Andrew Leigh

Labor’s reforms to promote inclusive ownership and inclusive growth, Business Insider,       18 November 2016

In history’s page not much is recorded about events in the Scottish village of Fenwick, except in 1769 – when some members of the Fenwick Weavers Society, so their story goes, lugged “victuals” they’d purchased with Society funds to the front room of a small cottage.

From here the items were sold at a discount to fellow Society members while the profits went into the Society’s funds (deposited – literally – in a box).

This small community enterprise appears to be the first consumer cooperative of which there are records, while the fund the Society established to lend money for members to “purchase high cost items” seems very much like a primitive credit union.

However, equally important as these profit-orientated activities was the motivation of the Society’s members and their objectives.

COUNTING THE COST OF INEQUALITY

‘JUST IDEAS’ TALK #1

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

FRIDAY, 18 NOVEMBER 2016

***CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY***

One of the many things I love about Australia is our egalitarian ethos. We’re a nation that doesn’t have private areas on our beaches, and likes using the word mate. We rarely stand up when the Prime Minister enters the room, and prefer to pay a decent wage than have people relying on tips. Since the 1800s, when European migrants alighting from boats said that they felt they had entered a ‘workers paradise’, the spirit of Australian egalitarianism has burned bright.

Unfortunately, when there’s a bright light shining in your eyes, it can be hard to see anything else. Sometimes, I fear that we think that equality is merely about battlers and billionaires sharing the showers at Bondi Beach. An equality of manners is a lovely thing, but as many a homeless person has observed, you can’t eat politeness.

How much equality is there in Australia? One way of answering that question is to imagine that we divided up the population into five groups of about five million people each, and allocated the Australian land mass to them in the same way that wealth is distributed in Australia. For simplicity, let’s start from the bottom, and just draw lines of latitude across the nation that match the current distribution of wealth, as measured by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Labor understands that Australians want more competition in the banking sector, and we know that stronger credit unions and building societies will open up more choice for customers.

That’s why we welcome KPMG’s annual review of Australia’s credit unions, building societies and mutual banks (“mutuals”) released today.

The review demonstrates the mutuals industry is flourishing in an environment of low economic growth with an asset growth of 7.8 per cent, compared to 5.1 per cent for the wider banking industry.

The review also called on the Turnbull Government to respond, as a priority, to the Senate Economics References Committee’s March 2016 report into the industry. 

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TV INTERVIEW

SKY NEWS AM AGENDA WITH KIERAN GILBERT

THURSDAY, 17 NOVEMBER 2016

SUBJECT/S: Donald Trump’s tax plan; 457 visas; US alliance; Trans-Pacific Partnership.

KIERAN GILBERT: Joining me on the program now, the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Andrew Leigh. Mr. Leigh, thanks very much for your time. Jennifer Westacott from the Business Council of Australia will tonight – at their annual dinner – be making the case that our country, even more so with a Trump victory, needs those tax cuts to make our businesses competitive alongside the US. Mr. Trump is going to reduce corporate tax down to 15 per cent. 

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: That's what his plan says Kieran. But don't forget that independent experts have that increasing US debt by somewhere between five and ten trillion dollars. It's a staggering amount of money. And whether or not Mr. Trump is willing to go down that path-

GILBERT: Under his plans is that what the forecast is?

LEIGH: That's under his plan. Whether or not Mr. Trump chooses to go down that path, I'm not sure it’s right for Australia to massively blow out the deficient in order to get a very small economic growth pay-off. And this is under the government's own modelling, which suggests that the benefit for households will be trivial, but we know the impact on the debt would be massive. 

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Good Afternoon. Thanks very much for coming along today – my name is Andrew Leigh, the Shadow Assistant Treasurer. I’ve just enjoyed a very productive round-table with my Tasmanian Labor colleagues. Colleagues who are focused on the long-term interests of Tasmania and making decisions that don't just focus on the next election, but on the needs of Tasmania over the next generation.

We've been speaking about the importance of investments in health and education. The importance of investment in infrastructure. There is a clear lesson out of the last federal election, in which the three Liberal amigos were replaced by three federal Labor members who are deeply engaged in their community and deeply committed to the long-term future of this great state.  

Bend back Ag's U-shaped employment curve, The Land, 15 November 2016

Five years ago, a family in NSW took the plunge and started a company called Rise Above, which specialises drone technology, including precision agriculture, farming and crop management. This technology is an example of where innovation in agriculture has made it in practice, cutting the cost of jobs such as spraying and data collection. Taking innovation through to implementation, including as new businesses, is an area in which Australian agriculture can perform much better.

However, one innovator’s disruption is another person’s job loss. One of the most common questions politicians like us are asked is “where will the jobs of the future come from?” While all of us welcome the prospect of increased crop yields, greater productivity and improved efficiency in our agricultural sector, they create inevitable pressures on farm employment.

As a share of total employment, agricultural work has halved during the past 20 years. Not only is this a worse result than manufacturing, it also bucks the trend that we normally see across the Australian economy. A recent study by economists Roger Wilkins and Mark Wooden looked at employment changes across 43 Australian occupations and found a ‘U-shaped’ outcome: employment has grown in the low-paid and high-professions, but contracted in the middle-paid professions. Not only are farm workers relatively poorly paid – the number of these jobs on offer is shrinking rapidly.

