Andrew Leigh

RICHARD DI NATALE’S GREENS: COALITION PARTNERS IN GUTTING TAX TRANSPARENCY

Joint Media Release with Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen

Richard Di Natale’s Greens have today teamed up with the Liberal Government to help Australia’s richest companies keep their tax dealings secret, selling out ordinary Australian taxpayers in the process.

In a closed-door deal between Richard Di Natale and Scott Morrison overnight, the Greens have walked away from reinstating tax transparency for private companies earning over $100 million. They will instead team up to double this threshold to $200 million.

Kippax Christmas Gift Appeal, The Chronicle, 1 December

For several years now, Kippax Uniting Church has been running a ‘Let’s Give everyone a Christmas’ campaign – providing hampers and gifts to needy families. One year, a mother turned up a day late for her scheduled appointment to collect the toys and food. Deeply apologetic, the mother explained that she had been giving birth to her fourth child the previous day. Without the gift appeal, she explained, there would have been no Christmas in the family that year.

Christmas should be a time of celebration, but for many families it can be a time of stress. One in twenty Australian families say they cannot afford Christmas gifts. Relationship counselling services report that financial worries negatively impact families, and Lifeline has documented a spike in calls during late-December. 

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TV INTERVIEW

SKY AM AGENDA

MONDAY, 30 NOVEMBER 2015

SUBJECT/S: Blow-out in Budget deficit; Paris climate conference.

KIERAN GILBERT: Joining me on the program now is Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh. Andrew, the Deloitte Access Economics Budget Monitor has quite a dire forecast here. Chris Richardson, a respected economist, is saying the Budget bottom line will be $30 billion worse off given the softening in commodity prices and the shift in the Chinese economic trajectory. What do you make of this analysis? It is quite a worry.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Kieran, it certainly is. It points to many of the things we have been pointing to in the economy over recent years. Unemployment is now at around 6 per cent; growth is 2 per cent. That’s well below the 3 per cent that you need to start getting people into work. We have consumer confidence 8 points down from where it was at the election and, Kieran, the Deloitte report was written before last week’s atrocious capital expenditure figures came out which showed a 9 per cent drop in capital expenditure. That’s the biggest drop we have seen since 1987. So it does point to the fact that we need a clear economic plan as to where we go next.

COMPETITION INSIDE THE COALITION TORPEDOES GOOD COMPETITION POLICY

Joint Media Release with Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen

Sooner or later Malcolm Turnbull is going to have to make a decision on the economy.

Today’s presentation by the rookie Treasurer on the Harper review and the effects test in particular, was embarrassing. [Shorter Morrison: after a two year review process, we’ve decided to have another review!]

The fact is, Malcolm Turnbull had to do deals to be elected Leader of the Liberal Party and Prime Minister and we’re seeing that play out today in the Government’s response to the Harper review.

This is Government economic policy paralysis writ large.

TURNBULL'S MOMENT OF TRUTH ON TAX TRANSPARENCY

Malcolm Turnbull has the chance to show his true colours today: is his priority tackling multinational profit shifting or helping big companies hide their tax affairs?

The Senate will today vote for a second time on the Government's multinational tax avoidance bill.

Two weeks ago, Labor and the crossbench teamed up to amend the bill to ensure private companies earning more than $100 million have to disclose how much tax they pay.

Want to help developing countries? Make it cheaper to send them money, Business Spectator, 23 November

Few things are more admirable than a worker going without so they can send money back home to their family. Chances are that within a short distance of you right now, there’s someone working long hours to send money back to relatives in Manila, Port Moresby or Mumbai. According to the World Bank, remittances to developing countries are worth half a trillion dollars annually – twice the value of foreign aid.

Yet many of those hard-earned dollars never get back home. On average, someone who tries to send $1000 to a developing country will see $77 eaten up by transaction fees and exchange rate spreads. A full-time worker who wanted to send half her salary home would be toiling away for more than a week every year just to pay financial middlemen. 

Over the weekend I got together a group of runners to tackle Hobart's Point to Pinnacle half-marathon and raise money for World Vision. The team was named after my grandfather, Keith Leigh, who died while running up Mt Wellington in 1970. 

ABC Hobart came along to follow our progress; check out their story here...

HELPING ALL CANBERRANS HAVE A CHRISTMAS 

Today I was delighted to join UnitingCare Kippax to launch their 2015 Christmas gift drive.

The Let’s Give Everyone a Christmas initiative collects donations of gifts and hampers for Canberra families that are doing it tough and might otherwise miss out on a merry Christmas.

GOVERNMENT PUTS TAX SECRECY AHEAD OF PASSING MULTINATIONAL TAX PLAN

Treasurer Scott Morrison cares so much about helping huge companies hide their tax dealings that he is now delaying the passage of his own multinational tax bill to do so.

Yesterday the Senate stood up for tax fairness by passing the Multinational Tax Avoidance Bill with important amendments that restore tax transparency.

The Senate’s fair amendments reversed the Government’s attempt to gut Australia’s tax transparency laws. As a result, private companies earning more than $100 million a year would continue to be included in transparency reports published by the Australian Tax Office. 

SENATE SUPPORTS TRANSPARENCY OVER SECRECY

Joint Media Release with Senator Sam Dastyari

The Senate has today stood up for tax fairness by passing the Multinational Tax Avoidance Bill with important amendments that restore tax transparency.

Today’s amendments have reversed the Government’s shameful attempt to gut Australia’s tax transparency laws. Private companies earning more than $100 million a year will continue to be included in transparency reports published by the Australian Tax Office.