Andrew Leigh

As part of launching my new book 'The Economics of Just About Everything', I sat down for an interview with my good friend Dr Tim Harcourt, also known as The Airport Economist. In this video, we to talk about the economics of dating, dieting and designing policy. Take a look: 

At the end of Parliament's first week back, I joined the panel on The Nation to talk about the budget big picture, the future of Qantas and the terrible humanitarian situation in Iraq. You can watch the full discussion here:

...I'm not sure they meant it as literally as this.

I was proud to join with members of the activist group Vocal Majority in launching a photo album showing Australian families in all their forms and guises. I also had a few words to say about love overcoming prejudice:

ADDRESS TO THE VOCAL MAJORITY FAMILY ALBUM LAUNCH

THURSDAY, 28 AUGUST 2014

 

I acknowledge the Ngunnawal people, the traditional owners of the lands on which we meet today, my parliamentary colleagues Claire Moore and Larissa Waters, and ACT MLA Yvette Berry.

Thank you to the Vocal Majority organisers, including its founders Melanie Poole and Courtney Sloane, and Nikki and the team who run the organisation today.

My words today are not just for the people who have travelled halfway around the world to bring a message of intolerance and exclusion into the building behind me.

And they are not just for Coalition parliamentarians who think their personal prejudices should guide our nation’s policies.

My words today are for Australia’s mums and dads; its mums and mums; dads and dads – and anyone else who considers themselves to be part of a family bound together by love.

I want you to know that the love you feel for your family, the love which you give and receive in return, will rise above the hostility of those who seek to deny it. A love as strong and universal as yours demands recognition, and on a day not very far from now, I know that recognition will be given.

27 August 2014

Labor has a proud tradition of standing up for the interests of consumer's. The Government's Future of Financial Advice reforms weaken protections for those who receive financial advice. Here is my speech to Parliament about why is vital we offer adequate consumer protection when it comes to financial advice and people's life savings.

In 2009, Cecily and Robin Herd had their life savings destroyed in the collapse of Storm Financial, a Townsville based financial adviser. The Herds, both in their 70s, had borrowed against their home to invest in Storm's equity products, thinking it was a safe investment in their future. After the Commonwealth Bank forced Storm into administration, Robin said:

… we sold our house and everything else to pay back our margin loan.

The couple now live, according to a report in The Australian Financial Review, in a flat in Caboolture. Robin said:

We only wanted a comfortable retirement. We had no idea about the size of commissions and risk to everything we had. The nightmare is still with us.

Like many communities around Australia, the Fraser electorate was devastated by the shocking loss of life in the MH17 air disaster. One of our own, Liliane Derden, died in that disaster, and in Parliament today I paid tribute to her life.

When Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 went down, it took with it someone who was from around here; someone who will leave a great gap where she lived; someone who resembled the rest of us in many ways.

Liliane Derden was a citizen of the world and a servant of the public.  Like so many locals, she could tell you what year she moved here; like so many Canberrans, she could tell you where she worked when she met her closest friend.  For many years, she lived not far from my family home, and indeed, not so very far from where we meet today.

Liliane Derden was a person entirely characteristic of this city and we all feel the effects of her loss.  But she was also a person with a private “life entire” whose death brings her closest friends and family inexpressible pains. 

Today I acknowledge Liliane – and we acknowledge the people who miss her most.

Her partner Craig.

Her daughters Cassandra and Chelsea.

Her family, in Australia and Belgium.

The Canberrans she worked with at the NHMRC and at Calvary Hospital; the communities of Ainslie and Hall where her loss is so deeply felt.

Chelsea wrote to me this week about her Mum: “she is very loved and missed by us all”.

Canberra is a considerate community.  We would never intrude, but we will never forget either, and we are here if you need us.

This was tragic, but it was not a tragedy; this was a crime.

Let the guilty be brought to justice, let the innocent rest in peace, and let those who remain know they are not alone.

27 August 2014

Today I spoke in the Parliament about the importance of fighting multinational profit shifting and amendments to Australia's tax treaty arrangements with Switzerland.

We have just had two of my colleagues stand up and point out that bills before the House were essentially Labor measures now being implemented by this government. This bill is little different. It amends the International Tax Agreements Act 1953 to give force to a double taxation treaty signed with Switzerland in Sydney on 30 July 2013 under the previous government. Once in force it will replace the agreement between Australia and Switzerland for the avoidance of double taxation with respect to taxes on income and protocol, which is the existing Swiss agreement which entered into force on 13 February 1981.

One of the most interesting emerging trends in the competition portfolio is the rise of collaborative consumption services like Uber and AirBnB. In the Australian Financial Review I've explored some issues that these services raise for governments and how we can spread their benefits while also protecting consumers. Here's the article:

WHEN THE DISRUPTORS RATTLE OLD REGULATORY SYSTEMS, Australian Financial Review, 27 August 2014

In today’s tech parlance, Nikola Tesla was a disruptive innovator. When he invented the alternating current electricity supply system and began marketing it to cities across America, Tesla took on the corporate might of Thomas Edison’s Illuminating Company, which used the inferior direct current system.

Tesla’s technology punctured the status quo by offering consumers a different way to meet their energy needs — one that was cheaper, more efficient and bypassed existing network structures. Edison went so far as to publicly electrocute an elephant in his efforts to discredit Tesla, but consumers voted with their wallets. Consumers moved from DC to AC power, and Edison’s firm was spurred into innovative new technologies in search of fresh profit. 

26 August 2014

Tonight I spoke in the Parliament about my late grandmother, her passionate commitment to human rights and our obligation to speak up when we see wrongdoing.

My late grandmother, Jean Stebbins, was a passionate member of Amnesty International. One of my enduring childhood memories was sitting at my grandparents’ sun-soaked dining table in Ivanhoe, where Jean always seemed to be working on a letter addressed to a prisoner or a jailer somewhere in the world. I rise tonight to speak in the same spirit in which Jean Stebbins wrote those letters—not because Australia is perfect but because there is a moral obligation on good people to speak out when we see wrongdoing. Tonight, I will touch on six cases of human rights concerns, in Iran, China, Cameroon, Uzbekistan, Guatemala and Saudi Arabia.

As Parliament resumed for the first sittings of the spring session, I joined Lyndal Curtis on Capital Hill to talk about why the government has found itself in such a budget quandary. Here's the video and transcript:

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TV INTERVIEW

ABC CAPITAL HILL

TUESDAY, 26 AUGUST 2014

SUBJECT/S: Tony Abbott’s unfair Budget

LYNDAL CURTIS: Throughout the five-week parliamentary winter break, the Opposition has stuck fast to its plans to oppose budget measures it disagrees with. The Shadow Assistant Treasurer is Andrew Leigh and he joins me now in the studio. Andrew Leigh, welcome to Capital Hill.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Thanks Lyndal.

CURTIS: If I could start with the Finance Minister's comments on increased taxes this morning: isn't it a statement of the obvious that if the government needs to rein in spending, rein in the budget or make room for future spending, it will have to cut existing spending or raise future taxes, won't it?

LEIGH: Those are the clear options for a government that wants to pay down debt, Lyndal. But one of the important things to understand is how we've got to where we are now. Part of that has to do with the government saying ‘no’ to a very large source of revenue in the carbon price. The carbon price isn't just the smartest way of reducing Australia's carbon emissions, it is also an important boost to the budget.