Andrew Leigh

ANDREW LEIGH MP
SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER
SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION
 MEMBER FOR FRASER

FIONA PHILLIPS
LABOR CANDIDATE FOR GILMORE

LABOR’S BOOST FOR SHOALCOAST COMMUNITY CENTRE

A Shorten Labor Government will give the Shoalcoast Community Legal Centre – the Gilmore electorate’s only Community Legal Centre – the funding it needs to keep its doors open, after three years of devastating cuts by the Abbott-Turnbull Government.

Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Andrew Leigh, and Labor’s candidate for Gilmore, Fiona Phillips, today spoke with representatives of the Shoalcoast Community Legal Centre which will receive $450,000 over three years under a Shorten Labor Government.

ANDREW LEIGH MP
SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER
SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION
MEMBER FOR FRASER

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
2GB RADIO INTERVIEW
MONEY NEWS WITH ROSS GREENWOOD
WEDNESDAY, 8 JUNE 2016

SUBJECT/S: Labor’s 10 year economic plan; wage growth; cuts to family tax benefits; infrastructure funding; Triple A credit rating.

ROSS GREENWOOD: Let’s start with the Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh. As Labor today put out its plan for the economy over the next 10 years, he joins me now. Many thanks for your time Andrew. 

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Pleasure Ross, good to be with you. 

GREENWOOD: As we speak, your leader – Bill Shorten, of course – is at the Broncos League Club in Brisbane talking to a people's forum that Malcolm Turnbull has chosen not to turn up to. [Shorten] is putting the case to the people through the Sky Network, and also to the people that are in that audience. The new plan that has come out today, the plan for the economy, many people have dubbed it as a glossy brochure. The full costings are not there – that's not where you are going to put them, are you?

LEIGH: We'll put out the full costings once we've announced our full suite of policies. But this is a clear statement about how the economy would travel under Labor, and what we would do to maintain a strong economy and boost living standards. We've seen living standards fall by four per cent since the Coalition came to office, the slowest wage growth in 30 years, the highest level of inequality in 75 years, and a government that is really lacking in direction. Labor would invest in schools and infrastructure, which the OECD tells us is where the heart of growth needs to come from. 

ANDREW LEIGH MP
SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER
SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION
MEMBER FOR FRASER

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
3AW MORNINGS WITH NEIL MITCHELL
THURSDAY, 9 JUNE 2016

SUBJECT/S: Tampon tax; penalty rates; budget deficits; 10-year plan projections

NEIL MITCHELL: The Shadow Assistant Treasurer is on the line with us. Andrew Leigh, Good morning. 

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER & SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION: Good morning Neil, how are you? 

MITCHELL: I'm okay. I think it is coming down to something about trust here – why the total backflip on the tampon tax?

LEIGH: We have always been open to making changes on the tampon tax. But as we have been very clear, it needs agreement from states and territories. In the last meeting of the Council of Australian Governments, New South Wales and Western Australia strongly opposed the change. 

THE HON JENNY MACKLIN MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR FAMILIES AND PAYMENTS
SHADOW MINISTER FOR DISABILITY REFORM
MEMBER FOR JAGAJAGA

THE HON ANDREW LEIGH MP
SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER
MEMBER FOR FRASER

SENATOR CLAIRE MOORE
SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMMUNITIES, CARERS AND WOMEN
SENATOR FOR QUEENSLAND

A STRONG, VIBRANT AND SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY SECTOR

A Shorten Labor Government will reset the Federal Government’s relationship with the community and not-for-profit sector and usher in a new era of meaningful partnership for positive social change.

Labor understands the critical role played by Australia’s community and not-for-profit sector in building the capacity of individuals and communities, strengthening community cohesion, addressing inequality and harnessing opportunity.

We know that government alone cannot solve all our social problems. Only by working in partnership with community organisations – and communities themselves – can we bring about lasting change.

But for three years, the Liberals have treated the community and not-for-profit sector with contempt.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS WITH PATRICIA KARVELAS
SUNDAY, 5 JUNE 2016
SUBJECT/S: Labor’s childcare package; Transition to Retirement changes

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Our next guest tonight is Labor's Andrew Leigh. Welcome to the program.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER & SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION: Thanks Patricia, great to be with you.

KARVELAS: On your childcare policy; your policy is very, very generous to the rich. The Prime Minister's policy has a new means test for the childcare rebate that will reduce assistance when families earn $180,000. Yours is a basically a no-losers policy on childcare reforms. Why shouldn't families earning up to a million dollars be means tested?

LEIGH: As you know, with families you can have a situation where the household income is high but where the secondary earner – which is most commonly the woman – faces a strong disincentive to move into paid work. One of the reasons why we have traditionally provided childcare support right through the income spectrum is because if you have the situation of a low-wage spouse married to a high-wage spouse you don't want one of them to be deterred from entering the labour market.

As you say, the Coalition’s package has a lot of losers. The Australian National University’s analysis suggests one-in-three families will be worse-off under the Coalition’s package. Whereas under Labor's package, nearly a million families benefit. And that's low-income, middle-income and families further up the spectrum.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
ABC NEWS
SUNDAY, 5 JUNE 2016

SUBJECT/S: Labor’s childcare package

JEREMY FERNANDEZ: Andrew Leigh, thank you for joining us on the program. Labor's set to announce today a lifting of the childcare rebate cap. Tell me, what is the thinking behind this?

