

DELANEY: Thanks for joining us. Have you, in fact, presented your motion as yet?

LEIGH: I have. It was debated at 11 o'clock this morning and it's now up to the Government as to whether they'll bring it on for debate. It's high time we got this thing fixed, Leon. It's been a quarter of a century since parliament took away the rights for Canberrans to have euthanasia debated by our local Assembly. Since then we've seen three states go ahead and enact euthanasia laws, and yet 700,000 Territorians aren't able to have their parliaments debate the issue.

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RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO CANBERRA MORNINGS WITH ADAM SHIRLEY

MONDAY, 24 MAY 2021

SUBJECTS: Territories’ right to legislate on voluntary assisted dying.

ADAM SHIRLEY, HOST: Andrew Leigh is the Federal Labor Member for Fenner. He's planning on moving a motion in Parliament that would assert the ACT's right to govern for itself, including on the issue of voluntary assisted dying. Andrew Leigh, good morning to you. Thanks for your time.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Good morning, Adam. I loved your introduction there, talking about a young child. You know, you think about the ACT Assembly being eight years old when the Andrews Bill was passed, taking away the power to legislate over euthanasia, and as you say it's now a grown-up jurisdiction. It's in its 30s with all the maturities of the state parliaments, half of which have passed laws enabling euthanasia.