Andrew Leigh

MEDIA RELEASE

ABBOTT’S ‘SAVE OUR JOBS’ BUDGET EXPOSED AS CRUEL HOAX IN CANBERRA

After a year of savage cuts to Canberra, the 2015 Budget delivers nothing for our community except more uncertainty. This is just the latest proof that the Liberals see Canberra as little more than a political punching bag by the Liberals.

There is no new infrastructure spending for the ACT in this Budget, and no acknowledgement of how hard the Abbott Government’s 17,300 job cuts have hit Canberra since the Liberals came to office.

In fact, the Government appears to be gearing up for a fresh round of public service cuts, with so-called ‘functional reviews’ on the horizon for the departments of Environment, Foreign Affairs and Trade, Social Services, the Attorney-General’s Department, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, as well as the Australian Tax Office.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TV INTERVIEW

SKY PM AGENDA

WEDNESDAY, 13 MAY 2015

SUBJECT/S: Budget 2015

LAURA JAYES: Now on the Agenda panel is Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister Christian Porter, and also the Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh, both joining me in the studio. Christian, you heard those comments from John Howard, is he right? Is this going to be harder down the track for Joe Hockey?

PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE PRIME MINISTER, CHRISTIAN PORTER: It's very hard for Liberals to disagree with John Howard but I think what he says is very broad and it's the evergreen truth that you have to find the right balance here and the balance here that we must strike is between two things. Obviously expenditure restraint is necessary, but of course there's needs in the economy which is going for a range of structural adjustments to keep things moving which is what the small business package is about. So my view obviously is that we've struck that balance fairly well. There was probably too much ying and not enough yang in Budget number one but I think we've got that balance much better in Budget number two.

JAYES: Structural reform was such a big priority last year, does this budget reflect that it's the wrong time for this kind of structural reform so that's an admission that yes, last year did go do hard?

PORTER: Well I think the proof of this pudding is in looking at the way in which forward estimates project the decrease in the deficit. I think that the consolidation back towards surplus is probably somewhat less than spectacular but nevertheless I think it's impressive and it's surprised a lot of observers including those in markets and in banks who were projecting  next year’s deficit to be a lot larger than what it is. So going from 48 to 41 to 35 and 14 and 7 is, I think, less than spectacular but nevertheless very impressive. And I think that demonstrates that the side of the Budget that engages in expenditure restraint, where we've got real spending at 1.1 per cent out to 2017-18, that's a very good result.

JAYES: I'll get to spending in a moment, but to you Andrew Leigh: these are the Treasurer's figures – I thought you might use that point in your answer here – many economists have said that yes, they think the growth in the outer years, even though some have said it looks a little ambitious at 3.5 per cent, is probably about right. Would you agree with that?

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER, ANDREW LEIGH: Well certainly Laura, I think this budget struggles to pass the test that John Howard would put on it which is getting debt and deficits under control. We've got the deficit coming in a whisker under market expectations but still twice what Joe Hockey said it was going to be last year. We've got spending as a share of the economy and tax as a share of the economy higher under this Government than it was under the last Government.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

6PR PERTH

WEDNESDAY, 13 MAY 2015

SUBJECT/S: Budget 2015

GARY ADSHEAD: I'm here with Andrew Leigh, the Shadow Assistant Treasurer. Thanks for your time, Andrew.

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER ANDREW LEIGH: Pleasure, Gary.

ADSHEAD: Alright now look: looking at the Budget, it's about fairness they say. They're calling it about fairness and encouraging people to have a go. Are you going to get on board with this one? 

LEIGH: Look, I think there are two ways in which you can view the Budget. You can firstly put Tony Abbott's own test to it. He said that under a Coalition Government debt would be down, taxes would be down, spending would be down. Under all of those tests, the Budget has gone in the opposite direction. Double the deficit since last year and the highest tax and spending levels under this Government that we've seen. But the other way, as you say, is the fairness test and investment in the future. There, I worry that Western Australia has had $8 billion ripped out of schools and hospitals. There’s no investment in science and research which will underpin the job growth of the future. So the long-run plan really seems to be missing from the Budget.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

ONLINE INTERVIEW

FAIRFAX BREAKING POLITICS

WEDNESDAY, 13 MAY 2015

SUBJECT/S: Budget 2015

CHRIS HAMMER: Andrew Leigh is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, good morning.