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER & SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION: It's really important that we have a childcare system which provides quality child care to every child and also ensures affordability. Because we know that one of the main things which holds Australia back – particularly around female workforce participation – is child care. 

Labor’s announced today an increase in the childcare benefit, which will benefit more than 800,000 Australian families and also a lift in the childcare rebate threshold from $7500 to $10000, which will benefit over 100,000 Australian families. So, nearly a million Australian families benefiting from a package which will take effect from the 1st of January next year, not two years down the track like the Coalition’s childcare package. 

A Shorten Labor Government will reform Australia’s competition laws to protect disadvantaged Australians and tackle inequality.

Labor will legislate so that the competition regulator must put disadvantaged consumers first.

Scams and rip-offs often target low-income earners and Indigenous Australians, and Labor’s tougher laws will ensure these scammers are targeted and punished appropriately.

Inequality remains a major problem in Australia, so it’s vital that we ensure that competition law works to make Australia a fairer and more equal society. 

MARKETS CAN'T BE ALLOWED TO VICTIMISE THE VULNERABLE - The Australian

Like a large tree that overshadows the saplings around it, firms that abuse their market power prevent newer competitors from growing. They hurt entrepreneurs and often reduce the scope for innovation. Consumers suffer through higher prices, lower quality and less choice.

However, one aspect of uncompetitive markets that many have missed is that they may worsen inequality. A recent issue of The Economist magazine notes that many US markets have become more concentrated and points out: ‘‘High profits can deepen inequality in various ways. The pool of income to be split among employees could be squeezed. Consumers might pay too much for goods.’’

Australia has no shortage of concentrated markets. A common metric of over-concentration is when the largest four firms control more than one-third of the market. Against this yardstick, my analysis suggests that more than half of Australian industries are concentrated markets.

WHY THE GOVERNMENT'S COMPANY TAX CUT IS A CARNIVAL SIDESHOW - Business Insider

In the 1890s, Texan cowboy Clark Stanley began marketing a new product at medicine shows.

A man who could kill rattlesnakes with his bare hands, Stanley promised people that his rattlesnake extract would bring relief from rheumatism, sprains, swelling, back pain and toothache.

It wasn’t until 1917 that Stanley’s operation was finally shut down, with a court finding that the product not only didn’t provide a cure; it wasn’t even made from snakes. And so the term ‘snake oil’ was born.

I’ve been thinking about Clark Stanley since budget night, as Coalition leaders have boldly claimed that a cut to company taxes will whiten your teeth, improve your car’s fuel efficiency and make your chooks lay more eggs.

Yet just as Stanley didn’t want people to read his recipe, so too I’m not sure the Coalition wanted Australians to delve into the Treasury report that underpins their big business tax cut.

Titled ‘Analysis of the Long Term Effects of a Company Tax Cut’, the Treasury analysis makes clear how a company tax cut is supposed to help households. You’ll have to bear with me, because this one’s longer than a scrub python.

LAFFERNOMICS VS CLOSING LOOPHOLES: TAXATION REFORM IN AUSTRALIA TODAY

TAX INSTITUTE BREAKFAST

SYDNEY

FRIDAY, 3 JUNE 2016

**CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY**

Our story begins with Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and a cocktail napkin.

In 1974, American economist Arthur Laffer met with two officials in the Ford administration. Cheney and Rumsfeld were young, ideological, and eager to find an excuse to cut taxes. Over dinner at the Washington Hotel, Laffer sketched out on a napkin his notion of how government revenue related to the average tax rate. If taxes were zero, the government raised no revenue. If taxes were 100 percent, he claimed, the government raised no revenue. Somewhere in between was a revenue-maximising tax rate. The graph was shaped like an inverted U.

The United States, Laffer claimed, was on the right side of the curve - meaning that cutting taxes could raise revenue. To conservatives like Rumsfeld and Cheney who wanted to cut taxes and shrink the deficit, it suggested an exciting possibility: the government could reduce tax rates and increase the tax take.

There was just one problem with this argument: it was wrong. As Greg Mankiw, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush has noted, ‘there was little evidence for Laffer’s view that US tax rates had in fact reached such extreme levels’.

Yet despite the lack of empirical evidence, US Republican leaders repeatedly quoted Laffer in debates over major tax reductions in the 1980s and 1990s. The facts told a different story: during the Reagan-Bush era (1981 to 1993), taxes were cut. Partly as a result, these two presidents added more than US$3 trillion to their country’s national debt.

You might say that Laffer’s theory wasn’t worth the napkin it was sketched on. Helping popularise the Laffer theory wouldn’t be the last time that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld helped take their country down a very costly path – but that’s another story.

This morning, I want to contrast the approaches to tax reform being put forward in this election. For those of you who attended my talk at the Tax Institute’s National Convention in Melbourne in March, some of the points I made today about Labor’s reform agenda will be familiar. On the flipside, you may be pleased to know that there is one major political party in this election that can say it has the same approach to tax reform as we had three months ago.