Transcript - 'Breaking Politics' with Tim Lester
TRANSCRIPT – 'BREAKING POLITICS WITH TIM LESTER'
Andrew Leigh MP
Member for Fraser
1 July 2013
TOPICS: New ministry list, Coalition cuts, Boat turn-backs, new inequality book
Tim Lester: Now another of our regulars on Monday on Breaking Politics, Andrew Leigh, the Labor MP here in the ACT in the electorate of Fraser. Welcome in, nice to have you in.
Andrew Leigh: Thanks Tim.
Tim Lester: Andrew, your response to the announcement of the ministry this morning. What do you think of the front bench?
Andrew Leigh: Kevin Rudd’s got a team around him which he feels confident with, and which will lead us strongly to the next election. It’s a team that’ll be campaigning on the big reforms of these last two terms, and talking about the importance of continuing to invest in the future. It’s also a team that can talk about the risks of a Tony Abbott-led Opposition. And we know that the British conservatives with their savage austerity have sent that economy back into recession. We know that the Coalition’s wacky ‘turn back the boats’ policy is a policy that could easily lead to conflict with Indonesia. So there’s real risks with Tony Abbott, and there’s strength of renewal and also continuity in the Labor front bench.
Tim Lester: And Andrew Leigh is not on the front bench. And yet some would say, you know, talented, strong background in economics, has done everything right, he should be there. Take us through your own situation.
Andrew Leigh: I told the Prime Minister I was willing to serve, but in the circumstances of last week, in having supported the incumbent, I felt it was ethically the right thing to do to offer my resignation. The Prime Minister has accepted that and has asked me to help advising him on issues in international economics, which I’m very happy to do and which I think are important to Australia as our economy rebalances, and commodity prices come off.
Tim Lester: Doesn’t that make you a case in point that division lives on within Labor? That if Labor were perfectly calm about what had happened last week, the fact that the way you voted would have been looked beyond, and your talents would have been rewarded?
Andrew Leigh: I don’t agree with that at all. I think that the Prime Minister has chosen the team that he feels most comfortable with, and the great thing about the Labor caucus is there’s such a depth of talent. So you look at people like Melissa Parke being promoted to a minister, she’s just going to charge into that international aid portfolio, understanding the constituent groups, understanding international development, and she’s really going to make a great contribution there.
Tim Lester: To be blunt, how long do you need to spend in the sin bin, Andrew Leigh? Because –
Andrew Leigh: - I don’t think that’s the right –
Tim Lester: - Because would an election win for Labor recorrect things and allow you to come back again, or are you sin binned longer term?
Andrew Leigh: I don’t think that’s the right way to regard it, Tim. I regard myself as a strong advocate for Labor. I will be happily campaigning on the economic issues that I worked on when I was a professor of economics at ANU, and which have been so central to what the government has done. Saving jobs in the global downturn, and now making sure we invest in skills because that’s what’s really important with an economy in transition.
Tim Lester: Kelly O’Dwyer says to us, look you want the real measure of Labor ministry, have a look at the fact Stephen Smith is still in Defence a few days after he told us he would be leaving the parliament and would not be contesting the election in what, weeks, certainly within a couple of months. Should we really have people who are so committed to leaving politics in such a short time serving on the front bench?
Andrew Leigh: It’s a ridiculous proposition that once you’ve announced you’re going to retire at the next election, you immediately have to stop doing anything in politics. There are people who have announced their retirement as members who are continuing to serve their electorates, and I think similarly a minister who has announced their retirement can easily continue to work in that portfolio. Stephen’s a passionate and hardworking Defence minister – he’s done amazing things to change the culture not just within Defence, but for women within every male-dominated organisation and he will go out with his head held high.
Tim Lester: 12 point turnaround for Labor two party preferred in this morning’s opinion polls. Describe the feeling inside the party now that you can look at those kinds of numbers – competitive numbers in an opinion poll.
Andrew Leigh: Australians recognise the real risks that an Abbott government poses. And Kevin Rudd is emphasising for many voters the great Labor reforms, the Labor legacy, but also the things still to be done, the investments still to be made, and the importance of bringing something like the National Plan for School Improvement, so that every school gets more resources. Because if you want an Australia that’s ready for economic change, you want an Australia that provides a bedrock of fairness, then you’ve got to have a better school funding model than what we’ve got now.
Tim Lester: Ok, but the mood inside Labor at those numbers? You guys must be, to quote a term, ‘pumped’ to see that kind of a turnaround in a week on Newspoll’s numbers.
Andrew Leigh: Tim I’ve never paid much attention to polls, whether they’re up or down. But certainly what I see among my colleagues is a sense of unity and conviction, a sense of pride in the reforms that have been done, and a sense that it is so important that we go to the next election being clear with Australians that the choice is not one that involves personalities, but one that involves parties. And that Mr Abbott and his team lack an education policy, they lack a health policy, they have a massive costings gap which means they either have to raise taxes or cut services, and they’ve got to stop hiding behind smokescreens like a commission of cuts that they’re promising.
Tim Lester: Has the Prime Minister gone too far with his comments on Indonesia? Or do you share his view of the risks from an Abbott government to Indonesia being as sharp as Prime Minister Rudd suggested a few days ago?
Andrew Leigh: I certainly share the Prime Minister’s views on this Tim. I think he has emphasised that if you are pursuing a policy as Mr Abbott is, that is straight out rejected by Australia’s huge neighbour to our north, then you are headed to a collision course. The Indonesians could not be clearer that turning back the boats is a policy that they will not accept, and yet Mr Abbott can’t buy that, he can’t change his policy to work in with our nearest neighbour, the largest Muslim country in the world, nearly 300 million people, a country we need to be strengthening our relationship with.
Tim Lester: But Mr Rudd used the word ‘conflict’. Now, ‘conflict’ rings alarm bells that other language simply doesn’t, does it? I mean, that is quite an alarming description of what could happen.
Andrew Leigh: Well if Mr Abbott wants to avoid conflict with Indonesia, there’s a very easy way.
Tim Lester: Is conflict the right word?
Andrew Leigh: I think it is, yes.
Tim Lester: It’s that serious?
Andrew Leigh: Well Mr Abbott wants to take boats and tow them back to Indonesian waters. What happens then if Indonesian naval vessels start to tow the boat back out towards us? That’s a real potential conflict on the high seas and I just don’t think Mr Abbott has thought it through, to say nothing for the risks to asylum seekers and to naval personnel of this policy. You’ve got [Admiral] Chris Barrie saying this is an unworkable policy. Mr Abbott needs to rethink it for the sake of asylum seekers, for the sake of our naval personnel, and for the sake of our diplomatic relations.
Tim Lester: Now to close, we’re pretty much out of time, you’ve written a book – you might pick it up and show us.
Andrew Leigh: Battlers and Billionaires: The Story of Inequality in Australia.
Tim Lester: I’m sure it’s a fascinating tale, but can I just ask you – how does a guy like you get the time to write a book, when you’re doing the job you’re doing?
Andrew Leigh: I feel one of the core roles parliamentarians can play is on advancing public debate. At the beginning of this electoral term, I brought out a book on social capital called Disconnected, which looked at the change in Australian community life over recent decades. Battlers and Billionaires looks at inequality - at the gap between rich and poor - and how that has changed. And it’s an issue on which I’d like to see a stronger national conversation. Wayne Swan kicked off a bit of that conversation, and I’m looking to put some data, some numbers, and most importantly some stories behind it.
Tim Lester: Not letting the grass grow under your feet. Andrew Leigh thanks for coming in to talk to us.
Andrew Leigh: Thanks Tim.
Transcript - ABC the World Today
TRANSCRIPT – ABC THE WORLD TODAY
Andrew Leigh MP
Member for Fraser
1 July 2013
TOPICS: Battlers and Billionaires
SCOTT BEVAN: As welfare groups warn of growing demands on their services, there are warnings about growing inequality in Australia. In his new book, Battlers and Billionaires, the Federal Labor MP Andrew Leigh, outlines the history of income inequality in Australia, which he notes is now approaching the highs of the 1920s. Mr Leigh says that's at odds with Australia's reputation as an egalitarian society. He's spoken to our reporter, Lexi Metherell.
LEXI METHERELL: Andrew Leigh, in your book, you write of the Australian national character as having a peculiarly Australian quality of egalitarianism. What evidence do you have to support that?
ANDREW LEIGH: There's lots of lovely Australian habits which have an air of egalitarianism about them. Most of us don't like tipping, we tend to sit in the front seat of the taxi and "mate" is a much more common word than "sir". We've had past central bank governors called Nugget and Nobby, which I guess reflect the larrikin spirit when it comes to the people in positions of high office. So, I think that egalitarian sprit still burns strong in Australia. The question is whether the economic reality is getting out of touch with it.
LEXI METHERELL: As you write, the income share of the top 1 per cent has doubled over the last 30 years. Why are we seeing this growing inequality?
ANDREW LEIGH: There's a number of big factors driving the rise in inequality: the collapse of trade unions has had a big impact. Unions had a strong, equalising influence on the work force and we've also seen globalisation and technology increase the gap between the top and the bottom. You see this particularly in the very top of the income distribution. So, since 1980, we've shifted about $400 billion from the bottom 99 per cent to the top 1 per cent.
