Andrew Leigh

Yesterday I issued a media release highlighting Labor's concern regarding the Coalition's tax loopholes.

ANDREW LEIGH MP

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

MEMBER FOR FRASER



MEDIA RELEASE

Government Backs Down on Closing Tax Loopholes, Blows $3 Billion Hole in Budget

The Coalition has increased the budget deficit by $3 billion as a result of abandoning savings measures, Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh said today.

“Late on Saturday afternoon, the government announced that it would not proceed with 48 tax savings measures that had been announced but not yet enacted,” said Dr Leigh.

“Combined with similar decisions made on 6 November, this will cost the budget $3 billion.”

“In abandoning these savings measures and proceeding with a tax cut for mining billionaires, the government is showing that it has the wrong priorities.”

“The Government of ‘no surprises and no excuses’ can't persist in blaming Labor for its budget woes, when it won’t follow through with responsible savings measures.

“No wonder the Government needed to strike a deal with the Greens for unlimited debt.”



The Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) out on Tuesday had been expected to show a budget deficit of at least $40 billion. The government’s latest decisions are likely to make that larger still.

SUNDAY, 15 DECEMBER 2013

MEDIA CONTACTS: TONI HASSAN 0426 207 726

THOMAS MCMAHON 0433 359 983

On Sky AM Agenda, I joined host Kieran Gilbert and Liberal Senator Mitch Fifield to discuss the Coalition's excuses for blowing out the budget, and whether Liberal Party MPs will be given the freedom to vote their conscience on same-sex marriage.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW

SKY AM AGENDA WITH KIERAN GILBERT

MONDAY, 16 DECEMBER 2013

SUBJECT/S: Budget Update, DisabilityCare, Same-Sex Marriage

KIERAN GILBERT: First though to Andrew Leigh. The Budget apparently worse than first thought, according to the Government, and we could be heading towards ten years of deficits unless some drastic action is taken.

ANDREW LEIGH: These are some big decisions that the Government has taken, aren’t they Kieran? The $9 billion to the reserve bank, the $17 billion of revenue you lose when you get rid of the mining tax and the carbon price. The impact of those on the budget is going to be very, very significant.

GILBERT: But Tony Abbott says this is the last economic statement of the Labor era, isn’t that a fair enough assessment given we’re only 100 days since the election?

LEIGH: I think that’s a great try on and given where Mr Abbott’s coming from you can understand why he is giving it a good old shake. Unfortunately, Peter Costello’s…

GILBERT: But only three months in how can it not be Labor’s legacy that we’re talking about here?

LEIGH: Well because unfortunately for Mr Abbott we’re playing by Peter Costello’s rules. Those rules say that there is a Charter of Budget Honesty and a Pre-Election Fiscal Outlook brought down during the election campaign, that lays out exactly the state of the books at the time that the election takes place. And the reason that Peter Costello put those rules into place was very simple, it’s to avoid exactly this kind of trick. The kind of attempt to find spiders in the cupboard that Mr Abbott’s been going on with and Mr Hockey as well. Frankly, this is a MYEFO and much as Joe Hockey would like to think that it’s a ‘Your EFO’ or ‘Wayne’s EFO’ or ‘Someone else’s EFO,’ this is a statement of the decisions he’s made.

GILBERT: I’m told we’ve got the assistant social services minister, Mitch Fifield with us now. Senator Fifield, good to see you and let me ask you first of all about this suggestion. Well, first of all Tony Abbott’s saying that this is Labor’s last economic statement of its era, but he’s refusing to commit to returning the budget back to surplus within four years. Is that on, or is it off? That commitment to have the budget back in surplus by 2016-17.

MITCH FIFIELD: Well Kieran, our objective is to get the budget back into surplus as soon as we can. Our objective is to pay off as much debt as we possibly can, as soon as we can. The real issue here is whether the Australian Labor Party are going to recognise that there has been a change of government, and if the Australian Labor Party are going to stand in the way of each and every measure proposed to get the budget back into a sustainable position. So far we have seen the Labor Party announce that they will oppose even the savings measures that they themselves announced before the election. This is truly perverse stuff Kieran, but our objective is we want to get the budget back into surplus as soon as we can.

