Andrew Leigh

The Australian Honours System has been acknowledging the contribution of amazing Australians for 40 years now. I was proud to join a great many of them for the anniversary celebrations at Government House this week.

40^th ANNIVERSARY OF THE AUSTRALIAN HONOURS SYSTEM

Government House, Canberra

Your Excellencies Governor General Sir Peter Cosgrove and Lady Cosgrove, ladies and gentlemen.

I am delighted to be here today representing the Leader of the Opposition the Honourable Bill Shorten on this special anniversary.

One of the great privileges of being a parliamentarian is that you get to meet so many remarkable people. Over the past week, I’ve spoken with a woman who runs a technology start-up, a teacher who works with newly arrived migrant children, the head of an international aid organisation, and a mental health campaigner. In a job like this, it’s impossible not to be an optimist about Australia’s future.

There's a great deal of uncertainty in the global economy right now. On ABC NewsRadio, I joined Marius Benson to talk about why it's important that Australia's government addresses this uncertainty, rather than adding to it. Here's the transcript:

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

ABC NEWSRADIO

THURSDAY, 12 FEBRUARY 2015

SUBJECT/S: Economic summit proposal; Global economic outlook

MARIUS BENSON: Andrew Leigh, there's been a call for a summit on Australia's economic future. That call has been backed, in part, by Tony Abbott but it came from Clive Palmer and also Rupert Murdoch. Echoes of Bob Hawke there – are you in favour of a summit?

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Marius, Labor is always happy to talk economics. But you've got to worry when you hear calls for bipartisanship, because let's face it: expecting bipartisanship from Tony Abbott is like expecting humility from Malcolm Turnbull. He turned down the opportunity to be involved in the multi-party committee on climate change when Labor was in government, and he turned down the opportunity to be part of the tax forum. If this is a conversation about how we deal with the challenges of the future, including things like climate change and inequality, then we're happy to be part of that conversation. But if it's just a fig leaf to cover cuts to the most vulnerable, then Labor isn't going to support measures which harm the Australian social contract.

International tax has been in the news again with allegations a major bank has been helping wealthy individuals dodge their tax obligations. I joined Stuart Bocking to talk about what we can do to prevent this; here's the transcript:

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

2UE SYDNEY

TUESDAY, 10 FEBRUARY 2015

SUBJECT/S: HSBC banking leaks; multinational profit shifting; Tony Abbott’s cuts to pensions; 2015 budget

STUART BOCKING: There's been interesting reports today about HSBC's international banking arm, which detail a whole heap of secret accounts which have been operated by all sorts of people including A-listers like Christian Slater, Joan Collins, Phil Collins, and the motorcycle ace Valentino Rossi. A number of high-profile Australians have been caught up in this as well, including Elle McPherson and also the late Kerry Packer. Now, there's no suggestion that any of them have broken the law, but the Australian tax Office is now probing the Swiss bank accounts of 261 Australians as new details emerge of what is the biggest leak in banking history. Dr Andrew Leigh is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer and he's on the line. Dr Leigh, good morning.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Good morning Stuart, how are you?

BOCKING: I'm well. It isn't illegal to have an offshore bank account, is it?

LEIGH: No, that's right. It's just illegal not to notify the Australian tax office. 

BOCKING: So this is quite extraordinary because they're saying there's potentially an additional $30 million which is owed to the nation's coffers. 

LEIGH: That's right. Certainly this new Common Reporting Standard which developed countries around the world have agreed to implement is going to make it much harder for firms and individuals to hide information, as seems to have happened in this case. But what has concerned me is that the Abbott Government is implementing that Common Reporting Standard a year later than most other advanced countries, meaning there's an extra year that people are able to exploit loopholes like this.

The new Minister for Social Services has signaled a welcome change of tack on the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission. But instead of putting off plans to scrap the commission indefinitely, it would be better to just walk away from the idea altogether.

MEDIA RELEASE

SHIFT ON ACNC WELCOME BUT CHARITIES NEED CERTAINTY

Labor welcomes Scott Morrison’s announcement that he will not make scrapping the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission a priority in his new Social Services portfolio. But if he is really listening to the charities sector, he should walk away from his predecessor’s plan to abolish it altogether.    

The Abbott Government had previously committed to axing the commission, which was set up by Labor in 2012 to protect Australians from scammers and streamline charity regulation.

Under former Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews, Australia’s charities endured months of uncertainty as the minister pushed through a Senate inquiry and endless consultations on what should replace the commission. 

