Andrew Leigh

NewsRadio 31-3-14

Addressing the National Press Club, I talked about a generation of rising inequality, how the Abbott Government's policies will affect inequality and the importance of maintaining Australia's egalitarian ethos (download audio; iTunes podcast):

ANDREW LEIGH MP
SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER
SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION
MEMBER FOR FRASER

Battlers and Billionaires: Australian Egalitarianism Under Threat*

National Press Club Address

THURSDAY, 27 MARCH 2014

CANBERRA


In 2002, two bombs exploded in Bali nightclubs, killing and injuring hundreds of people. At the local hospital, there was a shortage of painkillers. Graeme Southwick, an Australian doctor on duty, asked patients to assess their own pain levels. He kept being told by patients in the ‘Australian’ ward that they were okay – the person next to them was suffering more.

Coming across this account, historian John Hirst was reminded of the description of injured Australians in Gallipoli nearly a century earlier. He quotes the official war historian Charles Bean, who describes the suffering and then says, ‘Yet the men never showed better than in these difficulties. The lightly hurt were full of thought for the severely wounded.’

Even in the midst of their own pain, the first instinct of many Australians was to think of those worse off than themselves.

Even the military, one of our most hierarchical institutions, is infused with the nation’s egalitarian spirit. Indeed, it has been suggested that this is one reason why our forces are such effective peacekeepers. When the United Nations intervened in Somalia in the 1990s, our troops were more inclined to go on foot patrols than the French and American forces, who tended to stay in jeeps and behind sandbags.

As a result, our troops were more likely to listen to local townspeople rather than just hearing the views of tribal leaders. This in turn made them more effective at solving local disputes. It was, as one account put it, ‘an example of the traditional Australian sympathy for the underdog being put to very good use’.

Egalitarianism goes deep in the Australian character. Most of us don’t like tipping. I’d like to think that’s our egalitarianism at work. There aren’t private areas on our beaches. Audiences don’t stand when the prime minister enters the room. We’re a country that happily dispensed with knighthoods a generation ago, and no sensible person would suggest that the land of ‘mate’ should become the kingdom of ‘sir’.

In Australia, it’s quite normal to sit in the front seat of a taxi. If the plumber drops around, we’ll offer a cuppa. One of our billionaires is ‘Twiggy’ and past Australian Reserve Bank governors include ‘Nugget’ and ‘Nobby’.

Egalitarianism is as much a part of Australia’s national identity as vegemite, Uluru and the Big Banana.

And yet that egalitarian ethos is increasingly under threat from a rise in inequality over the past generation.

Let me give you a few numbers.

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I spoke in Parliament today to celebrate the arrival of the Bruce GP Super Clinic, and to ask what it is about efficient, affordable and accessible healthcare that the Government thinks is ‘nasty’?:

This week saw the opening of the GP Super Clinic in Bruce. Residents in Canberra's north now have better access to general practitioners, nurses, pathologists, dieticians, counsellors and a range of other allied health practitioners. The facility is located on the grounds of the University of Canberra, which means it can integrate teaching, training and research. There are already eight GPs treating patients in the new clinic in Bruce, and there is capacity to expand to 18 doctors and related supporting services.

The super clinic will help to meet the expected demand coming from the growth in Canberra's northern suburbs. It will provide improved access for northsiders to vital health services. I celebrated the opening of the clinic; I helped turn the first sod last year with former health minister, Tanya Plibersek, who is a passionate supporter of GP super clinics, unlike the current health minister.

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Federal Labor will support the triple indexation of military superannuation pensions. Here’s the media release issued today by the Shadow Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, Don Farrell:

SENATOR DON FARRELL

SHADOW MINISTER FOR VETERANS’ AFFAIRS
SHADOW MINISTER FOR THE CENTENARY OF ANZAC
SENATOR FOR SOUTH AUSTRALIA



MEDIA RELEASE



LABOR SUPPORTS TRIPLE INDEXATION OF MILITARY SUPERANNUATION PENSIONS BILL

The Opposition will support the Defence Force Retirement Benefits Legislation Amendment (Fair Indexation) Bill 2014 which allows the “triple indexing” of the Defence Forces Retirement Benefits (DFRB) and the Defence Force Retirement and Death Benefits (DFRDB) military superannuation pensions for those aged over 55.

