Andrew Leigh

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TELEVISION INTERVIEW

SKY NEWS FIRST EDITION

FRIDAY, 25 MARCH 2022

SUBJECTS: Australia and the Pacific; the Federal Budget; Cost of living rising under Scott Morrison; Fuel excise; Vaccines.

PETE STEFANOVIC, HOST: Joining us live now from Canberra is the Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury, Andrew Leigh. Andrew, good morning to you. Before we talk about the budget, what's Labor's response to that deal?

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Pete, it's ultimately a matter for the Sogavare Government and the people of the Solomon Islands. But Australia's traditionally had a close relationship with the Solomon Islands, going back to the 2003 RAMSI stabilisation mission. And this really does point to what happens when a coalition government takes office, cuts foreign aid to its lowest level, and talks about a ‘Pacific step up’ but fails to deliver. This has got concerning security implications for Australia, and Labor will look to be briefed on what the government’s planning to do.

STEFANOVIC: So we've been sleeping at the wheel here, in your opinion?

LEIGH: Well, this ‘Pacific step up’ just seems to have been talk rather than action. You can't cut foreign aid to its the lowest level in the generation and not expect that to have repercussions. That's why foreign aid cuts don’t just have impacts on poverty. The Morrison Government's decision to cut foreign aid also has its flow on impact on national security.

THE BUSINESS CASE FOR LABOR

SPEECH TO BUSINESS SYDNEY

SYDNEY

WEDNESDAY, 23 MARCH 2022

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Epictetus wisely noted that we have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak. As a Stoic, I’m keen to put this into practice tonight by keeping my opening remarks short, and spend most of the time learning about your businesses, your ideas, and your vision for the economy.

But with less than two months before polling day, I would be remiss if I didn’t use the chance to make the case for my party. The business case for Labor, you might say.

Let me put it as crisply as I can, by outlining ten reasons that every businessperson should vote Labor.

OPENING REMARKS TO CHARITY ROUNDTABLE

PERTH

WEDNESDAY, 16 MARCH 2022

Thank you for joining us. It’s a pleasure to be here with my talented colleague Patrick Gorman, and Labor’s candidate for Canning Amanda Hunt, who will be well known to you from her time heading Uniting WA.

Over recent decades, Australia’s social capital has dropped dramatically. Compared with the 1980s, Australians now have half as many close friends, and know half as many of our neighbours. Church attendance and union membership have declined. Membership of large organisations has fallen sharply. And in fact, the number of organisations in Australia hasn't kept pace with population - there's fewer organisations per person than in the past. We've seen a steady decline in volunteering, a drop which has accelerated through the pandemic. And there has been a decline in the share of Australians who are actively engaged in team sports and community sporting activities.

RECONNECTING AUSTRALIA

SPEECH TO AUSTRALIAN SERVICES UNION MEMBERS

BLAXLAND

TUESDAY, 15 MARCH 2022

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Australia has changed markedly in the last generation.

If you go back to the mid-1980s, the average Australian had twice as many close friends and knew twice as many of their neighbours. Compared to then, we've seen a drop in the level of volunteering. We’ve seen a decline in the number of community organisations in Australia. We’ve seen a fall in membership of those mass organisations. We've seen a drop in church attendance, union membership and membership of sporting clubs.

In short, Australia has become disconnected.

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RADIO INTERVIEW
6PR MORNINGS
WEDNESDAY, 2 MARCH 2022

SUBJECT: Tax havens and Russia.

LIAM BARTLETT, HOST: Joining us this morning is Andrew Leigh. Andrew’s the Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury and Charities. How are you, Andrew?

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: I'm terrific, Liam. How are you?

BARTLETT: I'm well, thanks. Look, I know you've been campaigning on this for a while, long before the invasion got underway. But how could the government make it easier to put a stop to this dirty money?

LEIGH: They could do three things, Liam. The first is to crack down on tax havens. The second is to tighten the anti-money laundering laws. And the third is to put in place a beneficial ownership register that would let people really know who owns Australian shares. All of those are straightforward transparency measures, and without those changes it makes it really hard to track down the sources of Putin's illicit cash. It's not as though they're all sitting in a big bank account marked ‘Vladimir Putin’. His cronies have stashed money in tax havens like Panama or the Bahamas. They're using illicit shell companies, and they're hiding the source of the transactions very deliberately. And Australia's laws just aren't up to date enough in order for us to be able to track down the sources of the dirty money.