LEXI METHERELL: And, what are the implications of growing inequality for social fabric and for society at large?
ANDREW LEIGH: Well, if you show people pictures of income distributions and ask them the society they'd prefer to live in, most choose the society with the more equal income distribution. I think it's because too much inequality offends our sense of fairness. If you were starting life and you didn't know which income group you'd end up in, you'd probably prefer a more equal distribution of income than a more unequal distribution.
LEXI METHERELL: You're a big proponent of the measures included in Ken Henry's tax review of a couple of years ago - the former treasury secretary's tax review - and some of those measures are aimed at ensuring that there is better income distribution and that there isn't a growth in inequality. Is it time for the Government to look again at measures included in that review and revive some of them that seem to have been abandoned?
ANDREW LEIGH: Well, I think what Battlers and Billionaires does is it illustrates, to some extent, why we need things like means testing, why it's really important for the educational system to be better for the most disadvantaged than it is for the most advantaged, and why we have to have that progressive taxation system and progressive expenditures, because, if we lose that, then we're really in danger of going down a track towards a society where the gap between rich and poor becomes too wide to bridge. I don't think that's happened yet, but it's certainly headed down that road with sky high executive salaries and a wealth gap that's grown significantly.
LEXI METHERELL: How fundamental is the tax system though to addressing inequality?
ANDREW LEIGH: Taxes are important, but so too are laws around unionisation and investment in education. Education is the greatest force that we've developed, not only for boosting productivity, but also for making Australia more equal. That's really important that we continue to have an education system that makes sure that the circumstances in which you're born don't determine the circumstances in which you die.
SCOTT BEVAN: Author and Labor MP, Andrew Leigh, speaking there to Lexi Metherell.
Transcript - Sky AM Agenda
TRANSCRIPT – SKY AM AGENDA WITH KIERAN GILBERT
Andrew Leigh MP
Member for Fraser
1 July 2013
TOPICS: Cabinet appointments, NDIS.
Kieran Gilbert: Liberal front bencher, Senator Mitch Fifield and Labor front bencher, Andrew Leigh, gentlemen good morning to you. Andrew, first to you, I know you supported Julia Gillard right to the end but was Labor right to go to Mr Rudd given the polls of the last couple of days?
Andrew Leigh: Well certainly, Kieran, I think you’ve seen that the Government has a sense of energy about it and that’s because of the set of policies we’ve been pursuing. There is a great reform agenda that we will be going to the Australian people to talk about, from disability –
Kieran Gilbert: But was Labor right to change to Kevin Rudd now, do you think? Or, I know you backed Gillard to the end, but given what you’ve seen, and given this energy that you talk about, was it the right move?
Andrew Leigh: These are questions historians will pick over, Kieran. My view is that we have a fantastic set of policies and I’m going to be campaigning enthusiastically with Kevin Rudd to make the case for continuing the reform agenda, and-
Kieran Gilbert: Are you happy to be Parliamentary Secretary to a Prime Minister that you didn’t vote for? Because that’s your current job, isn’t it?
Andrew Leigh: In politics you do whatever job the leader asks you to do. I’m certainly somebody who’s never criticised Kevin Rudd; I think he’s served as a terrific Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, and he is passionate about these important reforms. Like the NBN, which is a big Labor reform which is at risk at the election.
Kieran Gilbert: The NBN which will have Anthony Albanese taking responsibility for the National Broadband Network, and Communications along with his Infrastructure responsibilities. Let’s go to Senator Fifield, is the Liberal Party a bit worried by this, or do you think that the poll bounce is just a sugar hit?
Mitch Fifield: Well Kieran, we’ve always said that winning elections isn’t easy; that to win from opposition is like climbing Mt Everest. And we’ve always said that the polls would tighten. It seems that there was only one side of politics who thought that the election was a foregone conclusion, and that was the other side. But we’ve always known that this will be difficult –
Kieran Gilbert: Ok, I’ve got to interrupt you there, Senator Fifield. Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister, let’s cross to [inaudible]
[CLIP: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announces new Ministry]
Kieran Gilbert: Let’s go back to our panel now to go through the announcements by Kevin Rudd. Much to have known from the formal announcement there in Newcastle of his Ministry. Some other details have emerged. We’ve got Senator Mitch Fifield and Labor MP, Andrew Leigh with me this morning. Andrew first of all I want to go to your job, you were the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, but you’re no longer. Kevin Rudd said when he took the job people could stay where they were if they wanted to, but you’ve been demoted, why is that?
Andrew Leigh: Well Kieran, I told the Prime Minister I was willing to serve but if he needed my resignation in order to build the team around him he most wanted then I was happy to give that to him. I thought that was the ethical thing to do in the circumstances. Kevin Rudd has accepted that and he’s also asked me to play a role advising him on international economic issues, which I’m very happy to do. I think this is a challenging economic time for Australia.
Keiran Gilbert: So this is not retribution because you voted for Julia Gillard?
Andrew Leigh: No. Look, I think the Prime Minister has chosen a team around him that he thinks is what he wants to lead him to the election and I wanted to give him full flexibility in doing that. It’s a short period to the election and this is an election where a lot is at stake for Australia. I think it’s vital that we’re out there, all of us, making the case for the great Labor reforms and the risks to Australia’s economy. I mean, the British Conservatives put their economy back into recession with their savage austerity – that could easily happen here – Tony Abbott could put us back in recession.
Kieran Gilbert: Kevin Rudd was playing down the fact that there were, that it might be a gender issue, he said he doesn’t see things through the prism of gender, but three additional women into the Cabinet, the biggest female representation in a Ministry in Australian history, surely, is that not at least in part playing politics there to in part, I suppose, to counter a negative reaction to Labor dumping Australia’s first female Prime Minister?
Andrew Leigh: I’m very happy to go to each of those people, Kieran, and talk about why they’re incredibly strong Ministers and make great additions to Cabinet. Melissa Parke is one of the strongest activists on foreign aid-
Kieran Gilbert: She’s on the outer Ministry, though. She’s not on the-
Andrew Leigh: Well you’re talking about the women who’ve been promoted; I think Melissa is first rate. I think Julie Collins is a terrific Minister who understands, back to front, issues affecting the status of women, her current portfolio, and is razor sharp when it comes to picking up on new issues.
Kieran Gilbert: Ok, let’s look at some of the other key portfolios, like immigration, Tony Burke moves into that. He was a strong supporter of Julia Gillard throughout; he’s been moved into this key portfolio. Is that a sign from Kevin Rudd that he’s willing to let bygones be bygones? That he wants to bring in some of the Gillard camp? Or is that simply the best person for the job?
Andrew Leigh: Well, as I recall, this is a portfolio that Tony held when we were in opposition. He understands the issues well. His seat is one of the most diverse in Australia. And Tony recognises the importance of striking a regional solution on asylum seeker flows. He’s someone who’s used to working collaboratively and internationally. And maybe he’s the person who can bring the Opposition over the line to back the Houston Panel Recommendations.
Kieran Gilbert: He and Mark Butler now very much at the front and centre of the political debate too, of the younger and better performers of the Labor Party. Senator Fifield, I want to go to you on this, your reaction to that front bench that you’ll be facing in the lead up to an election, which looks like it’s going to be, well, a lot more competitive than it looked a couple of weeks ago.
Mitch Fifield: Well firstly, commiserations to Andrew. You know, I don’t think that Kevin Rudd can afford to lose the contribution of people who have the talent that Andrew has so, sorry mate. But I think Kevin Rudd really summed things up in his opening comments where he said when he was first Prime Minister and was facing the global financial crisis, he had to learn on the job. That’s something that isn’t going to be the case if successful at the next election. Tony Abbott has been a long serving minister; he won’t have to learn on the job. There are lots of former ministers in his Cabinet; they won’t have to learn on the job. There are people like Kelly O’Dwyer, Tony Smith and myself who’ve served in senior positions in Treasurer’s offices; we won’t have to learn on the job. And that’s the issue: that after the Government have been in office for almost six years, they’re still learning on the job. They’re still coming to grips with it. And I don’t take any comfort from some of the appointments, like Chris Bowen as Treasurer. Yes, the Prime Minister is right, Chris Bowen is a good guy, but you need a strong person to be Treasurer of the country and Chris Bowen showed when he was Immigration Minister that he could not stand up to Julia Gillard and say, ‘you’re pursuing the wrong policies! Turn round, go back.’ You need a strong person as Treasurer and I don’t have any confidence that he or Kevin Rudd have a plan for how to start paying back our debt.
Kieran Gilbert: One of the elements we’ve mentioned this morning is this greater representation of women on the front bench. Mr Rudd was asked about it, let’s play you a little of what he had to say:
[CLIP: This is a strong team. I’m proud to lead this team. This team has been selected on the basis of merit. I’m delighted that in this Cabinet of ours, we’ll have the largest number of women of any Cabinet in Australia’s history. This is a very strong team; Penny Wong at the head of it and so many others with her as well. I’ve mentioned before, of course, Jenny. I’ve mentioned also, of course, Tanya, joined by three new women ministers as well. This will be a great contribution to the cause of women as well as the cause of good government in Australia as well. ]
Kieran Gilbert: Senator Fifield, there you heard it, a record number of women on the front bench. You’d welcome that, wouldn’t you? That’s a good development?
