Andrew Leigh

GUARDIANS OF GENEROSITY: PRIVACY AND PHILANTHROPY IN AUSTRALIA
Fundraising Institute of Australia
Wednesday, 22 May 2024

Thank you to the Fundraising Institute of Australia for inviting me to address your annual Essential Member Update, and for bringing together this group of people with such an important role in the viability of our charity sector.

I am speaking to you from Brisbane, where I have just addressed the Queensland Volunteering Awards. I acknowledge the Jagera people and the Turrbal people as the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin, and pay my respects to all First Nations people present.

Labor governments are reforming governments, and in two spaces that have key significance to charitable fundraising there are some meaningful changes underway.

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RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC CANBERRA BREAKFAST WITH ADAM SHIRLEY
WEDNESDAY 22 MAY 2024

SUBJECTS: Unethical fundraising practices, reform of fundraising principles, best ways to donate to charities.

ADAM SHIRLEY, HOST: I don't know whether you give to charity or charities. If you volunteer, if you donate money. If you donate money, how do you do it? A real worry that some charities, and maybe companies contracted to work for them in Australia, are using less than above board practices to get you to give. And the work of some charities- most, in fact, Andrew Leigh, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury. The work of a lot of these charities is not in dispute. But I wonder, personally, how much concern do you have on the ways they're collecting money?

ASSISTANT MINISTER ANDREW LEIGH: Most charities are doing exactly the right thing, and I'm a strong champion of the charity sector, but I'm giving a speech today to the Fundraising Institute of Australia, sounding the alarm about a number of troubling cases in which fundraisers have been chasing down elderly Australians and signing them up for ongoing payments that are beyond what they can afford. I want to make it clear to the charitable fundraising sector that the high trust with which Australians regard charities rests on strong ethical conduct in the fundraising sector. In the context of Pareto Phone collapsing last year, a fundraiser which raised money for organisations like the Cancer Council and Fred Hollows. We all need to make sure that those fundraisers have a strong social licence to operate.

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RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC MELBOURNE DRIVE WITH ALI MOORE
FRIDAY 17 MAY 2024

SUBJECTS: JobSeeker, Support for long term unemployed, AEC Transparency Register.  

ALI MOORE, HOST: Andrew Leigh is Assistant Minister for Employment. Andrew Leigh, welcome to Drive.

ASSISTANT MINISTER ANDREW LEIGH: Thanks, Ali, great to be with you and your listeners.

MOORE: How concerned are you by the length of time some people are spending on JobSeeker payments?

LEIGH: Clearly we know from academic research that the longer someone spends out of work the more, what we call "scarring effect" there can be; people can get discouraged, their skills can start to atrophy, and they can become disconnected from the labour market. We do have an historically low unemployment rate at the moment, so means having an unemployment of 4.1 per cent is by any historical standards a very strong performance of the labour market, but that's not to mean that there aren't some people who are missing out, and the figures you've talked to are certainly concerning. The best way in which we can ensure that everyone has a job is to maintain those low levels of unemployment.

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TV INTERVIEW
SKY NEWSDAY WITH KIERAN GILBERT
THURSDAY 16 MAY 2024

SUBJECTS: Middle East Conflict; Jobs Figures

KIERAN GILBERT, HOST: Let's bring in the Assistant Minister for Competition Charities and Treasury, Andrew Leigh. And we see images of the protest movement happening in Irvine, California, at the University of California. This motion being moved in the Senate, critical of the statement used by a member of your caucus, Senator Fatima Payman.

Should the Prime Minister be calling your Labor colleague to pull her into line?

ASSISTANT MINISTER ANDREW LEIGH: The Prime Minister has made it clear that that statement isn't acceptable, Kieran. Australia has committed to a two-state solution. We support a humanitarian ceasefire. We're calling for the return of hostages. We have called on both sides to support a two-state solution. The slogan you refer to has been used by extremists on both sides of the conflict. It isn't consistent with a two-state solution which enjoys bipartisan support in Australia.

