Andrew Leigh

This morning I was a guest of AM Agenda on Sky News. I joined Liberal Senator Mitch Fifield and television host Laura Jayes to discuss the morning's headlines with subjects including disaster relief, climate change, a commonwealth commission of audit and asylum seekers.

TRANSCRIPT

Sky News AM Agenda with Laura Jayes



MONDAY 21  OCTOBER  2013



LAURA JAYES: Let's go to our panel now and the Assistant Minister for Social Services, Mitch Fifield, and the new Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Andrew Leigh, congratulations to you. First Mitch Fifield, looking at this situation, can you tell us what kind of payments are available for bushfire victims; what kind of assistance they can expect from the government here?

MITCH FIFIELD: Sure. Well, the Australian Government Disaster Relief payments are in operation and that's a thousand dollars to eligible adults and $400 for eligible kids. That's being made available to people whose homes have been destroyed, whose homes have been damaged or who have sustained an injury. In parallel with that are joint commonwealth/state disaster arrangements which make provision for food, clothing, [and] accommodation. People who have queries, who want to know what's available should get in contact with the Commonwealth Department of Human Services who are acting as the lead Commonwealth agency on the ground in those areas.

JAYES: I understand that the eligibility payments have been changed when it comes to federal assistance [for] from those who've had their home destroyed or severely damaged. To those who have been cut off or their electricity has been cut off from their homes, they're no longer available, eligible for these payments. Is that correct?

FIFIELD: There's a range of categories which can be activated for any emergency. The decision that the government has taken is to initially provide assistance to those who have been directly and immediately affected by way of [their] home being damaged or destroyed. As the situation develops the Government will continue to assess the situation.

JAYES: Andrew Leigh, this is a change from Labor policy. These payments still going to the most effected.

ANDREW LEIGH: They are going to the most affected Laura. But I would urge the Government on this case, be a little more generous to open up that payment category to people who've been unable to access their home in the previous 24 hours. The trauma that comes from being cut off from your home, I know that for many of these Blue Mountains residents, whether they're living in evacuation centres at the moment and the challenges you face with kids. I think that's an appropriate use of taxpayer funds. So, I hope that the government does change that decision there because I'm a little concerned by the reports I read in the paper today about challenges for families accessing payments.

JAYES: Okay, we'll move on to some political policy areas and one thing that has been bubbling away is the Carbon Tax issued. This will be considered by Shadow Cabinet today, no doubt. You've also accused Greg Hunt of playing politics with climate change. What do you mean by that?

LEIGH: Well, at the moment what we've seen from the Coalition is a bill to repeal the carbon price but not a bill to put anything in its place. So, what they want to do is they want to scrap the measure that's already working to reduce at lower cost than we anticipated and replace it with, well, we don't really know. I mean as Malcolm Turnbull pointed out a couple of years ago the chief virtue of Direct Action is its ability to be easily dismantled if one decides to that climate change isn't real. But after the hottest winter on record which followed the hottest summer on record I think it's very clear that climate change is happening. Humans are causing it. We need to deal with it in the cheapest possible way.

JAYES: Do you point to this bushfire situation as an example of climate action in action?

LEIGH: I don't think any particular event can be traced to climate change, but we do know that climate change is going to cause more extreme weather events and more of those extremely hot days. We've seen that in the weather records in Australia just over the past year.

JAYES: Mitch Fifield, the Direct Action plan, this is certainly an area that Labor is trying to shift the debate from Carbon Tax to focus on the Direct Action plan. Do you see weaknesses here for the Government?

FIFIELD: Look, it's only, Greg Hunt outlined before the election, in fact, two elections back, the broad outline of our Direct Action plan and further detail of that will be presented by the Minister. But you're right Labor are trying to deflect to another subject because they don't want to talk about the fact that they introduced a Carbon Tax. They don't want to talk about the fact that the electorate comprehensively repudiated the fact that they introduced a Carbon Tax, despite the fact that former Prime Minister Gillard said that she never would and that Labor never would. What's entirely unclear at the moment is what Labor are going to do when the Carbon Tax repeal legislation hits the parliament.

JAYES: Andrew Leigh, there seems to be a split within the party at the moment. WA Senator Mark Bishop, just the latest, saying that Labor should let this legislation go, go through. Nick Champion was the first after the election to say that Labor should abstain in the Senate and shift the fight to Direct Action. What do you think the party should do?