ANDREW LEIGH MP

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION AND PRODUCTIVITY

SHADOW MINISTER FOR CHARITIES AND NOT-FOR-PROFITS

SHADOW MINISTER FOR TRADE IN SERVICES

MEMBER FOR FENNER

BRYAN GREEN

LEADER OF THE TASMANIAN OPPOSITION

MEMBER FOR BRADDON

SCOTT BACON

TASMANIAN SHADOW TREASURER

MEMBER FOR DENISON

LIBERAL GOVERNMENTS IN HOBART AND CANBERRA ARE NEGLECTING TASMANIA

Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh has today met with Tasmanian Labor Leader Bryan Green and Tasmanian Shadow Treasurer Scott Bacon to discuss the importance of federal and state collaboration on crucial regional development and infrastructure projects.

Andrew Leigh said the Federal Government had neglected Tasmania when it came to budget priorities.

“The Liberals failed to address Tasmania’s infrastructure needs in the lead-up to the last election and paid the price by losing all three of their lower house seats,” Mr Leigh said.

“In contrast, Labor committed $75 million to water and sewerage upgrades in Launceston, $150 million for the redevelopment of UTAS and a to $44 million tourism infrastructure fund.

“In government, Labor would work collaboratively to deliver Tasmania’s infrastructure, creating much needed employment across the state.”  

ANDREW LEIGH MP

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION AND PRODUCTIVITY

SHADOW MINISTER FOR CHARITIES AND NOT-FOR-PROFITS

SHADOW MINISTER FOR TRADE IN SERVICES

MEMBER FOR FENNER

ROSS HART MP

MEMBER FOR BASS

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP

LAUNCESTON

MONDAY, 14 NOVEMBER 2016

SUBJECTS: Turnbull Government’s lack of investment in Northern Tasmania; inequality; backpacker tax; education

ROSS HART, MEMBER FOR BASS: Welcome everybody. It's a great pleasure to have here in Northern Tasmania Dr Andrew Leigh, who's the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, talking to people in the community about the importance of investment in jobs and infrastructure in the north of the state. I've taken Andrew up here to Ravenswood to show him the fabulous child and family centre, and to stress the importance of embedding these wraparound services into communities. If we're serious about creating jobs in a community like Northern Tasmania we really need to invest in people as well as infrastructure. Unfortunately, the Turnbull Government doesn't get the fact that you need to invest over a long period of time in order to see meaningful results in a community like Northern Tasmania.

Welcome Andrew.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Thanks very much, Ross. Since Ross's election I've been asking him when I'd have the opportunity to come and spend some time in Launceston. Seeing the facility here in Ravenswood and speaking with Ross about the challenges in the community really does remind you that in the age of Trump, Brexit and Le Pen, the conversation around inequality needs to be richer and deeper.

Labor firmly believes that we need to do more to create more jobs. The unemployment rate in Launceston is now nine per cent. Many families are experiencing the frustration of teenagers leaving school not able to find a job. Labor wants investments that will ensure we have well-paying jobs now and into the future. We want to ensure we have a better healthcare system, that we have a better education system which provides opportunities in school, vocational training and universities.

In Ross Hart, the community of Bass has a fantastic local member. Somebody who understands deeply the challenges of inequality and who's committed in his heart to doing as much as he can to create a more cohesive community. Australia does benefit from our engagement with the world and Tasmanians know that – through exports of salmon and milk, and through the overseas students who come to study at the University of Tasmania.

But we need to make sure that globalisation works for everyone. That globalisation includes the wraparound social supports that ensure that the benefits of growth that flow from globalisation are fairly shared across the community. Labor doesn't believe that sharing is as fair as it could be. We believe that inequality is a signal challenge of our age that needs to be tackled and they're the issues that we need to be focused on today.

We're happy to take questions.

LOCKING SOMEONE UP COSTS AROUND $300 A DAY OR ABOUT $110,000 A YEAR,         The Canberra Times, 14 November 2016

You might not know it to watch the news, but on many measures, Australia is becoming safer. In the past two decades, the murder rate has fallen by one-third. The rate of armed robberies has dropped by one-third. Car theft is down by two-thirds.

And yet while crime is falling, our prison population is rising at an alarming rate. In June, 38,685 people were in jail. At the current pace, the prison population will soon pass 40,000. If our jail population were a city, it would be the 36th-largest city in Australia – larger than Albany, Bathurst or Devonport.

As a share of population, I estimate that Australia now jails 207 in every 100,000 adults. That's a higher incarceration rate than in most other nations. To take just a few examples, imprisonment rates in Australia are higher than those in Canada, Japan, France, India, Germany, Indonesia or Britain.

Curious to know how the current lock-up rate compares with Australia's past, I dusted off some old statistical volumes and started comparing the figures. I was shocked to discover that the last time our incarceration rate was this high was 1901. 

Representatives from the local community today met Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Andrew Leigh, and Member for Bass, Ross Hart, to discuss their concerns that Northern Tasmania is missing out on local jobs while the tax system continues to favour multinational companies and wealthy individuals.

“People in the Launceston community are really feeling the Turnbull Government cuts to childcare, aged care and education. Along with cuts to welfare and job-training programs, all of these decisions will increase inequality in Northern Tasmania,” said Mr Hart.

“They hear the government beat its chest every week about creating jobs­ ­– and they want to know why so many people in their community can’t find any work.