Andrew Leigh

KELLY O’DWYER: TAX CRUSADER??

It was Assistant Treasurer Kelly O’Dwyer’s turn to try on the Liberals’ mask of concern about multinational tax today. Unfortunately, it was about as convincing as a pair of Groucho Glasses.            

Even the best Question Time pantomime won’t make Australians believe the Liberals really care about ensuring big multinationals pay their fair share of tax.    

That’s because their record speaks for itself.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

SKY PM AGENDA

PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA

WEDNESDAY, 3 FEBRUARY 2016

SUBJECT/S: GST, tobacco excise 

DAVID SPEERS: With me now is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Andrew Leigh. Thank you for joining us.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Pleasure, David.

SPEERS: On this spending point that Paul Keating has made today: “we need to trim our spending and not accommodate more of it by ever more taxation”. Labor is promising more taxation, more spending. 

LEIGH: There is no magic level of government spending. If you look across the advanced world, Australia sits towards the bottom of the pack. The size of government is similar to Mexico, Korea and the United States; well away from countries in Europe with 40 or 50 per cent of the economy being government.

MORRISON’S VAUDEVILLE ACT ON MULTINATIONAL TAX FOOLS NO-ONE

Perhaps to make up for Malcolm Turnbull’s suggestion yesterday that fairly taxing multinationals is “controversial”, the Treasurer came packing his best faux-outrage to Question Time today.  

Unfortunately however, he forgot his cheat sheet detailing the Coalition’s woeful record on tackling tax avoidance. As always, he attempted to bluff and bluster his way through while mangling the facts in the process. 

On Fraser becoming Fenner, City News, 3 February

FOR the past five years, I’ve been fortunate enough to represent an electorate named after the great parliamentarian Jim Fraser. But after former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser passed away last year, the Australian Electoral Commission has decided to rename the ACT seat of (Jim) Fraser, with a view to creating a new seat of (Malcolm) Fraser in Victoria.

As of this week Fraser will become Fenner; for the remarkable Australian scientist and public health advocate Frank Fenner. Here’s five fascinating things you might not know about this electorate’s new namesake.

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.