The Senate's inquiry into corporate tax avoidance in Australia is underway, with public submissions closing this week. Reading through the responses, it's really clear that we need better tax transparency right now.

MEDIA RELEASE

TAX INQUIRY SUBMISSIONS BACK NEED FOR MORE TRANSPARENCY

The Senate’s inquiry into corporate tax avoidance has underlined the need for greater tax transparency in Australia, with one in three submissions backing the public release of more information on how much tax companies really pay.

On top of the submissions directly supporting better transparency, a further one in three have raised concerns about incorrect and confusing information on corporate tax payments circulating in the public domain.

The inquiry was established by Labor in the wake of growing global concern about multinational profit shifting in recent years.

The first Breaking Politics show of the year was a big one, as Andrew Laming and I thrashed out the lessons parties should be taking from the weekend's remarkable result in Queensland. Here's the transcript:

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

ONLINE INTERVIEW

FAIRFAX BREAKING POLITICS

MONDAY, 2 FEBRUARY 2015

SUBJECT/S: Abbott Government leadership ructions; Queensland election; Labor’s positive plan for 2015

CHRIS HAMMER: We're joined now in the studio by Andrew Leigh, the Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Member for Fraser here in the ACT, and Andrew Laming, a Queensland federal Liberal MP from the seat of Bowman. Good morning to you both. Andrew Laming, to you first: the Queensland election result, how much do you think that was affected by federal issues and federal politics?

ANDREW LAMING, MEMBER FOR BOWMAN: Well Chris, you'll be surprised to hear me say: very little. The reason was Campbell Newman was such a towering figure, and overwhelmingly this result was all about whether you liked him or not, his tone and his style. Obviously asset sales became a significant issue due to a really big union campaign. So while we may have national thoughts about the relative leaders, Tony Abbott didn't play a big role in Queensland. Certainly he didn't come up during the campaign, and secondly people were firmly focused on Campbell Newman's three years in government.

CHRIS HAMMER: Ok, so in that case the federal government doesn't have to change anything, does it? Because that was just all Queensland?

LAMING: Well there are still important portents from the Queensland election. First of all, we've seen that significant social policy changes or restructures aren't going to be bought easily by the electorate in the name of fixing Labor's debt. There's general agreement, I think, that we need to do that. But in Queensland for the first time we've actually got a Queensland Labor government having to wear the debt of the Labor predecessor just three years earlier. That's historically quite a new thing post-John Howard, to see Labor sorting out Labor debt. It'll be very interesting viewing. 

HAMMER: Given what's happened in Queensland and what happened in Victoria in November – two first-term governments kicked out of office – do you now fear that the federal government could be a one-term government? Is that a real fear?

LAMING: Look, it's not a direct correlation but clearly Australians are not going to hold onto governments simply because they've only had one term. I mean, two very different situations here: the Victorian state government was just plain terrible, whereas Campbell Newman was, if anything, just too ambitious. Australians, and Queenslanders certainly, like governments that are seen but not heard. They don't want governments making massive structural reforms unless they're absolutely convinced of them. Clearly, both at the state and federal level we haven't achieved that. That narrative hasn't been right. I've said this before: on Budget Night last year I had to go and check, as a medical specialist, to see if Medicare was truly unsustainable because no-one had been saying it prior to the budget. That wasn't the right language to get budget changes through. 

HAMMER: Ok, so what has the federal government got wrong and what does it need to get right?

LAMING: Well it firstly needs to be pointed out that we're having this discussion two years out from an election. That's when you want to have the discussion. Not, as Labor did, three months out. Secondly, we obviously have great economic credentials, voters know that and they'll always vote for a Coalition government when the economy is at stake. But ultimately, Coalition governments are voted out when they get their social policy in a muddle. They've got to get their social policy right to stay elected. They're not at the moment. The mistake we have made is to presume that Australians will brook massive social policy changes simply because of a Labor government's failures in a previous term. In Queensland that simply did not wash.

Economic Development on the Far South Coast

Campaign Event for Leanne Atkinson, NSW Labor Candidate for BegaSaturday,

31 January 2015 

I acknowledge the traditional owners, on whose lands we meet today. Thanks to Leanne for inviting me here this afternoon, and to Doug for his very moderate moderating. It’s great to share the stage with a policy thinker of the calibre of David Hetherington. It’s good to be here with all of you as well, although I am slightly worried about who’s minding Canberra since it seems as though we’re all here at the coast.

