Andrew Leigh

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP
CAIRNS
THURSDAY, 16 JUNE 2016

SUBJECT/S: Labor’s plan crack down on unpaid fines and reducing unnecessary incarceration by reforming the fine recovery process; positive policies for Leichhardt; Bob Katter campaign ad.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER:  Thanks very much for coming along today. I'm here with Sharryn Howes, Labor's terrific candidate for Leichhardt, to announce an important Labor policy to make sure that fine defaulters pay and we have fewer people in prisons. Right now, Australian States and Territories are locking up fine defaulters, it's costing the taxpayer up to $770 per day and it's one of the reasons why the Australian incarceration rate is going up and up. Later this year, we will probably hit the point where we've got more than 40,000 behind bars. Our incarceration rate is now 196 per 100,000, that's as high as it's been in at least a century. The Indigenous incarceration rate is higher still. Indigenous Australians, adjusted for age, are 15 times more likely to be in jail. That's an incarceration rate that's even higher than it was when the report into Aboriginal deaths in custody was handed down in 1991.

Labor takes incarceration seriously, we take Indigenous incarceration seriously. We've called for incarceration targets to be part of the Closing the Gap reports. Bill Shorten has mentioned Indigenous incarceration in each of his responses to the Closing the Gap report. But our current system isn't serving taxpayers and it isn't serving the most disadvantaged. I'm particularly pleased to be making this announcement alongside Sharryn Howes, somebody who has worked in community services for a decade and who understands firsthand the impact incarceration can have on setting people down the wrong path. What we do when we lock up a fine defaulter is we say to them they don't need to pay their fine. Instead, we'll pay for them to go to jail. The result of that is to increase the chances of somebody re-offending. Sharryn has of course seen first-hand the impact the incarceration can have on young lives.

THE HON MARK DREYFUS QC MP
SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL
SHADOW MINISTER FOR THE ARTS
MEMBER FOR ISAACS

THE HON SHAYNE NEUMANN MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS
SHADOW MINISTER FOR AGEING
SHADOW MINISTER FOR NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
MEMBER FOR BLAIR

THE HON DR ANDREW LEIGH MP
SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER
SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION
MEMBER FOR FRASER
LABOR CANDIDATE FOR FENNER
 

LABOR WILL REFORM FINE RECOVERY TO REDUCE INCARCERATION

Labor will crack down on unpaid fines and reduce unnecessary incarceration by reforming the fine recovery process.

Australian States and Territories spend up to $770 per day, per offender locking up people for unpaid fines.

High and growing incarceration rates put unnecessary strains on government budgets and the community.

SCAMMERS FACE $10 MILLION+ FINES UNDER LABOR CRACKDOWN

From pharmaceutical companies making misleading claims about products to scammers swindling $229 million from consumers, dodgy business practices are too familiar to Australians.

However, current penalties are too small to act as a deterrent, are low by international standards and are seen as a mere “cost of doing business” according to the Federal Court, the ACCC, and consumer advocates.

Despite the clear case for action, in three years the Abbott-Turnbull Government’s effort to protect consumers has amounted to this:

 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP
MORUYA
FRIDAY, 10 JUNE 2016

SUBJECT/S: Funding for Shoalcoast Community Legal Centre

FIONA PHILLIPS, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR GILMORE: I’m standing outside the Moruya Court House today with Andrew Leigh, Labor's Shadow Assistant Treasurer. We're here with an exciting announcement, that Labor will be providing $450,000 for Shoalcoast Community Legal Centre over three years if a Shorten Labor Government is elected.

We're absolutely thrilled about this announcement. We know the important work that Shoalcoast Community Legal Centre provides right across the Gilmore electorate through their outreach programs helping the people of Gilmore with family issues and domestic violence issues as well as assisting the elderly. I'll hand over to Andrew.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
SKY NEWS TV INTERVIEW
THE LATEST WITH LAURA JAYES
THURSDAY, 9 JUNE 201

SUBJECT/S: Labor’s 10-year plan; costings; AAA credit rating; Labor’s tough savings decisions

LAURA JAYES:  Andrew Leigh, the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, welcome to the program. We're yet to see the raw figures but you've promised a better budget outcome than the Government in 10 years. What is the starting point? What are the figures and forecast that you're starting from?

LEIGH: Laura, we're starting from figures that are put together in the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook, prepared by the Secretaries of Treasury and Finance. And all of our costings are prepared by the Parliamentary Budget Office, which as you know under the Charter of Budget Honesty is an equal status coster to the Treasury. We're confident that over the decade we're going to do better than the Government. Because while they have the biggest promise of the election in this unfunded company tax cut, that starts small but ends up huge, we have grandfathered changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount that don't affect the existing investors but over time build in their savings. 

