Andrew Leigh

Confronting family violence, Canberra Times, 1 July

In the house where Emma* grew up, family violence was a regular part of life. Her father was abusive to Emma’s mother, and to the children. Emma told me that the smell of Dettol still evokes fear, as it reminds her of her mother’s injuries. Eventually, the harm that Emma’s mother sustained during her life would contribute to her early death at age 69.

When she grew up, Emma was determined not to suffer what her own mother had endured. But over the coming decades, she would find herself in two abusive relationships. In each case, she told me, there were some people – like the police officers to whom she reported the violence – who were supportive.

But then there were others who didn’t seem to understand her situation. One person suggested that perhaps it was just a ‘relationship problem’, and she needed to work harder to resolve it. Others questioned whether she had reported the violence from the very first blow, and suggested that she was a bad mother to her children if she had not sought an apprehended violence order immediately.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TV INTERVIEW

SKY AM AGENDA

MONDAY, 29 JUNE 2015

 

SUBJECT/S: Australian Climate Roundtable; Mafia infiltration of the Liberal Party; Electoral funding

 

KIERAN GILBERT: Gentlemen, thanks for joining me. With me I have the Assistant Social Services Minister Mitch Fifield and Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh. Andrew, to you first of all on this climate roundtable involving key business groups, unions, welfare groups, investors, environmental groups, all agreeing to parameters that so far the Federal Parliament and the nation's politicians haven't been able to agree to. Should this provide some impetus, do you think, for some sort of bipartisanship here?

 

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER ANDREW LEIGH: Kieran, it's a great initiative. I really hope that we're able to kick Australia forwards along a path that so many other countries in the world are travelling down. You know, China's emissions fell last year – possibly just a temporary drop – but people now think they're going to peak around 2025 which is much earlier than previously anticipated. But what we've got in Australia is the Government setting up a Wind Farm Commissioner, we've got them debating motions at Liberal Party Conference denying climate science, we've got the Abbott Government really backing away from where the rest of the world is going. Britain, New Zealand, the United States – all these countries are taking serious action on climate change. Meanwhile Australia is being described by Kofi Annan as a climate villain. We need to step up to the plate on accepting that the science is real and doing something about it.

Why should we care about inequality? Sydney Morning Herald, 29 June

Dutch economist Jan Pen once suggested a simple way of visualising the amount of inequality in a society. Imagine, he suggested, a parade, in which each person’s resources were represented by their height.

Suppose we were to conduct such a parade in Australia. People of average wealth would be average height. Those with half the average wealth would be half the average height. Those with twice the average wealth would be twice the average height.

Let’s suppose the parade took an hour to pass you. What would you see?

For the first half a minute, people would be literally underground. These are the people with more debts than assets. Perhaps they are homeless, but have credit card debts. Or they are a business owner about to go bankrupt.

Then would come the little people. For the first few minutes, they are no bigger than Lego figures. They might have some clothing and a television, but little else. By the ten minute mark, people are the size of a child’s doll. They might own an old car.

Twenty minutes have gone by, but still the marchers are no taller than a newborn baby. Most probably don’t have regular work. Few would dream about them – or their children – breaking into the central Sydney property market.

Forty-five minutes in, and the watcher can now look the marchers in the eye. These are homeowners with well-paying jobs – in many cases probably with two full-time workers in the household. 

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TV INTERVIEW

PVO NEWSDAY

THURSDAY, 25 JUNE 2015

SUBJECT/S: Citizenship; IMF report; Q&A; Infrastructure

PETER VAN ONSELEN: Joining me now from Canberra I have the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, Christian Porter, and Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh, two men probably better known for their careers before politics. Andrew, you were a prolific professor of economics at ANU, and Christian Porter, you were a former state Treasurer in WA – I bet you're glad you're not in that role now with the way their budget is looking. Gentlemen, thanks for your company. Let's start by talking about citizenship. I want to ask you, Christian Porter: are you comfortable about stripping the citizenship of minors? That wasn't, as I understand it, in the 1948 Citizenship Act but it will be in the new legislation.

PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE PRIME MINISTER CHRISTIAN PORTER: I'm not entirely sure whether your assessment there about the first run of the s35 drafting is correct. But nevertheless, the Minister here has the residual ability to exempt persons who would otherwise fall into the category. So I'm more than comfortable with the way in which it has been drafted. It seems to me to be rather elegantly drafted with a mind to constitutionality.

SENATE PASSES MOTION OF SUPPORT FOR CHARITIES COMMISSION 

The Senate has today voiced support for the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission in the face of ongoing uncertainty about its future under the Abbott Government.

Labor moved a motion acknowledging the strong support the commission has within the charity sector and called on the Abbott Government to drop plans to scrap it.