ADDRESS TO MASTER BUILDERS ASSOCIATION ELECTION FORUM

NATIONAL PRESS CLUB, 1 MARCH 2022

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[Acknowledgements omitted]

It is a pleasure to be speaking today at one of the first pre-election debates that I’ve done. Congratulations to the organisers for delivering it well before deadline, and under Budget. I’d expect no less from the Master Builders.

Since we’re talking about housing today, let me start with the story of my maternal grandfather, Roly Stebbins.

Roly was born in a tent in 1922. His childhood was marked by the Depression and what we would now call the PTSD that his father suffered in World War I. Roly left school at age fourteen, and found work to help his parents get by. During World War II, he worked as a boilermaker.

It was a tough upbringing, but Roly’s eyes used to twinkle as he spoke with me about the bright days that came at the end of World War II - the sense of possibility and hope.

CHOOSING OPENNESS

ADDRESS TO ASIALINK SUMMIT

 PARLIAMENT HOUSE, 28 FEBRUARY 2022

I acknowledge the Ngunnawal people on whose lands we're meeting today.

Dhawura Nguna Dhawura Ngunnawal.

Yanggu Ngala-ma-nyin Dhuni-ma-nyin.

Ngunnawal-wari Dhawura-wari Dindi Wanggira-lidji-nyin.

I also acknowledge any Indigenous people who are joining us today.

I'm somebody who's passionate about engagement with Asia, a passion that goes back a long time. When I was a kid in primary school, we were each required to do a history project. Some people talked about the history of the Holden Commodore, another researched the background of their grandfather. I wrote about the 1965 killings of hundreds of thousands of communist sympathisers in Indonesia. To this day, I'm not quite sure what my grade six teacher made of the assignment, but it reflected the fact that ours was a household where Inside Indonesia and the Far East Economic Review were routinely sitting around, and Asia was part of our everyday lives.

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RADIO INTERVIEW

5AA MORNINGS

TUESDAY, 1 MARCH 2022

SUBJECTS: The Liberals dragging their feet on reform and costing charities millions; Ukraine.

GRAEME GOODINGS, HOST: Well, the Prime Minister has been under attack on the fundraising front. Dr Andrew Leigh, the Shadow Assistant Minister for Charities, claims Scott Morrison's failure to act on fundraising reform is costing Australian charities millions. Let's get him to explain this to us. Dr Andrew Leigh, good morning to you.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Good morning, Graeme. Great to be with you and your listeners.

GOODINGS: Yeah. What's your major grievance?

LEIGH: Charities have called for years for fixing Australia's outdated charitable fundraising laws. They were designed in a pre-internet age, and they're just not fit for purpose for online fundraising. Right now, if a charity wants to fundraise online, it needs to register in seven different jurisdictions - paperwork that takes them a week. That means that the cost to Australian charities in complying is over a million dollars a month. Yet the government, despite being told to fix it by the Royal Commission on Natural Disaster Preparedness and a bipartisan Senate report, has done absolutely nothing. So regular charities continue to have to jump through unnecessary hoops. Meanwhile, Peter Dutton sets up a fundraiser which if he was a charity wouldn’t be allowed under current fundraising laws.

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RADIO INTERVIEW

5AA MORNINGS

FRIDAY, 18 FEBRUARY 2022

SUBJECTS: Battlers struggling and billionaires soaring under Scott Morrison; NBN; Fuel prices and cost of living; Labor’s policies for a better Australia; Unemployment, the gig economy and worker protections; Anthony Albanese.

GRAEME GOODINGS, HOST: Well, elections both state and federal in the wind, and the economy and the handling of Covid certainly front and centre. Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury Andrew Leigh has launched a withering attack in Parliament on the government's handling of the economy. He joins me now. Andrew, good morning.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Morning, Graeme. Great to be back with you.

GOODINGS: Yeah. Look, we've just gone through two years of COVID. Is your attack really warranted?

LEIGH: I do think we need to take economic growth seriously again, Graeme. We've had almost a decade now of lousy economic growth. This has been the slowest decade for growth per person of any decade, going right back to the post war era. And if we don't take productivity seriously, then Australians will keep on finding that prices are rising faster than their wages. Now, last couple of years, we've seen beef prices up 17 per cent. We've seen childcare up around 10 per cent. Now we've seen petrol go over two bucks a litre. And yet many people are earning basically what they earned a couple of years ago. Wage growth has been tepid, unless of course you're a billionaire - billionaires collectively have doubled their wealth since Scott Morrison became prime minister.