Andrew Leigh

Yesterday in the House of Representatives I raised concern about the Government's intention to abolish the charities regulator.

AUSTRALIAN PARLIAMENT HOUSE

MEMBERS' 90 SECOND STATEMENT

THURSDAY, 13 FEBRUARY, 2014

Dr ANDREW LEIGH: An alarming story on the 7:30 Report last night highlighted the need to keep the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission. The ABC uncovered a children's education charity which has received nearly $1 million in donations but cannot or will not say where some of the funds have gone. The ACNC shines a light on bad behaviour in the sector as well as strengthening charities and celebrating exemplary work.

The Australian public deserves and needs a charities regulator that provides them with confidence in the charities they donate to and receive services from and provide tax deductions to. Why can't this government understand that transparency and accountability are keys to the growth of the charity sector in Australia?

The fact is that the government has a tin ear for dialogue with the charitable sector. In wishing to abolish the commission, Minister Andrews is going against the vast majority of informed voices in the sector, four out of five of whom want to keep the ACNC.

The sector supports an independent regulator as a one-stop shop to strengthen charities, grow their profile, harmonise fundraising law and reduce red tape over time and, despite the government's rhetoric about red tape, the reverse is true. The government should be working to support charities and charities deserve better than a back-to-the-future approach.

Today I delivered a speech in the House defending Labor's stimulus measures which saved Australian jobs over the course of the Global Financial Crisis and allowed the Australian economy to emerge relatively unscathed.

SPEECH, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

THURSDAY 13 FEBRUARY, 2014

DR ANDREW LEIGH (Fraser):  I thought I might begin my contribution with a couple of important numbers. One is the figure on the total amount that will be saved as a result of the passage of this bill, the Tax Bonus for Working Australians Repeal Bill 2013.

Mr Chris Bowen:  How many million?

Dr LEIGH:  'How many million?' says the former and I hope future Treasurer of Australia, the member for a McMahon. The answer is not even one million; $250,000 will be saved by this bill which is taking up so much of the House's time—a figure around the salary of a member of the House of Representatives, or a little more than that. Other numbers are relevant to the debate. One of those numbers would be the total deficits over four years before the member for North Sydney became the Treasurer and the total four year deficits afterwards. Before the member for North Sydney became the Treasurer, the total for deficits over four years in the pre-election fiscal and economic outlook was $54.6 billion; afterwards, under the Treasurer's first budget update, $122.7 billion.

There has been a doubling of the deficit over the forward estimates under this Treasurer, a huge increase in the deficits—as a result of many of the decisions made by this government, such as the $9 billion grant to the Reserve Bank, such as the government not pursuing a crackdown on multinational profit shifting, which is recognised as a critical issue and an issue that will be the focus of the G20 finance ministers' meetings in Sydney next week. Yet, when the Treasurer has to do something about this issue, he runs away—he takes $700 million of sensible savings out of the budget, because when it comes to being tough, this Treasurer can only be tough on the weak.

It is the same story when it comes to transparency measures. When the Treasurer is faced with the modest proposal that Labor had put forward that we ought to publish the tax paid by some of Australia's largest firms in order to place some pressure on those whose tax bills seem to be a little smaller than they ought, the government has flagged that it intends to not pursue the measure. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, as Justice Brandeis once put it. But under this government the sunshine is being shut out.

The age of entitlement is ending for those of modest means. If you receive the income support payment, that will be taken away. If you are a low-wage worker, you will have the taxes increased on your superannuation benefits. But for those who are well connected, the age of entitlement is just beginning. If you are a high-income family, you will get $75,000 to have a child. If you are a well connected firm in Tasmania, you will have no trouble getting a tourism grant from this government. If you are a financial planner, you are going to be assisted in the scrapping of the best interest tests. If you are of high-income retiree then you have seen this government dump the plans to ensure that you pay a fair rate of tax. If you are somebody who is a fan of the Prime Minister's local footy club then you will be seeing assistance in terms of taxpayer handouts to redevelop Brookvale Oval.