LEIGH: Well Laura, certainly Mr Abbott has been a weather vane on climate change but I don't think we ought to. Just because the Prime Minister has held every conceivable position on this issue...

JAYES: Do you accept that not everyone's on board?

LEIGH: I think this is a challenging issue as things often are after an election. But our party policy is very clear. Pricing carbon is the most straight forward way, the cheapest way. And if you go to the Direct Action, frankly, what that's doing is to cut taxes on polluters and raises taxes on workers...

JAYES: Should Labor go to the next election then promising to reinstate a ETS?

LEIGH: We've just had an election. I don't think we're about to sit here laying out our policies for the next election but I can tell you is that our policy is very clearly that pricing carbon is the cheapest way of dealing with climate change. Households can't afford Direct Action. It's just too expensive.

FIFIELD: Labor's policy is anything but clear. Andrew's saying it's clear but are they going to support the Carbon Tax repeal legislation. Simple question - ‘yes or no?’ Mark Bishop is someone I've got a great deal of respect for and he has made it clear that Labor should heed the message from the election and that is to support the repeal of the Carbon Tax. Labor can't say their position is clear until they give us an answer on that.

LEIGH: Have you ever said you had respect for him before this very moment now Mitch? Is it just the fact that he...

FIFIELD: Well, actually as fond as I am of you, I have frequently expressed my admiration in the Senate for Mark Bishop. He is a quality Senator.

JAYES: Just the last question on this Andrew Leigh. It hasn't been clear over the last week, you'd have to say. There's been debate publicly and both privately I understand. So, when Shadow Cabinet meet, you do expect a fight over this? There are some within Labor who just want to let the legislation go through and there are some who want to fight it all the way to the election.

LEIGH: We'll have reasonable discussions on this and other things Laura and I've got strong respect for people like Nick and Mark who take an alternative view. But ultimately you ask me my view and that is that pricing carbon is the right reform. It's the reform that Labor has been committed for the 2007, 2010 and 2013 elections. I think we ought to stick with it because it’s the cheapest and most effective strategy.

JAYES: Okay. Andrew Leigh, Mitch Fifield, don't go away. After the break we're going to look at this commission of audit and also the issue of asylum seekers.

(Commercial)

JAYES: Welcome back. Andrew Leigh and Mitch Fifield join me on the panel this morning. Mitch Fifield, first to you, the commission of audit. The terms of reference are due to signed off by cabinet tomorrow, as I understand it. There are also reports this will look at structural saves than short term budget saves. Is this the right way to go? And is this a change from what was promised at the election?

FIFIELD: The commission of audit and its terms of reference will be released in the near term. We've always said that the purpose of a commission of audit was to look at how to make government as efficient as possible. How to ensure that taxpayer dollars get the maximum value and that remains the case. The scope and the terms of reference, we'll see when they're released.

JAYES: Andrew Leigh, what will also be signed off on in cabinet is the repeal legislation for the Mining Tax. This is one of Tony Abbott's promises in the first 100 days of government. We've been kind of sidelined by looking at the Carbon Tax and focusing on that but what will Labor do here when it comes to that legislation?

LEIGH: It's a great irony isn't it Laura? You've got the Coalition running a commission of audit where they are trying to find savings by cutting services to the poorest Australians and then you've got them sitting there signing off on mining tax repeal which is going to give huge tax break to some rich mining billionaires. Put those two together, if you didn't get rid of a profit-based mining tax you be able to pay decent wages to childcare workers. You wouldn't have to rip away superannuation...

JAYES: But the Mining Tax under Labor didn't raise as much as was forecast so...

LEIGH: Well, the Commonwealth Treasury has in its forward estimates, I think it's around five billion dollars in mining tax revenue. That's not trivial when you're talking about the sorts of cuts that the Coalition is looking at making to services that affect the most disadvantaged.

JAYES: Mitch Fifield.

FIFIELD: Well, we've got to come back to the fact that the MRRT was a confidence sapping and therefore job destroying tax.

LEIGH: How? It either raises no money or it saps confidence, come on.