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER ANDREW LEIGH: G'day Chris.

HAMMER: Now, I'm sure there's plenty in this Budget that you don't like and we'll get on to that. But is there anything in the Budget that you do like?

LEIGH: Absolutely. There's investment for the National Disability Insurance Scheme's IT system, there's a small business package that I think is to be welcomed, and there's childcare changes which I think should be looked at with a positive eye. But I'm worried that the childcare changes are contingent on families payments cuts. It doesn't help families much if you give them more money when they've got a three-year-old and then take it away when they've got a six year old.

HAMMER: So what will Labor do with those childcare measures if they remain linked to the family tax benefit cuts?

LEIGH: Chris, we can't support those family payments cuts. We've been clear about that ever since last year's unfair budget. Kids don't get any cheaper when they turn six. I've got an eight-year-old and I can assure you he is no cheaper than his two- and five-year-old brothers. 

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

666 ABC CANBERRA

WEDNESDAY, 13 MAY 2015

SUBJECT/S: Budget 2015

PHILIP CLARK: Joining us now at Parliament House, Andrew Leigh the Labor Member for Fraser and the Shadow Assistant Treasurer. Andrew, good morning.

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

CLARK: And Angus Taylor Member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Tax and Revenue and Liberal Member for Hume. Angus, good morning. And here in the studio with us is Susan Helyar from the ACT Council of Social Service, she is the director of ACTCOSS. Susan, good morning to you too.

HELYAR: Good morning.

CLARK: Angus to you first, the age of entitlement and taking the hard decisions and all of that was the language of last year. This year it's all about childcare, what happened?

FEDERAL MEMBER FOR HUME ANGUS TAYLOR: Well we've made a lot of the hard decisions and we've done a lot of hard work. What we've done, Phillip, over the last 12 months is we've contained the growth in spending that we inherited and that is the most important piece of work we've done over the last 12 months. We're now in a position where we can reinvest in childcare, in jobs, in small businesses – a completely unprecedented small business package – and that's because of the hard work we've been doing. Now you know, it hasn't all been easy and we haven't achieved everything we wanted to but we've gone a long way down the path of what we needed to what we needed to curb that absolutely profligate growth.

CLARK: So the debt and deficit emergency, the budget emergency, that's all over now is it?

TAYLOR: I always saw it as an emergency in spending growth being out of control, that was the problem that I, as someone with a background in economics, always saw. We've now curbed that, and now the job is to really stimulate the economy over the next little while. We are optimistic about the economy, we are optimistic about investment particularly coming from small business over the coming couple of years, and that's the real focus. As well as a focus on jobs and helping those who want to work more, particularly women who are working part-time with extraordinary support in this childcare package as well.

CLARK: Susan Helyar, is the budget fair? Last year there was a lot of talk about it not being fair, that the impacts fell on people who could least afford it: what about this one?

HELYAR: There are some fair measures in it, but we would continue with our previous analysis which is the savings are skewed to low-income households and the ongoing concessions and subsidies continue for higher income households. The other concern we have is that many of the very unfair and damaging impacts of last year's budget continue. We see that the savage cuts to social services, legal services and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Services are still in place. The childcare and early childhood learning measures expected to be funded out of cuts to family benefits. For example cutting $10 a week off a single income family to fund people on $170, 000 to get half their childcare fees subsidised. So there are still some concerns around its fairness.

CLARK: Andrew Leigh, are you pleased that the debt and deficit crisis is over?

LEIGH: I'm not sure in what world it would be over, Philip. If you look at the deficit for the coming year, it has doubled since the last budget. If you look at total spending, total spending is going to be higher under this Government as a share of national income than it was under the previous Government.

MEDIA RELEASE

BUDGET SHOWS HOCKEY’S MULTINATIONAL TAX ‘POLICY’ RAISES $30 MILLION OVER FOUR YEARS

Joe Hockey’s best effort at tackling multinational tax avoidance is worth a total of $30 million over four years – less than 1/60^th of Labor’s multinationals package.

