E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
2SM MARCUS PAUL IN THE MORNING
TUESDAY, 27 JULY 2021

SUBJECTS: Labor’s economic policies; Scott Morrison’s vaccine failures.

MARCUS PAUL, HOST: Let's catch up with one of those inner-city lefty elites, sipping a latte, no doubt, after a major shift in economic policy from his party. Andrew Leigh, good morning to you. 

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Good morning, Marcus. Always great to be with you. 

PAUL: No comment on that intro, I guess? 

LEIGH: No lattes this morning, Marcus, I'm sorry. I went off coffee a couple of years back, so I'm a tea drinker, I'm afraid.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
2CC CANBERRA LIVE WITH LEON DELANEY 
MONDAY, 26 JULY 2021

SUBJECTS: Labor’s announcements on tax and an anti-corruption commission; Scott Morrison’s failures on policy, wages, waste and vaccines; multinational tax avoidance; Labor’s plans for a more equitable Australia; return of parliament.

LEON DELANEY, HOST: Dr Andrew Leigh, good afternoon.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Good afternoon Leon. Following that last conversation, I just hit up Google to find out the origins of your name. It turned out Leon of Sparta in the fifth century BC was the first Leon.

DELANEY: Goodness gracious me!

LEIGH: What a proud lineage you have there, mate. 

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC NEWSRADIO BREAKFAST
FRIDAY, 23 JULY 2021

SUBJECT: Scott Morrison’s historic $13 billion in JobKeeper waste.

TOM ORITI, HOST: First this half hour: the ABC has revealed that 150,000 businesses received JobKeeper despite increasing their turnover during the height of the pandemic last year. The Federal Government announced the $1,500 a fortnight wage subsidy last March, of course, as parts of the economy began shutting down. Some of you might remember, to qualify for the wage subsidy businesses needed to demonstrate or, importantly, predict a fall in turnover below certain levels. New data from the Parliamentary Budget Office reveals turnover actually rose for more than 157,000 employers, and they accrued more than $4 billion in JobKeeper between April and June last year. Turnover did fall for about another 200,000 employers, but not below the thresholds.

Now, Federal Labor MP Andrew Leigh has been a strident critic of the program and joins us now. Good morning, Andrew.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Good morning, Tom. Great to be with you.

ORITI: Thanks for joining us. Big numbers there. what's your reaction to this data?

LEIGH: JobKeeper was a good idea terribly implemented by the Coalition Government. The fact is that if this degree of waste is true across the entire program then some $13 billion of JobKeeper went to firms with rising earnings: firms like Harvey Norman, Best & Less, Cotton On, Accent Group; institutions such as The Australian Club in Sydney that bans women members; for independent schools such as The Kings School, Wesley College or Brisbane Grammar, organisations that were doing pretty well through 2020 and didn't need taxpayer handouts.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

ABC RADIO PERTH MORNINGS WITH NADIA MITSOPOULOS

FRIDAY, 23 JULY 2021

SUBJECTS: Scott Morrison’s historic $13 billion in JobKeeper waste

NADIA MITSOPOULOS, HOST: Well, there is data out from the Parliamentary Budget Office which shows 157,000 businesses received JobKeeper payments at the height of the pandemic last year even though they increased their turnover. All up, they got $4 billion, and some elite private schools did the same, including Hale here in Perth. Now, that school pocketed $7 million in JobKeeper while posting an operating surplus of more than $8 million. It then offered its parents a discount, and these are some parents who are paying up to $27,000 a year in fees. So does this sound OK to you? Should Hale and all those other companies pay the money back? Keen to know what you think this morning: 1300 222 720. They've not done anything legally wrong, but is it morally wrong? That is the question being asked this morning.

Andrew Leigh thinks these companies and those schools should pay the money back. He's the Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury and I spoke to him a little earlier this morning.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Good morning, Nadia. Great to be with you.

MITSOPOULOS: Does that seem right to you, that a private school can post a profit and offer parents a discount while claiming JobKeeper?

LEIGH: Nadia, when the JobKeeper legislation was going through parliament I don't remember any member of the Government standing up and saying the real virtue of this will be that we'll pad the surpluses of cashed-up private schools. Hale is not the only one. We've seen Kings School in Sydney, Brisbane Grammar, Wesley College, all post increased surpluses on the back of receiving JobKeeper from the taxpayer.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

ABC RADIO CANBERRA MORNINGS WITH ADAM SHIRLEY

FRIDAY, 23 JULY 2021

SUBJECTS: Scott Morrison’s historic $13 billion in JobKeeper waste; return of parliament.