Mitch Fifield: The way that this Prime Minister and the previous Prime Minister have approached appointments to the Ministry is basically, ultimately, everyone gets a go. About two thirds of the Caucus have served as ministers at some point. So basically, everyone takes a number and eventually get a turn. That’s not how a Cabinet Ministry should be appointed; it should always be appointed on the basis of merit and you know, we’ve got this situation of ‘turn up and eventually you’ll have a go!’ It’s not good enough.
Kieran Gilbert: Just going through some of the details of this Ministry as well, it looks like the Canberrans have done something to Mr Rudd because Kate Lundy’s been dropped as Sports Minister as well to make way for Don Farrell.
Andrew Leigh: Well certainly, Kevin Rudd will make his decisions according to what he thinks is the best team around him. I know that Kate’s a strong and passionate campaigner for Labor causes, and that’s really what’s at stake here, Kieran. There are two competing party visions. We can get caught up on the personalities, or we can remember that fundamentally what’s at stake here in this election is whether or not we engage in conflict with Indonesia, the Opposition’s wacky ‘turn back the boats’ policy, whether the economy is driven into recession through their savage austerity, and whether the National Broadband Network gets built or not, I mean –
Kieran Gilbert: Well Anthony Albanese for our viewers that haven’t caught up about that, Anthony Albanese will take Communications and the National Broadband Network responsibilities, so he will be prosecuting that case up against Malcolm Turnbull. I said Kate Lundy has been moved out of sport. She’s still a Minister though going through the details, Minister for Mulitcultural Affairs as well as Minister Assisting for Industry and Innovation. Don Farrell is the new Minister for Sport and continues to assist the Minister for Tourism. Now, another announcement this morning; another resignation. Simon Crean’s going to quit politics. This is Mr Rudd responding to that:
[CLIP: I would also like to acknowledge here publically as Prime Minister of Australia, how much I value his work over the years. He has been an extraordinary leader in our movement for a long period of time. He’s worked in previous Labor Governments. He worked prior to that as head of the Australian Trade Union movement. He played an extraordinary role in fashioning the accord and bringing our industrial relations system kicking and screaming into the 21st century. I acknowledge his contributions. The period that I was Prime Minister also, a fantastic Minister for Trade, and certainly under Prime Minister Gillard he has performed well in regional Australia where in the regions, they love him. They really do.]
Kieran Gilbert: So, Simon Crean, another experienced person who is calling it a day. There’s been quite a loss of intellectual capital, hasn’t there, with all these resignations, and political experience?
Andrew Leigh: Simon Crean is a great loss to the Parliament I agree, Kieran. He’s had 20 years in Parliament but more like 40 years in public life when you take into account his time in the trade union movement. I’m sure I’m not the only one in the caucus who has greatly valued his wise counsel.
Kieran Gilbert: Doesn’t it reflect badly on the Government, though? That you’re losing all this talent? Combet, Crean and the likes of Smith retiring as well at the election.
Andrew Leigh: I think what’s so strong about this Kieran, is when you look at the talent that’s able to come up. People like Ed Husic who is ready to roll on issues of broadband who I suspect will be out there saying that the only promise you can believe about Tony Abbott is that broadband speeds will always be slower under a Coalition government.
Kieran Gilbert: Alright. Senator Fifield, and quickly over to you, and finally before we wrap up our discussion, Alexander Downer joining me in just a moment from Adelaide, but Senator Fifield, this poll bounce that we’ve seen for Kevin Rudd; he’s got a fourteen point lead over Mr Abbott now as preferred Prime Minister. I know you always said that you thought it wasn’t going to be as easy but this has made it very competitive again, do you see that?
Mitch Fifield: Look, Australian federal elections are always competitive, they’re never one sided races, and we’re going to have to work hard to earn the trust of the Australian people. But I think it’s very important for the voting public to recognise that with the departure of Simon Crean, the last adult has left the government, it’s a case of would the last grown up who leaves the building switch the lights out as they go. There isn’t depth, there isn’t experience, this is a government without a plan and we didn’t hear from the Prime Minister today that he has a plan for the nation, a plan to repay the debt, a plan to stop the boats.
Kieran Gilbert: Senator Fifield, it would be remiss of me as well if I didn’t ask you today – being July 1 – and the rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the trials begin today, it will be 6 years in the making before it’s fully rolled out but there’s 26 000 people who are going to be effected with these trial sites. This is a big day, isn’t it? For policy, not just for this government, it is bipartisan, I know.
Mitch Fifield: Look it’s a big day and the NDIS represents the way the parliament should work. I was in Geelong yesterday with a lot of people with disabilities, there’s a great deal of excitement. They’ve had to wait a long time for the better deal that they deserve. There’s still a lot of work to do, but today is a good start.
Kieran Gilbert: Ok thanks very much Senator Fifield, Andrew Leigh.
Chatting with Fran Kelly about Battlers & Billionaires
TRANSCRIPT – ABC RADIO NATIONAL BREAKFAST WITH FRAN KELLY
Andrew Leigh MP
Member for Fraser
1 July 2013
Topic: ‘Battlers and Billionaires: The Story of Inequality in Australia’
Fran Kelly: Quarter past eight on breakfast. The gap between rich and poor has focused the minds of economists, politicians and others for centuries. While perfect financial equality for everyone is unrealistic – and probably undesirable – when the gap between the haves and the have nots gets too great, it can fray or even tear the social fabric. And if we need proof of that, we just look around us. Look at what happened in Britain in recent years.
So, where and how to live in the vast space in between? They’re the questions that Andrew Leigh tries to answer. He’s a former ANU economics professor, and at the last election he was voted in as the Labor member for the Canberra electorate of Fraser. His new book is Battlers and Billionaires: The Story of Inequality in Australia. Andrew Leigh, good morning.
Andrew Leigh: Good morning Fran.
Fran Kelly: Andrew there have been rich and poor since the beginning of time, and presumably for all time to come. Why is this getting a picture of the wealth equality, or inequality rather, important to policy making?
Andrew Leigh: Well Fran, I think the distribution on income matters, as well as the increase in averages. And that’s because if you ask people whether they’d rather live in a society where the wealth was concentrated among a very small group of people, or in a place where the wealth was more evenly shared, the overwhelming majority of us want to live in a more equal society. It’s more interesting, and I think we also regard it as being fairer. Given that while the amount of resources we have is partly a reflection of effort, it’s also a reflection of luck, of being born with certain traits. And so we shouldn’t think of the market distribution of income as something that has to be left untouched.
Fran Kelly: And you make this point in effect, there’s a questionnaire that I think you recount in the book, where that question is always answered ‘yes, we’d like to be fairer’. And you talk about the foundation myth in Australia, we’re the great classless egalitarian society, a fair go for all is our mantra. And yet Australia at this moment, according to your research, the gap between the rich and the poor is wider than it’s been for a long time.
Andrew Leigh: That’s right. So you see over the last couple of hundred years you see Australia start from a very equal point in the late 18th century to go to become very unequal around World War I, become much more equal again and then since the 1970s again the gaps widen between rich and poor. For example, over the last 30 years the top 1 per cent share has doubled, the top 0.1 per cent share has tripled, and CEO salaries in the top 100 firms have gone from an average of $1 million to an average of $3 million. So we’re seeing this increasing, increasing gap between the rich and the rest.
Fran Kelly: And does it matter in real terms? Because although there’s an increasing gap, you also note that the bottom half of earners, if you like, in Australia, the bottom half are also financially much better off on average than they were 30 years ago. So does the gap matter more than the reality of people’s standard of living?
Andrew Leigh: It does matter, and let me use a sporting analogy to explain why. Let’s compare the AFL and the English Premier League. So over the last 20 years the English Premier League has seen one team, Manchester United, win in 12 out of 20 seasons. In the AFL, no team has won more than 3 out of the 20 seasons. And there’re structural reasons why that’s true. In English Premier League, each team gets to keep the TV revenues, in AFL it’s shared. In English Premier League, you can spend what you like on salaries, in AFL there are salary caps. And so those institutions, including the draft in the AFL, have made for a more interesting game in the AFL. And when I’m saying interesting I’m also saying it’s a more egalitarian game than English Premier League.
Fran Kelly: So it makes for a more interesting game, how does that translate to society? A more interesting society, a better functioning society, a society with a stronger base and a stronger economy? Tell us how it translates.
Andrew Leigh: Certainly a fairer society, also I think a society with more social mobility, where the circumstances of your birth don’t determine your destiny. Also potentially a society that doesn’t have the high involvement or heavy investment of the interests in politics. So for example you look at the US system recently, where you’ve seen incredibly affluent people getting extraordinarily large campaign donations, and for me that’s a bit of a concern as well. So I think they’re the main reasons we should be worried about inequality: effectively they’re what I would think of as the intrinsic reasons that we are creatures who are made to enjoy fairly equal distributions, not to give everything to one person.
