Andrew Leigh

In his mid-year budget update, Joe Hockey reneged on a promise to crack down on corporate tax avoidance by closing an important loophole. So at a time when he's taking an ax to Medicare, pensions and the foreign aid budget, he's still found room to give money back to big firms. Nice.

MEDIA RELEASE

HOCKEY BREAKS PROMISE TO TAX MULTINATIONALS

Despite almost doubling the 2014-15 deficit, Treasurer Joe Hockey has still managed to sneak in another giveaway for multinational corporations.

Monday’s Budget update shows the Government is going back on its commitment to introduce a targeted anti-avoidance measure which would stop companies siphoning profits offshore.

Yet again the Treasurer has shown that he is happy to let big companies off the hook while hacking into foreign aid, schools, hospitals and pensions.

His priorities stink worse than a plate of Christmas prawns that have been left out in the sun.

Balancing the budget involves hard choices. As I explained to Mark Parton in this interview with Radio 2CC ahead of the mid-year budget update, my party will always support fair budget savings. But by the same token, we will fight budget decisions which fail the fairness test. Here's the transcript:

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

RADIO 2CC

MONDAY, 15 DECEMBER 2014

SUBJECT/S: Joe Hockey’s mini-budget 

MARK PARTON: Treasurer Joe Hockey is going to have a shocker of a day today. He's expected to reveal revenue has taken a further hit of just over $6.2 billion in just over six months. Things that are out of his control but he knows he's going to get smashed for it. So if we had a budget emergency at Budget time, we've got a potential catastrophe now. Mr Hockey will deliver his mid-year economic update today and there are reports of forecasts of $379 billion in receipts, that follows figures of $389 billion in May. So it's down substantially and many of the experts are saying that deficits over the period will more than double to $100 billion. There's little hope of economic improvement without radical action.

Andrew Leigh is waiting in the wings; Andrew's specialty is economics so he knows how to assess figures much better than you and I. He's about to suggest to us that Joe Hockey is a fool – I'm assuming he is – he's about to slam the Treasurer for failing to reign the deficit in and tell us how diabolically bad it is. But I just don't know that you can have it both ways because for years Andrew has been telling us that there is no budget emergency and that running a deficit isn't a bad thing. It certainly wasn't when Labor was doing it, it was fine. I had many conversations with Andrew, during which he compared our deficit to a home loan and basically said it was nothing to worry about. Unless the other mob is in power, and then it's a disaster. I'm sick of the theatre. Andrew Leigh is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer and the Member for Fraser – morning Andrew.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Good morning Mark. 

[Introductory banter]

PARTON: Budget deficits will almost double to $100 billion over the next four years – is this a budget emergency?

LEIGH: Well Mark, it's certainly a problem for the nation if Joe Hockey keeps on giving money back to multinationals, keeps on giving money to people with more than $2 million in their superannuation accounts, and wants to give $50,000 to millionaire families to have a child.

Ahead of the release of Joe Hockey's mini-budget, I joined Sky AM Agenda to talk about the importance of governments taking responsibility for their own economic decision-making. Here's the transcript:

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TELEVISION INTERVIEW

SKY AM AGENDA

MONDAY, 15 DECEMBER 2014

SUBJECT/S: Joe Hockey’s mini-budget; economic priorities; jobs.

KIERAN GILBERT: We're joined by Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh and the Assistant Minister for Social Services, Senator Mitch Fifield. Senator Fifield, it's all a bit gloomy but the government has really got to take accountability for all this now, after more than a year in office?

SENATOR MITCH FIFIELD, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES: Well, I think the MYEFO today, Kieran, will really be a bit of a wake-up call for the Australian Labor Party, about the damage that they caused to the budget and their responsibility to play a role in budget repair. We've seen Labor voting against something of the order of $20 billion in savings measures in the Senate, including about $5 billion of savings measures that they themselves proposed when they were in government. So I hope today's MYEFO causes Labor to take stock, to recognise that they share in the responsibility to help fix this problem that they created.

GILBERT: But Minister, do you accept – 15 months now into office – that voters don't really cop that sort of explanation, that they want the government to come up with the answers instead of the finger pointing? 

