THE MORRISON GOVERNMENT:

SOFT ON THE STRONG, MEAN TO THE VULNERABLE

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

WEDNESDAY, 26 MAY 2021

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No contribution from the member for Goldstein is complete without a mention of the 'Wilson first, Australians second' campaign he's been running. Unable to persuade his own parliamentary colleagues, he continues to come in here with fluff and bluster, saying that Australians can't get a government that will actually deal with housing affordability and what they need is to be poorer in retirement. The member for Goldstein wants Australians to rip money out of their retirement savings, to lose the compounding returns and to increase the pressure on the age pension, which of course will be paid by future generations of taxpayers, all because he is part of a government that has overseen the homeownership rate fall to 60-year lows.

INSTEAD OF A RACE TO THE BOTTOM, LET'S HAVE A RACE TO GLOBAL TAX FAIRNESS

A few years ago, Scott Morrison was vociferously arguing that Australia was in a race on company taxes. Both Britain and the United States were cutting their company tax rates, and Morrison alleged that if Australia didn’t follow suit, ‘the Labor Party will leave Australian businesses stranded on a tax island — uncompetitive with the United States, with the United Kingdom, with Singapore’.

How things can change. The British Conservatives have now legislated to increase the company tax rate from 19 percent to 25 percent, taking effect from 2023. To pay for his infrastructure plan, President Biden is committed to increasing the US company tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent. A global race to the bottom in company taxes has been replaced with a recognition that firms should pay their fair share of tax. Those elements in the Liberal Party still pushing for Australia to cut company taxes are looking as old-fashioned as the climate change deniers.

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RADIO INTERVIEW
2SM MARCUS PAUL IN THE MORNING

TUESDAY, 25 MAY 2021
 
SUBJECTS: Territories’ right to legislate on voluntary assisted dying; Scott Morrison’s failure to address sexism and women’s safety
 
MARCUS PAUL, HOST: Good morning, Andrew.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: G'day, Marcus. How are you?

PAUL: Not bad. Great to have your company this morning. Now, euthanasia - it's just one of those topics that, well, quite often we will ask MPs to vote on their conscience on. It's, as we know, it's controversial. It's very personal. My point earlier in the program was jurisdictions like the ACT and the Northern Territory, should be able to on their conscience vote on these issues without interference from the federal government. I mean after all, locals living in Canberra and surrounds vote people in within their own legislature, that is the local, not MPs, what are they called out there, MLAs. They are the ones who should decide these issues, not the federal government. That's my take anyway, Andrew.

LEIGH: That's right, Marcus. People will remember the history of this. In the 1990s, the Northern Territory was the first place in Australia to introduce voluntary assisted dying laws, and the Commonwealth Parliament said 'well, we can't have a territory going first, and so we'll ban the territories from legislating on euthanasia’. A quarter century on, we've now got half the states, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia, having passed euthanasia laws, Queensland is about to begin debating them, so it could well be a majority of the states have euthanasia laws in place, and yet the territories are still banned from legislating on it.

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RADIO INTERVIEW
2CC CANBERRA LIVE WITH LEON DELANEY

MONDAY, 24 MAY 2021
 
SUBJECTS: Territories’ right to legislate on voluntary assisted dying; Upper Hunter by-election; Prime Minister’s focus on photo ops instead of vaccines
 
LEON DELANEY, HOST: The Federal Member for Fenner, Andrew Leigh, is today at some point introducing a motion into the federal parliament to seek the restoration of territory rights in matters of determining assisted dying laws. Andrew Leigh is on the phone now. Good afternoon.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Good afternoon, Leon. Good to be with you.

DELANEY: Thanks for joining us. Have you, in fact, presented your motion as yet?

LEIGH: I have. It was debated at 11 o'clock this morning and it's now up to the Government as to whether they'll bring it on for debate. It's high time we got this thing fixed, Leon. It's been a quarter of a century since parliament took away the rights for Canberrans to have euthanasia debated by our local Assembly. Since then we've seen three states go ahead and enact euthanasia laws, and yet 700,000 Territorians aren't able to have their parliaments debate the issue.

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RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO CANBERRA MORNINGS WITH ADAM SHIRLEY

MONDAY, 24 MAY 2021
 
SUBJECTS: Territories’ right to legislate on voluntary assisted dying  
 
ADAM SHIRLEY, HOST: Andrew Leigh is the Federal Labor Member for Fenner. He's planning on moving a motion in Parliament that would assert the ACT's right to govern for itself, including on the issue of voluntary assisted dying. Andrew Leigh, good morning to you. Thanks for your time.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Good morning, Adam. I loved your introduction there, talking about a young child. You know, you think about the ACT Assembly being eight years old when the Andrews Bill was passed, taking away the power to legislate over euthanasia, and as you say it's now a grown-up jurisdiction. It's in its 30s with all the maturities of the state parliaments, half of which have passed laws enabling euthanasia.

