Andrew Leigh

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TV INTERVIEW

SKY NEWS AGENDA

MONDAY, 5 NOVEMBER 2018

SUBJECTS: Qantas and unions, agricultural visas, the need for rational debate around Australia’s economy.

KIERAN GILBERT: With us now, the Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh. Andrew Leigh, thanks very much for your time. The warning from Qantas is quite a stark one this morning from Alan Joyce. What's your response and can you placate the airline chief’s concerns?

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Absolutely, Kieran. Labor isn’t interested in disharmony. What we want to do is get wages going again. In Australia, we’ve barely seen real wages move since the Abbott Government was elected in 2013. We got productivity growth, but we haven’t got wages growth-

GILBERT: So would you rule out industry wide bargaining then, where a series of employers can be caught within one particular bargaining claim?

LEIGH: We’ll certainly look at a range of options on industrial relations laws. We’ll restore penalty rates. We’ll ensure that labour hire firms are used to fill temporary shortages rather than being used to drive down the wages of Australians. We do know that productivity has continued to grow since the Abbott Government won office, but wages haven't kept pace and it’s really important that Australia gets a pay rise.

PAY SLIPS AND THE FATES OF THE UNIONS

The Saturday Paper, 3 November 2018

In the late-1700s, one of the most dramatic transformations in world economic history took place. In previous centuries, economic growth had puttered along so slowly that shops would sometimes carve their prices in stone on the wall. Starting in Britain, the Industrial Revolution saw production move from hand work to mechanisation. Steam-powered factories massively increased the output of textiles. With the industrial revolution, output per worker began to surge.

Yet for the first half century after the Industrial Revolution began, most of the benefits did not flow to workers. Productivity rose, as workers used the new technology to produce more output. But real wages barely budged.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

2CC CANBERRA

THURSDAY, 1 NOVEMBER 2018

SUBJECTS: Housing, Labor's plans to crack down on multinational tax avoidance, Adani.

TIM SHAW: The Master Builders Association is deeply concerned, big impact on the ACT economy. Now Labor complained about the Master Builders not including the grandfathering elements to the proposition regarding changes to negative gearing, now you will grandfather negative gearing on an existing property, but will you grandfather the current 50 percent capital gains tax discount?

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Yes absolutely Tim. The changes are prospective. We recognise that people have made investments based on existing rules.

ANDREW LEIGH MP

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION AND PRODUCTIVITY

SHADOW MINISTER FOR CHARITIES AND NOT-FOR-PROFITS

SHADOW MINISTER FOR TRADE IN SERVICES

MEMBER FOR FENNER

CORINNE MULHOLLAND

LABOR CANDIDATE FOR PETRIE

LABOR CLEARS THE ROAD FOR MECHANICS IN BRISBANE

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP

BRISBANE

THURSDAY, 1 NOVEMBER 2018

SUBJECT: Labor's plans to crack down on multinational tax dodgers.

ALI FRANCE, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR DICKSON: Good morning, it's really lovely to have Labor's Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh here today to talk to local businesses about how we're going to level the playing field and tackle multinational tax avoidance. 

Small businesses like the ones behind us, pay their fair share of tax. But we know there are big multinational companies and wealthy individuals who operate in Australia, who don't pay their fair share of tax. Labor wants to put a stop to that. So I'm now going to hand over to Andrew to talk a bit more about how that's going to work.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Well thanks so much Ali and it's great to be here with Ali France, Labor's hard-working candidate, taking our message of fairness to communities like Dickson.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP

MELBOURNE

WEDNESDAY, 31 OCTOBER 2018

SUBJECTS: Labor delivering extra funding for every public school; Labor’s plan to crack down on tax avoidance; petrol prices; live exports; children on Nauru; Israeli embassy captain’s call; Sri Lanka; Victorian election.

PETER KHALIL MP, FEDERAL LABOR MEMBER FOR WILLS: Good morning everyone, ready to go?

I just want to start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land and pay my respects to their elders past and present, and I want to thank Brunswick North West Primary School for hosting us here today. Particularly the principal Hannah Reid, all of the teachers, all of the very active parents on the school council, president Fiona Heathcote as well as Belinda and Sam and the other 12, thank you so much for having us here today.

I bet you never thought when I visited you a couple of times and came to your winter magic market and said I'd do more advocacy for your school that I'd bring a cast of thousands. The alternative Prime Minister, Labor leader Bill Shorten, the Shadow Education Minister and Deputy Labor leader, the Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh and also the Victorian Deputy Premier, James Merlino and Education Minister, and of course Cindy O'Connor, our candidate Brunswick who's done a wonderful job in advocating as well for her community here in Brunswick. 

It's time to crack down on phoenix activity in Australia

The Canberra Times, 24 October 2018

When Megan was seven years old, her dad lost his job.

The factory where he worked closed and his full time job suddenly vanished, along with any payouts he may have been entitled to.

Megan told me that she loved her childhood with her father. Not having to work meant he could walk her to school every day and help her organise her toys.

To her, there was nothing wrong – but it was a different story for her parents.

Looking back as an adult, Megan realised the walks to and from school were because her family could no longer afford the petrol. They weren’t helping her organise her toys for pleasure - it was a way to sell some to pay household bills.

Maths fun factor is highly probable

The Chronicle, 23 October 2018

‘Maths explains why a sunflower’s seeds spiral in the way they do, maths explains the sprawling shape of a river delta meeting the ocean, and maths explains why bees around the world build their honeycombs in such a perfectly hexagonal arrangement.’

Eddie Woo has been called the Kim Kardashian of Australian maths teaching. With more than 400,000 followers to his ‘WooTube’ channel, he specialises in making maths fun.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TV INTERVIEW

SKY NEWS AGENDA

MONDAY, 22 OCTOBER 2018

SUBJECTS: The Coalition loss in Wentworth, New Zealand resettlement offer, Kevin Rudd.

KIERAN GILBERT: Let's bring in now the shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh and Andrew it has been a long time coming, this apology, and of course I guess the process started under Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: It's a really important moment, Kieran, for the survivors to be told ‘we believe you’ and to hopefully begin that process of healing. But we will be judged not just by our words, but also on our actions, and it is vital that we implement the findings of the Royal Commission in full.

LAURA JAYES: Andrew Leigh, can I ask you about the results out of Wentworth now? Are there any lessons for Labor here because I note that your primary vote was only around the 9,000 mark - the Greens were only 2,000 behind.

LEIGH: Labor voters were following the strategy that Scott Morrison outlined for them in his press conferences the week before the by-election. He said it was important that Labor didn't come third because that'd give Kerryn Phelps the best chance of winning. Labor voters heard that message and many of them would have put Kerryn Phelps ahead of Tim Murray in order to make sure that the conservatives for the first time since Federation didn't hold this seat.

FIFTY YEARS ON, WE SHOULD HONOUR NORMAN’S COURAGE

The Herald Sun, 16 October 2016

Fifty years ago today, a young Australian did two extraordinary things.

At the Mexico City Olympics, Peter Norman won silver in the 200 metres, with a time of 20.06 seconds. In the half century since, no Australian has run faster. It is still our national record.

But the best was still to come. As he walked out to the medal ceremony with Tommie Smith (gold) and John Carlos (bronze), the two African-American runners told him that they planned to bow their heads and put their fists in the air in support of human rights.

1968 was the year in which Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated. Race riots in Washington DC, Baltimore, Chicago and Kansas City had represented the biggest upsurge in social unrest since the Civil War, claiming the lives of more than 40 people. Smith and Carlos decided to be a part of those protests.