FIFIELD: Well Kieran, I think we have come up with the answers; Joe Hockey's first budget was a good document. The problem is that the Labor party fail to take any responsibility for the damage that they caused. Now let me speak for a moment as the Manager of Government Business in the Senate, in a Senate chamber where the government of the day does not command a majority in its own right. Management of the Senate and the legislation that goes through it, including budget legislation, is a shared responsibility of all political parties and the Australian Labor Party have abrogated that responsibility.

GILBERT: That's something that Chris Richardson from Deloitte Access Economics has pointed to time and time again – Andrew Leigh, is there a point when Labor is going to cop some of the blowback here? It's trying to be obstructionist and say ‘no’ as we saw the Coalition do in opposition, but when you're trying to rebuild your own economic credibility surely there's got to be some concession that the structural improvements to the Budget need to happen?

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Well Kieran, I was frankly a bit surprised to hear Mitch speaking in that way. He's a smart guy and I would have thought he would want to step up to the plate and take responsibility. I'd assumed he'd want to be owning promises that the Coalition made last year, such as saying that a Coalition Government would have budget in surplus in its first year and in every subsequent year; that there'd be no surprises, no excuses and the adults would be in charge. But instead he seems to be taking a leaf from his Joe Hockey play book of going around and smoking a cigar while blaming poor people and blaming everyone else but yourself. If this budget's problems are marketing, then I've got a bridge you might like to buy. This budget is a product that the Australian people don't want, at a price our society can't afford.

On Sky Saturday AM Agenda, I spoke with host David Lipson about the suggestion that the budget just needs better "marketing", and the PM's shock revelations of sexism in the Liberal Party.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TELEVISION INTERVIEW

SKY NEWS AM AGENDA

SATURDAY, 13 DECEMBER 2014

SUBJECT/S: Mini-Budget; job cuts; surplus; sexism in the Liberal Party 

DAVID LIPSON: Joining me now, the Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh, thank you for your time today.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Thank you David. 

LIPSON: Starting with these 175 government agencies set for the chopping block. Is there a reason that other areas of government, other departments, can’t handle these agencies?

LEIGH: The thing that always gets me about this government David, is that their only plan for jobs is more job cuts. We’ve already had over 7000 job cuts out of the Canberra public service, now we’re looking at more. Not smart cuts, but cuts that will end up costing Australia more. So for example if you take the Australian Government Solicitor, it’s very clear that going out to the private law firm market for that advice is going to be more expensive. And it all comes on top of now in Australia when we’ve got unemployment at a 12 year high, youth unemployment at a 13 year high, and underemployment - the share of part time workers who are looking for more hours - at an all-time high.

One of the highlights of this parliamentary year has been joining Waleed Aly on RN Drive for our regular political panel. Before he heads off for new adventures, I joined him one last time to talk about the government's recent policy backflips on the UN Climate Fund, the GP tax and the upcoming deficit in the mid-year budget update. Here's the transcript:

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

RN DRIVE WITH WALEED ALY

WEDNESDAY, 10 DECEMBER 2014 

SUBJECT/S: UN climate fund; foreign aid spending; Tony Abbott’s GP tax; MYEFO 

WALEED ALY: So it's 11 minutes past 6. Josh Frydenberg is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and he joins me along with Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh. Sadly he's only on the phone today, but I'm sure he'll be no less pugnacious for that fact. Thanks for coming in, or being on the phone, guys, good to have you with us.

JOSH FRYDENBERG, PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE PRIME MINISTER: Nice to be with you, Waleed.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Good to be here, Waleed.

ALY: [On the UN Climate Fund] First we were not going to contribute; now we are.

JULIE BISHOP, MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS: I have been tasked by the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to announce today at this meeting that Australia will pledge a contribution of 200 million Australian dollars over four years to the Green Climate Fund.

ALY: Yes, that was Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. As you can hear there, there was much applause and merriment and much confusion because the government had previously told us this was impossible, it was a bad idea, it was a Bob Brown sort of an idea to contribute to a climate change fund of this sort; and all of a sudden $200 million. Why the change of heart, Josh? This is an outrage.

FRYDENBERG: Well this is a good outcome isn't it? Here we are...