So the age of entitlement continues for many, as the member for McMahon points out, it is yes to Manly and no to SPC. The bill before the House today is really making a political point with saving $250,000, but it does give us a critical opportunity, as the shadow Treasurer has noted, to talk about the benefits of the stimulus package built by Labor.

As the Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz noted, Australia maintained strong economic growth when other countries fell into global recession. Professor Stiglitz has said:

In Australia the stimulus helped avoid a recession and saved up to 200,000 jobs. And new research shows that stimulus may have also actually reduced government debt over time. Evidence from the crisis suggests that, when the economy is weak, the long-run tax revenue benefits of keeping businesses afloat and people in work can be greater than short-run expenditure on stimulus measures. That means that a well-targeted fiscal stimulus might actually reduce public debt in the long run.

I draw the House's attention to a memo put together by the Department of the Treasury analysing the impact of the fiscal stimulus titled 'The Treasury briefing paper for the Senate inquiry into the economic stimulus package'. That briefing paper notes very clearly how the stimulus package prevented recession. Make no mistake, had we not had Labor's timely, targeted and temporary stimulus package, Australia would have been plunged into recession. The pre-stimulus real GDP forecasts for 2008-09 and 2009-10 both had negative growth. It was as a result of stimulus that we saw employment, consumer confidence, growth and productivity increase.

These are outcomes that ought to go well beyond politics in this place. All of us in this parliament ought to care about growth, we ought to care about jobs and we ought to care about boosting productivity, and there is nothing pro-productive about a recession. It is a terrible loss of skills. It is so deeply demoralising for young Australians who find themselves leaving school unable to get a job. I saw this in graduating from high school in the teeth of the last Australian recession when unemployment went double-digit and for an 18-year-old school leaver it was near impossible to find a job. I saw mates of mine spending years looking for their first job.

So when you avoid a recession, you avoid the blight of unemployment. You avoid the loss of small businesses and, as a member of this House who cares deeply about strong small businesses, I am really proud that we managed to prevent tens of thousands of small businesses going to the wall. The OECD in 2009 rated Australia's economic stimulus package highly. They said:

Australia's fiscal stimulus package seems to have had a strong effect in cushioning the decline in employment caused by the global economic downturn.

You can see this also in an open letter signed by many, many Australian economists, which said:

We the undersigned economists are convinced by the evidence that the coordinated policies of the Australian Labor Government have prevented the Australian economy from a deep recession and prevented a massive increase in unemployment.

That is signed by Raja Junankar, Professor Harcourt, Peter Kriesler, John Nevile, Harry Bloch, the late Steve Dowrick, Roy Green, Elisabetta Magnami, Fiona Martin, John Quiggin, Michael Schneider, Roger Tonkin and many, many other economists. Time being short, I will not read all of their names into the Hansard, but the list represents many of the best economists across Australia.

Yet when crisis hit, we saw a lack of the bipartisan spirit which, one would hope, would have characterised a quick response to a global financial crisis. We saw on the 7.30 Report on 16 September 2009 Leigh Sales putting to the now Prime Minister that the OECD's estimate was that unemployment would be 1.9 per cent higher absent the stimulus package. To his credit, Mr Abbott said at the time:

There's no doubt that the stimulus package has helped in the short term.

But that was not the way in which he acted when the votes were on. We saw the Prime Minister being notably absent from the discussions over these economic matters and the Prime Minister had to apologise to then Chief Opposition Whip Alex Somlyay for missing five divisions on the night of 12 February, the circumstances of missing those votes being laid out in an article by Sharri Markson on 8 March 2009 in the Sunday Telegraph.

The stimulus package saved Australia from recession and all parliamentarians in this House should be proud of that success. For the government to now be playing political games, to be focusing on the final tail of stimulus payments—$250,000 of them—rather than the great success of the package itself is disappointing to me and I think ought to be disappointing to all members of this House. This was an extremely well-designed package.