After spending months promising to reap “billions” from tax integrity measures, Joe Hockey’s own budget papers reveal him as a fraud.

There are no billions, only asterisks. 

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP INTERVIEW

CANBERRA

MONDAY, 11 MAY 2015

 

SUBJECT/S: Joe Hockey’s tax ineptitude

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Thanks everyone for coming along this afternoon. We've just seen a most extraordinary press conference from the Treasurer of Australia, who the day before the Budget has announced his latest thought-bubble on multinational taxation. With the Budget coming down tomorrow, Joe Hockey cannot tell the Australian people how much his latest multinational thought-bubble will cost. He's delivered a garbled and incoherent press conference, in which he's been unable to say what these important changes will do for the Budget bottom line. You can bet that if Joe Hockey was announcing measures that hurt poor people, he'd know how much they'd added to the Budget bottom line down to the last cent. But yet again we're seeing a Treasurer utterly adrift from his portfolio, turning out because he wants to be seen, rather than because he's got something to say.

On the so called 'Google tax', we had Joe Hockey first saying he was going to legislate a Google tax, then was going to inquire into a Google tax, and then wasn't going to legislate a Google tax after all. So it's hard to know how seriously Australians should take this latest uncosted thought-bubble. By contrast Labor has a clear plan. It is guided by evidence from the OECD, costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office, it is consistent with our international tax obligations and it adds $7.2 billion to the budget bottom line. If Joe Hockey wants to include our carefully targeted and precisely costed measures in tomorrow night's Budget, he'll have Labor's full support. Happy to take questions.

CHRIS BOWEN MP

SHADOW TREASURER

MEMBER FOR MCMAHON

ANDREW LEIGH MP

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION

MEMBER FOR FRASER

MEDIA RELEASE

HOPELESS HOCKEY BLANK ON BUDGET AGAIN

Joe Hockey has given a fresh display of his Budget ineptitude today when he would not name a revenue figure for a measure which is apparently in his Budget tomorrow.

 ANDREW LEIGH MP

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION

MEMBER FOR FRASER

 

 

GAI BRODTMANN MP

 

SHADOW PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY FOR DEFENCE

 

MEMBER FOR CANBERRA

 

 

SENATOR KATY GALLAGHER

SENATOR FOR THE AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY

  

MEDIA RELEASE

 

public service on the chopping block again

 

The Canberra community is outraged by reports today the Abbott Government will further reduce the size of the public service, with fresh cuts to be included in the Budget tomorrow night.

 

It is believed eight public sector departments will undergo so-called “functional reviews” with the aim of slashing more jobs.

 

The Coalition has already shed almost 17,000 public service jobs since coming to office in 2013.

 

This worrying news comes after Prime Minister Tony Abbott assured ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr that the worst of the Commonwealth job cuts were over at last month’s Council of Australian Governments meeting.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TELEVISION INTERVIEW

SKY AM AGENDA

MONDAY, 11 MAY 2015

 

SUBJECT/S: Childcare; Budget.

KIERAN GILBERT: I'm here with Andrew Leigh, Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Assistant Education Minister Simon Birmingham. Good to see you both. First to you Andrew Leigh on the families package, the economics of all of this. I understand Labor doesn't want families to lose any payment but then if you're going to make the childcare situation more generous, more targeted. The money has got to come from somewhere and the savings that Jenny Macklin articulated earlier, which no doubt you'll refer to as well, they’re not enough to pay for the initial spending.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: We have supported a range of changes that the Government has made including ones which were characterised in a way which we wouldn't have put them forward to the Parliament. But we don't think kids get any cheaper when they turn six, which is at the heart of this proposal the Government's been trying to ram down the throat of the Parliament the last year. Instead, we think the Government should be looking at savings in the area of multinational tax, where we've got a carefully crafted policy, costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office. Or the high income end of superannuation, where we've done the hard work. Labor is well ahead of the policy curve on this and the difference between what we've put on the table and what the Government has done is that our changes won't hurt the most vulnerable in Australian society. They won't try and address the Government Budget by hurting families.