ALY: It was a bad outcome a couple of weeks ago.

Halfway between meetings in Alice Springs and Titjikala, I stopped in the red dirt to make a short video about the opportunities and challenges facing this unique part of Australia.

In his hunt for announcements to distract from the disastrous budget, Joe Hockey has today released a series of half-baked ideas about multinational tax. That's not the basis for good public policy.

MEDIA RELEASE

THOUGHT BUBBLES NO SUBSTITUTE FOR GOOD TAX POLICY

Joe Hockey's announcement of 'new' multinational tax measures shows just how out of his depth the Treasurer is when it comes to making companies pay their fair share.

The proposal Mr Hockey has floated today comes with no details and no dollar figure attached. 

At a time when he is crowing about every dollar ripped from the pockets of pensioners, families and university students, Mr Hockey cannot say how much new tax revenue he expects to make by pursuing international firms.

With the federal government's mini-budget due within days, it is increasingly clear that Joe Hockey is going to have to find new savings to make up for a big increase in the deficit. He's already hit the states hard this year with budget cuts - will he do it again?

MEDIA RELEASE

HOW MUCH MORE WILL HOCKEY HOOK IN FROM THE STATES?

Joe Hockey must set the states straight on whether he plans to yank more funding from their books to fill the growing hole in his upcoming mini-budget.

Several of the biggest states – including New South Wales and Queensland – have their own budget updates due before the end of the year.

Back in May, the Treasurer ripped $80 billion in health and education funding from the states with absolutely no warning.

This across-the-board cutback blew a huge hole in their finances, in some cases forcing the states back to the drawing board only weeks after they had handed down their own budgets.

The Treasurer is urgently casting about for new savings for replace his unfair GP tax and higher education changes, all of which are rightly being blocked by the Parliament.

Which side of politics owns the Eureka legend?

An after-dinner debate for the conference on “Eureka’s significance, then and now”

Australian National University

3 December 2014

My thanks to John Moloney for his introduction, Dave Headon for organising tonight’s debate, and the gathered historians for being here on this, the 160th anniversary of Eureka. Let me pay my respects to the Ngunnawal people, the traditional owners of the land and their elders past and present.

I want to particularly thank my three parliamentary colleagues: Nick Champion, Michael McCormack and Lucy Wicks. We don't do enough in parliament that is bipartisan. These three parliamentary colleagues are people who enjoy talking about the role of history in our national conversation, and recognise that history isn't just the stories gone by, it is part of the golden threads that link the past to what we do in the future. 

A thank you to my staff

House of Representatives 

1 December 2014 

Politics is a team sport. In 2014 I am fortunate to have had an exceptional group of people assisting me with speeches, articles, policy ideas and electoral engagement for the most populous electorate in Australia. Thank you to my paid staff: Toni Hassan, Damien Hickman, James Koval, Gus Little, Matthew Jacob, Michael Cooney, Joshua Turner, Jill Peterson, Taimus Werner-Gibbings, Jacob White, Thomas McMahon, Lyndell Tutty, Jennifer Rayner and my chief of staff, Nick Terrell. My interns, fellows and work experience students: Matthew Woodroffe, John Zerilli, Tom Russell-Penny, Kirrily Mackenzie, William Brown, Matthew Zagby, Annabel Johnson, Cameron Amos, Laura Rohan-Jones, Patrick Cooney, Joshua Woodall, Tim O'Hare, Jo Dodds, Caitlin Bunker, Jessica Hudson, Wolffe Gaunt, Daniel De Voss, Tim Griffin, Justine Ramsay, Griffen Murphy, Ben Molan, Harry Dalton and Lillian Bannock. And my office volunteers: Alison Humphreys, Ken Maher, Matthew Zagby, Hayley Pring, Rhianne Grieve, Joanne McCarron, Bernie Davern and Trishna Malhi. Each of these people has qualities I admire. Collectively they are smarter, more patient and more experienced than me. And it goes without saying that they are also funnier and better looking! To everyone on my team: thank you for what you have done this year to assist the people of Fraser, to help me and to make our small contribution to securing a better, fairer, more prosperous and more just future for our great nation.