Shadow Minister for Veterans’ Affairs Senator Don Farrell said an estimated 57,000 retired military personnel will receive a $160 million boost to their pensions from July 1 this year if this legislation passes with the support of Labor.

“As a nation, we are rightly proud of our ex-servicemen and women who have helped protect our nation and its interests,” said Senator Farrell.

“We will support this Bill which ensures DFRB and DFRDB military superannuation pensions are indexed in the same way as aged and service pensions for those aged 55 and over.”

Senator Farrell said Labor had a proud legacy of looking after veterans.

“In the last Budget, we committed a record $12.5 billion to veterans including mental health programs and greater support for veterans and their families,” he said.

“We worked hard to make steady and sustainable improvements to veteran’s pensions and support, even in the face of the enormous challenge posed by the Global Financial Crisis.

“It’s utterly shameful this Government still plans to cut payments to the children and orphans of war veterans who have been killed or injured.

“Coalition MPs and Senators should be standing up to the Prime Minister on behalf for the children of war veterans, not voting to cut their payments.”

Senator Farrell called on the Abbott Government to outline in detail the impact of the legislation on the Future fund and the unfunded liability.

“The Government must explain how it intends to manage the issues associated with the Future Fund and the issues which will emerge in the years ahead.”

WEDNESDAY, 26 MARCH 2014

Crowning glory would be our own head of state, Canberra Times, 26 March 2014

Walter Scott once wrote: ‘Breathes there a man with soul so dead / Who never to himself hath said / This is my own, my native land.’

Alas, these fine words have never been uttered by any Australian head of state about Australia. Under our Constitution, they never could be uttered.

That is because - while no British citizen can ever be Australia’s head of government - only a British citizen can ever be Australia’s head of state.

In 1999, Australia held a referendum. It was a three-cornered contest between bipartisan parliamentary appointment Republicans, direct election Republicans and Monarchists.

As Malcolm Turnbull has pointed out, the monarchists ‘delightedly, if cynically, exploited the division by promising the direct electionists that if the parliamentary model was defeated at a referendum they could have another referendum on a direct election model within a few years’.

We have waited half a generation since then.

Some counsel patience. They argue that the push for an Australian as head of state should wait until King Charles III ascends the throne.

This fundamentally misunderstands the argument for an Australian Republic. Republicans’ quibble is not with Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles and their heirs and successors. Each of these individuals has done their jobs diligently.

Indeed, a belief in the Republic does not lessen our respect for them as individuals. In 2012, when Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall visited Canberra, I was pleased to welcome them on the tarmac of Canberra airport (wearing my Australian Republican Movement cufflinks). Respect and politeness for the royal family sits alongside my passionate belief that Australia should have one of our own as head of state.

Last year, Prince William and Kate Middleton welcomed their baby George into the world, and today, at least 800 babies will be born in Australia. I congratulate William, Kate and all their parents. To be a parent is one of the greatest blessings we can receive.

But I cannot for the life of me see why Baby George is better suited than every Australian baby to grow up to be an Australian head of state. The 800 children born in Australia will grow up around gumtrees and sandy beaches. They will call their friends ‘mate’ and barrack for the Baggy Greens, the Wallabies and the Socceroos. Their success in life will not be decided by their surname. If they say they live in a castle, it’ll be because they’re quoting Darryl Kerrigan.

In short, those 800 babies born today will be Australians.  And every one of them should be able to aspire to be our head of state.

Those who disagree with this view sometimes claim that the Governor-General is the head of state.  At best, a contentious, strained protestation. All members of the Australian Parliament swore or affirmed our allegiance to the Queen, not to the Governor-General.

At state dinners visiting Heads of State toast the Queen of Australia. Her image is on our currency. Australian Government websites say: ‘Australia’s head of state is Queen Elizabeth II.’

The slogan ‘Don’t know? Vote no’ has never been more powerful in Australian public life. Tony Abbott used it when he was campaigning for the monarchy in 1999, and has deployed it relentlessly in recent years, including against a market-based solution to climate change, fibre to the home broadband, and fiscal stimulus to save jobs.

It is a seductively simple line, but one that is more dangerous than ever as Australia grapples with complex challenges.

In the Asian Century, how do we think it looks to our Indonesian, Chinese, Korean and Japanese friends that we cannot shrug off the anachronism of having a member of the house of Windsor as our head of state? How does it sit with our claimed belief in the ‘fair go’ when the qualification to be our head of state is that one must be British, white and preferably male? Is this really the image we want to project?