FIFIELD: No, you can. It did cause pause for foreign investors in relation to Australia. You do have options when you are a foreign investor as to which country you put your money into. So, it did hit confidence. It did hit the certainty in terms of the policy environment in Australia and that's damaging. And perversely, it also raised, and I think the technical economic term is, 'stuff all money', um, and yet the previous government managed the unique feat of spending money that hadn't actually come in. So, it's not a good tax. We will get rid of it and Labor should support that.

JAYES: Are you confident the Government will be able to achieve a surplus earlier than what Labor has promised, because there are reports this morning that in fact, Deloitte Access Economics has put out a report saying reaching a sustainable surplus will be a herculean task with growth below trend. Is this something to government should be sticking to. Is this just playing politics with it or is it something you can absolute commit to?

FIFIELD: We're not playing politics. We'll do what we always have to do after we form government and that is repay Labor's debts.

JAYES: That's a hell or high water promise?

FIFIELD: Well, we've got to get the budget back under control. We've got to get the budget onto a sustainable footing. Government has to live within its means and that's what we've got to do.

JAYES: Andrew Leigh, this report would suggest that, well, below trend growth until 2015. There's certainly a job ahead for the Government?

LEIGH: It's pretty concerning isn't it Laura? Let's remember why we have a profits based mining tax. We had a tax review done, headed by Ken Henry. Its major recommendation was that the best way of taxing minerals is to make sure that when the world price goes up, Australians actually get a share of that increase in price. If you scrap the mining tax, and go back to the old royalties’ regime, you're basically saying if the iron ore price goes up tenfold, Australians enjoy none of that benefit. I don't think that's fair, and it's certainly not fair when the government is looking at cutting back superannuation to low income Australians.

JAYES: I just want to turn to the asylum seeker issue now, Mitch Fifield. The was concerns raised yesterday by Tony Burke that the way in which we are getting information on the number of boat arrivals and what happens on Manus Island, well it is creating a culture of secrecy and a culture of cover up that could lead to incidents down the track, in ten years or so, where you see more issues like we did see with Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez. Do you see any of those concerns and how can they be alleviated?

FIFIELD: Yeah, look there's no culture of secrecy or hiding of information. There's...

JAYES: Perhaps though it's not timely in the way journalists and the Australian public are getting information. The incident on Manus Island for example, we got an update yesterday late, but it did take a number of days to source clarification as to what actually happened.

FIFIELD: Well, Scott Morrison and the commander of ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’ are doing very comprehensive weekly briefings and where there are other incidents on occasion, where additional information is warranted and needed, then that's provided and that's the case with the Manus Incident of a few days ago so the objective here is to make sure that every tool that the government has at its disposal to beat the people smugglers and to destroy their trade is deployed and the government will be upfront about what's happening, but look we're...

JAYES: And are these policies starting to work? Is that what we're seeing in the reduced number of boat arrivals?

FIFIELD: Well, I'll leave it to Scott Morrison to provide commentary as to the efficacy of the particular measures, but the early signs are promising.

JAYES: Andrew Leigh, are the boats starting to stop and is it due to the new government's policies or the previous Labor government?

LEIGH: Well, we were already seeing a decline in boat arrival numbers before the election Laura, but really under the Coalition only two things have changed. You've seen a removal of the regular updates when boats arrive, a new veil of secrecy has descended over the department, and then you've seen Mr Morrison's insistence that all boat arrivals be referred to as illegals - as though the real problem with Australia is that our public culture wasn't hostile enough to refugees already. But frankly, those measures aren't going to have an impact on boat arrivals. The towing back of the tow back policy after Mr Abbott visited Indonesia I think, has made clear that really what you've got are the settings put in place under our government with the refugee resettlement agreement.

JAYES: Tony Burke claimed yesterday that it was the PNG resettlement plan, in part or mostly that has seen in a decline in the number of boats. Do you agree with him?

LEIGH: I do. It's a very firm message that we're sending to people smugglers. It's a very clear one. Don't get on a boat. Don't risk the lives of yourself and your children because you do you won't be resettled in Australia. Its impact was, I think, to avert drownings at sea and we thought to allow us to take more refugees but the Coalition's cut back.

JAYES: Mitch Fifield, I'll quickly get your response to that.