In politics we spend a lot of time dealing with the things that are most urgent, but not necessarily the most important. Events like today’s provide an opportunity to raise our eyes to the horizon and think about the big picture challenges we need to address for this community’s future. I think it’s a great indication of the approach Leanne would bring as this region’s local member, and I commend her for facing up to the challenges ahead with energy and optimism.  

It's always good to speak with 2CC's Mark Parton about the news of the day - here's the transcript from today's chat:

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

RADIO 2CC

THURSDAY, 29 JANUARY 2015

SUBJECT/S: Abbott Government’s unfair policy agenda; Multinational profit shifting; Benefits of the sharing economy

MARK PARTON: Andrew Leigh is the Federal Member for Fraser and there's a couple of things we wanted to catch up with him about. He's on the line now, g'day Andrew.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: G'day Mark, how are you?

PARTON: Excellent. I think maybe you need to lay off the Prime Minister. I think maybe you need to tone it down, give him some space because I'm worried for you guys, Andrew, that if enough Liberal people believe that they're not a hope in Hades of winning the election with him there, that they will dump him in ALP fashion, a la Rudd and Gillard. But he may be your best asset, maybe you should leave him be?

LEIGH: Well Mark, I'm much more concerned about the set of policies than who's occupying that chair. Let's face it: if the Coalition makes a shift to Scott Morrison or Julie Bishop or Malcolm Turnbull, they're still going to have a set of policies that take from the most vulnerable to give to the most affluent.

PARTON: But Andrew, in reality you know that if there was a shift of leadership, unless it was to Scott Morrison – and wow, god help 'em then – the whole voter mood would change in terms of their perception of the Coalition. Because that's what happens, isn't it?

LEIGH: I'm not sure that's right, Mark. If there was a change in the fundamental philosophy of the Government, then that would be true. But so long as you've got a government that wants to make university degrees more expensive, wants to stop people going to the doctor and thinks that it's okay to put young people out in the streets for six months if they lose their job, then that's going to be a government that is out of touch with Australian values, no matter who is at the helm.

The Asia & Pacific Policy Society has recently launched a new online magazine for exploring big policy challenges and ideas in Australia and around our region. In what I hope will be the first of many pieces for the site, I've explored international approaches to regulating the sharing economy, and the lessons we might learn here in Australia.

Sharing the benefits of the sharing economy, Policy Forum, 29 January

With nothing but a smartphone, I can order up an Uber car to whisk me to my next meeting or find a bargain bed for the night through AirBNB. If I lived in one of the major US cities, I could also tap on an app to hire a pair of skis for the weekend through Spinlister, find someone to assemble my flatpack furniture on TaskRabbit, leave my dog with a pet-lover for the weekend via DogVacay, or even get roaming WiFi from Fon.

Often gathered under the banner of the ‘sharing economy’, ‘collaborative consumption’ or the ‘peer to peer market’, these services are all about linking people who have surplus goods to those who can make use of them. They provide a means for us to make more efficient use of the world’s existing stock of bedrooms, cars, tools and other goods, and help cut down on the need to continually produce more.   

Following new reports about alleged multinational profit shifting out of Australia, I joined Richard Glover on ABC 702 Sydney to talk about what governments can do to tackle this global challenge. Here's the transcript:

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

ABC 702 SYDNEY

WEDNESDAY, 28 JANUARY 2015

SUBJECT/S: multinational profit shifting; opportunities in the sharing economy

RICHARD GLOVER: The iPhone maker Apple has seen sales surge over the three months to December. Revenue jumped almost 30 per cent in that period to USD$76.4 billion. It was much higher than analysts had forecast; they thought it might come in at a lazy $58 billion. Quarterly net profit came in at US$18 billion. Now, I guess the question in some Australians' minds might be: we all applaud success, but how much tax will they pay in a country like Australia on this record profit? For instance, Apple paid just $80 million in Australian tax last year, despite making more than $6 billion in local revenue, according to accounts with a corporate regulator. Andrew Leigh is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer and he joins us on the line – Andrew, good afternoon.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Good afternoon Richard.

GLOVER: You've been concerned about this for some time?

LEIGH: Absolutely. I think the issue of multinational tax is one of the central challenges of our age. In part, that's because the movement of profits around the world is becoming easier as a result of globalisation and technological change. If you think of the old-fashioned manufacturing firms that produced widgets, they had a permanent establishment in the place where their biggest factory was. But that's just not true if you're an intellectual property firm, as three of the five biggest companies in the world now are. It's increasingly easy for firms to move profits around. Labor has taken the view that we need a set of laws that keep pace and which maintain government revenue at a time when some firms are trying to do the wrong thing.