Andrew Leigh

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’.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 9 NOVEMBER 2020

For two years, Dipy Malik and her husband saved up to pay the $10,000 fee for a sponsored parent visa.

It was granted on 25 January 2020, the day before Australia Day and Indian Republic Day.

Ms Malik’s father, Shyam Lal Khatri, is 84 years old. The visa allowed him to stay in Australia for five years. 

As a result of the COVID-19 travel ban, Mr Khatri has been unable to travel to Australia.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 9 NOVEMBER 2020

I table Petition EN1938 on a strong and diverse news media.

The principal petitioner is former Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd

It is also signed by former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Begun just a month ago, this is the largest e-petition in our Parliament’s history, and I thank each of the 501,876 citizens who signed it. We in this parliament are the servants of the people, and a vital part of our job is to table the views of citizens.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

2SM WITH MARCUS PAUL IN THE MORNING

TUESDAY, 3 NOVEMBER 2020

SUBJECT: Commonwealth Integrity Commission.

MARCUS PAUL, HOST: Andrew Leigh is the Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury. He's on the program. Andrew, good morning.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Good morning, Marcus.

PAUL: You've campaigned long and hard for a federal ICAC. Are you at all surprised by the fact that this is a kind of watered down ICAC, if you like?

LEIGH: This is more a cover up commission than a corruption commission, Marcus. I mean, you've been on the case as much as anyone and I think the government is only acting because of the strong public pressure that has been on your program and from Labor, from independents like Helen Haines. What’s been delivered is just like Mike Carlton said - a corruption commission which can't initiate its own hearings, which doesn't have the power to sit in public, which wouldn't have the power to look back through so many of the scandals that have emerged under the Morrison Government.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 28 OCTOBER 2020

Emil Zatopek once said, 'If you want to win something, run 100 metres. If you want to experience something, run a marathon.'

The Czech locomotive knew what he was talking about. In the 1952 Helsinki Olympics he'd won gold in the 5,000 and 10,000 metres, and he decided to enter the marathon. He had never run a marathon before, but he maintained a blistering pace in order to win that race.

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

WEDNESDAY, 28 OCTOBER 2020

SUBJECTS: ASIC; the need for a federal ICAC; the recession.

MARCUS PAUL, HOST: Andrew Leigh is the Deputy Chair of the Standing Committee on Economics in Canberra. He's been leading the charge on this issue with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, ASIC. He’s been grilling them in a House Economics Committee hearing, and he also has a fair bit to say about the need for a federal ICAC. Is it any wonder? Andrew, good morning mate.

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

PAUL: Just explain to me what's happened here. We know that Karen Chester, the acting Chair of ASIC, says it took far too long for the corporate watchdog to respond to the knowledge it had overpaid its boss and deputy nearly 200 grand.

LEIGH: Yes. Red lights should have been flashing last year when it was reported that the senior lawyer at ASIC was being paid more than the Chief Justice of Australia, once you included the relocation allowance. And it seems as though the Audit Office then came in, the Auditor General said ‘you’ve got to fix this’ and according to Karen Chester ASIC moved at a glacially slow pace. Josh Frydenberg learned about this more than a month ago, but still didn't move on it. And the fact is that the very body that caught it, the Auditor General, is having his budget cut by the Morrison Government. So the watchdog’s being punished, despite the fact that he's the one that's saving the taxpayer money.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 26 OCTOBER 2020

Between ad rorts, water rorts, regional rorts, reef rorts, robodebt, stacking the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and forging documents, the Morrison government is making the Rum Corps look like Mary MacKillop.

The Australia Post board now doubles as a Liberal Party branch meeting, handing out Cartier watches to executives while postal workers cop pay cuts. Over at ASIC, the corporate watchdog paid one of its senior staff a $69,000 relocation allowance that pushed his pay packet higher than that of the Chief Justice, while another received $118,000 in tax advice so he could 'optimise' his Australian tax.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC NEWS RADIO

MONDAY, 26 OCTOBER 2020

SUBJECTS: ASIC expenses and the resignation of the Deputy Chair; the need for a Federal ICAC.

GLEN BARTHOLOMEW, HOST: The Deputy Chair of the corporate watchdog has quit after an audit raised concerns about thousands of dollars in expenses he was given. The Australia National Audit Office flagged irregularities with payments made to Dan Crennan and ASIC Chair James Shipton. Mr Shipton’s stood aside pending the outcome of an investigation. Labor MP Andrew Leigh was among those questioning the ASIC arrangements at a committee hearing at federal parliament on Friday. He joins us now. Thanks for your time.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Pleasure, Glen. Great to be with you.

BARTHOLOMEW: Remind us, how exactly had these regulators breached regulations?

LEIGH: Yes, it was a bit of a bombshell on Friday. We'd been expecting to get a regular sort of update from ASIC and suddenly we had James Shipton saying that he was stepping aside. He disclosed that ASIC had paid $69,621 in housing costs on behalf of Daniel Crennan, and also a tax bill of $119,557 for his own tax affairs. Mr Shipton said he'd be standing aside until the end of the year. The concern is that those payments were a form of remuneration and therefore breached the remuneration guidelines.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 21 OCTOBER 2020

The Education Legislation Amendment (Up-front Payments Tuition Protection) Bill 2020 before us tonight is largely uncontroversial and Labor will be supporting it. So my remarks tonight will be largely directed towards the second reading amendment, which goes to the ‘Job-Ready Graduates’ bill. That bill passed the parliament with the government using the guillotine twice. I was on the speaking list when it first came before the House and was unceremoniously cut off. Again, when it came back for debate in the House, I was on the list but was unable to have an opportunity to speak.

Having spent six years working at the Australian National University—finishing up as a professor there—there were contributions I wanted to make on the ‘Job-Ready Graduates’ bill. But the government wasn't willing to hear them.