FIFIELD: It needs to be remembered that it was Labor in government who dismantled offshore processing in the first place and said it was immoral to do and then, in the face of reality, had no option but to start to implement, some, not all, some elements of our policy.

JAYES: But they fixed it though.

FIFIELD: Look, they, Labor didn't fix it because they didn't put in place all the previous elements of our policy which we are setting out doing.

JAYES: Okay, Mitch Fifield, Andrew Leigh, we will have to leave it there.

LEIGH: Thanks Laura. Thanks Mitch.

FIFIELD: Thanks.

JAYES: Thanks for joining me this morning.

Yesterday, my federal ACT colleagues and I issued a media release condemning the Abbott Government's plan to cut public service job at an extraordinary speed in coming months.

20 October 2013

COALITION TO CUT A PUBLIC SERVICE JOB EVERY HOUR

Federal Labor representatives in the ACT say Coalition policy costings provided on Friday would send a chill up the spine of Canberra public servants.

The Parliamentary Budget Office Post-election Report confirms details of the Abbott Government's plans affecting the Australian Public Service (APS).

The APS will be reduced by 6,000 staff in the nine months to June 2014. That's one public service job lost every single hour until the end of the financial year. A further 6,000 jobs will go in the two years after that.

Four agencies are exempt from the cuts – Australian Customs, Australian Federal Police, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and Australian Secret Intelligence Service. Only serving military and reservists are exempt in Defence.

“This confirms that thousands of public servants in the Defence Department in Canberra face uncertainty,” said Gai Brodtmann.

“We now know where the cuts won't come from, but we don't know yet where they will come from, how they will be delivered and what impact they will have on frontline services” she added.

Andrew Leigh said, “It's hard to believe the speed and severity of the cuts won't erode public services.”

“We have already heard how Centrelink call centres, hit by staff cuts, are struggling to meet customer needs. This disproportionately affects low-income Australians needing tailored support.”

The PBO notes that its findings are of “low or medium reliability” because of the data available to it.

“The savings are difficult to forecast because it relies on who leaves the APS and when,” added Dr Leigh.

“We can only assume that these cuts are not motivated by wanting to trim waste, but by Prime Minister Abbott’s disdain for Canberra and ideological opposition to the public service,” said Senator Kate Lundy.

“Since Prime Minister’s Abbott’s election, I’ve been calling on him to come clean with the detail of his planned public service cuts,” Senator Lundy said.

“The Abbott Government seems to be operating under a cloak of secrecy. Canberrans deserve to know how these 12,000 job cuts are going to be delivered, and what further cuts the Abbott Government has in mind.”

My op-ed today discusses the flaws of Direct Action - as outlined by a prominent member of Cabinet.

Put the heat on Abbott, The Australian, 21 October 2013

Australians just experienced a winter of discontent; the hottest on record.

We are bracing ourselves for a shocking summer. It has been too hot in NSW to even continue property-saving hazard reduction. Climate change is a clear and present danger to the nation.

This is no time to be playing political games on climate change. But, alas, Environment Minister Greg Hunt seems to be doing just that: putting up repeal legislation without a detailed alternative plan to tackle climate change.

The Coalition's vague Direct Action policy will do less and cost more than a carbon price. It's hard to find a serious economist who will argue otherwise.

In May 2011, Malcolm Turnbull pointed to the flaws in Direct Action: "Liberals reject the idea that governments know best. Schemes where bureaucrats and politicians pick technologies and winners. Doling out billions of taxpayers' dollars is neither economically efficient nor will it be environmentally effective."

Turnbull later described Direct Action as having the "virtue" of being easily terminated.

"If you believe climate change is going to be proved to be unreal, then a scheme like that can be brought to an end." Not much consolation after the hottest 12 months on record.

My colleague Mark Butler was spot on when he said last week that the legislation the government would present to the parliament in November was simply duplicitous:

"(It) presents parts which he (Greg Hunt) thinks are attractive to the parliament very quickly and leaves those bits which he knows have failed over three years to attract one single significant supporter from the climate science or the economics field."

In 2009, Turnbull wrote: "It is not possible to criticise the new Coalition policy on climate change because it does not exist. Mr Abbott apparently knows what he is against, but not what he is for." Today the same is true. Just as they have played "hide the boats" and "hide the ministers", the Coalition is now playing "hide the legislation".

