Andrew Leigh

Good govt requires more than mere memories, Canberra Times, 2 February

A little over a century ago, GK Chesterton wrote that ‘Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.’[1]

Well told, history is always more exciting than the present. In her latest Quarterly Essay, ‘Political Amnesia’, Laura Tingle demonstrates how a fine wordsmith can skip the dull bits, and compress the achievements of decades into a handful of pages. We’re treated to the best insights of the post-war economic policymakers known as the ‘Seven Dwarfs’. We hear about the creation of capital gains and fringe benefits taxes, over the objections of the naysayers. I challenge you to read Tingle’s description of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating’s achievements, and not want to carve their faces onto the side of Mt Ainslie.

MAKING MULTINATIONALS PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE IS CONTROVERSIAL? ONLY FOR MALCOLM

The more we see of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, the more he reveals about his true values.

In Question Time today, Mr Turnbull flippantly described making big multinationals pay their fair share of tax as: “highly controversial”.

You read that right: the Prime Minister who is ready and willing to force a higher GST on every Australian household thinks asking some of the world’s largest companies to pay their fair share of Australian tax is a controversial move.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TV INTERVIEW

SKY AM AGENDA

MONDAY, 25 JANUARY 2016

SUBJECT/S: Tony Abbott, Australian Republic, GST, Tax reform, bracket creep.

KIERAN GILBERT: This is AM Agenda, with me now is Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Andrew Leigh, a lot to get across today. First of all the fact that Tony Abbott stays in Parliament, there's one thing in Australian politics over the years that many have commented on and that is our inability to use former Prime Ministers well in terms of their capacity. Mr Abbott wants to keep providing service to the community, why not? 

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Kieran I think you're completely right about our inability to make best use of former Prime Ministers on both sides, it sometimes takes them a while to find their feet. But make no mistake, Tony Abbott is not staying in Parliament because he wants to continue serving his local constituents, he's there reflecting the massive fissure that's going on in the Liberal party between the extremists and the moderates. You're seeing this in New South Wales with the place being ripped apart through a series of factional in fights between different camps of the Liberal party.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP

CANBERRA

SUNDAY, 24 JANUARY 2016

SUBJECT/S: Tax reform, multinational tax, GST, bracket creep, Kevin Rudd 

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Thanks everyone for coming out beautiful Hackett. My name's Andrew Leigh, I'm the Shadow Assistant Treasurer. It's been a rough start to the year in economic terms. We've already seen more than $100 billion wiped off the Australian share market. We've got jitters in China. We've seen the Westpac - Melbourne Institute consumer confidence figures down. In the face of all that, Australia demands clear economic leadership, rather than simply the continued floating of thought bubbles. We know that this government promised before they came to office that there would be a tax white paper delivered in the first two years. And yet, we've seen Scott Morrison now saying that tax reform is going to be kicked further off down the line. Australia doesn't need more dog-ate-my-homework excuses from Scott Morrison. Instead, we need clear promises.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

ABC NEWSRADIO

THURSDAY, 21 JANUARY 2016

SUBJECT/S: Malcolm Turnbull’s plan for a 15 per cent GST; ICAC; Australian economic outlook.

MARIUS BENSON: Let's go to local politics now. The federal Opposition has made an early start on the campaign trail for this election year with Labor leader Bill Shorten selling his message from Tasmania and North Queensland in recent days. At the heart of that message are economic issues with the headline concern, in the Labor view, the government’s plan to push the 10 per cent GST up to 15 per cent. For that Labor view on the economy and the election year ahead, I'm joined by the Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh. Andrew Leigh, good morning.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Good morning, Marius.

BENSON: Can I begin with the story that's broken this morning, reported in The Australian, that the Independent Commission Against Corruption in NSW has found no allegations to be pursued against Arthur Sinodinos, who nearly two years ago stood down because of the ICAC hearings. What's your view on that?