In March last year the Government introduced a bill to Parliament to repeal the charities commission. That bill has remained on the Notice Paper even after Scott Morrison replaced Kevin Andrews as Social Services minister and acknowledged that abolishing the commission was not his priority. 

DIGITAL CANBERRA iAWARDS

SKILLS FOR THE FUTURE WE CAN’T PREDICT

 Thank you to Suzanne Campbell from the Australian Information Industry Association for inviting me to be with you tonight, and to iAwards team for putting together such a great event. I’ve just come from a day up on the Hill with my parliamentary friends and foes, trying to find solutions to the very concrete and prosaic challenges that are right in front of us. Because of that, it’s very exciting and energising to be amongst a group of people who have their eyes lifted instead to the digital and technological horizon.

Predicting what lies ahead in that future is a notoriously risky business. William Preece from the British Post Office proved that back in 1876 when he confidently asserted: ‘the Americans have need of the telephone, but in England we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.” I might try telling my sons that when they get to the age where they start asking for iPhones. 

Henry Parkes envisaged a federated Australia not held back by its vast size and relative isolation. On the 200th anniversary of his birth I took the opportunity to reflect on his contribution to Australian egalitarianism and the contemporary debate about access to education.

Henry Parkes and Australian Egalitarianism 

House of Representatives

22 June 2015 

Americans revere founding fathers. Yet in Australia, as a younger and possibly more modest nation, we often seem less likely to trumpet their achievements or even to know their names. Sir Henry Parkes' achievement is all around us. Rightly regarded as the 'Father of Federation', this 27 May marked 200 years since his birth. Moving to Australia from the UK, Parkes would go on to become NSW Premier. An autodidact from a working class family, he would also become one of the most articulate and powerful advocates for a federated Australia, noting the crimson thread of citizenship which ran through our nation.

Parkes served as NSW Premier on five separate occasions. In that office, he implemented sweeping political and social reforms including the landmark Public Schools Act and the expansion of free trade policies. Jane Reynolds' Foundation 1901 seeks to expand the knowledge of Henry Parkes. 

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

ONLINE INTERVIEW

FAIRFAX BREAKING POLITICS

MONDAY, 22 JUNE 2015

SUBJECT/S: Abbott Government’s secret school cuts plans; Citizenship; People smuggling; Economic situation in Greece

CHRIS HAMMER: Andrew Leigh is Labor’s member for Fraser here in the ACT and he’s also the Shadow Assistant Treasurer – good morning.

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER ANDRW LEIGH: Good morning, Chris.

HAMMER: Now, suddenly out there this morning is a Government discussion paper on schools and education – your observations?

LEIGH: It’s a secret plan for cuts to Australian schools that I think ought to be deeply disturbing for all parents. One of the great things about our public education system is that it recognises that everybody can send their child to a local public school without needing to pay. That gives you a greater diversity of backgrounds and local schools, and reflects the fact that when a child gets more education there’s a public good component to that. One of the whacky things about this paper is it seems to suggest that the Commonwealth has a natural role for funding non-government schools, but no natural role for funding government schools. I can’t see any economic logic in that.

MORE HOLES SHOWING IN JOE’S FLIMSY TAX PACKAGE

The Abbott Government’s rushed and flimsy multinational tax package continues to unravel, with the Law Council of Australia warning Treasurer Joe Hockey not to go ahead with his draft bill.

In a submission on the Exposure Draft of the Government’s proposed changes to Part VI A of the Tax Act, the council has cautioned that the Treasurer’s plan:

“does not accord with, and in many respects derogates from, key design principles for a fair and effective tax and transfer system."  

The Council has highlighted a range of problems with the proposal, including that it will create different levels of taxation for companies carrying out similar business activities, and risks breaching Australia’s existing Double Taxation Agreements. 

Homelessness and Housing Affordability 

Federation Chamber 

15 June 2015 

The degradation and inequity caused by homelessness are a blight on our civilised society. As the motion reflects, on any given night over 100,000 Australians are without a home. Here in the ACT we have the second-highest rate of homelessness in the country, behind only the Northern Territory. On census night in 2011, 1,785 Canberrans were homeless. The total homeless numbers were up since the 2006 census, albeit that the number of rough sleepers for the ACT was down.

I want to speak to two common misconceptions about homelessness and to use evidence from my own home town to provide clear illustrations as to why those notions are false. The first misguided perception is that homeless people have no-one to blame but themselves; if they could just work harder, some say, then their lot would improve. But people fall into homelessness for a variety of reasons as compelling as they are indiscriminate: domestic violence, housing unaffordability and mental illness are common drivers of homelessness.