In parliament this week, I moved a motion calling on the government to hold a referendum to make Australia a Republic.

In so doing, Australia would make it clear to ourselves and the world that instead of a foreign child in a foreign land, we trust an Australian child to grow up and be an Australian head of state. Such a child will be more appropriate for us, more representative of us and more worthy of us ­– a child who knows their own, native land in their living, Australian soul.

Andrew Leigh is the federal member for Fraser, and his website is www.andrewleigh.com.

This morning I issued a release congratulating Federal Labor's former Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury for his new strategic leadership role with the OECD.

ANDREW LEIGH MP

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION

MEMBER FOR FRASER



MEDIA RELEASE



DAVID BRADBURY TO LEAD OECD TAX POLICY AND STATISTICS DIVISION

Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Andrew Leigh, has warmly congratulated former Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury on his appointment to a strategic role with the  Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The OECD undertook a competitive and global selection process to choose Mr Bradbury as the new head of the Tax Policy and Statistics Division based in Paris.

From next month Mr Bradbury will be in charge of raising the profile of tax policy analysis work at the OECD.

“David has an international reputation for his strong leadership and understanding of the taxation of multinational enterprises. He and Wayne Swan led the Australian debate on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting and modernising Australia’s transfer pricing laws.”

Mr Bradbury, a former tax lawyer, was Assistant Treasurer under the previous Labor Government, with responsibilities in including taxation reforms. He was instrumental in establishing Australia’s first and vital national regulator of the not-for-profit sector.

“I congratulate David and wish him well in his new and important role,” added Dr Leigh.

TUESDAY 25 MARCH, 2014

CATHERINE KING MP

SHADOW MINISTER FOR HEALTH

MEMBER FOR BALLARAT



ANDREW LEIGH MP

MEMBER FOR FRASER



MEDIA RELEASE

MORE FRONTLINE HEALTH SERVICES BEING DELIVERED BY LABOR



Residents in Canberra’s north now have better access to general practitioners, nurses, pathologists, dieticians, counsellors and a range of other allied health practitioners after the opening of the GP Super Clinic in Bruce.

This facility partners with the University of Canberra and integrates teaching, training and research.

More than 3 million MBS items have been delivered through the GP Super Clinics program across Australia, and GP Super Clinics are providing better access to primary care and delivering healthcare, despite the lack of support for better primary care infrastructure by the Abbott government.

There are already nine GPs treating patients from the new clinic in Bruce with the capacity to expand to 18 doctors along with supporting services.  This will help meet the expected demand coming from the growth in Canberra’s northern suburbs into the future.

‘GP Super Clinics are providing better access to bulk-billing services as well as after-hours access to doctors across the country,’ said Shadow Minister for Health Catherine King.

‘This Super Clinic will also enhance the area’s medical training capacity through a partnership with the University of Canberra and provides access to pathology labs, radiology and pharmacy,’ Ms King said.

‘I have been a strong advocate for a Super Clinic on Canberra’s Northside, and was pleased to attend the sod-turning ceremony in February 2013 with former Health Minister Tanya Plibersek,’ said Member for Fraser, Dr Andrew Leigh.

‘The Liberals have never seen a GP Super Clinic they didn’t want to block. Without Labor’s commitment to better health care and better medical training, Canberrans would not be benefiting from this first-rate facility.’



The funding agreement for this GP Super Clinic was signed in May 2012, construction commenced in March last year and it is officially opening today, having commenced operations in February.

TUESDAY, 25 MARCH 2014

I spoke in parliament about the fact that the government has not yet told us what would replace the charities commission if it were abolished.

Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission, 24 March 2014

Last week, the government announced that there would be a bonfire of legislation. What was in this great vanity of a bonfire? There were three things. There was the repeal of what Fred Hilmer, the father of competition policy, called ‘ghost acts’. These are acts such as the act to repeal another act which could themselves be safely repealed because they were not troubling anyone. Then there was the repeal of protections for consumers of financial advice, which, thankfully, has been placed on pause. As the members for McMahon and Oxley have pointed out today, the coalition's FoFA changes achieved the unique configuration of being opposed not only by consumers groups but also by the Financial Planning Association themselves. The third piece of the bonfire was the repeal of the charities commission.