Fran Kelly: Sure, but to stay with this notion of what kinds of creatures we are, I mean I think if you asked a poorer person ‘would you like to stay poor with only a small gap between you and the richest people, or would you like to be better off but with a bigger gap between you and the top’, people would probably say they’d prefer the latter. And as we saw when Wayne Swan, for instance, took aim at some of the rich billionaires in our society, a lot of people came to the defence of someone like Twiggy Forrest, arguing, you know, he’s made his wealth, good on him.
Andrew Leigh: Well on average relativities certainly matter. You can think about this again in a sporting sense, it’s great if you’re the only person standing up at the footy, but once everyone else stands up suddenly you don’t get a better view after all, and you need to get a box to stand on. And that holds also if you ask people about their ideal distributions of incomes. One US survey for example said ‘would you rather have $100 000 with everyone else having $200 000, or would you rather have $50 000 with everyone else having $25 000?’ And more people preferred to have a little less income, but be on the top of the heap.
Fran Kelly: You’re listening the RN Breakfast, our guest this morning is Labor MP Andrew Leigh. He’s a former ANU economics professor, and he’s written a book called Battlers and Billionaires: the story of inequality in Australia. And you do go into the history, and just to talk about that foundation myth that we talked about before, a fair go being a principle we live by in Australia. You give us an example of how that was on display in a Japanese POW camp. Tell us about that.
Andrew Leigh: So in the Japanese POW camps there were two ways of organising your society. The Japanese gave a little more money to officers than they did to enlisted men, and there were only a certain amount of tents to go around. And the British decided that the best way of dealing with that was to have everyone keep what they were given. The Australians, under Weary Dunlop, took a different approach. They took the notion that the resources should be shared and that the sickest should take the tents and have a little bit more food. And as Tom Uren said in his first speech to parliament, only a creek separated the two camps, but on one side there was the law of the jungle and on the other side egalitarianism. And that affected survival rates as well: cholera ripped through the British camps, the Australians largely survived.
Fran Kelly: And in Australia we do have some very rich, and the mining boom has created some very very rich, there’s no doubt about that. But we also have quite a high degree of social mobility now, don’t we? We’ve seen changes, the western suburbs of Sydney for instance, we hear people talk about the McMansions and the wealth on display there. Much of that, is it fair to say, is the result of changes to government policy?
Andrew Leigh: I think it’s important that government policy improves social mobility. We see big impacts on early childhood development, for example. So by the age of 3 a child from an advantaged household has heard 30 million more words than a child from a disadvantaged household. And we know that there’s a range of other impacts through the family, as well as through resources, that affect social mobility. Australia’s not top of the pack in terms of how mobile a society we are, but we’re not as static a society as the United States, where it’s extremely hard to move from rags to riches over the course of a lifetime.
Fran Kelly: The point you make there though is that it’s not just about the dollars. The dollars have an impact on every other level of opportunity, including as you say the number of words spoken, the kind of education, the kind of parenting. Now you can’t make just widespread characterisations of people based on how much money they earn, but you do go to some of that in this book.
Andrew Leigh: That’s right, and for a progressive like me, it’s the hardest bit of the book to write. For example, one of the stats that shocked me was that among Northern Territory Indigenous babies, 1 in 3 now don’t have a father’s name listed on the birth certificate. Now I don’t think the solution to that is simple by any means, but I think that it’s certainly a factor that’s driving inequality and immobility in Australia and we need to look inside the black box of families and see the extent to which government policies can help ensure that every child has a great start in life.
Fran Kelly: The Gillard Government was working on that with the Close the Gap strategy, in terms of life opportunities and years lived, and education opportunities for Indigenous Australians. Bu the fact is the starkest gaps in wealth inequality in Australia do involve Indigenous Australians. Has that changed much over the years, indeed over the two centuries?
Andrew Leigh: It’s very hard to get good data on Indigenous Australians. Certainly what we know is that at the time of settlement, Indigenous Australia was an extremely equal community, and a simple way of understanding that is to imagine how equal Australia would be if each of us could only keep the possessions we could carry on our backs. Similarly, the early settlers were quite an egalitarian community. The early invitations to dinner at Government House from Arthur Phillip apparently carried the request ‘please bring your own bread’. And then we saw an increase in inequality across the population and we’ve probably seen an increase in inequality within the Indigenous population over this period as well.
Fran Kelly: And just finally, it probably is important for all of us to understand what the picture of wealth is in Australia because government policy tries to focus on it quite carefully. It looks at means testing, we’ve had all the discussions about middle class welfare, what is middle class? If we take a household for instance where one parent’s a teacher, one parent’s a policeman, they’re combined income is around $150 000, that sounds like a reasonably typical middle income household. No one would say they’re rich, but in fact, according to most of Australia, they are better off. What is the median average?
Andrew Leigh: So the median income in Australia is around $80 000 –
Fran Kelly: - for a household?
Andrew Leigh: That’s the typical household income.
Fran Kelly: $80 000. So how many Australian households would be on that level?
Andrew Leigh: So, I guess, I need to think about household size. Let’s say the household size is 2.2, that gives us 10 million households, so we’ve got 5 million households below $80 000 a year, and 5 million about $80 000 a year. So it’s useful I think to understand that broad distribution when you’re thinking about any question of public policy.
Fran Kelly: Ok Andrew thank you very much for joining us on Breakfast.
Andrew Leigh: Thank you Fran.
The Economics of Carbon Pricing
I spoke in parliament yesterday about one of the Labor Government's biggest economic reforms - putting a price on carbon pollution.
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Matter of Public Importance, 26 June 2013
We really should not be surprised that the opposition is continuing this line of attack. For the past three years this has been their standard tactic to avoid engaging in any substantive policy debate. They hurl accusations at the government to whip up fear based on factual inaccuracies. In talking about the government's economic policies on confidence and the budget, the member for North Sydney appears to be completely oblivious to the economic reality in Australia. That is because the economic reality is an uncomfortable one for the opposition because it so clearly reflects the economic policy successes of the Labor government.
There is no clearer example of a successful economic policy than this government's carbon pricing scheme, and it is good to see the member for Wentworth at the table as I say that. Not only has the sky not fallen in since the scheme was introduced, but also we are now seeing early stages of its success. Every day it is becoming clearer that the carbon price has been the most sensible way to address climate change. Many of those opposite know in their heart of hearts, and indeed their own leader has said, that if you want to address climate change why not do it with a simple tax? Every day it is becoming clearer how effective this economic policy of pricing carbon is in addressing the challenge of climate change.
Since its introduction the carbon price has resulted in a 7.4 per cent drop in emissions in the national electricity market. That is almost 12 million tonnes less pollution from the electricity sector. Renewable energy generation is rising by almost 30 per cent. This is not a change in consumption, as those opposite would have you believe. We can contrast carbon intensity. So, in 2011-12 for every megawatt hour of electricity generated in the national electricity market, 0.92 tonnes of carbon pollution were released into the atmosphere. Since the price's introduction, the amount of pollution for every megawatt hour has gone down to 0.87 tonnes—a five per cent decline in emissions intensity in just a matter of months.
The carbon price has also had a lower impact on the cost of living than was expected. Those on this side of the House always said the impact of the carbon price on the cost of living would be moderate. It was projected at 0.7 per cent increase in the CPI, less than a third of the impact of the GST. But we now see new evidence that the impact of the carbon price on prices has been less than that.
Those opposite are well aware that Australia is the fourth-largest economy in the world—up from being 15th largest when this government came to power. We are the 15th largest polluter in the world. That is, if you look at more than 190 nations, Australia is the 15th largest polluter. Per capita, we are the largest polluter in the world. So, this gives us a great responsibility to act to tackle climate change. Climate change is not someone else's problem. It is Australia's. At no time is that better illustrated than in January this year. January 2013 was the hottest month on record in Australia since 1910. It should have left no doubt in the mind of any Australian, including the climate sceptics opposite, that climate change is real, is happening now and that we need to act. I love the fact that the tin hat corner goes off when I say that.
Opposition members interjecting—
Dr LEIGH: The Bureau of Meteorology is to be believed. I know the member for Tangney has taken on the Bureau of Meteorology on Twitter but the climate records are very clear on this. We have experienced the hottest summer on record.
Mr Turnbull: Madam Deputy Speaker, I have a point of order. The honourable member, for whom I have the greatest respect, has described that corner as a 'tin hat corner'. It is 'cockies' corner' and if they wear any hat it is an akubra.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Ms O'Neill): Thank you for your contribution. The shadow minister will resume his seat. The parliamentary secretary has the call.
Dr LEIGH: If those opposite had the same view on climate change as the member for Wentworth did, then my suggestions would be quite unjust. But when climate change is raised, it is from that corner of the House that we hear the greatest cries. We refer to 'dangerous climate change' and it is as though a set of crackers had gone of in the seats on that part of the House. We have a fixed price in our emissions trading scheme which will conclude in June 2015. From then the carbon permits can be auctioned and traded allowing the market to determine the carbon price. That will ensure that emissions are reduced in the cheapest and most effective way.