ADAM SHIRLEY, HOST: Dr Andrew Leigh is the Federal Labor member for Fenner and is with us on ABC Radio Canberra. Good morning to you, Dr Leigh.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Morning Adam, great to be with you.

SHIRLEY: I used that analogy of the Community Chest or Chance card in Monopoly, a bank error in your favour. If people get a JobKeeper error in their favour, is it their fault?

LEIGH: Adam, I love the fact you started with Monopoly, because it's one of the games I really dislike. It always seems to cause fights in our household and I don't think monopolies are good for the Australian community.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
2SM MARCUS PAUL IN THE MORNING
TUESDAY, 20 JULY 2021
 
SUBJECTS: Euthanasia; JobKeeper; Scott Morrison’s vaccination bungles; Scott Morrison’s government by rorting

MARCUS PAUL, HOST: I’m going to put my mate on the spot here. Andrew Leigh, good morning. how are you mate?

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: G'day, Marcus. Always pleased to be put on the spot.

PAUL: Alright, for or against euthanasia - if you were asked to vote with your conscience, how would you go?

LEIGH: I'd support it, Marcus. I've certainly been in a situation with family members who suffered unduly at the end of their lives. I know for myself I'd want to be able to choose the time to go if I had an incurable disease, and have my kids remember me as somebody who was strong and with all their faculties. I respect there's a lot of differences on this, but certainly when I look at the attitudes of Australians, most Australians are supportive. You've got a majority of Anglicans, a majority of Catholics, a majority of Liberal Party voters, Greens Party voters, One Nation voters. Right across the spectrum there's very strong support for euthanasia.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

2SM MARCUS PAUL IN THE MORNING

TUESDAY, 13 JULY 2021

SUBJECTS: Scott Morrison’s vaccine failures

MARCUS PAUL, HOST: Andrew Leigh MP joins me on the program each Tuesday. Morning, Andrew.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: G'day, Marcus. How are you?

PAUL: Good. Bill Shorten, obviously, summed it up succinctly yesterday. I know that you're a man who doesn't refer to language like that, but you probably agree with his sentiments.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

2SM MARCUS PAUL IN THE MORNING

TUESDAY, 6 JULY 2021

SUBJECTS: Government’s vaccine bungles; Julia Banks

MARCUS PAUL, HOST: Someone who, I don't know whether he's fully vaccinated, but I know he's had at least one jab, Andrew Leigh. Good morning, Andrew.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: G'day Marcus. I'm halfway there. Next is due at the middle of the month.

PAUL: I get my first today. I'm off to Royal North Shore this afternoon, and then I get my follow up on 30/7, so in less than a month. My first one, a Pfizer-vaxxed day, and then the second one, dose two is on the 30^th. That's not too bad. By the end of this month, I'll be fully vaccinated.

LEIGH: That's the thing about Pfizer, that three-week rather than three-month gap means that you can actually get people vaccinated more quickly than if you go with AstraZeneca. AstraZeneca still has the efficacy, but a little bit slower to get people done.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

2CC BREAKFAST WITH STEPHEN CENATIEMPO

FRIDAY, 2 JULY 2021 

SUBJECTS: Bank branch and ATM closures

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO, HOST: Bank branches have been gradually disappearing all over Canberra, including various branches in Weston Creek, Mawson, Tuggeranong, Dickson, Civic. Westpac have announced they're closing nearly 50 branches right across the country, and it's an issue that Andrew Leigh, the member for Fenner has been across, and I imagine has been inundated with phone calls. Andrew, thanks for joining us this morning. I guess the difficulty here is compelling private businesses to open a shop front, so to speak.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Yeah, that's right, Stephen, and I'm really glad that Ron's raised this important issue. It's something that I was asking the big bank CEOs about when we had hearings with them earlier this year. When each of them gave their evidence I went through and asked them how many branches they had closed, how many ATMs they'd closed, and what their plans were for the coming year. The picture is pretty much the same across the big four: they're just steadily shrinking that network of ATMs and branches because they say that they lose money.

No need to play Agatha Christie games with the nation's charities

If you listen to the Morrison government talk about activist charities, you'd think they were engaged in an epidemic of lawlessness.

Yet over the past three-and-a-half years, the charities commission deregistered just two charities for breaking the law in pursuit of activist goals. With 59,000 charities in operation, that means the annual chance of a charity being deregistered for illegal activism (10 in 1 million) are about the same odds that the typical Australian will commit a murder (9 in 1 million).