As so many members of this House have pointed out—Jenny Macklin, the member for Jagajaga, and Senator Ursula Stephens being chief among them—the charities commission was put in place in order to reduce the regulatory burden on charities and to protect charitable donors to make sure that they had an agency to which they could lodge complaints if they were victims of scams. The charities commission has been supported by four out of five charities. In an open letter, charities—including Save the Children, St John Ambulance Australia, Volunteering Australia, Lifeline, the RSPCA, ACOSS, the Sidney Myer Fund, the Hillsong Church, Social Ventures Australia, the YMCA and the Queensland Theatre Company—have called for the ACNC to be retained. Instead, we have a bill from Minister Andrews which repeals the charities commission without saying what will come in its place. This is a bill which reads more like a media alert than a serious piece of legislation. It contains clauses such as:

'The successor Agency is the Agency specified in a determination under subitem (2).'

In fact, it is entirely unclear to the sector what the government intends should replace the charities commission. Perhaps that is why the government has put the debate off rather than having it occur this week as originally scheduled. If the Minister for Social Services will not trust the public with his plans, why should parliament entrust the minister with the power to do as he wishes?

The bill will not take effect until the passing of a subsequent bill which will outline what on earth the government wants to do in the area of charity regulation. For a government which says that is serious about reducing red tape it is striking to read in the explanatory memorandum:

'Since stage one does not detail the alternative arrangements, there are no direct impacts that can be quantified as costs and benefits faced by the civil sector. As a result, no indicative costings are provided in this RIS.'

So, this is the very definition of a ghost bill. If this bill were on the statute books today it would have been repealed in the bonfire of legislation, because it does nothing.

The problem is that the charities commission does something. The charities commission is strongly supported by the sector. Many charities say how much they appreciate an agency that understands their complexities and helps them to focus on what they do best—helping people. It protects donors and acts as a watchdog against scammers and dodgy charities. Indeed, in a few weeks time the ACNC will host an international charities law regulators forum, celebrating what Australia has achieved. The government claims that the ACNC is a failed model, but countries such as Ireland are looking at putting into place a model like the Australian charities commission, which enjoys broad support from the community.

By contrast, the government's plan to put charities law regulation back into the hands of the Australian Taxation Office received support from just six per cent of the charitable sector—that is how persuasive this government has been with the sector. I call on Minister Andrews to not put the ACNC on the bonfire. Do with the plans to scrap the charities commission what the government has done with its ill-thought-through financial advice legislation—press the pause button, help the charities sector and, if you must repeal ghost acts, make that your bonfire instead.

I spoke in parliament today about the 50th anniversary of St Margaret's Uniting Church in Hackett. It's also a good time to mention that I'll be holding my annual Welcoming the Babies event at the St Margaret's Hall this coming Saturday, 29 March, 10.30-12.30.

St Margaret's Uniting Church, 24 March 2014

On 7 December 1963 there appeared in the Canberra Times a notice of a new Presbyterian church and Sunday school to be meeting in Watson, Hackett and Woden. The first meeting of St Margaret's church occurred on 2 February 1964, and it was my great pleasure on 2 February 2014 with my son, Sebastian, to attend the 50th anniversary service for St Margaret's Uniting Church in Hackett. I acknowledge Reverends Kerry Bartlett and Brian Brown, John Goss and St Margaret's community for making us so welcome.

I commend to the House the publication reflecting on 50 years of St Margaret's Church, which tells the story of the church's evolution including the episode in the 1970s where is it notes:

'The appointment of a Methodist minister placed considerable stress on the understanding of cooperation between Presbyterians and Methodists.'

The church has done a great deal to build the local community through its Stepping Stones program, and through Ross Walker Lodge which received a grant through the nation building programs in the global financial crisis to provide housing for Canberrans with disabilities. I commend the St Margaret's community for a great 50 years achievement and the many more decades of achievement to come.

My op-ed in the Drum today is about the ethics of asylum-seeker policy, and the need for more bipartisan decency.

Let's put refugee policy on a bedrock of decency, The Drum, 24 March 2014

If there’s one point that unites people across the political spectrum, it is that the issue of refugees has not been well managed over recent years.

Refugees comprise just one-tenth of permanent migrants to Australia in the past decade. So refugees are not clogging our roads. But the asylum seeker conversation is clogging our migration policy debate, because it’s both controversial and complicated.