Negativity and secrecy were hallmarks of the Coalition in opposition. Not much has changed in government.

Coalition members should remember that a mandate means people who campaign on a platform should vote that way on the floor of parliament. For example, the Coalition took a carbon pricing plan to the 2007 election, so failed to recognise their mandate when they voted down carbon pricing in 2009. What a mandate does not mean is that parties should abandon their election pledges if they lose.

Sure, Mr Abbott's life would be easier if my Labor colleagues and I turned into rubber stamps, but that's not how democracy works. Mr Abbott should instead focus on the approach for which both parties have a mandate: ending the fixed price period on July 1, 2014, and moving immediately to an emissions trading scheme.

If he did that he could still claim that he had "axed the tax", but we would be left with a low-cost alternative. Instead, households will end up paying thousands of dollars a year to pay polluters: in a bizarre command-and-control scheme that won't do the job.

Andrew Leigh is the federal member for Fraser. www.andrewleigh.com

MEDIA RELEASE

Andrew Leigh

Shadow Assistant Treasurer
Shadow Minister for Competition
Member for Fraser

FRIDAY 18^TH OCTOBER 2013

I am delighted with the opportunity to serve in the Opposition’s economic team as Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Shadow Minister for Competition.

I thank my colleagues for giving me the chance to serve in the Shadow Ministry, and thank Opposition Leader Bill Shorten for entrusting me with this role.

Labor has a proud economic record. We saved Australia from recession, built vital infrastructure projects and invested in a better education system. With the carbon price package, we switched the tax mix: lowering the tax burden on work and increasing it on pollution. Inflation stayed low, and we maintained the open-economy settings that have helped raise prosperity.

The work of improving productivity and boosting innovation is vital in raising living standards for all Australians. And the ethos of the fair go demands policies that narrow the gap, rather than perpetuate inequality.

Over the next three years, I will be enthusiastically engaging with the business community, the social sector, the union movement, and my former colleagues in academia.

I particularly look forward to working with the other members of our economic team, including Chris Bowen, Tony Burke, Ed Husic and Bernie Ripoll.

ENDS

This morning I joined 666 ABC host Ross Solly and Liberal MP Peter Hendy for a discussion about parliamentary entitlements, carbon policy and mandates. I argued that as the member for Fraser, I would be breaking faith with north Canberrans if I backed away from a carbon tax and the transition to an emissions trading scheme. Listen to the audio by clicking here.

This morning I spoke with 2CC presenter Mark Parton about the new Labor frontbench featuring 11 women appointed yesterday by leader Bill Shorten. Labor's ministry team again highlights the disappointing lack of diversity in Tony Abbott's cabinet. Listen to the full interview or read the transcript:

TUESDAY 15  OCTOBER  2013

MARK PARTON: Well, we will get the full unveiling of the Labor front bench, the opposition front bench on Friday, but we know that Andrew Leigh, the Federal Member for Fraser is back where he belongs. He's a part of the main team.  He's on the line now. Hello Andrew.

ANDREW LEIGH: G'day Mark. Thank you for that, that's very kind of you.

PARTON: Well, I mean and you know because I've said it publicly for a long time. I just am of the belief that you're one of the most talented and smartest people on the team and you should be in the cockpit driving the plane for God's sake. Now I'm sure, I'm sure that you know more about what portfolio you're going to end up with.

LEIGH: I don't actually. I haven't had the opportunity.

PARTON: Oh come on Andrew.

LEIGH: I'm looking forward to sitting down with Bill Shorten at some stage during the week, but haven't had the chance to even have that face-to-face discussion with him and, as he put it, if you have some sense as to what you're doing then go away and tell your spouse and then walk into an empty room and tell that empty room as well. So I'll be following that sage advice if I do find out what I'm getting.

PARTON: How does it work though? Like in the lead up to now and Friday, you can't tell me that you're not going to have discussions. Are you going to, I mean, do people lobby and say ‘hey, I'd really like this or I'd really like that’.

LEIGH: That's right. People will talk about where they think they'd be best placed to make a contribution. There'll be people who served for a while in particular roles and want to continue doing it. There'll be people who want to move on and Bill Shorten has to take all of that information, crunch it down and produce the best allocation of portfolios.

