Andrew Leigh

TURNBULL KEEPS DIGGING ON SCARE CAMPAIGN

 Joint Media Release with Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen

“When you’re in a tax hole, stop digging” – Malcolm Turnbull, Question Time, 23 February 2016.

Mr Turnbull might want to take his own advice. His Government is split wide open on tax and its ‘scare campaign’ against Labor’s policy.

Malcolm Turnbull’s not so scary campaign that Labor’s policy will “crash housing prices” has been torpedoed by the Assistant Treasurer.

The Assistant Treasurer said on Channel 7’s Sunrise this morning:

“The Labor Party has a very irresponsible campaign, they have got a policy that will increase the cost of housing for all Australians, for those people who own a home and for those people who would like to get into the housing market through their negative gearing policy.”

HINT FOR SCOTT MORRISON: REAL TAX PLANS COME WITH REVENUE

It is little wonder Scott Morrison can’t balance the Budget when he keeps announcing tax ‘crackdowns’ that raise no revenue.

The Treasurer’s announcement that the Foreign Investment Review Board will now consider tax issues as part of its national interest assessment process is another attempt to look tough on multinational tax.

But just like his much trumpeted multinational tax bill – which had asterisk where there should have been revenue figures – the Treasurer will not say whether this move will return a single extra dollar to the Australian community.

LABOR APPLAUDS MORRISON’S STRONG ANTI-UNICORN TRAFFICKING STANCE 

After five and half months in the job, Treasurer Scott Morrison has finally made a clear and emphatic policy commitment: there will be no sale of unicorns on his watch.

While some may find the Treasurer’s hard line on mythical creatures unusual, it is entirely consistent with this Liberal Government’s fantasy approach to budgeting.

After all, these are the people who promised they could deliver surplus budgets every year without cutting spending or raising new taxes.   

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP

SYDNEY

WEDNESDAY, 17 FEBRUARY 2016

SUBJECT/S: Labor’s positive plans for the sharing economy; negative gearing; GST; retirement of WA Labor MPs; population growth.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Thanks very much to Sam and the COMMUNE team for having us here, and to Ruby from SheSays for giving us some insights into the important work that they are doing to make sure that the innovative start-up economy includes as many women as possible. Labor believes that the sharing economy offers great potential for tackling some of our big challenges, including creating more jobs and dealing with issues like congestion and housing affordability. That is why we engaged in extensive consultations last year, talking to Australians about the principles that should guide the sharing economy. Labor's principles include the notion that sharing economy firms should play by the rules, and should pay their fair share of tax. Labor understands that the sharing economy offers great potential for creating new jobs, but that we have got to be careful too that the new technologies do not leave people behind. It is only Labor that will ensure that an innovative economy protects workers as well as making sure capital owners do well. 

Just before handing over to Tanya, I want to make a couple of comments about Scott Morrison's address to the National Press Club today. We know that the Abbott-Turnbull Government has lost more ministers that it has had positive tax ideas; 14 more to be exact. All signs are pointing to Scott Morrison's address to the Press Club being just another Joe Hockey-style lecture on Australians living beyond their means. Here are a few facts that Scott Morrison probably won't share with the Australian people when he is at the Press Club: 80 per cent of his return to surplus by 2021 is based on bracket creep. He is unlikely to say that half of the benefits of negative gearing go to the top tenth, or that two-thirds of the benefits of the capital gains tax go to the top tenth. I'd be pretty surprised if Scott Morrison acknowledges that inequality in Australia is at a 75-year high, and that growth has been downgraded successively since the Abbott-Turnbull Government came to office. Australia needs the economic leadership that Malcolm Turnbull promised when he toppled Tony Abbott, but so far we've seen precious little of it. I'll hand over now to Tanya.

TANYA PLIBERSEK, DEPUTY LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Thanks everyone, and thanks particularly to Sam for having us here today. When I speak to the young people who are here today, they are doing jobs I couldn't have imagined ten years ago. The one thing we know for certain is that in ten years’ time or twenty years’ time, our young people will be doing jobs we can’t imagine today. That is why it is so very important that we get a few of our basics right. Of course we have to get the principles around the sharing economy right, as Andrew has said. We need to get investment in school education right, because we know that the kids who are going to pre-school now, and the kids who are starting in primary school, for them coding will be as important as literacy and numeracy. We also need to get right our National Broadband Network. We’ve got a Prime Minister who has had one job as Communications Minister, and that was getting the NBN right. Instead we have got a second-rate NBN that is slower and more expensive than what Labor proposed. We are very focussed on making sure our kids are prepared for the jobs of the future through our school education system, and that the biggest piece of infrastructure that we will build as a nation in coming years is not the second-rate slower and more expensive NBN that Malcolm Turnbull has promised.

LABOR’S PLAN FOR THE SHARING ECONOMY IN INNER SYDNEY

 17 February 2016

Deputy Leader of the Opposition Tanya Plibersek and Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh today visited local start-ups to talk about Labor’s positive plan for cities and the sharing economy.

Meeting with Sydney start-ups SheSays and Maker’s Place, they discussed innovation and how important it is to create a fair and flexible framework of rules for emerging sharing economy services to ensure all Australians can share in the benefits. 