In July 2015 there will be an annual cap on the number of permits, which means there will be a cap on pollution. The current low market prices we are seeing in the European emissions trading system, to which we will link in 2015, does not detract from the environmental integrity of our pollution cap. Sound economic policy, sound social policy, sound environmental policy—that is this government's economic legacy.
The Leader of the Opposition has claimed that the carbon price would destroy thousands of jobs, that it would wipe Whyalla off the map. The reality is that since the price started employment has grown by more than 150,000 with the total number of jobs gained since Labor came to office now close to one million, at a time when unemployment has grown by 28 million worldwide. The latest consumer price index figures show the inflation rate was 2.5 per cent in the year to March—in the middle of the Reserve Bank's target zone for inflation. Westpac's economics team has estimated that the carbon price has increased the CPI by just 0.4 per centage points, less than Treasury's estimate of 0.7 per centage points.
The member for North Sydney, the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Wentworth know this, but it is a measure of the opportunism of the opposition that they choose to ignore it. The Australian Industry Group has '…long argued that an emissions trading scheme is the most flexible path to reducing greenhouse gas emissions at least cost'. Lord Stern, possibly the greatest world authority on the economics of tackling climate change, wrote a letter to the member for Lyne, which he has given me permission to quote in this place. That letter of 11 June 2012 recognises the benefits of Australia's carbon pricing scheme. Lord Nicholas Stern says:
‘The carbon price addresses a key market failure. Emissions of greenhouse gases represent an externality in that they cause great damage to the prospects of others. Australia is acting to address these crucial market failures.’
Nicholas Stern also sees our economic policy as good public policy:
‘A clear, credible and stable climate change policy regime represents a unique opportunity for Australia: it could drive a new energy-industrial revolution, similar to past waves of innovation and technical change, such as the continuing ICT revolution. There is great potential for new products, processes and technologies to be developed across the economy and society. This fits well with Australia's entrepreneurial culture. Indeed, it fits well with Australia's long tradition of innovation and culture of creativity. Institutions such as the CSIRO are already making strong progress.’
Nicholas Stern also notes Australia is also acting to address these other crucial market failures—for example, the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation could help to reduce long-term risk around financing for low carbon infrastructure.
The strength of Labor's economic policies is being recognised internationally, but not just in the UK. President Obama himself has recently said:
‘Nearly a dozen states have already implemented or are implementing their own market-based programs to reduce carbon pollution. More than 25 have set energy efficiency targets. More than 35 have set renewable energy targets. Over 1,000 mayors have signed agreements to cut carbon pollution.’
And as the Prime Minister noted in question time, 'President Obama remains strongly of the view that an emissions trading scheme is the most efficient way of dealing with dangerous climate change.'
But the commitment to a market-based mechanism for dealing with dangerous climate change also extends to China. Nominally a communist country, it saw a pilot emissions trading scheme launched on 18 June in Shenzhen. Pilots in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Hubei and Guangdong are expected to be launched this year. There is a deep irony in that the Liberal and National parties, which are nominally parties of the free market, are standing against the use of a market-based mechanism to deal with climate change, while nominally communist China is supporting a market-based mechanism. They are doing so for a very simple reason: it is the most efficient way of dealing with dangerous climate change.
Labor's economic legacy is a strong one. The Australian economy has grown 14 per cent since 2007, a period when the United States has only grown a couple of per cent and Europe has actually shrunk.
25th Anniversary of Parliament House
I spoke in parliament yesterday on the 25th anniversary of Parliament House.
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25th Anniversary of Parliament House, 27 June 2013
Burley Griffin's original plan for Capital Hill provided for a 'capitol' on the current location of Parliament House, with residences for the Governor-General on one side and the Prime Minister on the other. Parliament House was to be on a lower level, at the head of the government triangle on a site known as Camp Hill, in direct line with the axis running from the capitol to the summit of Mount Ainslie. The capitol building, atop the inner city's highest hill, Kurrajong—now Capital Hill—was to have been a ceremonial building, a pantheon that would commemorate the achievements of the Australian people. Instead of what Burley Griffin called 'the inevitable dome', the building would be capped by a stepped pinnacle or ziggurat. For Walter Burley Griffin, this form expressed 'the last word of all the longest lived civilisations'. However, it was not to be. In 1954, the Senate appointed a select committee to inquire into and report on the development of Canberra. The report recommended:
'… the permanent Parliament House should not be constructed on Camp Hill where Griffin intended, but on Capital Hill on the site allotted to the "Capitol" …'
It noted that Griffin himself had considered such an alternative. I have to confess that I am still quite partial to Burley Griffin's original design—to the notion that the highest place, the capitol, should be taken by a building that acknowledged the greatest of Australians.
An honourable member: With a ziggurat.
Dr LEIGH: With a ziggurat. But some eggs cannot be unscrambled, and here we are today. In April 1979, the NCDC announced an architectural competition for the design of what was then known as New Parliament House. The National Capital Development Commission consulted with the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, and the Parliament House Construction Authority issued a brief and competition documents. Key aspects of the brief included that Parliament House must be more than a functional building and should be a major national symbol in the spirit of Westminster or Washington's Capitol dome. It was important that the building reflect the significance of the national parliament, the executive government and the nation's political and social context. The extent to which the building asserted that significance was to be related to questions of its scale and monumentality. The building and the site treatment were to respond to qualities of the environment that were uniquely Australian—the Australian climate, landscape, vegetation and quality of light.
The philosophy and its popular success, the brief said, would depend in part on the extent to which public access and involvement was encouraged by the design. Parliament House was not to appear remote or inaccessible. Access to the site and to the building was to be facilitated, and within the building connotations of a people's parliament and open government were best to be established if people could penetrate the building and observe its operation. Parliament has succeeded to the extent that one can walk over the top of the parliamentarians—a great design feature, I believe—though its structure is somewhat different from, say, the US Capitol where voters can walk to the offices of their elected representatives, going to see them directly without the security screening we have here.
On 26 June 1980, New York-based architectural company Mitchell, Giurgola & Thorp was announced as the winner of stage 2 of the Parliament House design competition. Interestingly, Romaldo Giurgola had initially been asked by Sir John Overall, the then head of the National Capital Development Commission, to be an assessor for the design competition for the new Parliament House. Giurgola wrote back stating:
‘I am honoured by such an offer, but I would rather enter the competition.’
Aren't we lucky that he did? The winning architectural team, Romaldo Giurgola, Richard Thorp, Harold Guida, Rollin La France, Pamille Berg, Tim Halden-Brown, Peter Rolland, Peter Britz and Mervyn Dorrough, was responsible for the design, conception, siting and architecture as well as the interior design, furniture design, landscape and coordination of the art and craft program for Parliament House. Construction began in 1981 and the building was opened on 22 August 1988.
Romaldo Giurgola moved to Canberra to implement his design and lives here to this day. He brought a team of eight people from his New York office, and three others, as well as Romaldo Giurgola, stayed in Australia after the project's completion. It is a great contrast from the way in which the Sydney Opera House construction eventuated. It does make you think, if only Jorn Utzon had had Romaldo Giurgola's patience and his negotiating skills, how much more glorious the interiors of the Sydney Opera House would be today.
The assessors' report on the winning scheme noted its unpretentiousness and accessibility where, 'children will not only be able to climb on the building, but draw it easily too'. Speaking of children, I was pretty much a child when I first came here in 1988 to do work experience for the then member for Fraser, John Langmore. It was something of a coincidence to have done work experience for the member for Fraser given that at the time I was living in the electorate of the Father of the House, the member for Berowra. My father, who was a university academic, knew John Langmore and so it was with John that I spent two weeks in this building. I have never before, or since, gotten lost so many times inside a building. The key to this building, I believe, is to like the art. I did not like art in 1988, but I do today. A think art lovers have a far easier time navigating Parliament House than those who glide by ignoring the beautiful works on the walls.
To the successful architect, a matter of crucial importance was the relationship of the structure to individual Australians and whether people would feel comfortable approaching and entering the building. For the winning designers this was basic to their plan. As Romaldo Giurgola once said:
‘We felt if Australia’s new Parliament House was to speak honestly about its purpose, it could not be built on top of the hill as this would symbolise government imposed upon the people.’
And:
‘The magic relationship between geometry and land configurations of that plan, after that, often became the object that country often became the object of my architectural dreams. The brief for the design of the parliament compiled by the NCDC was possibly the best I had ever encountered in my professional career.’
Another great tribute to the extraordinary public servants who helped build Canberra. Giurgola spoke of how he came to understand Australia by saying:
‘I plunged into Australian literature rather than into guides and travelogues. Patrick White, Miles Franklin, Henry Lawson and Les Murray became my real instructors, while the sonorous voice and accent of Richard Thorp, the Australian in our office, produced the right atmosphere.’
I think it speaks well of Australia that we are in a city designed by a Chicagoan and in a building designed by a New Yorker, because Australia at its best engages with the rest of the world, taking the best ideas not just from within our continent, but around the globe. So it is with this extraordinary building—Parliament House. I wish it a happy 25th birthday and hope it will stand for longer than the 200 years for which it was originally built.