GILBERT: Well, so is that another target that’s gone by the wayside Senator Fifield?

FIFIELD: Well Kieran the targets of the Labor Party, and we saw many of them during their term of office, budget after budget not one of them was met. I lost count of how many targets the previous government set for when they would get the budget back into surplus. They were forever moving, they were forever changing – so you’ll forgive me if I’m not going to cop lectures from the Australian Labor Party when it comes to budget targets, but what we know at the moment is that on Labor’s own numbers from the PEFO, from the numbers from Treasury and Finance at that time, the budget was looking to be 30 billion dollars in deficit, we know that Labor were forecasting net government debt in excess of 200 million dollars. Now we will find out tomorrow with the MYEFO whether those numbers have gotten worse, and I think Tony Abbott is quite right to say that the MYEFO will in effect be the last budget statement on behalf of the previous government, but it will be the first truthful one.

GILBERT: Minister, can I ask you as the minister responsible for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, is the NDIS safe from cuts despite the worsening budget forecast?

FIFIELD: Kieran we have made clear, and I’ll state it again to you that we will honour the announced spending on the NDIS. We are, even as I speak now, in the process of honouring and delivering the bilateral agreements that have been reached between the Commonwealth and the other jurisdictions. Tony Abbott is very personally committed to seeing the NDIS delivered and that’s what we’re going to do.

GILBERT: And on time, on schedule, as promised?

FIFIELD: Kieran we are honouring, and it’s our intention to do so, the bilateral agreements with the other jurisdictions and they lay out the time frame.

[Break for Prime Minister’s press conference.]

GILBERT: With me this morning, Andrew Leigh and Mitch Fifield. Much smaller discussion than what we’ve normally got, of course because of the Prime Minister’s news conference, but he says tomorrow they’ll be starting to outline the fiscal problem and start to fix it. The economic ramifications of decisions made by Labor will remain. As an economist, isn’t that a fair enough argument? Decisions made in government are obviously going to have ramifications for years into the future. It can’t be fixed overnight.

LEIGH: Well, the budget was set down before the election. The Pre-election Fiscal Outlook is the baseline that Mr Abbott’s inheriting. I mean, let’s face it, Mr Abbott said this would be…

GILBERT: But it’s got worse. It’s $17 billion worse already.

LEIGH: Indeed, Mr Abbot has worsened it through a number of decisions including $9 billion to the Reserve Bank.

GILBERT: So you’re saying as soon as the election’s done, Labor’s legacy is over. There are no ramifications into the new government.

LEIGH: None beyond the four years of estimates that were set out in the Pre-election Fiscal Outlook. I mean for a government that said there would be no surprises and no excuses, there’s more surprises than a haunted house and more excuses than a three year-old with his hand in the cookie jar. This is really strange stuff. Mr Abbott ought to be behaving like a grown up. He said this would be a government in which the adults would be in charge, but instead he seems to be suggesting that everyone else is to blame. He can’t get the budget under control, so he has to strike a deal with the Greens for unlimited debt. He’s breaking promises on the National Broadband Network, on Medicare Locals, turning the National Disability Insurance Scheme launch sites into mere trial sites – which I think is deeply concerning. What was a budget emergency has turned into unlimited debt under Joe Hockey’s watch.

GILBERT: I want to bring in Mitch Fifield now. We heard a lot from the Prime Minister on the economic issue, I want to ask you about something he was also asked about on same sex marriage Senator Fifield. Given the comments made by Malcolm Turnbull yesterday – he thinks that there is a reasonable prospect there could be a conscience vote for the Liberal Party this parliamentary term on same sex marriage. What’s your view on it? What do you think the overall mood of the party room is on this issue?