PARTON: Are you in a position to tell us what you'd like or would you rather not?

LEIGH: Well look, let's stick with your plane analogy Mark. I'm just excited to have gotten a ticket on the plane. I'm making no grabs for the cockpit controls just yet.

PARTON: I've gotta say, I'm a little taken aback by the way that the media focuses on these ructions and you know, the fact that some people are unhappy. Got to understand that everyone that runs for political office has an ego, because if you didn't have an ego, you couldn't do this job. And so when people, more than the required amount of people are going for a certain amount of positions, some of them are going to miss out, and it's not really all that remarkable that people that miss out aren't going to be happy.

LEIGH: That's right, and the other thing that you have is just, you have far more talent in the Labor Party room than there are spots available. So, you could easily fill a second front bench and you'd take people like Ed Husic, Stephen Jones, Kate Lundy. I could pretty comfortably put them up against Abbott ministers of the likes of Peter Dutton and Warren Truss and you'd still have a stronger second team than the Liberal Party's first team.

PARTON: Well, according to you Andrew of course, and of course you've got to say that, wearing that particular coloured jumper. A lot of ...

LEIGH: No, well there's a lot of talented people in that room and I particularly feel for Kate Lundy having missed out, but there's a lot of other people who came in in 2010 or earlier who haven't had the opportunity to serve in the ministry, who if given that chance would do so with distinction.

PARTON: Anna Burke is a feisty Labor soldier. Are you disappointed with the way that she's dealt with this or dealt with this set back of hers?



LEIGH: Anna's entitled to say in the media what she wants to, but I think she served us very well as speaker in very trying circumstances in that parliament there. It was a cauldron into which she was thrust, but that last period of the government where Tony Abbott was doing his best to try and make the parliament break, and Anna just looked back with eyes of steel and maintained order in the house.

PARTON: Can I tell you I never want to have a face-to-face argument with her.

LEIGH: She does seem to be one of the most terrifying people in the parliament, but she's also a very gentle person who's given me a lot of advice in my first term in parliament.

PARTON: But what fascinates me is she's carrying on about the fact that the factions are still ruling here in the one sentence, but in the next sentence then says ‘Oh, well yeah there's 12 women, but there's not enough from this faction’  and it's like, well hang on a second, you can't have it both ways.

LEIGH: Anna Burke has earned the right to make public comments without a whippersnapper like me cutting across it the next day. I'll do her that deference.

PARTON: Alright, there will be a lot made of the fact that there are 11 women in the front bench team. I personally think that there'll be too much made of it because, can I tell you, when I look at the former Labor leader in Julia Gillard, I don't necessarily see her as the first female prime minister, I just see her as the 42nd Prime Minister. To me, it's just about irrelevant the gender of people that are thrust into power. I'm sure you'll disagree with me.

LEIGH: Well I just think it's important to have a front bench that looks like Australia, Mark, and the Abbott front bench is really something out of Mad Men.

PARTON:  Out of Mad Men?

LEIGH: Yeah absolutely. You've got one woman in the room, but if the foreign minister's plane is late coming back from an international engagement, as could well happen, then the cabinet is all blokes sitting down to make decisions about the nation's future. And the fact is that where you come from does influence your ability to make decisions. You know, I try and be as sensitive as I can to a range of views, but in the end, I'm a white middle-class bloke and a parliament full of white middle-class blokes, a cabinet full of white middle-class blokes is not a cabinet that's going to govern in the interests of all Australians. I think diversity's a great strength, and I think Mr Abbott's cabinet could have been stronger had he chosen to have more gender diversity as we have with our front bench.

PARTON: I just, I don't know. I just don't subscribe to this whole concept where we are, in some circles, expected to apologise for being a white middle-class bloke. I mean, I just don't get it.

LEIGH: It would matter to you in other dimensions wouldn't it Mark? I mean surely, you wouldn't think it was appropriate to have a cabinet that was all made up of people from Victoria? You'd say, ‘Well, that's pretty unrepresentative, and you'd say...’

PARTON: I don't know, I still reckon Andrew if all of the best people happen to be from Victoria, so be it.



LEIGH: Well, that's certainly not the view that Mr Abbott took. I mean, he was quite careful to achieve representation on a state basis because he thought, I think rightly, that there are different perspectives that come from representing different states. But he didn't apply that same principle to trying to have a cabinet that was representative by gender as we've done…



PARTON: …If only Sophie had got up...

