Andrew Leigh

RUNNING OUT OF EXCUSES FOR HIGH INEQUALITY

The Hill, 28 October 2019

American views on inequality have profoundly shifted. In 1995, 30 percent believed that poverty is due to circumstances beyond individual control. Today, fully 55 percent of Americans take that view. Two decades ago, most Americans didn’t see a role for government in addressing inequality. Now, most do.

The traditional economic argument against addressing inequality is that it blunts the incentives for the wealthy to invest. But while cutting top tax rates might give the most affluent a larger share, the consequence can be that governments need to cut productivity-enhancing measures like infrastructure and education spending. As a result, growth slows. The wealthy end up with a bigger share of a smaller pie. They have more in relative terms, but less in absolute terms.

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RADIO INTERVIEW

ABC NEWS RADIO

THURSDAY, 24 OCTOBER 2019

SUBJECTS: Identity-matching bill; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Mark Zuckerberg; Facebook advertising.

SANDY ALOISI: Let’s get reaction to this now. Federal Labor MP Andrew Leigh is with me now. Good afternoon. Thanks for joining us.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Pleasure, Sandy.

ALOISI: A fairly rare bipartisan decision on a bill that one could say was controversial from the outset.

LEIGH: Yes, and I commend the six Liberals on the committee for standing up for the basic principle that we shouldn't allow Peter Dutton to set up a mass surveillance system. As the bill was drafted, the Australian Human Rights Commissioner noted it could contemplate intrusive surveillance of people who hadn't committed any crime. That's a concern in the abstract, but it's a particular concern when at the same time as this bill is before the Parliament, you've got Peter Dutton saying that there should be mandatory prison sentences for people who engage in peaceful legal protest activity and calling for protesters to be photographed. We need to ensure that this doesn't lead to the establishment of a huge database of facial images that would allow people to be identified that haven't committed any crime.

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DOORSTOP
PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA
TUESDAY, 22 OCTOBER 2019

SUBJECTS: The Government’s lack of economic leadership; COAG; Your Car, Your Choice; Government inaction on the need to fix fundraising; Syria.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY: Good morning everyone. My name is Andrew Leigh, the Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury. We know full well that if the Australian economy was performing strongly, Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg would be claiming credit for every skerrick of economic news. But when we've got troubling economic indicators, they run a mile rather than take responsibility for the impact of their policies. We’ve seen Josh Frydenberg return from the IMF meetings claiming that the problems in the Australian economy are all someone else's fault, all have to do with global economic circumstances. And yet we know, repeated as recently as last week in the Deloitte report, that many of the Australian economy problems are home grown.

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RADIO INTERVIEW
2CC AFTERNOONS
FRIDAY, 18 OCTOBER 2019

Subjects: The IMF downgrading Australia’s growth forecast; the Liberals mismanaging the economy; unemployment; ACT infrastructure plan; Labor declaring a climate emergency; the Liberals failing to act on climate change.

LEON DELANEY, HOST: Joining me in the studio now a very special guest - Andrew Leigh, Member for Fenner and Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury and Charities. Good afternoon.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Good afternoon Leon. Great to be here in your brand-new studio.

DELANEY: Well, I was just asking you before why you wanted to come and visit today, and you said straight up ‘I just wanted to see the new place of business’. And I thought ‘well, you know you could have come on the grand opening on Monday’ but you weren't allowed to leave the Parliament, unfortunately.

LEIGH: We get locked up in the big house, I'm afraid. But it still has that new studio smell, which is your listeners are missing out on right now.

PRIZED MINDS ARE HERE TO HELP — BY SHOWING THE WORLD WHAT DOESN’T

The Australian, 17 October 2019

‘If I can predict what you are going to think of pretty much any prob­lem,’ argues MIT economics professor Esther Duflo, ‘it is likely that you will be wrong on stuff.’

This week, Duflo shared the economics Nobel Prize with MIT’s Abhijit Banerjee and Harvard’s Michael Kremer. They weren’t rewarded for devising a grand theory. In fact, their work has probably debunked more theories than it’s vindicated. Instead, the trio were honoured for bringing a new approach to development economics: randomised trials.

Just as advanced countries test new drugs by randomly assigning patients to treatment and control groups, the development randomistas evaluate anti-poverty programs by the toss of a coin. Heads, you get the program. Tails, you don’t. The beauty of this simple methodology is that it provides a rigorous test of whether a program works.

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RADIO INTERVIEW

ABC NEWS RADIO

WEDNESDAY, 16 OCTOBER 2019

SUBJECTS: IMF slashing Australia’s economic growth outlook, Deloitte highlighting homegrown concerns for the economy.

