Andrew Leigh

Today in the Parliament I spoke about the Government's decision to axe the Australian Interactive Games Fund.

It was my pleasure this morning, with the shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, to meet with Adam Boyle and Tony Lawrence, from 2K Australia, to discuss the government's axing of the Australian Interactive Games Fund. This was a $10 million cut from the budget. That is a small amount when compared to what this government has cut out of health and education, but it is a significant cut when it comes to the nascent Australian gaming industry. 

Today I spoke in the Parliament about the impact of the Government's health cuts on the ACT.

The ACT will be hard hit by the federal budget. From July, these cuts will see ACT health funding drained of a much needed $47 million. Over the next four years, Canberrans will see more than $240 million cut from health funding. As Chief Minister Katy Gallagher has stated, the cuts to health funding equates to the staffing of 135 acute hospital beds, 390 nurses or 2,850 elective surgery operations.

Yesterday in the Parliament I spoke on the great Australian economist Fred Gruen.

Fred Henry George Gruen was born in 1921 in Vienna, Austria. He came to Australia after the outbreak of World War II on the Dunera and was then classified as an enemy alien. But he went on to be one of the great Australian economists. Fred Gruen worked initially as a professor of agriculture economics at Monash and bought a farm in Melbourne. He said in the early years at Monash that he was ‘one lecture ahead of the students and one fence ahead of the cattle’. 

In my usual Monday slot with Breaking Politics host, Chris Hammer, today's topics included another gaffe by the Education Minister, Christopher Pyne, and concern this Governent does not understand its own budget and the budget's ripple effects.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

BREAKING POLITICS – FAIRFAX MEDIA
MONDAY, 2 JUNE 2014
CANBERRA

SUBJECT / S: Higher education changes; Crippling cuts to CSIRO and other science organisations; D-Day commemorations and the Prime Minister’s partisanship; Welfare payment changes and drug testing recipients.

CHRIS HAMMER: Joining us now is  Andrew Leigh the shadow assistant treasurer and Labor member for Fraser.

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER, ANDREW LEIGH: Good Morning Chris.

HAMMER: Good Morning. Now Christopher Pyne says that the new university system, the new university fees won't kick in til June 2016. So what’s the problem, people have plenty of warning of what’s coming?

LEIGH: Well the question that Minister Pyne was asked yesterday Chris, was when the changes to the indexation of HECS debts would start. He erroneously said that would begin applying only to new enrolees. In fact it applies to students currently enrolled, and even students who have graduated, a measure which smells a whole lot like retrospective taxation to me, although I suspect that its constitutionally possible to get it through. It means that a student that graduated maybe even a decade ago is now going to see their HECS debt balloon if they don't begin paying it off rapidly. It was an approach that was never envisaged from the start when HECS was put in place.

 

On 22 May 2014, I interviewed Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, about the role of Australian aid in reducing global poverty.

Today I issued a joint media release with Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Julie Collins, critical of the Government's decision to close ten regional ATO sites:

ABBOTT GOVERNMENT SHOWS CONTEMPT FOR REGIONAL AUSTRALIA WITH ATO CLOSURES

The closure of 10 regional Australian Tax Office sites across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania shows the National Party is truly the junior and ineffective partner in the Coalition.

The ATO has confirmed it is closing offices in Toowoomba, Rockhampton, Mackay, Cairns, Port Macquarie, Grafton, Orange, Sale, Bendigo, and Launceston.

 

Last night, I spoke with Radio National Drive presenter Waleed Aly and the Liberal's Josh Frydenberg for a discussion about the unfairnes of the budget, the Abbott Government's guttered science policy and the future of Peppa Pig on our ABC. Here's the full transcript:

E&OE TRANSCRIPT, RADIO INTERVIEW

ABC RN DRIVE WITH WALEED ALY
WEDNESDAY, 28 MAY 2014

SUBJECT / S: Federal Budget and Inequality; Age Pension; Superannuation; Incoherent science policy and cuts to the CSIRO; Higher education; Cuts to the ABC.

WALEED ALY: It's a fortnight since Joe Hockey delivered his first budget. One key measure of that, the debt levy has passed the House of Representatives. It will also pass the Senate because Labor has confirmed it will not oppose that levy. Other budget measures though has continued criticism, even from the Liberal Party's own backbench. One backbencher in particular has criticised cuts to science funding and just the way that the whole science policy has been structured at the moment. So let's discuss budget debate, I'm delighted to welcome back to the program, Josh Frydenberg, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and his sparring partner, Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Andrew Leigh. Gentlemen, welcome back.

JOSH FRYDENBERG: Nice to be with you.

ALY: I want to start with the public perception of the budget gents. Seven out of ten voters don't believe that the burden of cuts is being spread evenly and fairly across the population according to the latest polling. Josh, who do you blame? Do you blame the people or do you blame yourself for your sales job?

 

The ACT has the second highest rate of homelessness in Australia. According to the 2011 census, 1,785 ACT residents were homeless on Census night 2011—a larger number than were homeless on Census night in 2006. To combat this, the ACT and federal Labor governments contributed towards Common Ground Canberra, a $14 million jointly funded project aiming to end chronic homelessness by developing permanent, high-quality, supportive and safe housing for Canberra's most vulnerable homeless people. Common Ground Canberra is a not-for-profit organisation that works in partnership with government, business and the not-for-profit sector.

The site in the Gungahlin Town Centre will have an initial development of 40 one- and two-bedroom units, to be completed in December 2014. It was my pleasure to attend the sod turning for that site at the end of last year and to see the strong commitment in the Canberra community for Common Ground Canberra. I want to pay particular tribute to the board of directors for Common Ground Canberra, Chair Stephen Bartos, directors Diane Kargas, Jenny Kitchin, Jon Lovell, David Matthews, Simon Rosenberg, Gwen Wilcox and Bob Wilson and, most importantly, Liz Dawson. Liz Dawson is one of those social entrepreneurs that communities are fortunate to have. She is a tireless voice for the vulnerable, involved not only in Common Ground Canberra but also in programs to reduce educational disadvantage and to work with dentists to provide free dental treatment for those who cannot afford it.

It is always a pleasure to have your work quoted in the great Houses of Parliament and it was a real pleasure for me today to have my work quoted more than once by members of the government! I had a brief moment of thinking, during question time, that the government had done some original research. But, of course, that was a little dashed when I turned to the 'Cut and Paste' column of The Australian, which is clearly providing the government's talking points now. It is government by Cut and Paste. It is a column which, I understand from friends at The Australian has really gone downhill a little since Nick Cater stopped editing it.

The question of consistency in one's public utterances is naturally a question that voters turn their minds to. The question that voters naturally have in their minds, when asked why a parliamentarian has changed their view on an issue is: have they done so for good policy reasons or merely for political reasons? In this place on 18 November 2013 I spoke about this issue in the context of emissions trading. I listed, then, the raft of comments by members, from the weathervane Prime Minister down, who had changed their views on emissions trading schemes to match the one-vote margin in the Liberal Party room.

I issued this media release today, highlighting the shallow consultations Social Services Minister, Kevin Andrews, has had with the charities and not for profits sector about fundamental changes to the way the sector is regulated.

Minister for Social Services, Kevin Andrews, has given a false impression of his engagement with a range of charities, not for profits and sector experts about what replaces Australia’s world-class, one-stop shop for charities, the Australian Charities and Not for Profits Commission (ACNC).

In response to a question on notice asking for details of who has been involved in consultations about what might replace the ACNC, the Minister lists 31 people representing 23 organisations.