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
RN BREAKFAST WITH FRAN KELLY
FRIDAY, 10 JUNE 2016

SUBJECT/S: Deficits; Labor’s savings; Labor’s childcare package; Labor’s plan for small business (NBN); the Redfern Statement

FRAN KELLY: Andrew Leigh is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer. Andrew Leigh welcome back to breakfast.

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

KELLY: So Labor is going to make these cuts and you are going to present yourself as a tough economic manager doing everything required. Doing whatever it takes basically to repair the budget. Yet at the same time you're also admitting to us that you are heading into four years of bigger deficits. How do these two match up?

LEIGH: Well Fran, we've said that over each year going out over the Labor budget the deficits will continue to get smaller. The budget will be back into surplus in the same year as the Government. We've set that over the 10 years, we're firmly confident that Labor's plan would be better for the economy than the Coalition's.

ANDREW LEIGH MP
SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER
SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION
 MEMBER FOR FRASER

FIONA PHILLIPS
LABOR CANDIDATE FOR GILMORE

LABOR’S BOOST FOR SHOALCOAST COMMUNITY CENTRE

A Shorten Labor Government will give the Shoalcoast Community Legal Centre – the Gilmore electorate’s only Community Legal Centre – the funding it needs to keep its doors open, after three years of devastating cuts by the Abbott-Turnbull Government.

Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Andrew Leigh, and Labor’s candidate for Gilmore, Fiona Phillips, today spoke with representatives of the Shoalcoast Community Legal Centre which will receive $450,000 over three years under a Shorten Labor Government.

ANDREW LEIGH MP
SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER
SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION
MEMBER FOR FRASER

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
2GB RADIO INTERVIEW
MONEY NEWS WITH ROSS GREENWOOD
WEDNESDAY, 8 JUNE 2016

SUBJECT/S: Labor’s 10 year economic plan; wage growth; cuts to family tax benefits; infrastructure funding; Triple A credit rating.

ROSS GREENWOOD: Let’s start with the Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh. As Labor today put out its plan for the economy over the next 10 years, he joins me now. Many thanks for your time Andrew. 

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Pleasure Ross, good to be with you. 

GREENWOOD: As we speak, your leader – Bill Shorten, of course – is at the Broncos League Club in Brisbane talking to a people's forum that Malcolm Turnbull has chosen not to turn up to. [Shorten] is putting the case to the people through the Sky Network, and also to the people that are in that audience. The new plan that has come out today, the plan for the economy, many people have dubbed it as a glossy brochure. The full costings are not there – that's not where you are going to put them, are you?

LEIGH: We'll put out the full costings once we've announced our full suite of policies. But this is a clear statement about how the economy would travel under Labor, and what we would do to maintain a strong economy and boost living standards. We've seen living standards fall by four per cent since the Coalition came to office, the slowest wage growth in 30 years, the highest level of inequality in 75 years, and a government that is really lacking in direction. Labor would invest in schools and infrastructure, which the OECD tells us is where the heart of growth needs to come from. 

ANDREW LEIGH MP
SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER
SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION
MEMBER FOR FRASER

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
3AW MORNINGS WITH NEIL MITCHELL
THURSDAY, 9 JUNE 2016

SUBJECT/S: Tampon tax; penalty rates; budget deficits; 10-year plan projections

NEIL MITCHELL: The Shadow Assistant Treasurer is on the line with us. Andrew Leigh, Good morning. 

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER & SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION: Good morning Neil, how are you? 

MITCHELL: I'm okay. I think it is coming down to something about trust here – why the total backflip on the tampon tax?

LEIGH: We have always been open to making changes on the tampon tax. But as we have been very clear, it needs agreement from states and territories. In the last meeting of the Council of Australian Governments, New South Wales and Western Australia strongly opposed the change. 

THE HON JENNY MACKLIN MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR FAMILIES AND PAYMENTS
SHADOW MINISTER FOR DISABILITY REFORM
MEMBER FOR JAGAJAGA

THE HON ANDREW LEIGH MP
SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER
MEMBER FOR FRASER

SENATOR CLAIRE MOORE
SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMMUNITIES, CARERS AND WOMEN
SENATOR FOR QUEENSLAND

A STRONG, VIBRANT AND SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY SECTOR

A Shorten Labor Government will reset the Federal Government’s relationship with the community and not-for-profit sector and usher in a new era of meaningful partnership for positive social change.

Labor understands the critical role played by Australia’s community and not-for-profit sector in building the capacity of individuals and communities, strengthening community cohesion, addressing inequality and harnessing opportunity.

We know that government alone cannot solve all our social problems. Only by working in partnership with community organisations – and communities themselves – can we bring about lasting change.

But for three years, the Liberals have treated the community and not-for-profit sector with contempt.