Andrew Leigh

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TV INTERVIEW

LATELINE

TUESDAY, 24 MARCH 2015

SUBJECT/S: budget; Abbott Government’s broken surplus promise

EMMA ALBERICI: Joining me now from Canberra are the Assistant Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh. Gentlemen, welcome.

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER ANDREW LEIGH: Good to be here.

ASSISTANT TREASURER JOSH FRYDENBERG: Hi, Emma.

ALBERICI: Josh Frydenberg, when did the budget crisis end?

FRYDENBERG: Look, we were left a fiscal nightmare by our opponents and we've spent the last 18 months trying to repair it. There's still a long way to go. The key point here is that we were bequeathed spending growth at 3.7 per cent by Labor, and we've reduced that to 1 per cent. We are starting to see green shoots across the economy. Housing starts are up significantly, job advertisements are the highest they've been in 28 months. We're also seeing a good result following the lower Australian dollar – it's a boost for our export industries. Interest rate cuts as well as lower fuel prices are putting more money in the hands of families. So there are some very good signs across the economy but we are still very much focused on fiscal consolidation. 

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TELEVISION INTERVIEW

SKY PM AGENDA

TUESDAY, 24 MARCH 2015

SUBJECT/S: Rise of the sharing economy; Budget; Abbott Government’s cuts to pensions

DAVID SPEERS: You'll be aware of things like Uber – instead of catching a taxi and AirBNB – instead of staying in a hotel. This is a huge growth area at the moment. Services like AirBNB where you can go on a website and find a place to stay in thousands of cities around the world and do it relatively cheaply, it has had incredible growth. It has gone from a company worth about $20,000 to now being worth about $10 billion and it's available in 34,000 cities, 190 countries, 25 million guests have used it. Here in Australia, AirBNB has generated $114 million in economic activity in one year alone in Sydney. But it is completely unregulated at the moment, and is it being taxed enough? A lot of taxi drivers will complain that Uber drivers aren't paying a thing for a taxi licence, and they're cutting their grass essentially. Today the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Andrew Leigh, gave a speech about all this at the National Press Club. He's launched a Discussion Paper and he joins me now. Thank you for your time.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Good to be with you, David. 

SPEERS: This is a fascinating area, because it's a growing part of the economy here and around the world. But potentially it's not really regulated at all at the moment.

LEIGH: That's certainly the challenge, David. And I thought you did a really nice job in your intro there in talking about the sheer growth of this sector. 

SPEERS: Well, I pinched a lot of your numbers.

LEIGH: Just to give you a couple more: one in 10 Sydneysiders has taken a ride-sharing ride, despite Uber having launched there less than a year ago. One in 300 Australian homes are currently listed on AirBNB. So we see the possibilities of this being good for consumers. But Labor is also concerned to make sure that workers are looked after and that we have the appropriate public safety protections that really allow this industry to flourish.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

TRIPLE J HACK

TUESDAY, 24 MARCH 2015

SUBJECT/S: rise of the sharing economy

TOM TILLEY: Labor MP Andrew Leigh stood up at the National Press Club today and said Labor supports the sharing economy. Let's find out if he really means it: Andrew Leigh, thanks for joining us.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: It's a pleasure, Tom.

TILLEY: What are your favourite sharing economy apps that you use regularly?

LEIGH: Overseas I've used AirBNB and Uber and found them both to be good services. I also use hotels and taxis – it's quite a mix. So I guess you could say I'm a combined user of traditional services and a bit of sharing economy as well.

TILLEY: Ok, well these markets seem like they're going to exist with or without government intervention. We heard about the battle for Uber but there's plenty of people still catching Ubers even though governments in the states are trying to crack down on them. Do governments really have a choice whether you support these markets or not? Isn't it more of a question of going with the tide?

LEIGH: Tom, I think you're certainly right that these applications are having a huge impact on traditional markets. You look at the market capitalisation of Uber at $40 billion, it's now bigger than Hertz or Marriot Hotels. One-tenth of Sydneysiders have used a ride-sharing service and it's less than a year since Uber launched. One in 300 Australian homes are now on AirBNB. But that doesn't mean that government doesn't have an obligation to make sure that we encourage innovation while also protecting public safety.

Sharing the Future: Competition in the App Age

National Press Club
Canberra

I acknowledge the Ngunnawal people, the traditional owners of the land we meet on today, and thank the National Press Club for the invitation to speak with you. I also thank my parliamentary colleagues who have joined me, including Terri Butler, Pat Conroy, Mark Dreyfus, Ed Husic, Clare O’Neil, Melissa Parke and Tim Watts. It’s an honour to serve alongside each of you. If you’ve spoken with them, you will know that it’s impossible to come away from a conversation with any of these people and not feel optimistic about the future of the ALP.

I was proud to stand with Bill Shorten and Chris Bowen just a few weeks ago when we announced our package for fair taxation of multinational companies – a fully costed policy package, grounded in work from the OECD, delivered in the first half of the parliamentary term. You don’t see that every day.