FIVE TESTS FOR THE OPPOSITION LEADER'S BUDGET REPLY
Statement on Matters of Significance, House of Representatives
Wednesday, 16 May 2023

If you want to know what the coalition really believe in, let's go back to the most unpopular budget of the past generation, a budget that commemorated its 10-year anniversary this year, the 2014 budget. The 2014 budget was preceded by then Prime Minister Abbott saying there would be ‘no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no cuts to pensions, no changes to the GST and no cuts to the ABC and SBS’. He vowed to avoid these things and he embraced every single one of them.

 In that 2014 budget, the Liberal Party and the National Party said that under-30s would get no unemployment support for six months. In fierce discussions about the right level of JobSeeker, they thought the right level for young Australians should be zero. They said that pensions would no longer be indexed to wages but would only be indexed to prices, essentially saying to Australia's fixed-income retirees that they could no longer share in productivity growth in the economy. They said that HECS-HELP debts would be indexed at a faster rate, a strong contrast to what we said in this budget, which was that the indexation of those debts would be lower.

 The 2014 budget, which commemorates its 10-year anniversary this week, had a $43 million cut to ABC and SBS. It had a $114 million cut to the CSIRO. It had deficits as far as the eye could see from a party that had promised before the election that they would deliver a surplus in their first year and in every year after that. And the 2014 budget ended bulk billing. I wonder who was the health minister who presided over that decision? Hey, that's right: it's none other than the Leader of the Opposition, the man who, when he was health minister, was voted by doctors the worst health minister in living memory.

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RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC CANBERRA DRIVE WITH ROSS SOLLY
WEDNESDAY 15 MAY 2024

SUBJECTS: Budget 2024; Tax Cuts for Every Australian Taxpayer; Energy Bill Relief for Every Household; Funding for ACT Infrastructure; Canberra to Sydney Rail Link

ROSS SOLLY (HOST): Here's a statistic for you, Andrew Leigh. I know you like your statistics.

ASSISTANT MINISTER ANDREW LEIGH: Absolutely.

SOLLY: Should everyone get the $300 energy bill rebate on our ABC Canberra Drive poll at the moment, you'd be happy to know 55 per cent of ABC Canberra Drive listeners say yes, 45 per cent say no, Andrew Leigh.

LEIGH: The simple answer to the 45 per cent is that energy companies don't know your income, they don't know your wealth. What they know is whether you're a concession card holder.

If you're a government and you're rolling out energy bill relief, you can either do it to everyone or you can do it just to concession card holders. You can't do any more fine-grained targeting than that. Our view was that middle-income Australians were doing it tough, and we wanted to extend energy bill relief to them. So, the most straightforward way of doing that was to provide it to everyone.

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TV INTERVIEW
AFTERNOON BRIEFING WITH GREG JENNETT
WEDNESDAY 15 MAY 2024

SUBJECTS: Budget 2024; Tax Cuts for Every Australian Taxpayer; Energy Bill Relief for Every Household; A Future Made in Australia

GREG JENNETT (HOST): Well, time for some government perspective now on all things Budget. Andrew Leigh is the Assistant Minister for Treasury matters, so closely linked to the processes and the planning that got us here. And Andrew's back with us in the studio. Welcome once again.

ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR COMPETITION, CHARITIES AND TREASURY ANDREW LEIGH: Thanks, Greg.

JENNETT: Energy bill relief. Is the Government claiming in giving $300 to every household that you are at least in part, making good on the $275 reduction promise?

LEIGH: That hasn't been at the forefront of our thinking. Really, this is about providing energy bill relief at a time when households are under pressure. We've done it this way because it's the most efficient and straightforward way of providing that energy bill relief and because it reduces inflation. So, that's making the Reserve Bank's job easier. It's really important that fiscal and monetary policy work closely together. We've done that in past Budgets. We've done that again in this Budget.

ACT FEDERAL LABOR TEAM

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PRESS CONFERENCE
PARLIAMENT HOUSE
WEDNESDAY, 15 MAY 2024

SUBJECTS: Labor’s Budget; delivering for Canberra; public service; infrastructure; ACT public housing debt; Independent candidates.