FIFIELD: Well, if a Bill comes before the Parliament, our party room will consider it and I think we need to distinguish between the issue of conscience votes and free votes. In a sense, every vote in the Parliament for a Liberal is a conscience vote. Unlike the Labor Party, we don’t have automatic expulsion if you don’t vote according to the party line so every vote for a Liberal is in effect a conscience vote. There’s the issue of free votes. Now a free vote arises where the Party doesn’t have a stated position, and for there to be a free vote in relation to a same sex marriage bill, our party room would need to declare that there was not a Liberal Party position, so if a bill comes to the Parliament, it will come to our party room and our party room will consider that at that stage.

GILBERT: And obviously, do you have a view one way or the other on whether it will or not? We’ve only got about 30 seconds left, but just quickly.

FIFIELD: Look I honestly don’t know. Our party has had a clear position over a long period of time to support the status quo when it comes to the Marriage Act. This matter, if it arises, will be considered by our party room.

GILBERT: Senator Fifield and Andrew Leigh, apologies for the shorter discussion but, as I say, the Prime Minister intervened.

LEIGH: No worries Kieran.

GILBERT: Have a good day. That’s all for our chat on this edition of the program this morning.

ENDS

Today I issued a media release highlighting how Labor's concern about an ATO draft ruling on moveable homes is catching on. Several Coalition MPs, including the Assistant Employment Minister, Luke Hartsuyker, have complained about the draft law which if adopted would make the supply of a moveable home site taxable and hurt low-income people.

MEDIA RELEASE


COALITION MEMBERS BREAK RANKS ON GST TO MOVEABLE HOMES



Government MPs are breaking their silence to speak out against moves to slug moveable home estates with GST, said Assistant Shadow Treasurer, Andrew Leigh.

“Karen McNamara, the Liberal Member for Dobell, is the latest member to criticise the Australian Tax Office’s draft decision on moveable homes.”

She told Federal Parliament yesterday:

I have been contacted by members of my community who live in moveable home estates and the message is clear, this draft ruling unfairly impacts on those who can least afford to pay more tax. – Karen McNamara (Member’s Statement, Thursday 12 December 2013)



“Since Labor Leader, Bill Shorten first raised this issue on 9^th November a plethora of Liberal and National MPs have broken ranks to express their concerns on behalf of hundreds of moveable home owners, many of them pensioners who can’t afford conventional housing,” said Dr Leigh.

“By contrast, the Prime Minister - who promised a Coalition Government would make no changes to the GST - said in relation to this unfair ruling that ‘things happen’. The Assistant Treasurer says it’s merely an ‘administrative decision’ and the Treasurer has said nothing.”

"As with Holden, Joe Hockey seems to think that doing nothing is the best approach," said Dr Leigh.

“It’s time senior government leaders took notice. Did they hear Liberal Member for Cowper, Luke Hartsuyker, argue for the draft decision to be overturned?”

My concern is that many people living in moveable estates simply cannot afford any other form of home… I have concerns that this decision will increase the cost of living for those who have least capacity to pay.” – Luke Hartsuyker (Media Release, 5 December 2013).

The Nationals Member for Page, Kevin Hogan, and the Liberal Member for Forde, Bert van Manen, are among other Coalition MPs who have spoken out after being inundated with requests for assistance to fight the proposed GST hike.

Ends

Friday, 13 Decemnber 2013

I spoke in parliament today on the High Court's decision on same-sex marriage.

Today the High Court unanimously decided that the Marriage Equality (Same Sex) Act 2013 of the ACT could not operate concurrently with the federal Marriage Act. This judgment was the result of a decision by the Abbott government to challenge the ACT law in the courts. It is a decision which I believe was fundamentally misguided. Same-sex marriage is a political issue that should be decided in this chamber. As the Prime Minister's sister, Christine Foster, has tweeted: 'Sad news that the ACT same-sex marriage law has been overturned. Focus now firmly on federal parliament.'

