Andrew Leigh

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP

CANBERRA

MONDAY, 3 DECEMBER 2018

SUBJECTS: World leaders’ game of guess who at the G20, Malcolm Turnbull’s call for an early election, trade, inequality, encryption legislation.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Good morning. My name is Andrew Leigh, the Shadow Assistant Treasurer and federal Member for Fenner. This weekend Scott Morrison was in Argentina, where Donald Trump was asking the questions so many Australians are asking: “where is Malcolm Trumble? What have you done with him? Why did you change the government?” Angela Merkel, like many Australians, is puzzled as to who Scott Morrison is. Like many Australians, having to consult their own cheat sheets in order to work out what the Liberal Party has done. Because unlike Scott Morrison, Malcolm Turnbull actually faced an election. And indeed when he first entered parliament, unlike Scott Morrison, Malcolm Turnbull fairly won a contested preselection.

ANDREW LEIGH MP

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION AND PRODUCTIVITY

SHADOW MINISTER FOR TRADE IN SERVICES

SHADOW MINISTER FOR CHARITIES AND NOT-FOR-PROFITS

MEMBER FOR FENNER

MADELEINE KING MP

SHADOW MINISTER FOR CONSUMER AFFAIRS

SHADOW MINISTER ASSISTING FOR RESOURCES

SHADOW MINISTER ASSISTING FOR SMALL BUSINESS

FEDERAL MEMBER FOR BRAND

A GRAB BAG OF HALF-MEASURES WILL NOT PROPERLY HELP SMALL BUSINESSES OR THE VULNERABLE

Stuart Robert’s latest policy-on-the-run insults Australian small business.

The Minister’s hasty attempts fundamentally miss the point about access to justice for all taxpayers, including the most vulnerable in the community and businesses of all sizes.

The Government needs to fully adopt Labor’s plan - announced 90 days ago - for an independent Second Commissioner for appeals to handle tax disputes for all taxpayers, particularly all small businesses irrespective of their structure or size. It’s a plan which was recommended by the Inspector-General of Taxation, as well as the bipartisan Joint Standing Committee on Tax and Revenue.

SENATOR DON FARRELL

SENATOR FOR SOUTH AUSTRALIA

DEPUTY LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION IN THE SENATE

SHADOW SPECIAL MINISTER OF STATE

SHADOW MINISTER FOR SPORT

ANDREW LEIGH MP

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION AND PRODUCTIVITY

SHADOW MINISTER FOR TRADE IN SERVICES

SHADOW MINISTER FOR CHARITIES AND NOT-FOR-PROFITS

MEMBER FOR FENNER

FOREIGN DONATIONS LAW: THIRD PARTY SUPPORT

“Hands Off Our Charities welcomes the passing of this version of the Bill through the House of Representatives today and is pleased to see a much more sensible Bill get bipartisan support. In December 2017, the Australian Government introduced a flawed Bill which proposed sweeping new constraints and regulation of civil society advocacy. There was an outpouring of opposition to the reforms from charities, community groups, business groups, academics and more. [In April this year] Opposition Leader Bill Shorten released a statement saying that it was the Australian Labor Party’s policy to ban foreign donations but that Labor wouldn’t “support anything that punishes the charity and not-for-profit sector”. The willingness of all parties to work with us to improve this Bill is an important recognition of the role that charities and not-for-profit organisations play in keeping governments accountable and advocating for the public good. This is how democracy should work – civil society speaking up, and parliament working with us cooperatively.”

- Hands Off Our Charities (signatories: Amnesty International Australia, Anglicare Australia,  Australian Conservation Foundation, Australian Council for International Development, Australian Council of Social Service, Australian Environmental Grantmakers Network, Australian Lawyers for Human Rights, Australian Marine Conservation Society, Australian Progress, Caritas Australia, Climate Council of Australia, Digital Rights Watch, Friends of the Earth Australia, Global Health Alliance Melbourne, Greenpeace Australia Pacific, Human Rights Law Centre, Humane Society International Australia, Jesuit Social Services, National Association of Community Legal Centres, Oxfam Australia, People with Disability Australia, Pew Charitable Trusts, Philanthropy Australia, Public Health Association of Australia, Queensland Community Alliance, RESULTS International (Australia), St Vincent de Paul Society National Council, Sunshine Coast Environment Council, Uniting Church in Australia, Synod of Victoria and Tasmania, WWF-Australia and 350 Australia)

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

2GB MONEY WITH ROSS GREENWOOD

TUESDAY, 27 NOVEMBER 2018

SUBJECTS:  Liberal Party’s big economic announcement…of a Budget date; Julia Banks; Labor’s plans to right the economic wrongs of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Governments.

ROSS GREENWOOD: Dr Andrew Leigh is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, he is on the line right now. Thanks for your time, Andrew.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Pleasure, Ross. Great to be back with you.

GREENWOOD: Will this government actually see that May 18 election date? Do you believe, given the fact that had Julia banks defecting to the crossbenchers and now the government does not control either in its own entirety the House of Representatives or the Senate?

