Andrew Leigh

LIBERALS' WAR ON FACTS CONTINUES

The Liberals are waging a War on Facts. Their new glossy – Labor’s War on Business – is just the latest case in point.

Finding exactly where to start pulling it apart is hard, but let’s give it a go with two examples.

Example 1

Page 3 alleges that Labor’s proposed changes to the Capital Gains Tax discount will hurt small businesses. Rubbish.

Labor’s fact sheet clearly states: The CGT discount will not change for small business assets. This will ensure that no small businesses are worse off under these changes.

The suggestion that our changes to Capital Gains Taxation will hurt sole traders and small businesses is just plain wrong.

But hey, it’s war on facts amirite, ScoMo?

Example 2

Last night, Scott Morrison told ABC’s The Business: “Changing negative gearing is… going to undermine the value of people’s homes and it’s going to crash house prices”.

But on page 15 of the glossy: [page 15] CAMEO Belinda earns $80,000 per year. She buys an established home as an investment property after 1 July 2017, which she intends to use to fund her retirement in 10 years’ time. She takes out a loan to buy the property and makes a net rental loss of $6,000 each year. In 10 years’ time Belinda stands to make a capital gain of $400,000. Over the next ten years she will pay the following amounts in income tax…..

By the Liberal Party’s own document, under Labor’s policies house prices will continue to rise, investors will not abandon the housing market like Mr Turnbull claims, and in fact investors like Belinda will continue to reap healthy capital gains from their housing investments. The claim that house prices will crash comes with a resounding “yeah, nah”.

Rather than using facts, Scott Morrison would rather defend tax concessions that overwhelmingly benefit the top 10 per cent of income earners.

The Liberals have no plan to boost new housing supply.

Labor will continue to defend facts, and promote fair and sensible reforms that improve the budget bottom line, increase housing supply, and help young Australians buy their first home.

THE HON JENNY MACKLIN MP

SHADOW MINISTER FOR FAMILIES AND PAYMENTS

SHADOW MINISTER FOR DISABILITY REFORM

MEMBER FOR JAGAJAGA

THE HON DR ANDREW LEIGH MP

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION

MEMBER FOR FRASER

CANDIDATE FOR FENNER

LABOR’S LINE IN THE SAND: IT’S TIME FOR GOVERNMENT AND CHARITIES TO WORK TOGETHER AGAIN

The best kind of care for our community comes from within our community. The best-placed organisations to identify and respond to social and community issues are those organisations that base their strength, energy and grit on the people who are that community.

Labor understands this principle. Labor supports and protects this principle.

The Liberals don’t. The Liberals won’t.

Labor understands the critical role played by Australia’s not-for-profit sector in building the capacity of individuals and communities, strengthening 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. Labor views the efforts of this sector with pride and gratitude.

The Liberals view the not-for-profit sector with little more than contempt.

There’s proof:

• In only three years, the Liberals have ripped more than $270 million worth of funding from frontline services.
• They gutted peak advocacy organisations of their funding and slashed money from community legal centres and family violence services.
• Then they completely botched their community grants process – pitting community organisations against one another and leaving many frontline services without funding certainty. As a result, some frontline services have had to cut staff or reduce their services. Some have been forced to close entirely.
• The Liberals also tried to scrap the Australian Charities and Not-For-Profit Commission (ACNC) – only to be fought off by a relentless campaign by Labor and the community sector.

Tax Pirates of the Caribbean

A few years ago, a team of American journalists decided to set up a company in a tax haven. After a quick internet search, they paid US$900 to set up a shell company in Belize (they called it ‘Unbeliezable’). Employees of the organisation who set it up agreed to represent the journalists as the company’s directors and shareholders. That meant no-one could find the true owners’ names through a search of the company register. The journalists then set up a bank account in Singapore to collect the money produced by the company.

The whole process took only days. 

THE HON CATHERINE KING MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR HEALTH
MEMBER FOR BALLARAT

THE HON DR ANDREW LEIGH MP
SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER
SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION
MEMBER FOR FRASER
LABOR CANDIDATE FOR FENNER

MEDIBANK ACCUSATIONS SHOW NEED FOR STRONG CONSUMER WATCHDOG

The allegations that Medibank Private Limited deliberately deceived customers is just more evidence of the need to strengthen the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC).

It is also is a stark reminder of the danger to patients of the Turnbull Government’s plan to privatise Medicare.

The allegations only came to light after the ACCC took the company to court for unconscionable conduct.