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RADIO INTERVIEW
2SM MARCUS PAUL IN THE MORNING
TUESDAY, 18 MAY 2021
 
SUBJECTS: Indigenous Marathon Foundation; Government’s vaccine rollout failure; climate change and jobs policy; National Volunteer Week; funding for National Archives.
 
MARCUS PAUL, HOST: Welcome to the program, If you're just tuning in on this very chilly Tuesday morning. Let's go to Canberra, Andrew Leigh is there. Andrew, good morning.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: G’day Marcus. It's great to be with you. 

PAUL: Thank you, mate. I think it's cold here in Sydney Town, but I've lived in Canberra. Tell me, brass monkey stuff, we had a -3 degree morning the other morning. How is it today? 

LEIGH: Well, it's great if you've got the right clothes, Marcus. The key to Canberra winter is to have a good lot of jumpers. If you're running, make sure you’ve got the leggings and the hats and the gloves, and then it's beautiful. 

LINDA BURNEY MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIANS

SENATOR JENNY MCALLISTER
SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR COMMUNITIES AND THE PREVENTION OF FAMILY VIOLENCE

ANDREW LEIGH
SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR CHARITIES

LABOR THANKS AUSTRALIA’S 6 MILLION VOLUNTEERS

National Volunteers Week gives us all a chance to celebrate the organisations working to build stronger and more inclusive communities. Federal Labor is marking the start of National Volunteers Week by thanking the nearly 6 million volunteers across Australia.

Volunteering and volunteers make a valuable contribution to communities around Australia: bringing people together through sport; supporting fellow Australians during emergencies; and building social capital and cohesion in community groups. Our communities are healthier, happier and more resilient when these bonds of support are strong.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

AUSTRALIAN PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA

THURSDAY, 13 MAY 2021

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I rise to speak on the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Motor Vehicle Service and Repair Information Sharing Scheme) Bill 2021 and I move the second reading amendment that has been circulated in my name:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes that the Government's unnecessary delays in delivering a level playing field for independent mechanics have hurt small businesses and consumers".

It was Mother's Day 2018, at JAX Tyres in Essendon, when the former Leader of the Opposition and I announced Labor's 'Your Car, Your Choice' policy. We announced that, following the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's 2017 report—its New car retailing industry market study—Labor would put in place a mandatory code requiring manufacturers to share with independent mechanics the information they need to fix modern cars.

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RADIO INTERVIEW
ABD RADIO PERTH MORNINGS WITH NADIA MITSOPOLOUS

WEDNESDAY, 12 MAY 2021
 
SUBJECTS: Budget 2021
 
NADIA MITSOPOLOUS, HOST: Dr Andrew Leigh, good morning to you.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Good morning, Nadia. Great to be with you.

MITSOPOLOUS: Does this budget, and the huge social investment, earn your praise?

LEIGH: Well, this is a trillion dollars of debt and so little to show for it, Nadia. You don't have the investment in climate change, you don't have proper solutions to aged care, such as the 24/7 nurses that the Royal Commission recommended, and you've got some real oddities. Roe 8 is still in the budget, costing $1.2 billion, despite the fact that the people of Western Australia have voted against it at the last two state elections. You don't have funding for a Headspace Centre in the Perth CBD. I was talking to Patrick Gorman this morning and he will continue to campaign strongly on that. He can't see why you'd be creating more Headspace Centres and not putting one in the Perth CBD. The budget doesn't tell us how much Christian Porter spent on supporting Clive Palmer's High Court challenge to Western Australia's border closure. There are really big questions that the budget fails to answer.

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RADIO INTERVIEW
5AA MORNINGS WITH LEON BYNER

WEDNESDAY, 12 MAY 2021
 
SUBJECTS: Budget 2021
 
LEON BYNER, HOST: Now on the line I have a professor of ANU economics. He's got a lot to say on budgets. His name is Dr Andrew Leigh. Andrew, it's a pleasure to talk with you.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: It's a pleasure to talk with you as well, Leon.

BYNER: Now, tell me about your opinion of the budget delivered by Mr Frydenberg.

LEIGH: It's a very expensive budget. Debt goes to $1 trillion, from the party that printed those 'Back in Black' mugs a couple of years back, and there's so little to show for it, Leon. You don't have the investment in renewable energy, you don't have the investment in education, you don't have COVID vaccine rollout happening in time. Yet there's a real spendathon which is focused on the next election, and yet not focused on setting us up for the growth that we need in the decades to come.