Many members of this place support same-sex marriage, but the challenge is that the Liberal Party does not give its members a conscience vote. If Senator Brandis puts out press releases making statements such as, 'Freedoms are some of the most fundamental of all human rights', then the least he could do would be to allow his party room the freedom to vote for same-sex marriage.

As Warren and Grant of Aranda, who have been together for 27 years, told me: 'Our marriage would not undermine heterosexual marriage—quite the opposite—our desire to be married reflects our deep respect for the institution of marriage.'

Future generations of Australians will look back and wonder why it took Australian parliaments so long to bring about the reform of marriage laws.

This afternoon I spoke to ABC Canberra 666 host Alex Sloan about today's High Court ruling against the ACT's marriage equality legislation. Listen here.

ACT Federal Labor members also issued a joint statement expressing disappointment and urging the Prime Minister to bring the debate to the floor of the Parliament. While the High Court found the landmark ACT law unconstitutional, the Court also stated that ‘marriage’ in the Australian Constitution includes a marriage between persons of the same sex. This means that the Parliament can legislate for marriage equality.

JOINT MEDIA STATEMENT



Federal Labor Members in the ACT

Andrew Leigh MP, Member for Fraser
Gai Brodtmann MP, Member for Canberra
Kate Lundy, Senator for the ACT

CALL FOR TONY ABBOTT TO ALLOW SAME-SEX MARRIAGE CONSCIENCE VOTE


We are very disappointed with the decision today by the High Court to strike out the territory’s same-sex marriage law.

This is a sad day for those same-sex couples that took advantage of the ACT’s ground-breaking legislation and tied the knot since Saturday.

We commend ACT Labor on its efforts to advance the cause of equality.

We also respect the decision of the High Court.

The Prime Minister must now deliver on his pledge that the Liberal Party room will revisit the question of whether to have a conscience vote on same-sex marriage.

The Abbott Government chose to mount this legal challenge at a cost to taxpayers when this is an inherently political decision that should be decided in the Federal Parliament.

ABC 666 Canberra Afternoon interview 12-12-13

Stretching the brain in different directions, this morning I had a laugh with ABC 666's Ross Solly and Jo Laverty about the classic Dead Parrot sketch by Monty Python. Here's the chat and here's the link to the skit.

ABC 666 11-12-13

Last night I delivered a speech in Parliament commending members of my electorate for the quality and quantity of their social and volunteer interactions as well as the great work of our young social entrepeneurs:

I rise tonight to speak on the strength of community in my electorate of Fraser. As is well known, the ACT has some of the highest rates of social capital in the nation. The most generous postcode, as measured by tax deductible gift donations, is 2602. The highest rates of volunteering of any state and territory are in the ACT. The ACT also has high rates of sporting participation, community club membership and even, according to the Clean Up Australia Day survey, low rates of litter.

Australians may have become disconnected over recent decades, but Canberra is a strongly connected city. Last Thursday, it was my pleasure to attend Volunteering ACT's Volunteering EXPO held in Albert Hall. The Volunteering EXPO brought together a plethora of ACT community groups, each looking for new volunteers. Ninety per cent of ACT voluntary groups say that they want more volunteers. It was a real pleasure to stroll the through the halls set up, as it were, as an Easter show of giving back to the community. Many of the local groups I spoke to had already signed up volunteers and were hoping to do so the following day.

I acknowledge the hard work of Maureen Cane, Rikki Blacka and Emilie Van Os Schmitt, from Volunteering ACT for their tireless efforts over recent weeks to make the volunteering expo a success. Volunteering ACT have been hard at work on other products as well. They recently produced a report, Promoting youth engagement and wellbeing through student volunteer programs in ACT schools, which I would commend to the House. Generating that culture of volunteering is so vital because volunteering, like so many other things, such as the habit of giving something back when one is at school, is indeed important work.