ALI CREW: Labor has pounced on the IMF report saying it shows that the Morrison government's policy settings are not right for the economy. Labor MP Andrew Leigh joins us now. Good morning.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES:  Good morning, Ali. How are you?

CREW: I'm well, thank you. Now is it really fair to blame the government for these forecasts from the IMF? After all, the body makes clear that it's part of a broader slowdown that we're seeing across the globe.

LEIGH: Deloitte made clear in its report on Monday that a lot of the problems in the Australian economy are homegrown. We have a higher unemployment rate now than the United States or Britain or Germany or New Zealand. They have unemployment rates around 4 per cent, ours is sitting above 5 per cent. We don't have the sort of investment in the economy that is so sorely needed at the moment. When I hear Paul Fletcher saying ‘we've got a plan, we're sticking to the plan’ it sounds a whole lot like pig headedness to me, an unwillingness to adapt to the global economic circumstances and to the problems in the domestic economy.

A PAEAN TO PARLIAMENT

The Canberra Times, 15 October 2019

Every year, thousands of Australians come to visit Parliament House. They’re right to do so. The central building in our democracy isn’t just an architectural marvel, it’s an art-lover’s paradise. Parliament is where history is made. There’s something beautifully Australian about the fact that visitors can take the lift to the roof, and literally walk over the top of their politicians.

When those visitors picked up a copy of Tuesday’s Canberra Times, I suspect they would have raised an eyebrow or two at the opinion piece suggesting that the nation’s parliament was as a bubble within a bubble.

The smooth operation of Parliament House is a credit to its staff – the cleaners and clerks, baristas and building attendants, loading dock staff and servers – all of whom come together day after day to support democracy.

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TV INTERVIEW

SKY NEWS FIRST EDITION

MONDAY, 14 OCTOBER 2019

Subjects: Josh Frydenberg caving to public pressure over the banks, Deloitte highlighting homegrown concerns for the economy, Morrison failing Australia on the world stage.

LAURA JAYES: Joining me now is Labor frontbencher Dr Andrew Leigh. Andrew Leigh, thanks for your time-

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES:  Pleasure, Laura.

JAYES: Do you support this ACCC inquiry?

LEIGH: It certainly seems like Josh Frydenberg has finally yielded to community pressure to do something about big banks not passing on rate cuts. We know this has a big impact on household budgets and it's important to ensure that those rate cuts are passed on in full. Our banks are very profitable, and that's why Labor was calling last month for an ACCC inquiry into competition in the banking sector. At the time, Liberals were saying we didn't need it, that the big banks were already dealing with too much in the context of the royal commission. So I'm pleased that Josh Frydenberg seems to have finally yielded to community pressure, but let's not think of him as somebody who is always on the side of the customer. He of course is somebody who voted 26 times against the banking royal commission, and voted against Labor's abolition of mortgage exit fees - a pro-competitive measure - when we were last in government.

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DOORSTOP
PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA
SATURDAY, 12 OCTOBER 2019

SUBJECTS: Government has no plan for the economy; Dutton comments on China.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY: Thanks for coming along today. My name is Andrew Leigh, the Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury. 

We've seen over recent few months more and more disappointing economic signs for the Australian economy. We've got wages flagging. We've got productivity in the doldrums. We're seeing retail sales numbers for July and August belie the confidence that the Government had that their Stage 1 tax cuts would be enough to support the economy. In Germany, the United States, Britain and New Zealand, unemployment is around 4 per cent. But it's around 5 per cent in Australia. The Government has been relying on the Reserve Bank to do all the hard work. 

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RADIO INTERVIEW

2GB BREAKFAST

FRIDAY, 11 OCTOBER 2019

Subjects: Peter Norman.

ALAN JONES: Someone who's campaigned outstandingly for recognition for Peter Norman is the Federal Labor MP Andrew Leigh. Very smart man, a very fine academic. Also a runner. I first spoke to Andrew about this back in 2012, when to his great credit he moved a motion in the Federal Parliament of apology to Peter Norman. Andrew’s on the line. Andrew, good morning.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES:  Good morning, Alan. Thank you for the generous introduction.

JONES: It's true. What a lovely, lovely story. But oh dear, takes a long time to catch up with the truth, doesn't it?

LEIGH: It's 51 years. It's extraordinary it's taken us this long to recognise that what Peter did was so much more than his run, amazing time as it was. You know, even the closest anyone's come to Peter’s 20.06 was Dean Capobianco in 1993 with his 20.18. But the achievement of being willing to take a stand against racial inequality in 1968 at a time where that was pretty unpopular stance. They were booed in the stadium for making the black power salute.