LEIGH: I haven't followed all the twists and turns of the ICAC inquiry but certainly from the outside it looks like Arthur Sinodinos – who I think of as a pretty smart bloke – did some pretty dumb things, particularly not being aware that a company he was chairing was making donations to the Liberal Party at a time when he was responsible for Liberal Party donations. But this will obviously be pleasing for Senator Sinodinos and his family. I guess what it highlights though is that Arthur Sinodinos was the first of the three Assistant Treasurers this Government has had since coming to office, along with its two Treasurers. That lack of continuity is one of the reasons why the economic strategy of the Government is so much in disarray.

This week I joined CCTV America to talk about the direct and important role Australia's gun control laws have played in reducing gun deaths. No matter what gun advocates in the US say, the evidence is clear: our laws stopped mass shootings and reduced gun deaths from homicide and suicide.

Raising the GST is not the way to protect consumption, Herald Sun, 12 January

After another Christmas gift splurge, many Australian families will be tallying the cost of last year’s spending spree with trepidation. But as the Turnbull Government begins putting together the 2016 budget, it should have a similarly wary eye on the nation’s future consumption.     

In an interlinked economy, one person's spending is another's income. When you go to the supermarket, fill up at the petrol bowser, buy some new clothes or eat dinner out at a restaurant, that all provides income to other people. This household spending makes up about three-fifths of Australia’s economy. So changes in consumption matter a great deal for the nation’s overall economic health. Treasurer Scott Morrison seems to understand this, as he recently described protecting household consumption as: ‘the most important thing for us over the next 12 to 18 months’.

If protecting consumption is this government’s top economic priority, then jacking up the GST is just about the worst possible approach for it to take. It’s basic economics: make things more expensive and people will consume less of them.

GST = GOVERNMENT STRUGGLES ON TAX 

The Turnbull Government’s plan to jack up the GST would be doubly damaging for Australian consumption if it does not enforce the same tax rules on overseas retailers.

A report in today’s Australian Financial Review highlights the risk that foreign companies selling goods online will simply ignore their obligation to charge GST and send the money back to Australia when new laws come into effect from next year.  

At the moment, goods bought online worth under $1,000 are 10 per cent cheaper than in Australian shops because foreign companies are exempt from collecting GST. The Government intends to abolish this threshold in 2017, but there are question marks over how it will enforce this change. 

The Australian Financial Review has put together an end-of-year feature on underrated virtues - here's my contribution:

Generosity

Some years ago, William Muir, an evolutionary biologist at Purdue University, decided to study the productivity of chickens. The control group was an average flock of chickens, which Muir simply left to breed and produce eggs as usual.

His treatment group were specially selected, by taking the top performers each generation. These chickens were then bred, and the process repeated to create a race of ‘superchickens’.

After six generations had gone by, the control group were happy, healthy, and reasonably productive. In the treatment group, six of the nine superchickens had been murdered. The remaining three had pecked each other so brutally that they were nearly featherless.

Writer Margaret Heffernan has told this story to dozens of audiences. Many tell her: ‘That superflock, that’s my company.’

GHOST OF ERIC ABETZ HAUNTS CHRISTMAS WAGE OFFER AT IMMIGRATION

Joint media release with Shadow Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations Brendan O'Connor

The Abbott-Turnbull Government has taken the Liberals’ attack on the public service to a new low with its latest enterprise agreement offer at the Department of Immigration.

At the last election, the Abbott-Turnbull Government promised that there would be no more than 12,000 public service job losses. Having broken that promise by sacking 17,700 public servants in the past two years, the Government is now proposing to dismiss a further 680 staff from Immigration as part of a pay deal that already offers workers below-inflation pay rises and cuts to conditions.

Suggesting 680 workers have to go in order for their colleagues to receive such a meagre pay deal shows just how much the extreme industrial relations approach of Eric Abetz continues to infect the Government’s public service bargaining.