Our multinational tax package is about ensuring Australia’s tax system keeps pace with changing business practices in an increasingly global economy. We want to see big multinationals pay their fair share of tax. We also want to see all businesses – big and small, local and international alike – have a fair chance of succeeding because they are competing on a level playing field where the same rules apply to all. 

MEDIA RELEASE

LABOR RISES TO THE CHALLENGE OF THE SHARING ECONOMY

Labor today launched a new Discussion Paper on the rise of the sharing economy to help release the in this innovative new sector.

Australia has a housing affordability crisis, yet there are nine million spare bedrooms across the nation.

Some of our major cities are in gridlock, yet the majority of cars carry only one person. Many people own a power drill, yet use it less than an hour a year.

Sharing economy services can help us make more efficient use of the world’s existing stock of bedrooms, cars, tools and more.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TV INTERVIEW

SKY AM AGENDA

MONDAY, 23 MARCH 2015

SUBJECT/S: Emissions reductions targets; Budget; Moss Review; Pyne the ‘fixer’

KIERAN GILBERT: This is AM Agenda, thanks very much for your company. With me now, the Assistant Defence Minister Stuart Robert and the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Andrew Leigh. Good morning gentlemen. First on the carbon emissions target, is the nation on track to meet the 5 per cent reduction by 2020 despite all the warnings of the Labor Party and other critics that direct action would not be enough?

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Well Kieran, from all the data I've seen, emissions have been increasing not decreasing under this Government, you look at the official emissions data and they fell under the period of the carbon price, reductions around the order of around 1 per cent a year clearly on target, since then emissions have been tracking back upwards. If the Government's getting any future reduction emissions it's probably through their goading the car industry to leave and overseeing the death of manufacturing in Australian rather than because they actually have good policies. We're still yet to find a credible economist who thinks that paying polluters is a better way of reducing emissions than a market based approach.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP

CANBERRA

MONDAY, 23 MARCH 2015

SUBJECT/S: Government’s lack of budget strategy; Lee Kuan Yew; Homelessness funding; Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Today the Parliament will be honouring Malcolm Fraser, a prime minister whose record on multiculturalism and on issues like apartheid is certainly to be admired. He was somebody who helped thousands of Vietnamese refugees settle in Australia and when other countries were fragile on questions of race, he took a very clear stance on the moral issue of apartheid. We'll also be now just a few days away from the next budget coming down. Extraordinarily, Australia is still talking about the unfairness of the last budget. We've got Tony Abbott, who when debt was one-seventh of national income, thought it was appropriate to drive debt trucks around, now thinks it's ok when debt is heading to half of national income. To my mind, that would require a debt aircraft carrier rather than a debt truck. This is a government which has lost the confidence of the Australian people because rather than being focused on the long-term future of 24 million Australians, it is obsessed by the short-term political prospects of 20 Cabinet ministers. Happy to take questions.

An Australian Republic 

17 March 2015 

Walter Scott said:

Breathes there a man with soul so

dead, Who never to himself hath said;

This is my own, my native land.

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.

This bill brings the monarchy into the 19th century. It ensures that the sexism inherent in the current arrangements is no longer present, that a firstborn girl can succeed in preference to her younger brother. It ensures that marrying a Catholic is no longer a bar to ascending to our head of state. But it fails to ensure that any of my three little boys—Sebastian, Theodore or Zachary—could one day aspire to be Australia's head of state or, indeed, that any of the 800 children born today could be Australia's head of state.

Public service cuts and Abbott's disregard for Canberra

19 March 2015

Prime Minister Abbott told a press conference this week that the upcoming budget would be 'much less exciting' than last year's. This suggests to me that the Prime Minister found it exciting to end the jobs of 11,000 public servants. Many of them reside in my electorate. This cut to the Public Service is the deepest yearly cut since John Howard's first term as Prime Minister.

Many Commonwealth agencies are currently reluctant or unable to take on full-time permanent staff, due to restraints on recruitment. But they are spending more on hiring contractors. I have spoken in this place before about a couple who approached me at my mobile office in Gungahlin. They said that the only thing holding them back from starting a family was the fact that due to the hiring freeze she had not been granted an ongoing job, and without the security of maternity leave, they did not feel they could start a family. So much for a family-friendly government.

Corporate Taxation 

19 March 2015

Since coming to office, the Abbott government has given $1.1 billion of tax breaks back to multinationals while cutting family payments for low- and middle-income households and cutting the wages of the cleaners who clean their offices. With so much recent speculation and concern about how much tax big companies really pay, there is a need for hard numbers to better inform the public debate.

At present there is simply no way to find out how much tax the largest companies pay or easily compare the reporting of publicly listed ones. A Senate inquiry into corporate tax avoidance has underlined the need for greater tax transparency in Australia. A third of the submissions to that inquiry backed the public release of more information on how much tax companies really pay. A majority of those submissions raised concerns about the availability and accuracy of corporate tax data. It is clear that the Abbott government needs to act to improve tax transparency.