Andrew Leigh

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TV INTERVIEW

SKY NEWS KARVELAS

SUNDAY, 5 MARCH 2017

SUBJECT/S: Buffett tax; Penalty rates; National Accounts.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: My next guest is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Andrew Leigh who I'm sure was listening in there. Andrew Leigh, welcome.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Thanks Patricia, great to be with you.

KARVELAS: I'll just start with the question I'd love to get your view on, do you support the Buffett tax?

LEIGH: The Buffett tax is essentially the notion that as Warren Buffett put it, it's unfair for a billionaire like him to be paying a lower rate of tax than his secretary. It has inspired a range of people to do work around tax fairness and that tax fairness package made its way into Labor's last election platform where we said it wasn't fair to have breaks like negative gearing, capital gains tax and the high income superannuation tax breaks and it was appropriate to rein those in. The Buffett tax tackles two issues essentially; deductions and the 50 percent capital gains tax discount and we went to both of those.

WHAT IS ONE NATION HIDING ON GST?

New revelations have raised more questions about possible breaches of Australian tax law by the Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party Queensland Division.

Earlier this week, it was revealed that One Nation had been collecting GST from its members and supporters, despite not having the Australian Tax Office's authorisation to do so.

Mysteriously, within a day of this becoming known, One Nation’s tax status has now been updated on the Australian Business Register, showing that it was registered for GST since 2015.

GOVERNMENT DEVOTES HALF A PERSON TO ITS “HIGH IMPORTANCE” TRADE DEAL

The Turnbull Government’s pretence of action on trade liberalisation has again been exposed by revelations at Senate Estimates that there is less than one staff member in the government currently working on one of its top trade priorities.

Last September, Trade Minister Steve Ciobo told an audience in Brussels that the Trade in Services Agreement was ‘of high importance to both our policy and commercial interests and to the future health of the global economy’.

(Source: website of The Hon Steve Ciobo MP,  Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment – Speeches, Address to the European Parliament, 8 September 2016).

State Agreement Will Stamp Out Charity Scammers, The Daily Telegraph, 3 March 2017

Camp Gallipoli claimed it was a charity established to raise funds for veterans and their families. On that basis, it received $2.5 million dollars in taxpayers’ money from the federal government, plus permission to use the word ‘Anzac’ on its promotional merchandise.

Except it wasn’t a charity.

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DOORSTOP

CANBERRA

THURSDAY, 2 MARCH 2017

SUBJECT/S: Please explain whether One Nation is complying with tax laws; revelations arising in Estimates about the Government’s leaking of personal information of individuals harassed by Centrelink.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Thanks very much for coming along today, my name is Andrew Leigh the Shadow Assistant Treasurer and I'm here with Murray Watt. It's been revealed yesterday in questions from Katy Gallagher in Senate Estimates that no entity is allowed to collect GST but then not pass that onto the tax office. 

IS ONE NATION COMPLYING WITH TAX LAWS?

According to the Australian Business Register, One Nation’s Queensland division is not registered for GST. Yet their website offers memberships to people with prices that are GST inclusive.

GOVERNMENT MUST CRACK DOWN ON DODGY PHOENIX OPERATORS 

Labor welcomes the third and final report by the Melbourne Law School and Monash Business School ‘Phoenix Project’.

The Turnbull Government has been suspiciously silent on the harm phoenix activity has on employees, businesses, and their families. The Phoenix Project report is a chance for them to catch up on their responsibilities to small businesses and consumers.

Harmful phoenix activity – deliberate related-party asset transfers and insolvency – is a tactic used by some directors to explicitly avoid paying employees their entitlements, avoid paying taxes, and avoid paying creditors – particularly subcontractors and other small businesses.

LABOR WORKING WITH THE COMMUNITY SECTOR

Today, I was pleased to bring together around 100 community leaders in Parliament House to discuss innovative ideas to strengthen community life.

Over recent generations, Australia has become more disconnected. We are less likely to join mass membership organisations, to attend church, to volunteer, or to be part of a union.

Government plays a role in strengthening civic life, which is why Labor fought hard to keep the Coalition from abolishing the Australian Charities and Not for Profits Commission. 

Tanking in business is known as "Phoenix Activity", Sydney Morning Herald,                  21 February 2017

Perhaps my most famous constituent is Nick Kyrgios, Australia's top-ranked male tennis player. But despite his extraordinary serve and blasting forehand, there is one aspect of Kyrgios's game that I, along with other Australian sports fans, cannot condone.

Not trying. Failing on purpose. Tanking.                                 

Australians hate it when their stars don't play to win. So when Nick tanked a tennis match at the Shanghai Masters last year, he copped it from all corners (when John McEnroe is criticising your attitude, you know there's a problem).

It's not just in tennis. We've seen allegations of tanking in the AFL, as well as major league baseball, Olympic badminton, Asian soccer and the National Hockey League.

Tanking in sport lets down the fans. But when it happens in business, people can lose their jobs and companies. Tanking in business is known as "phoenix activity".

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TV INTERVIEW

SKY NEWS AM AGENDA

MONDAY, 20 FEBRUARY 2017

SUBJECT/S: Renewable energy policy; housing affordability; sugar tax.

KIERAN GILBERT: With me now is Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Andrew Leigh. In regard to the mandate for the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, should Labor open its mind to it given just a few years ago that Mr Rudd was one of the strongest advocates for pursuing carbon capture and storage?

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Kieran, we'd all love it if carbon capture and storage worked, because it would mean you'd get to enjoy coal without having the emissions. The trouble is, like cold fusion, it's a technology that hasn't lived up to the promises of its boosters. Any solution is likely to be decades away and indeed it also costs quite a bit of the energy of the power plant in order to do the carbon capture and storage. Some of these models have suggested that carbon capture and storage might add another 40 per cent to the price, which then means that the cost advantage of coal would pretty much go away. This isn't a technology that the private sector is backing, it’s not a technology that the rest of the world is piling into, it's not a proven technology. Unlike wind and solar which really are. Let's focus on those and battery technology- 

GILBERT: That's right, they are proven in the sense that they can generate power but they can't sustain it in the baseload sense so that battery storage that you refer to is critical, is that there yet?

LEIGH: Battery storage, tidal, these are all technologies that are making incremental gains year on year rather than putting taxpayer money into a moonshot. This isn't a technology that I think ought to be the focus of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.