LEIGH: …you never get these things perfectly right. I’m sorry?

PARTON: If only Sophie had got up.

LEIGH: Indeed. But even still, you would have had two women in the cabinet and there you would have been at the stage of maybe the cabinet of Afghanistan rather than being lower still. It's a bit odd to have as many women in cabinet as we had in 1975. I think the country has come a long way in that period. Most corporate boardrooms look more gender diverse than the federal cabinet does today. Diversity isn't everything but I think it matters.

PARTON: Andrew, obviously we're looking forward to finding out what particular gig you've got on Friday. Thanks for joining us this morning.

LEIGH: Thank you Mark.

On 14 October, I spoke with Waleed Aly on ABC RN Drive about the new shadow ministry, Labor's support for a price on carbon, and the need for Labor in Opposition to remain positive and ideas-driven. Here's a podcast.

Average Australians are now the richest people on the planet according to the latest Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report. Has Australia got the balance right between freeing people up to generate wealth and distributing it fairly? Wealth distribution was just one of the topics discussed with ABC 702 host Richard Glover and fellow guests Dr John Hewson, former Liberal leader, and Reserve Bank board member Heather Ridout for Monday Political Forum. Hear our tips for students swotting for their higher school certificate and more.

I'm honoured to be chosen by my colleagues today for a spot in the shadow ministry. I spoke with local ABC Drive host, Adam Shirley, about the development. Listen here .

This morning I joined Tim Lester for my weekly conversation on Breaking Politics. I welcomed the new Labor leader, Bill Shorten, and discussed foreign investment and concern over the looming prospect of a U.S. Government deficit default.  The full transcript is below and the video here.

HOST TIM LESTER: So, Labor has a new cabinet and with Bill Shorten in the position of Opposition leader, the team can now take its places. We will learn this week, not only who is on the front bench but what roles they will have and one of the names kicking around is Andrew Leigh, the Labor MP in the electorate of Fraser, a regular on Breaking Politics. Welcome back Andrew.

ANDREW LEIGH: Thanks Tim.

LESTER: Tell us, what are your hopes for a frontbench spot?

LEIGH: Caucus will make that decision, now that we've changed the rules to allow democracy to flow through the party and I think that's a great thing. We're seeing a whole lot of opening up in the Labor Party, opening up of the selection of the leader to the membership which has been so warmly welcomed and now, going back to the system of the caucus choosing the frontbench. We're fortunate to have an array of talent comfortably fill two high-quality frontbenches, so it's going to be a tough decision for us collectively to make today.

LESTER: Now, I gather Chris Bowen is already the nominee for the position of shadow treasurer.

LEIGH: Yes.

LESTER: But you would naturally fit in an economic portfolio given your academic background in that regard. Do you think that's a chance?

LEIGH: I'll make a contribution to the economic debate wherever I am Tim. I am pretty passionate about this stuff. I got into parliament because I wanted to make a difference on increasing the growth of Australia and reducing the gap between rich and poor and I'll make that contribution whatever part of the Labor team I end up in.

LESTER: Bill Shorten as leader, what qualities do you think he brings to the job?

LEIGH: So Bill's pretty extraordinary at connecting with people across a wide range of walks of life. I've been a kitchen in Civic in the middle of Canberra. We were there to do an event with the chefs and Bill was the first bloke to walk over and shake the hand of the kitchen hand washing the dishes in the corner. It's the kind of guy he is. He's very good at connecting with people, making them feel comfortable and listening to their stories. He's a great speech-maker which I think is really important in terms of building a narrative of what we do because public policy is complex and it's only getting more complex. I think voters get turned off a bit if they feel that what you're doing is just a just cooked up policy designed to solve a political problem rather than telling the story, the long narrative about how we got there. He did that with DisabilityCare. He did that with the increase in superannuation. Storytelling really is a vital part of good policy, whether you are in government or opposition.

LESTER: Tony Abbott has just given a four year lesson in how Opposition works if you attack. He brought his own Opposition together and he brought down two prime ministers and ultimately a government. Does Bill Shorten need to have some of the attack dog, that Tony Abbott had in Opposition, in him.