Transcript - ABC 666 with Ross Solly
TRANSCRIPT – ABC 666 WITH ROSS SOLLY
Andrew Leigh MP
Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister
Member for Fraser
27 June 2013
Ross Solly: Let’s go to Andrew Leigh, now, who is the Member for Fraser. Andrew Leigh was with Adam Shirley yesterday afternoon saying that he would stick by Julia Gillard. Andrew Leigh, good morning to you.
Andrew Leigh: Good morning Ross, how are you?
Ross Solly: I’m ok, how are you feeling today?
Andrew Leigh: These decisions are always gut-wrenchingly difficult, Gai would have found exactly the same thing. I looked around the faces in the Caucus Room yesterday, and nobody was smiling. These are incredibly hard decisions for us all. People of good will made different decisions yesterday, and I certainly respect that.
Ross Solly: Were you tempted at any stage yesterday, Andrew Leigh, to switch allegiances?
Andrew Leigh: No, I’ve always been a strong supporter of Julia Gillard’s, but in everything that I’ve said, I’ve always said that the big differences in Australian politics are not between individuals, they’re between parties. Gai rightly pointed out the risks to Canberra if Tony Abbott is elected Prime Minister and the risks to the important reforms like the price on carbon, like the schools reforms, like, you know, even making the best of Australian international diplomacy with the UN Security Council seat. There’s very much that’s at risk at the next election.
Ross Solly: Andrew Leigh, you have spent a lot of your life studying political trends and the like, why in the end did a majority of your colleagues lose faith in Julia Gillard?
[Audio interruption - line drops]
Ross Solly: Let’s go back to Andrew Leigh. Hello Andrew Leigh.
Andrew Leigh: G’day Ross. Don’t know what happened there.
Ross Solly: I don’t know. I thought maybe a question was too pointy, but you’ve never run away from a question before so I didn’t think you were this time. No, I was just asking you, Andrew Leigh, why you think all of a sudden the majority of your colleagues turned against Julia Gillard?
Andrew Leigh: I think that the honest view of people in the caucus was that Kevin Rudd could do a better job in the next election, and I very much hope that that’s the right view.
Ross Solly: Are you convinced that’s the case?
Andrew Leigh: I made a different decision from Gai and from a majority of my caucus colleagues. When you sit in a Labor caucus surrounded by extraordinary people, you’ve got to have a respect for that team as well. That team has come to a different decision than mine, and there is a huge amount of accumulated wisdom, knowledge and understanding in that room, so I respect it, I’ll run with it, and I will be backing Kevin Rudd every day until polling day.
Ross Solly: Do you hope to hold on to your job as a Parliamentary Secretary?
Andrew Leigh: I’ve said to people around Kevin Rudd that if they would like me to step down, I’d be happy to do so. It’s really whatever’s most useful for Kevin and for the new leadership team.
Ross Solly: But if the opportunity is there, you’d prefer to hold onto it, you think you can still do good things even though you backed a different leader?
Andrew Leigh: I’ll do whatever the Prime Minister wants me to do. If he thinks that somebody else can better serve in my role, I’ll very happily step back. Because he has to have those opportunities, if he wants to use the position that I have the honour to occupy at the moment for somebody else, he should absolutely be able to do that.
Ross Solly: Kevin Rudd did say there would be no retribution so I suppose this is a chance to test it. Yourself and Kate Lundy, who both showed loyalty to your leader, an opportunity if you want to continue on, for Kevin Rudd to show that he’s a man of his word. Maybe the first test for him, Andrew Leigh?
Andrew Leigh: Look, I wouldn’t see it as retribution, Ross. I mean I do...
Ross Solly: That’s how politics works though, isn’t it, Andrew Leigh? Let’s be honest about it.
Andrew Leigh: Not at all, no. I genuinely think that there are many people of talent in the backbench, and I think if Kevin comes to the view that he wants to use one of those people in the role that I occupy, that he wants me on the backbench, and that he thinks he’s got a better chance of Labor winning the election, then I’m entirely happy to do that. I mean I’m a very low ranking member of the executive team, and so I...
Ross Solly: Oh, Andrew Leigh stop talking yourself down.
Andrew Leigh: But you’ve got to think of the team.
Ross Solly: Gai Brodtmann says that she thinks she’s seen a changed man in Kevin Rudd, a changed man from the man who caused so much divisiveness in the party when he was leader. Have you seen changes, do you believe that a leopard can change its spots?
Andrew Leigh: I’ve never criticised Kevin, Ross. I’ve always thought that he’s an extraordinary person, ever since I first…
Ross Solly: A good leader though? A good team-builder? A good team man?
Andrew Leigh: Look he’s somebody who I think achieved extraordinary things in his first period as Prime Minister, then as Foreign Minister. He’s somebody who’s incredibly articulate and thoughtful across policy areas ranging from foreign policy to health.
Ross Solly: But a good team man, Andrew Leigh? Is he a good team man, was he a good team man?
Andrew Leigh: I think he’s worked well with people in the past, clearly there’s been personal frictions around the place, but I’ve never experienced any of that. He’s always treated me with respect and decency. And again, we’re going to go into this election with a choice between parties, and that has always been the biggest choice. The policy differences that separate Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd were never large. The policy differences that separate Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott are massive, and as Gai has so articulately pointed out, are incredibly damaging for Canberra if a Liberal Party government were to be elected, and that’s why I’ll be fighting hard right up to polling day.
Ross Solly: And what were your thoughts when Bill Shorten went public last night just before the vote, to say that he was going to support Kevin Rudd, and saying he was doing so because he thought this was in the best interests of the Labor Party?
Andrew Leigh: I think that that’s the only right basis on which to make this decision. You can’t make these sort of decisions from self-interest or career advancement, you have to make them based on what’s best for the party. And I respect that there were a 102 people in the room yesterday and people came to different views. But I think the vast majority of people did so based on what they thought was best for the Party.
Ross Solly: Good to talk to you Andrew Leigh, thank you.
Andrew Leigh: Thank you Ross, have a good day.
Sky PM Agenda - 25 June 2013
On 25 June 2013, I spoke with Sky host David Speers and Liberal Senator Arthur Sinodinos about the government's proud record on jobs, pricing carbon and creating DisabilityCare; and the future reform agenda on education and innovation.
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ABC Radio National Drive - 24 June 2013
On ABC Radio National Drive program, I spoke with host Waleed Aly and Liberal Senator Arthur Sinodinos about party leadership, temporary migration, and asylum seekers. Here's a podcast.TRANSCRIPT – ‘BIG IDEAS' RADIO NATIONAL DRIVE WITH WALEED ALY
Andrew Leigh MP
Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister
Member for Fraser
24 June 2013
Topics: Leadership, 457 visas, immigration.
Waleed Aly: So Parliament has resumed for the final sitting week before the election and again, or should we say still, three years after Julia Gillard became Prime Minister and just three months out from an election, we’re talking about whether or not she’ll survive as leader. She was speaking to the media in Canberra today, she said she absolutely still has the support of Labor MPs to remain PM.
Julia Gillard [CLIP] This issue was settled in March by the Labor Party. This week, what I’ve achieved is better schools for our nation which means a better future for our nation. That’ll be my focus. Now, you may choose to focus on something else but that’s exactly what I’ll be focussed on.
Waleed Aly: Mmm, and so it went. The leadership is still the story. She may not want it to be, but it is what’s dominating news coverage and it’s what all of her colleagues are talking about. So to discuss the politics and the policy during this election year, we’re joined once again by the men that we’ve dubbed our shining knights of politics the Parliamentary Secretaries of the Opposition Leader and the Prime Minister respectively, Senator Arthur Sinodinos and Dr Andrew Leigh. Gentlemen, thank you. Welcome.
Arthur Sinodinos: Thanks mate.
Andrew Leigh: Thanks.
Waleed Aly: Good to have you with us again. Andrew, I’m going to start with you because I suppose that’s the thing that you have to do today, isn’t it? Why are we still having this conversation about leadership?
Andrew Leigh: Well Waleed, I’m just here to answer the questions. You’re the one who’s asking them.
Waleed Aly: Well, yes -
Andrew Leigh: - so I guess I could naturally throw that back to you.
Waleed Aly: Ah come on, let’s be honest about this. If I did not ask you it would be a ridiculously strange omission because so many of your colleagues want to talk about it, and want to talk about it with journalists off the record.
Andrew Leigh: I’m sure there are people who are interested in petty gossip. I’ve got to say there’s more petty gossip in this building than any other building I’ve ever worked in. But I’d much rather be having a conversation about health policies, about education policies, about the National Broadband Network. I was out doorknocking in Kaleen in my electorate on the weekend and I’ve got to tell you that inside the so-called beltway the issues that people are talking about are not the stuff of gossip and speculation, but they’re actually ‘how will policies affect my day-to-day life?’…
Waleed Aly: No doubt.
Andrew Leigh: Which can be the impact of the National Broadband Network policy the Government’s got, or the Coalition alternative.
Waleed Aly: No doubt that’s true, but how can you have a policy conversation when you’re not exactly sure who is going to be the Prime Minister the next day, and then what they are going to do with the policies that are on the table.
Andrew Leigh: Kevin Rudd said there were no circumstances in which he could see himself returning to the leadership.