If the Turnbull Government is re-elected, consumers will be left out in the cold wondering how many other allegations will go unchecked.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP
CAIRNS
THURSDAY, 16 JUNE 2016

SUBJECT/S: Labor’s plan crack down on unpaid fines and reducing unnecessary incarceration by reforming the fine recovery process; positive policies for Leichhardt; Bob Katter campaign ad.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER:  Thanks very much for coming along today. I'm here with Sharryn Howes, Labor's terrific candidate for Leichhardt, to announce an important Labor policy to make sure that fine defaulters pay and we have fewer people in prisons. Right now, Australian States and Territories are locking up fine defaulters, it's costing the taxpayer up to $770 per day and it's one of the reasons why the Australian incarceration rate is going up and up. Later this year, we will probably hit the point where we've got more than 40,000 behind bars. Our incarceration rate is now 196 per 100,000, that's as high as it's been in at least a century. The Indigenous incarceration rate is higher still. Indigenous Australians, adjusted for age, are 15 times more likely to be in jail. That's an incarceration rate that's even higher than it was when the report into Aboriginal deaths in custody was handed down in 1991.

Labor takes incarceration seriously, we take Indigenous incarceration seriously. We've called for incarceration targets to be part of the Closing the Gap reports. Bill Shorten has mentioned Indigenous incarceration in each of his responses to the Closing the Gap report. But our current system isn't serving taxpayers and it isn't serving the most disadvantaged. I'm particularly pleased to be making this announcement alongside Sharryn Howes, somebody who has worked in community services for a decade and who understands firsthand the impact incarceration can have on setting people down the wrong path. What we do when we lock up a fine defaulter is we say to them they don't need to pay their fine. Instead, we'll pay for them to go to jail. The result of that is to increase the chances of somebody re-offending. Sharryn has of course seen first-hand the impact the incarceration can have on young lives.

THE HON MARK DREYFUS QC MP
SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL
SHADOW MINISTER FOR THE ARTS
MEMBER FOR ISAACS

THE HON SHAYNE NEUMANN MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS
SHADOW MINISTER FOR AGEING
SHADOW MINISTER FOR NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
MEMBER FOR BLAIR

THE HON DR ANDREW LEIGH MP
SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER
SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION
MEMBER FOR FRASER
LABOR CANDIDATE FOR FENNER
 

LABOR WILL REFORM FINE RECOVERY TO REDUCE INCARCERATION

Labor will crack down on unpaid fines and reduce unnecessary incarceration by reforming the fine recovery process.

Australian States and Territories spend up to $770 per day, per offender locking up people for unpaid fines.

High and growing incarceration rates put unnecessary strains on government budgets and the community.

SCAMMERS FACE $10 MILLION+ FINES UNDER LABOR CRACKDOWN

From pharmaceutical companies making misleading claims about products to scammers swindling $229 million from consumers, dodgy business practices are too familiar to Australians.

However, current penalties are too small to act as a deterrent, are low by international standards and are seen as a mere “cost of doing business” according to the Federal Court, the ACCC, and consumer advocates.

Despite the clear case for action, in three years the Abbott-Turnbull Government’s effort to protect consumers has amounted to this:

 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP
MORUYA
FRIDAY, 10 JUNE 2016

SUBJECT/S: Funding for Shoalcoast Community Legal Centre

FIONA PHILLIPS, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR GILMORE: I’m standing outside the Moruya Court House today with Andrew Leigh, Labor's Shadow Assistant Treasurer. We're here with an exciting announcement, that Labor will be providing $450,000 for Shoalcoast Community Legal Centre over three years if a Shorten Labor Government is elected.

We're absolutely thrilled about this announcement. We know the important work that Shoalcoast Community Legal Centre provides right across the Gilmore electorate through their outreach programs helping the people of Gilmore with family issues and domestic violence issues as well as assisting the elderly. I'll hand over to Andrew.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
SKY NEWS TV INTERVIEW
THE LATEST WITH LAURA JAYES
THURSDAY, 9 JUNE 201

SUBJECT/S: Labor’s 10-year plan; costings; AAA credit rating; Labor’s tough savings decisions

LAURA JAYES:  Andrew Leigh, the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, welcome to the program. We're yet to see the raw figures but you've promised a better budget outcome than the Government in 10 years. What is the starting point? What are the figures and forecast that you're starting from?

LEIGH: Laura, we're starting from figures that are put together in the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook, prepared by the Secretaries of Treasury and Finance. And all of our costings are prepared by the Parliamentary Budget Office, which as you know under the Charter of Budget Honesty is an equal status coster to the Treasury. We're confident that over the decade we're going to do better than the Government. Because while they have the biggest promise of the election in this unfunded company tax cut, that starts small but ends up huge, we have grandfathered changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount that don't affect the existing investors but over time build in their savings.