Australia takes 13,750 refugees a year, down from 20,000 under Labor. Globally, there are 11 million refugees. Add those who are internally displaced or stateless, and the United Nations High Commission on Refugees counts 39 million people on their list of ‘persons of concern’.

Among developed nations, there are two ways of taking refugees: the ‘knock on our door’ approach, and the ‘go to the UNHCR’ approach. Most developed countries follow the former principle. A few – notably Canada, the United States and Australia – work with the UNHCR. These three nations take nine in ten of those from UNHCR camps.

And then there are the drownings at sea. We will never be quite sure how many people died in the past decade coming to Australia by boat – but the figure probably exceeds 1000. About one in twenty asylum seekers who set out on the sea journey to Australia die on the way. Under Labor, the Refugee Resettlement Agreement with Papua New Guinea – and the previously unsuccessful agreement with Malaysia – were an attempt to close off the channel of refugees coming by sea.

The purpose was compassionate – to prevent events like the SIEV X disaster and the Christmas Island tragedy from ever happening again. But it is undeniable that the approach is harsh even when implemented well. And as recent events at the Manus Island detention centre illustrate, the policy has not been implemented well.

After participating in this debate closely for four years, I’ve come to the view that which approach you prefer depends on whether you think in categorical or utilitarian terms. Categorical reasoning, as you’ll recall, judges the morality of an individual act. Utilitarian reasoning looks at the greatest good for the greatest number. A categorical rule might say ‘never set fire to the Australian bush’. A utilitarian might judge it to be appropriate in a backburning operation.

In the asylum-seeker debate, many people of goodwill simply cannot get past the fact that a person who claims a well-founded fear of persecution comes to Australia and is turned away. This is the categorical approach.

Others of equal goodwill could not abide the approach that prevailed after the High Court struck down the Malaysia agreement – which led to refugees having a strong incentive to travel by boat to Christmas Island, rather than attempt to be processed by the UNHCR. Utilitarians argued that taking more onshore arrivals didn’t make us more generous. Unless you think we should have no cap on refugee arrivals, then for every additional person who arrives by boat, we end up taking one less person from a refugee camp. The utilitarian approach is to meet our refugee quota in the way that jeopardises the fewest lives.

In the asylum seeker debate, we can probably get further if we admit the truth in each other’s positions. Utilitarians should recognise that the Refugee Resettlement Agreement effectively sends away people who have come knocking at our door. Those who prefer the categorical approach should admit that their preferred policy would not achieve the greatest good for the greatest number.

In answering most problems, I tend to use utilitarian reasoning. That leads me to believe that we have to deter a sea journey with a one-in-twenty chance of death. At the same time, I think we should at the very least restore the annual intake of 20,00 refugees – taken almost exclusively out of UNHCR camps – and encourage other developed nations to join in this process. (It’s a mark of the prevalence of categorical reasoning in the asylum seeker debate that a one-third cut to Australia’s refugee intake has passed largely without comment.)

I also hope that the coming decade sees asylum seekers becoming less of a partisan issue. Over the past twenty years, Australia has seen Indigenous policy go from being used as a wedge issue in racially-charged elections to commanding bipartisan support. In the early-1990s, conservatives argued that native title would ‘destroy our society’, ‘break the economy and break up Australia’. Today, all politicians support Closing the Gap. I would like to see the same outbreak of bipartisan decency occur with asylum seeker policy.

A bipartisan approach to respecting the dignity of asylum seekers would mean never playing politics with the funerals of asylum seekers. No longer talking about ‘illegals’ engaged in a ‘peaceful invasion’. Not deploying the language of human rights in the service of a partisan agenda. Not making tear-choked over-my-dead-body declarations, and then dropping the issue after your side wins power.

Putting the dignity of refugees at the heart of the policy would also make it feasible for Australia to play a leadership role on the issue of asylum seekers. This means better regional cooperation, and exploring innovative solutions, such as the developed world financially supporting developing nations to take more refugees. To eschew creative thinking is to doom the silent millions in refugee camps worldwide to lives of hopelessness and unfulfilled potential.

Andrew Leigh is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, and the federal member for Fraser. His website is www.andrewleigh.com. This is an edited extract from a speech delivered to the Lowy Institute.