Waleed Aly: He said he believed -
Andrew Leigh - I take him at his word.
Waleed Aly: Ok, so I’m going to take it from you right now, if all of this is just petty gossip you can guarantee me on air, right now, that nothing is going to happen that even approximates a leadership challenge between now and the end of the week.
Andrew Leigh: Yes. Julia Gillard is going to lead us to the next election.
Waleed Aly: Is that the same thing as saying there is absolutely nothing to this, and there will definitely not be a challenge of any description?
Andrew Leigh: That’s certainly my understanding from talking to colleagues.
Waleed Aly: Ok. What does this look like from the other side of politics, Arthur Sinodinos? I mean, broadening this about a bit, you’ve seen some leadership in your time on your side of politics as well, this is the sort of thing political parties do, although this time it seems particularly self-wounding this close to an election.
Arthur Sinodinos: What I find interesting about this, Waleed, is that it’s gone on for so long. As you say, the older you get, you probably see more leadership contests than, you know, than eating hot pies, but I’ve never seen a process in which a party wants to put itself through so much agony for so long and in the end, for what? I mean, I don’t see any philosophical or ideological issues at stake here to say that this is a great fight for the soul of the Labor Party. I mean, maybe Rudd has some different ideas about the role of the unions in running the Labor Party perhaps, or whatever, but I can’t see that there are any differences between the two protagonists. So apart from that personal angst around who is the Prime Minister, it’s hard to see why we have to go through this. In the Liberal Party, to be honest, it would have been settled a while ago and basically it would have been settled on the numbers on the polls; that’s the cold, hard reality. It’s all about arithmetic and I can’t see why they’ve put themselves through all this agony. From our point of view as an opposition it’s a funny situation because we are quite happy to go on policy because there’s all sorts of stuff we can attack the Government on and we can talk about our own stuff but everybody keeps getting derailed by this leadership stuff.
Waleed Aly: We’ll come to those things in a moment. But, I mean, there was a lot of tortuous conversation around in 2007 when there was a suggestion that Peter Costello should have taken over from John Howard. This just seems a little bit more dramatic, but in essence is it really any different?
Arthur Sinodinos: Well I think there were a couple of times during 2007 when change was contemplated but was never consummated, but I’ve never seen anything as drawn out as this. And, as I say, it really is a bit of a distraction from other things. And where I disagree with Andrew is I think the public see what is going on and think there’s too much focus in Canberra by the Government on themselves and not enough on the issues that affect me.
Waleed Aly: Well to be fair, Andrew’s trying hard not to talk about it today, so he can hardly be…
Arthur Sinodinos: And he is and I give him credit for that but the fact of the matter is something is going on because the journalists are not making this up.
Andrew Leigh: I think Arthur has nailed it in saying the big differences are not within parties; they’re between them. And the differences, much as we get on well, the ideological differences that separate Arthur and I are the much more interesting question here. Historians to come will probably look at the role of fast-paced media technology in affecting the stability of leadership in the modern age. I think there’s a reason why parties have more leaders in the years since 2000 than they did in say, the 1950s and 1960s. But that doesn’t change the core role of people like Arthur and me which is to talk about ideas and values, to have a good contest about the kind of Australia we want to be living in.
Waleed Aly: And it doesn’t also change the role of your colleagues who are keeping this stability, or this instability, alive; Kevin Rudd among them. And the fact that he will not answer the question unequivocally when it is put to him about what his intentions are, and he says things like, ‘I will do anything it takes to stop Tony Abbott becoming the next Prime Minister’, and that causes an invitation to interpret this to suggest that he’s undermining Julia Gillard, and he would know that. Do you have a message to him as your colleague?
Andrew Leigh: Mr Rudd has in fact been unequivocal and he has been parsed and diced with the skill of those old Kremlinologists who used to look at the words coming out of -
Waleed Aly: - Well you’re not giving him much of a compliment if you think he doesn’t understand the consequences of his inexactitude.
Andrew Leigh: I’m actually reading the same comments as you, Waleed, and I take them pretty unambiguously.
Waleed Aly: Ok. We’ll see how just unambiguous it is. Let’s go to some policy issues, the 457 visa legislation. This is the Government’s so-called crack down. Now Arthur Sinodinos, I’ll start with you, the legislation that’s been introduced into the Parliament really just gives the Government the ability to monitor and enforce compliance with the law, because at the moment they don’t have that. What exactly is wrong with that as an idea?
Arthur Sinodinas: I think what’s wrong with this is the context. I mean, we’ve had something like a record number of 457 visas issues under this Government, the program’s been going for years and years including five or six years under this Government and all of a sudden, close to an election, people start worrying about Aussie jobs being taken away. The coincidence is just too much. I mean, I think that Minister O’Connor has been caught out contriving to create a scandal and an issue by concocting some numbers around how many of these visas are allegedly being misused. I saw the report on the ABC the other night on the 7:30 Report about what might be happening in the IT sector. My view of that has always been, and that was always about one company that was the focus of the report, and then the implication is what? That you generalise from that and say that the whole program is being rorted? I mean, that one of the -
Waleed Aly: - Isn’t that the implication just that rorting does happen and therefor it makes sense that there’s some sort of mechanism in place for policing it?
Arthur Sinodinos: But my point is they’ve been monitoring this program for years and what? They’ve only just realised now that there’s possibly a little bit of rorting going on? I’ve no doubt that any program might involve an element of rorting but certainly nothing along the lines of what O’Connor tried to concoct in his own office to suggest that this was such a wide-spread problem. Essentially what’s been done here is that they’ve been stung by the success of the Coalition in raising the whole issue around asylum seekers and they’ve looked for a way to get back into that debate and they think this is the way to do it. That’s the bottom line of this and it’s not very edifying stuff, and the Minister is just basically doing whatever it takes to try and make an issue out of it.
Waleed Aly: Andrew Leigh?
Andrew Leigh: I think Arthur is being overly harsh in suggesting this is pure politics, Waleed. The Migration Council did a survey of 457 visa holders and they asked them whether employers had been meeting their obligations and whether they were getting equal working conditions with Australians. Five per cent said their employers weren’t meeting their obligations, 7 per cent said they weren’t getting equal working conditions with Australians, and from a pool of about 190,000 primary and secondary 457 visa holders that gives you something in the order of 10,000 457 visa holders who themselves said their employers weren’t meeting appropriate obligations or weren’t getting appropriate working conditions with Australians. So you want to keep that figure in perspective; yes, it’s five, seven per cent. But on the other hand it’s 10,000 people whose employers don’t seem to be meeting the rules of the program. And you’ve got to have these rules properly enforced otherwise I think you erode public confidence in the migration system.
Waleed Ally: That does raise the question that Arthur Sinodinos has asked, which is why you would move on this now? You’ve had six years in government, three years since the last election. If it’s a serious issue, if it’s significant enough to make the song and dance about it that we’re seeing in trying to push legislation into Parliament in the last session before the election, why leave it so late?
Andrew Leigh: Well the Migration Council report that I’m referring to has just recently come down and so this is a matter of fine tuning the program to make sure that it’s got appropriate enforcement mechanisms. Arthur and I are two extremely strong supporters of migration, but we would both share the view that without good enforcement of migration rules, you risk eroding public confidence within the entire system. So that’s what this is aimed at doing. The Migration Council themselves recommended that in the case where 457 workers weren’t being properly treated, that there ought to be some look at enforcement by employer peak bodies, the ACTU and the government. So I regard this as flowing out of that. You know, I was marching on the weekend with the Walk Together folks recognising the great benefits that Australia has gotten from migration in the post-World War II era. I was very proud to be part of that march and I don’t see any inconsistency between that and trying to get proper enforcement to make sure that 457 visa holders are looked after.
Waleed Aly: The question of the rhetoric that surrounds it and Arthur this brings me to a really interesting point with respect to the Coalition I know when you lost the election in 2007, you were one of the wise-heads that came out of that to explain that and one of the points you made was that the Coalition’s rhetorical position had not been inclusive of all the diversity here in Australia and at times had been divisive. Do you think that the rhetoric -
Arthur Sinodinos: - Did I say that in 2007, did I?
Waleed Aly: I think you did!
Andrew Leigh: How these words come back to haunt you!
Waleed Aly: Feel free to dispute it but if you don’t dispute it, do you think the Coalition’s rhetorical settings, particularly on an issue such as asylum seekers, have really changed at all?
Arthur Sinodinos: This is a real paradox. People just say this is an issue of wedge politics but in fact it goes to a point Andrew was making in the context of 457s, if it looks like you can’t control your borders, and we can have a big debate about numbers involved and all the rest of it, it does undermine support for the migration program. So, if the greater good is to have a strong and hopefully rising immigration program you want to deal with the issues that otherwise give people reservations about having a large program. And that, I think this is a really important point, my point about divisiveness versus inclusiveness is at every stage you should try, the best way to get people onside and earn their loyalty is to make them feel included, and so, you know, the idea of simply dividing the Australian population whether it’s class, gender, one race against another is equally abhorrent.
Andrew Leigh: I certainly share that view.
Waleed Aly: Mmm, it’s just interesting because the allegations are of different, but perhaps of equal dog whistle, aren’t they?