The sharing economy is changing the way we buy and sell things. It is also changing how we think about work and the line between private property and public goods.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

ABC 774 MELBOURNE

MONDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2016

SUBJECT/S: Housing affordability; Labor’s plans to improve fairness in the tax system.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: It's a simple question: is negative gearing the tax break we need to change? Dr Andrew Leigh joins us to talk about this, he's the Shadow Assistant Treasurer and the Shadow Minister for Competition as well in Bill Shorten's Shadow Cabinet. Good afternoon.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Good afternoon Raf, how are you?

EPSTEIN: I'm good. Andrew, have you got a negatively geared property yourself?

LEIGH: I don't, no. Just the one home, I'm afraid.

EPSTEIN: Because there's a ton of federal politicians who do, including I think, one of the Nationals Senators who owns about 42 properties. I just wonder if it gets in the way of politicians considering this properly?

LEIGH: Lucky for some, yes. It's worth thinking about the fact, Raf, that some of these politicians wouldn't be negatively gearing because they would be living in a Canberra residence and a residence in their electorate. But put all that to one side, the reason we're doing this is because it has become harder than ever for young Australians to break into the property market. The share of young Australians owning their own home is down 25 per cent from where it was in the early 1980s, when it used to cost you three times the average incomes to buy a home, rather than six times average income as it does today. The typical Melbourne home now costs more than $700,000 and so many people are saying: well, even if I've got my own place, what about my kids? How are my kids ever going to break into a property market like this? So by encouraging investors to move into new housing if they want to continue negatively gearing, and by grandfathering the existing arrangements, we get a boost in housing supply but without making anyone worse off who has made a decision under the existing rules.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

2GB ALAN JONES SHOW

MONDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2016

SUBJECT/S: Australian Olympic athlete Peter Norman.

ALAN JONES: It's almost four years since I spoke to Dr Andrew Leigh. He is the Federal Labor MP for Fraser, a very bright fellow who is the former professor at the ANU in the School of Economics before he went into Parliament. He is now the Shadow Assistant Treasurer. But we weren't talking about matters economic, although one day we should. We were talking about the late Peter Norman. Peter Norman died in 2006, he was the man that won a silver medal at the Mexico City Olympics in 1968 in the 200m event. Peter Norman had come in second place to the great American Tommie Smith, he ran 20.06 seconds which is unbelievable in 1968; it is still the Australian record. This was a time when black athletes in America when second class citizens. So the black athlete Tommie Smith won the 200 and the black athlete John Carlos won the bronze; Peter Norman, a white athlete, came a brilliant second. 

We Should All Give A Toss That There Aren't More Indigenous Faces on Our Coins - Huffington Post, 11 February 2016 

Depending on which historian you believe, the British monarchy may trace its roots back as far as the 9th century. It's an extraordinary legacy. It also means that when the monarchy first got started, Indigenous Australians had already forged at least a 38,000-year bond with the Australian continent.

The eighth anniversary of the apology to the Stolen Generations puts a national spotlight on the ongoing disadvantage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. It is right that we do this, just as this week has seen the government bring down the eighth Closing the Gap Report. In 2016, persistent racial gaps in health, employment and education are a national disgrace.

We should apologise for the wrongs that were committed, and recommit to closing the gaps that exist. But we should also be proud of our Indigenous people. How cool is it, I tell my kids, that we share this continent with a people who have the longest continuing link to the land in the world? Indigenous Australians have been here for at least 40,000 years, and perhaps as long as 125,000 years.

To celebrate the traditional owners, I believe it's time that we replaced the monarch's face on our coins with faces of some of our most significant Indigenous people. When we toss a coin and call ‘heads’, I believe it should be an Indigenous Australian face we're hoping to see.

IS THE GOVERNMENT OUTSOURCING TAX COLLECTION TO SNITCHES?

In their latest attempt to look busy on multinational tax, reports today suggest the Government is considering a plan to have employees snitch on their bosses in return for a cut of the returns.     

This comes from a government that has cut 4,700 jobs from the Australian Tax Office, including around 1,000 jobs specifically from its Audit area. 

It is finally realising two years too late that sacking the staff who monitor tax compliance is no way to ensure everyone pays their fair share of tax.

Companies have innovated, now it's government's turn, Sydney Morning Herald, 9 February

It can be hard to spot trends while they’re happening. But looking back on 2015, it’s pretty clear this was the year the sharing economy really took off in Australia.

Services like Uber and Airbnb went from emerging services to major market players, while new Australian companies like Airtasker and ParkHound grew from start-ups into fully-fledged firms.

As these services have expanded, there has also been an effort by some state governments to work out new rules and regulations that address issues like safety in the sharing economy without smothering its growth. The ACT became the first Australian jurisdiction to legalise ride-sharing services such as Uber in October, followed by New South Wales in December. The Tasmanian Government has promised to introduce a similar bill in the first half of 2016. Many local governments have also begun working out new rules for sharing things like homes and carparks. 

It’s been heartening to see some of the states and territories embracing the challenge of the sharing economy. But now we need the Federal Parliament to also step up.