SENATOR THE HON KATY GALLAGHER, MINISTER FOR FINANCE: I’m here with my colleagues, Federal ACT representatives Andrew Leigh, David Smith, Alicia Payne. We’re really pleased to be here the morning after the night before of the Budget with a very strong investment in Canberra. Obviously, the Budget as a whole had a focus on cost-of-living without adding to inflation, but also had an eye on the future and seizing the opportunities that are coming with the transformation to Net Zero economies through the Future Made In Australia. There’s a lot of investment in Canberra. We’ve gone for many years under the former government not being recognised, either for our role as the nation’s capital or as a city on our own. And this budget deals with that, continues the work we’ve done in the previous two budgets, there’s investment in jobs, in supporting households with cost-of-living and our role as the nation’s capital through infrastructure investments. So it’s a very positive budget for Canberra and I’m going to hand to my colleagues now to focus on a couple of the key initiatives.

THE HON DR ANDREW LEIGH MP, MEMBER FOR FENNER: Well, thanks very much Katy. And this is a budget that delivers for all Australians, but a budget that really looks after Canberra. And one of the reasons for that is you’ve got the extraordinary Katy Gallagher, former ACT Chief Minister and Minister for Finance, sitting around the Expenditure Review Committee table, the Cabinet table, making decisions that don’t leave Canberra out. We saw in the Liberals’ last budget, the ACT get just one fifth of our fair share of infrastructure spending. This budget does right by the people of Canberra. One of the important aspects of the Budget is that every Canberra taxpayer gets a tax cut. That tax cut is a bigger tax cut than they would have received for four out of five Canberra taxpayers. We want Canberrans to earn more and to keep more of what they earn. And these tax cuts that’ll flow from 1 July are fairer, more efficient and will do more for the ACT economy than they would have done before we rejigged them. I’ll hand now to my colleague Alicia Payne to say a few words about other aspects of the Budget for Canberra.

ACT FEDERAL LABOR TEAM

ALBANESE GOVERNMENT INJECTS OVER $350 MILLION IN CANBERRA TO SEE OUR CITY THRIVE

The Albanese Government values Canberra’s role as the national capital and is making the investments in the 2024-25 Budget to rollout transformative projects and upgrade local infrastructure that will support our growing city to thrive.

Only a Federal Labor Government can work hand-in-hand with the ACT Labor Government to deliver the investments that Canberra needs to grow, while supporting local jobs and maintaining Canberra as the national capital.

This Federal Budget will inject almost $250 million to revitalise the AIS facilities in Bruce and ensure they are modern and fit-for-purpose for Australia’s elite and aspiring athletes.

PAINTING ON A BIG CANVAS
Institute of Public Accountants & Canberra Business Chamber 2024 Federal Budget Breakfast
Great Hall, Parliament House, Canberra
15 May 2024

I acknowledge the Ngunnawal people, the traditional owners of these lands, and pay respects to all First Nations people present. Thank you to the organisers, the Institute of Public Accountants, and the Canberra Business Chamber, for the opportunity to address you following this year’s Federal Budget. I also acknowledge my parliamentary colleagues who are here today. Apologies in advance that I cannot stay for the whole event – we have a scheduled crossbench briefing at 8.15am where I am presenting on upcoming legislation.

By my rough count, this is the seventh time I’ve addressed this breakfast – a great chance in the Great Hall to talk about whether last night’s budget meets our great expectations. It’s not just a moment to talk numbers, but also an opportunity to consider Australia’s place in the world, and whether we’re making the right calls to shape a fairer society and a stronger economy.

If you need reminding that each of us are inheritors of past traditions and custodians of the future, take a look at the tapestry at the end of the room. In designing it, Arthur Boyd wanted to refer to one of history’s great tapestries, the Bayeux Tapestry that shows the events leading up to the 1066 Norman Conquest. Halley’s Comet is in that 1066 tapestry. In 1986, when the tapestry was being made, Halley’s Comet was in the sky again. So the weavers suggested that Boyd include it, as a way of acknowledging the history of those weavers from nearly a millennium ago.