LEIGH: Ross, I've been in the parliament for eight years now and rarely have I seen such chaos and dysfunction as what we're seeing today. Julia Banks’ defection was just another episode of any government that's been just lurching from crisis to crisis. This is making Tony Abbott’s reinstatement of knights and dames look like stable and responsible government. Whenever the election is called, we're ready to go.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 27 NOVEMBER 2018

I rise to speak on behalf of the opposition in respect of the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform) Bill 2017. It is 729 days since Senator Farrell introduced opposition legislation in the Senate to ban foreign donations from our political system. Labor believes that political donations from foreign sources are eroding our political system, and urgent attention is required to address this. If you care about foreign cybermeddling in elections, you should care about foreign donations affecting Australian election outcomes.

After the government opposed our bill in the Senate, the Leader of the Opposition sought to progress this urgent reform here, in the House. The government again refused to support this change, so Labor made the unilateral step of saying that we would voluntarily refuse foreign donations. More than a year ago, we acted to say that we would not take foreign political donations, not because the law banned us from doing so but because it is the right thing to do.

I today join with my colleague Senator Farrell in calling on the Prime Minister and every Liberal and National party member of this House to immediately—this moment—stop taking foreign donations. Don't wait for this bill to become law. The member for Mitchell just said that he believes that foreign donations are ‘inappropriate’, yet if you went to his political party right now as a foreign donor with a cheque to give to the Liberal Party of Australia, they would take that money. I say to the Liberal Party of Australia: Say no to British citizens like Lord Ashcroft. Say no to American political donors like Peter Briger. Say no to foreign political donations from any noncitizen, and say it today. Do not take another dollar in foreign donations. Do not wait for this bill to pass the parliament. Act right now, while you can.

SENATOR JENNY MCALLISTER

SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES

SENATOR FOR NEW SOUTH WALES

ANDREW LEIGH MP

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION AND PRODUCTIVITY

SHADOW MINISTER FOR CHARITIES AND NOT-FOR-PROFITS

SHADOW MINISTER FOR TRADE IN SERVICES

MEMBER FOR FENNER

GREATER TAX TRANSPARENCY RECOMMENDED IN AGED CARE

A Senate Committee has recommended greater tax transparency for for-profit aged care providers. 

The Senate Economics References Committee report into Financial and Tax Practices of For-Profit recommends that for-profit aged care organisations that are in receipt of large sums of public money should be subject to more rigorous transparency protocols.

Australians have the right to know the tax practices of large corporations.

SENATOR DON FARRELL

SENATOR FOR SOUTH AUSTRALIA

DEPUTY LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION IN THE SENATE

SHADOW SPECIAL MINISTER OF STATE

SHADOW MINISTER FOR SPORT

ANDREW LEIGH MP

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION AND PRODUCTIVITY

SHADOW MINISTER FOR TRADE IN SERVICES

SHADOW MINISTER FOR CHARITIES AND NOT-FOR-PROFITS

MEMBER FOR FENNER

THE GOVERNMENT MUST NOT TAKE A CENT MORE IN FOREIGN DONATIONS

With the passage of the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform) Bill, foreign money will finally be out of Australian politics.

Prime Minister Morrison must now immediately instruct Liberal and National party officials to stop accepting foreign money.

Not a cent more.

There must be no delay, it can and must be done today.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 26 NOVEMBER 2018

I rise to pay tribute to the life of Dr John Mark Beaton, who passed away in his sleep on 6 November 2018, at the age of 74.

A successful anthropologist, John joined the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 2001. As others have noted, he has not just been at the academy but was the academy. In my own experience with him, he was gentle and generous, warm and funny—somebody who brought life to an institution that could otherwise have been terribly stuffy.

SENATOR DON FARRELL

SENATOR FOR SOUTH AUSTRALIA

DEPUTY LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION IN THE SENATE

SHADOW SPECIAL MINISTER OF STATE

SHADOW MINISTER FOR SPORT

ANDREW LEIGH MP

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION AND PRODUCTIVITY

SHADOW MINISTER FOR TRADE IN SERVICES

SHADOW MINISTER FOR CHARITIES AND NOT-FOR-PROFITS

MEMBER FOR FENNER

BANNING FOREIGN DONATIONS WITHOUT HURTING CHARITIES

Pro Bono, 26 November 2018

In 2009, Rhonda Galbally and Bruce Bonyhady founded the National Disability and Carer Alliance, which auspiced the ‘Every Australian Counts’ campaign. It had an ambitious goal: to build the community case for a National Disability Insurance Scheme. For decades, people had talked about the inadequate patchwork of disability supports, but the cost and complexity had seen it relegated to the bottom of the priority list. In 2013, Parliament passed the scheme into law with bipartisan support.

Community groups are often the drivers of social change. From encouraging supermarkets to phase out battery-farmed eggs to demanding a Royal Commission into misconduct in the financial sector, our charities and not-for-profits have been at the forefront. Even when political leaders are supportive, these groups can build a broad coalition. Franklin D. Roosevelt is quoted (perhaps apocryphally) telling progressive activists who came to see him in the White House: ‘I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it’.

FEDERATION CHAMBER, 26 NOVEMBER 2018

I second the motion.

It is one of those things in sport: you at least expect the other side to take the playing field. But today we are seeing the coalition abandon the playing field. If you look at the speaking lists for the main chamber and for the Federation Chamber, it's like they've just given up and gone home, putting their tail between their legs. In the Federation Chamber today we're looking at a list with something in the order of 20 Labor or independent speakers and just a handful of coalition speakers.