Andrew Leigh

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 3 DECEMBER 2020

In a usual year, there are 21,000 mass participation sporting events across Australia, including fun runs, ocean swims, community cycling events and challenging obstacle course races. They attract millions of participants, employ tens of thousands of people, raise tens of millions for charity and contribute more than a billion dollars to the economy. They keep us healthy and, most importantly, they're fun. We enter for the adrenaline and the medal, but it's the race experience and the friendships that keep us coming back for marathons, triathlons and Spartan events.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, DECEMBER 1 2020

Company profits are rising – and so is unemployment. The sharemarket is booming, yet households are battling.

The government is right to say that workers would’ve been worse without JobKeeper. That’s why Labor urged them put it in place. But that doesn’t mean the $100 billion program should avoid scrutiny.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
2SM WITH MARCUS PAUL IN THE MORNING

TUESDAY, 1 DECEMBER 2020

SUBJECTS: China; Giving Tuesday; Charities.

MARCUS PAUL, HOST: Shadow Assistant Minister for Charities and Treasury Andrew Leigh joins us on the program each and every Tuesday. Good morning, Andrew.

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

PAUL: Good, thank you, mate. Can we deal with this issue first? No doubt you were shocked by this image that was posted on Chinese state sponsored Twitter accounts over the last 24 hours. What did you make of it?

LEIGH: Utterly appalled. I felt the Prime Minister put it very well when he spoke before. Just shocking to all Australians.

PAUL: What are we going to do about it, Andrew? We've really - we’re lying down in the bed that we've made with China, if you like. We've been so reliant on them for so long. We bet on red every time and now things are coming up not so rosy.

LEIGH: The Prime Minister's rightly demanded an apology from China, and I'd hoped that that would be forthcoming very swiftly. That’s a false image which is repugnant, and disgusting to all Australians.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 30 NOVEMBER 2020

According to the energy minister, the Morrison government has 'strong targets, clear plans and an enviable track record' on reducing emissions. Some might take that at face value, but, coming from the minister that brought us 'Grassgate', 'Watergate' and 'Clovergate', I thought I'd see what some experts have to say.

The NewClimate Institute ranked Australia dead-last out of 57 countries for climate policy. Climate Action Tracker say Australia's climate policies are 'insufficient' to meet the agreements we signed up to in Paris.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

2SM WITH MARCUS PAUL IN THE MORNING

TUESDAY, 24 NOVEMBER 2020

SUBJECT: Charities struggling for volunteers; Coronavirus vaccinations; Superannuation.

MARCUS PAUL, HOST: Andrew Leigh is the Shadow Assistant Minister for Charities and Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury. And he's a regular now on the program, each and every Tuesday. Andrew, good morning to you mate.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Good morning, Marcus. Top of the morning to you.

PAUL: Great to have your company. Have you been well?

LEIGH: I have, indeed. I ran my first ultramarathon on the weekend - did a 50km trail run and pulled up alright. So life is good.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
2SM WITH MARCUS PAUL IN THE MORNING
TUESDAY, 17 NOVEMBER 2020

SUBJECTS: Robodebt; Ministerial accountability; Labor’s positive policies.

MARCUS PAUL, HOST: Back in 1984, Bob Hawke stood down Mick Young from cabinet for failing to declare a stuffed Paddington Bear at customs. We know in New South Wales in more modern history, we had a premier rolled over a bottle of plonk. But we're wondering whether Scott Morrison will stand aside Alan Tudge or even Stuart Robert following the $1.2 billion Robodebt settlement. We know there was a class action. We know that unfortunately, a number of people took their lives and it was just a big, big mess. That's why you do not allow computers to take over social services – I don’t give a stuff what anybody says and how much money it saves, you cannot allow computer systems to generate bills. Because the chances are quite often there'll be errors in there, and that's exactly what happened with Robodebt. And now, as a result of this, taxpayers – you, me and everybody else who goes to work each and every day - are going to have to foot this bill to repay the money and to compensate victims of Robodebt $1.2 billion. Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury is Andrew Leigh. Good morning, Andrew. 

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

PAUL: Yeah, you too, as always. You’re becoming a regular and I enjoy our chats, I really do.

LEIGH: Likewise.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 11 NOVEMBER 2020

In March, retail billionaire Solomon Lew reportedly cried as he spoke to the Treasurer, urging him to create JobKeeper. His firm, Premier Investments, temporarily closed stores such as Just Jeans and Portmans, receiving around $45 million in JobKeeper payments from the taxpayer.

Six months later, Premier Investments announced profits 29 per cent higher than last year and paid shareholders a $57 million dividend. As the largest shareholder, Lew himself received more than $20 million. A policy designed to help battlers ended up benefiting a billionaire.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 10 NOVEMBER 2020

The bill before the House today is, at a high level, uncontroversial but, in the detail, deeply problematic. At a high level, it's perfectly sensible that the Commonwealth should have oversight over arrangements which states and territories make with foreign entities. But in the detail, this bill could well prohibit arrangements which many of us in this House would regard as desirable. Professor George Williams gave such example. He said:

… let's say, the United Kingdom government. They have a tender of some kind and perhaps the opportunity for a major research agreement—a collaboration dealing with COVID-19. In that case, the UK government may put something like that out to tender or competition. It will be on the basis that the Australian university can only take part in that if we can agree to the terms as preset by the government without any possibility of variation. We can't do that. A tender term is typically, 'You will accept these terms—no variation,' so you run the risk of locking us out of tenders from friendly governments that are highly advantageous to Australia because we no longer have the institutional autonomy that the UK and US universities will have to compete on that playing field.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
2SM WITH MARCUS PAUL IN THE MORNING

TUESDAY, 10 NOVEMBER 2020

SUBJECTS: Australia’s largest ever e-petition for a strong and diverse news media; Four Corners allegations; JobKeeper.

MARCUS PAUL, HOST: Dr Andrew Leigh, the Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury is with us on the program. Andrew, good morning, mate.

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

PAUL: Alright. So at least it's now official, if you like, this e-petition calling for media diversity, and we played your piece just a moment ago of the tabling. I don't know, I might be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure I heard a very audible sigh from the Speaker and I thought that was a little rude.

LEIGH: I think it might have been just a reflection the sheer size of the petition. I know it’s an e-petition, but when you bring these things into parliament, you have to have them physically with you. It was about the size of two reams of paper, so he might have been looking at the weight I was lifting. And given I’m a runner rather than weightlifter, it probably looked like a fairly heroic feat.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 9 NOVEMBER 2020

This government's attitude towards universities has been nothing short of outrageous. At a time when there is capacity in our universities due to the slowdown in the number of international students, we should be inviting more Australians to study at our great institutions. Yet what is this government doing? It's cutting government funding to Australia's higher education institutions on a per-student basis, and it's raising student fees, making it harder for Australians to get an education, at the very time at which we should be educating more young Australians.

This stands in complete contrast to the way Labor handled education in the early-1990s recession—the recession that those opposite referred to as the ‘Keating Recession’, despite the fact that many other countries in the world saw a global downturn at that point. They won't have this recession called the ‘Morrison Recession’, but they're happy to call the early-1990s global recession the ‘Keating Recession’.