Volunteering ACT has also put together a booklet called 100 Volunteer Stories, compiled by Sarah Wilson and Emilie Van Os Schmitt. That book discusses so many of the great Canberra volunteers: Marjorie Boyer and Sheila Turner of Palliative Care ACT; Ian Goudie of Diversity ACT; the Railway Historical Society and its project to restore old trains; Cathy Starling and Judy Tier's stories of their involvement in Australian Business Volunteers, assisting developing countries to foster entrepreneurship and innovation; Ricardo Alberto and his hard work as President of the Gungahlin United Football Club; and the voluntary work that makes Volunteering ACT itself such a success.

I was also pleased on Friday to host one of my regular social entrepreneurs breakfasts where I bring together in my electorate office a set of social entrepreneurs who are doing good work in the local community. It is born out of a sense that I have and which, I believe, many members on both sides of the House share, that Australia needs more innovation and entrepreneurship. One area in which I believe I, as a local member, can do something to promote that is in bringing together local social entrepreneurs. They are an inspiring group, working on issues that are wide and diverse. Those who were able to attend Friday's social entrepreneurs breakfast included Julia Diprose of Vocal Majority; Pierre Johannessen of Big Bang Ballers; Brad Carron-Arthur, who runs a mental health organisation; Tony Shields, who is involved with Menslink; Ben Duggan, the founder of Raising Hope; and Danielle Dal Cortivo, founder of raize the roof.

I was also grateful to Fiona Nelson and Lincoln Rothall of WIN News for providing some opportunities through this breakfast to promote some of those great voluntary organisations in the local media. These organisations are inspiring and it is important that these social entrepreneurs have an opportunity to discuss with one another the shared challenges that they are facing: setting up a board, finding appropriate funding, managing the organisation in such a way that they do not burn out in their personal lives; thinking about who will succeed them in running their organisations; and thinking, too, about appropriate partnerships.

The strength of Canberra's community extends to its technology entrepreneurs. On the weekend I popped into Hackathon ACT, an IT boffin's delight held in the entrepreneur space, Entry 29, on the edge of the ANU campus. There I spoke with Rory Ford and Matt Stimson, who took me around the room and introduced me to various of the bleary-eyed entrepreneurs—this was early on Sunday afternoon and many of them had pulled an all-nighter all through Saturday. Caffeine was in abundance as was junk food. It was terrific to see the community of programmers and the innovative ideas they were working on. A team from one of the local schools was working on an app for Google Glass. I had not even realised that Google Glass was available in Australia, but they were not only using it but also developing a new app for it. There was a group working on an app for mortgage comparison. and another one working on an application for better form filling in order to save time for large organisations and indeed for government, cutting down on the amount of forms that have to be printed and reducing the amount of time that we spend queuing.

Finally, I recognise the sense of holistic pride that the ACT government has brought through its Brand Canberra campaign. Launched on 28 November, it features a new logo—CBR, standing for confident, bold and ready. It provides a framework through which to tell Canberra's story through five attributes: challenge, free spirit, ideas, quality of life and discovery. That positive message is one I believe pervades community groups in the ACT. It is not just a new logo, as the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister have acknowledged. As Chief Minister Katy Gallagher put it, it is also something that:

… gives us the tools to be able to tell others what a great city Canberra is—proud to be the capital of Australia and the centre of government, but also a confident and bold city.

The campaign has been praised by the ACT Chamber of Commerce and Industry and by the chair of the Canberra Business Council, Michelle Melbourne. I acknowledge too the work of Jamie Wilson and Warren Apps of Coordinate.

Too many Australians think of Canberra as being just the city of government, but it is in fact not just the national capital; it is the social capital of Australia. It is a place where voluntary organisations thrive and can thrive even more still. I pay tribute to the many volunteers here in the ACT and the organisations that sustain them.

Yesterday I joined parliamentary members in expressing sadness over the passing of the former South African President, Nelson Rolihlahla Nelson. I gave this condolence speech:

Richard Stengel, who worked with Nelson Mandela on his autobiography, told the story of when he was out walking one morning in the Transkei with Mr Mandela and they spoke about when he would be joining his ancestors. Mandela said:

Men come and go. I have come and I will go when my time comes.