Andrew Leigh: Arthur is right to suggest that you want to be very careful accusing anyone of racism in these debates and also to maintain a strong tenure of respect. The language around ‘illegals’ that some members of Arthur’s party have used has been unfortunate. I’m fairly sure he doesn’t use that language, and I think that’s an important marker. It’s not illegal to seek asylum in another country, and we want to be very measured and balanced in everything we say about migration.
Waleed Aly: Well it seems that either of you can see the dog whistle on the other side politics and in your hearts of hearts; can you recognise it within your own?
Andrew Leigh: There are two pitches of dog whistles you think, Waleed? We’re uniquely attuned to the wrong pitch?
Waleed Aly: Yes, well they seem a semi-tone apart and it’s awful to listen to.
Arthur Sinodinos: No, no, no, my point is that we have to be careful to maintain the overall support for the immigration program. I don’t think the way to do that is to deal with the issues that potentially can undermine it. So it’s not about dog whistling, it’s about dealing with issues that can deal with the greater good that you’re seeking to encourage.
Waleed Aly: Sure, sure, but you don’t call asylum seekers ‘illegal’ when they’re not.
Arthur Sinodinos: Look, look, that to be honest, that debate rose in the context where, it’s not illegal to seek asylum, but the question was it was illegal to land, you know, without papers and authority and everything else. You can get into all sorts of semantics about this, so I just call them asylum seekers or boat people or the rest of it and people know what you’re talking about and we just go from there.
Waleed Aly: Yes, I wonder if they know what you’re talking about when you say “illegals” as your boss does, though?
Arthur Sinodinos: He’s, I think, tried to clarify the context in which that happened
Waleed Aly: Ok, we’ll await further clarification. Gentlemen, it’s been wonderful to have you putting on your armour again and going in to fight for us, well joust, I’m not going to say fight because it’s been a little more dignified than that.
Arthur Sinodinos: I think on the same side today!
Waleed Aly: Yeah! It’s good. Lovely to hear two erudite men..
Arthur Sinodinos: Against the interviewer!
Andrew Leigh: Exactly. Exactly.
Waleed Aly: Well I just got a text: “lovely to hear two erudite men discussing policy. Well done Waleed and team.” It’s nothing to do with me. You’re the knights in shining armour, so thank you. Thank you so much for your contributions, we’ll have to do it again soon.
Arthur Sinodinos: Thanks.
Andrew Leigh: Thanks Waleed.
Tackling Cyberbullying
I spoke in parliament tonight about the need to reduce cyberbullying.
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Reducing Cyberbullying, 24 June 2013Bullying has long posed a challenge for schools, parents, workplaces and, most significantly, its victims. It also poses a challenge for us legislators, and it is a challenge the Gillard government has sought to address through initiatives such as the National Day of Action Against Bullying and Violence, through directing more than $20 million to the Fair Work Commission to provide victims of workplace bullying with a quick and effective way to resolve bullying at work and prevent it ever happening again.
But, as online communications become increasingly prevalent in our offices, our schools and our social lives, it is clear that combating bullying needs to adjust to take this new dimension into account. It is especially important we recognise the safety and security needs of young people, who are growing up in a world with greater digital use than any previous generation.
As a parent, I recognise that the use of the internet my three little boys engage in is vastly different from my own. They have never known a world without ubiquitous internet. To them, being able to touch the screen of a device is just what you do. The ease with which my four-year-old comfortably navigates the internet sometimes sends a shiver down my spine.
That is going to present my three little boys with opportunities I cannot pretend to foresee, but it will also bring new threats. Between Facebook, Vine, Twitter, YouTube and Snapchat, there is a rapidly developing world of online communication. We have to embrace those technological developments while at the same time doing what we can to safeguard the security of users now and into the future.
Bullying may be an old problem, but cyberbullying is different in a number of important ways. Firstly, it provides a degree of anonymity to the perpetrators, meaning they can behave with more aggression and malice than they may dare to in person. A famous study by researchers at the University of Texas, Austin paired up young university students and just asked them to engage in conversations over email. By the end, the researchers were stunned at the extent to which these otherwise placid young university students had begun to engage in conversations that were either lewd or rude. We know that cyberbullying can occur 24/7. We also know that it is nearly impossible to escape. We know it can reach a far more public arena and that online activity can quickly be shared with a larger audience than was possible with bullying in the past.
The Labor government takes the issue of cyberbullying very seriously. In 2008, this government committed $126 million towards a range of cybersafety programs targeted at informing and educating young people as part of our broader cybersafety plan. The government's cybersafety plan is combatting online risks to children. It is helping parents and educators protect children from inappropriate material and inappropriate contacts while online.
The funding supports measures for cybersafety support, education, awareness-raising initiatives and law enforcement, such as funding for the expansion of the Australian Federal Police Child Protection Operations team to detect and investigate online child sex exploitation, funding to increase the capacity of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions to ensure prosecutions are handled efficiently and funding for education and awareness-raising through the Think U Know program, which aims to assist parents and children to deal with the risks posed by online predators.
I particularly acknowledge the Youth Advisory Group, some of whom met last year with Minister Stephen Conroy and me at Amaroo School to discuss their inputs into making sure that these cybersafety advances by the government are appropriate and useful to young people. That Youth Advisory Group helped to develop online tools, such as the Cybersafety Help Button and the Easy Guide to Socialising Online website. The government has also provided funding for the Australian Communications and Media Authority's Cybersmart program, which is a national cybersafety and cybersecurity education program.
All this investment is based on some pretty concerning research. Studies undertaken by the ACMA and partly released on 19 March 2013 have found that 14- to 15-year-olds are the most vulnerable to cyberbullying. Thankfully, they are also the most likely to stand up and speak out about it. The research indicates that more than one in five 14- to 15-year-olds have experienced cyberbullying. It shows that levels of cyberbullying among Australian children remain generally steady, despite increases in online participation. That is a good thing.
That indicates that the cybersafety messages underpinning programs such ACMA's Cybersmart program are getting through to the people they are intended to help. The ACMA's research also indicates that eight to 11-year-olds use more than two devices to access the internet. While computers are still the main point of access, a quarter have gone online using a mobile phone and half have accessed the internet using another kind of mobile device, such as a tablet or gaming device.
Thirty five per cent of eight- to 11-year-olds have their own mobile phone, rising to 94 per cent of 16- to 17-year-olds. Recent research by Pew has indicated that young Americans are essentially now plugged in for every moment that they are not sleeping or in school.
Industry and organisations are coming together to address issues of cyberbullying and cybersafety. Organisations like McAfee are engaging in research, education and awareness raising. McAfee's research which Minister Conroy launched on 21 May 2013 was released as part of the 2013 National Cybersecurity Awareness Week which was 20 to 24 May. The research tells us that education needs to start early. On average young people are using many more internet enabled devices. The McAfee research tells us that one in five tweens have chatted to a stranger online and six per cent of teens have met up with a stranger. That is a statistic that would cause great fear for many Australian parents.
Professor Donna Cross of Edith Cowan University has completed a landmark study on cyberbullying commissioned by the government. She reports that children who had been bullied are much more likely to suffer depression and anxiety. Professor Cross said:
‘We know that probably the most significant effects on children who've been bullied are effects in their mental health. They're much more likely to feel depressed, anxious, their self-esteem is affected. There are some students that report suicide ideation. It has very serious immediate effects and long-term effects.’
Twenty thousand Australian school children were surveyed using a combination of anonymous questionnaires and interviews. According to that survey work, about 10 per cent of young people reported they were being cyberbullied. This government has done the research, we have recognised the problem, and we are acting on it. It is terrific to see the coalition now adopting similar policies in the fields of cybersafety and cyberbullying.
To quote Dr Judith Slocombe, the chief executive of the Alannah and Madeline Foundation: ‘there is no difference between someone who bullies online and one who bullies face-to-face. They are just using different methods. They both can cause enormous harm.’
It is important we talk about those issues because online communications are developing rapidly. Rollout of Labor's National Broadband Network - fibre to the home for 93 per cent of Australians and ubiquitous broadband for the whole population - is happening fast. Last Friday I was in Gungahlin with Minister Conroy to see nearly 11,000 new Gungahlin homes switched on to the National Broadband Network. People in Amaroo, Ngunnawal, Palmerston and Mitchell now join the nearly 15,000 Canberrans in and around Gungahlin that are enjoying superfast broadband. By mid-2016, construction in the ACT will have commenced or be complete to 180,300 homes and businesses. Gungahlin is also leading the country with the sheer number of premises that are signing up to the National Broadband Network. In an area switched on only six months ago more than half the population has signed up for an NBN service. In another area that has only been switched on for three months take-up of the National Broadband Network is already 40 per cent. The myth that the opposition peddles that no-one wants the National Broadband Network is being disproved every single day in the ACT and all across Australia.
Australians come up to me in my mobile office, my community forums and when I am doorknocking and they never ask me, 'Why are we getting fibre to the home?' The question they ask me is, 'When do I get fibre to the home?' Australians recognise the importance of fibre to the home and we recognise the importance of a cybersafety plan to make sure Australians are safe online.