LEIGH: Good critique's important Tim. But I think that people who say we ought to just ape the tactics of the Coalition are missing what modern politics is about. Politics isn't about Coke and Pepsi, where you see your competitor pursuing a strategy and you do your best to adopt that. Labor's role in Australian politics has always been as the generator of ideas. We need to be the party that is coming up with the next big reforms because we just can't leave that to the conservatives. That's not in their nature. That's not the way they operate. They block, they oppose, they maintain the status quo. We're the ones that build, whether it's university access or better schools. And so, we'll be working on the ideas game. But of course holding the government to account.

LESTER: Tanya Plibersek as deputy, which she do it well?

LEIGH: Tanya would be first rate as deputy. She's somebody who's extraordinarily well respected across the community. She did a tremendous job as health minister and somebody who, I think, is extraordinary in her ability, just to balance so much, to get to so many seats, to contribute to the policy, and, like me, she's got three little kids and I'm greatly impressed at how she was able to manage that with being a cabinet minister.

LESTER: Has Labor done itself a favour going through this process, or has it in fact perhaps undermined Bill Shorten by highlighting the fact that the rank and file actually didn't want him. They wanted Anthony Albanese by a ratio of almost, two-thirds of them wanted Anthony Albanese.

LEIGH: I think that whenever you see these sorts of split voting systems you can expect that certain parts of the electorate will go differently from other parts. That's what you see in this style of voting system whether it's run in New Zealand or Britain. That doesn't make it a bad system. People point to the 52% overall result that Bill Shorten got. But I got to say that looks like a landslide compared to the 50.6% of the Liberal Party party room that Tony Abbott got in 2009.

LESTER: Okay. You're concerned about economics. You're going to be watching them closely. Is this government worried and exercised enough about what's happening abroad in the U.S. with the potential debt default here, what that might become for Australia?

LEIGH: Well, a government shutdown is bad enough but the debt default is terrifying. It will almost certainly send the U.S. into recession. It would have massive negative knock-on effects for Australia. What worries me is that we see from reports today that Finance Minister, Mathias Cormann, in 2011 visited the U.S. to meet with the sorts of people who are looking at sending the U.S. over the edge of this cliff. He met with the extreme wing of the Republican Party, the Tea Party. He met with Grover Norquist. And you saw some of those tactics some of those tactics being used by the Coalition in the last term: the incessant railing about debt and deficits as if it would have been better to lose hundreds of thousands of jobs, the attacks on increasing the debt limit in Australia. Those sorts of Tea Party tactics were pursued by the Liberal Party in the last term of parliament and I think that was a terrible mistake to play footsie with some people who are really causing massive problems now for the world economy.

LESTER: To what extent do you think Matthias Cormann now realises this or do you think he has genuinely adopted those perspectives and they might be reflected in some ways in policy?

LEIGH: Well, we'll see that from Mr Cormann himself. I'd like to see him to repudiate people like Grover Norquist and the extreme Tea Party wing. It's not good enough for Mr Hockey to be standing over in the U.S. assigning blame to Democrats and Republican alike. This is a Republican-caused shutdown. You just have to be clear about those facts and too often the Government seems caught in with its ideological bedfellows in the U.S. Republicans, not enough pursuing the interests of Australians, being critical and assigning blame when it's due and doing our best to avert this debt default.

LESTER: While we're on the topic of Joe Hockey, the question of foreign investment has emerged. What do you make of Mr Hockey's latest comments on where the Government might go on the vexed question of foreign investment limits.

LEIGH: Well we warned the Liberal Party before the election that they were pursuing strategies that would get them into trouble overseas – that turning the boats back would offend Indonesia, that attacking Malaysia's human rights record would damage our relationship with a major ally, and that saying they would lower the foreign investment review threshold on China would make a free-trade agreement impossible. We know see that Mr Hockey's looking like back-flipping on that; increasing the foreign investment review threshold in order to strike a free-trade agreement. That will represent a broken promise from the Coalition who said the opposite beforehand. Barnaby Joyce campaigned very hard to make it more difficult for Chinese investors, not to make it easier as the Chinese would like to see.

LESTER: Andrew Leigh, as always, we're grateful for you coming in to Breaking Politics.

LEIGH: Thanks Tim.