He had an extraordinary life. The first time he shook the hand of a white man was when he went off to boarding school. He was born into a relatively privileged family by black South African standards. He grew to stand six foot two and he had a strong education. Nonetheless, when he was a young man in Johannesburg people spat on him in buses, shopkeepers turned him away and whites treated him as if he could not read or write. He thought to himself that, if that was how he was treated, how must it be for so many other black South Africans?

He was tried for his revolutionary activities for the ANC and sentenced. In the sentencing hearings, he spoke for four hours, finishing with the final statement:

During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

His defence team urged him to take out the last sentence for risk of antagonising the judge and, as history has suggested, it may have been a close-run thing. Another member of the Johannesburg bench claims that he persuaded the trial judge, Quartus de Wet, to change his mind over a cup of tea in the judicial common room just before he returned to the court for sentencing: de Wet had been set on hanging.

The 27-year sentence saw Nelson Mandela become prisoner 466/64. He was held for 18 years in an eight-foot by seven-foot cell. It was a brutal sentence. He was a man who loved children but spent 27 years without holding a baby. As was reported, when he was being pursued by thousands of police, he secretly went to tuck in his son in his bed. When his son asked why he could not be with him every night, Mandela told him millions of other South African children needed him too. He lost his eldest son, Madiba Thembekile, in a car crash in 1969 and felt terrible guilt.

Mandela did not eschew violence entirely, as Gandhi did. He said, 'At a certain point, one can only fight fire with fire.' He never disowned the struggle and he was the founder of Umkhonto weSizwe, the Spear of the Nation, the military wing of the ANC. He regarded violence as a tactic not as a principle. As my media adviser, Toni Hassan, has pointed out, Mandela reached a point of taking the view that violence was a necessary strategy. But when the time came, he said to the ANC:

We must accept that responsibility for ending violence is not just the government's, the police's, the army's. It is also our responsibility.

This was most difficult when Chris Hani was killed by an assassin commissioned by the right-wing conservative party. It was Mandela who called aggrieved black South Africans not to take revenge when the country could have been plunged into bloodshed. He noted that a white woman of Afrikaner origin risked her life so that 'we may know and bring justice to the assassin'.

When Mandela was released from jail, almost a generation had passed. It was said that when he saw a television soundman waving a boom microphone at him he thought he was 'wielding a fancy assassination device'. But Mandela brought black and white South Africa together as the first president of a multiracial South Africa. In the moment when the country hosted the 1995 Rugby World Cup, Mandela wore captain Francois Pienaar's No. 6 jersey on the field. The crowd loved it and loved him. They experienced a great moment of unity.

I am very pleased to see the bipartisanship with which Nelson Mandela has been acknowledged, but it is important to note that this was not always so. When people like Meredith Burgmann protested against white-only South African sporting teams, she was attacked by many Australian conservatives. Reading through the Hansard reveals John Howard opposing sporting sanctions against South Africa in the 1980s and Michael Cobb calling in 1990 for the resumption of sporting contact with South Africa. It also reveals Liberal members calling for the expulsion of the African National Congress from Australia and people like Senator Crichton-Browne saying:

When Mandela gets out of gaol he will be just in the ruck with all the rest. As long as he is in gaol he really is a symbol of all that the blacks represent. The sooner he gets out, the sooner, in my view, his influence will be considerably diminished.

One is so glad that those words have been consigned to the dustbin of history. There was a great moment in that speech when Senator Crichton-Browne said:

No one, in my view, has an absolute mortgage on morality.

And the late John Button said:

Certainly not you, Senator.

Mandela was a towering figure the likes of which we may not see again. His example to all of us was an extraordinary one. We are lucky to have shared this planet with him for that great run of 95 years he was on it. May he rest in peace.