There are still some countries in the world languishing with high unemployment rates and sluggish growth, and for them the tale of the global financial crisis is worse than the Great Depression itself. But we have learned a great deal from the experience of the failure of policy-makers to successfully confront the Great Depression from the too-late responses in Australia to the early 80s recession and the early 90s recession. As a result, Australia acted quickly in the case of the global financial crisis and to the great surprise of many avoided recession entirely.

Yet at the time, you had then opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull, the member for Wentworth, drawing on some extreme right-wing economists in the United States arguing that fiscal stimulus simply would not work, that people would cut back their demand in anticipation of future cuts. It was the 'freshwater school of thinking' and it simply is not borne out by the data. The fiscal stimulus was successful. The fiscal stimulus managed to save jobs and it should be a matter of great pride across this House. We should in fact have a motion from the Treasurer here commending the former government on leaving him with an economy in which the unemployment rate was below six per cent rather than above eight per cent, as some of the projections prior to the global financial crisis were suggesting. The social debt of unemployment with the debt of tens of thousands of small businesses gone to the wall would have resulted in hundreds of thousands of young people whose career earnings would have been permanently scarred. We know from the experience of past recessions that school leavers experience a hit not just temporarily with a period of unemployment but later on in their careers, and Australia has managed to avoid all of that thanks to a well-designed fiscal stimulus package. The household stimulus was important because it would get out there quickly, ahead even of the worst of the global downturn.

But infrastructure was important too, because the multipliers for infrastructure are higher and because they were able to leave us an important social legacy across Australian communities.

In my schools I will see education outcomes improve as a result of classrooms, such as in Amaroo School, where teachers can engage in team teaching through well-designed 21st century classrooms. I will see school buildings that are more environmentally efficient and allow the school to have assemblies together. Black Mountain School, a school which caters to children with disabilities, has a school hall that is suitable for children with wheelchairs and a stage where a kid with a wheelchair can now, for the first time, go on stage to receive an award with everyone else.

So that legacy of the infrastructure package is there right across Australia, in new roads, in new school building programs and in so many of the shovel-ready infrastructure projects. It is a legacy of infrastructure alongside a legacy of avoiding recession of which this House will be proud and of which I wish I would hear a little more from those in government.

ProBono Australia News this morning published my opinion piece on why the Abbott Government would be foolish to axe the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission. The online news service also produced a story confirming that Commission staff have been offered voluntary redundancies as part of a major public service jobs cutting move by the Tax Office.

OPINION PIECE

Government Should Keep the Australian Charities Commission

Over recent weeks, we’ve heard a lot from the Abbott Government about the need for transparency and accountability. These are worthy values; the public interest is rarely served by secrecy and the lack of a proper complaints process.

So it is surprising that those who believe in open government want to abolish the Australian Charities and Not for Profits Commission (ACNC): a body that handles complaints and ensures charities are transparent and accountable.

For decades, independent reports have made the case for an independent ACNC. It was after all a 2001 Howard Government report that concluded a Commission would provide “a clear and consistent accountability framework…to maintain and enhance public confidence in the integrity of charities and related entities”.

Created by Federal Labor, the ACNC is functioning well and in the public interest, actively working to protect public trust and confidence in charities. It has registered 2000 new charities in the past year, in addition to 58,000 existing organisations. And just as lawyers and doctors’ professional associations maintain their standing by investigating complaints, so too the Commission plays a similar role by looking into allegations of bad behaviour by charities.

In its first compliance report issued in late January, the ACNC told us it received more than 200 complaints in 12 months. That’s a significant number from a body that’s just beginning to get known. The majority of the complaints came from the public. Key concerns involve governance issues such as conflict of interest, fraudulent or criminal activity and claims of private benefit.  Fifty-five of the complaints of inappropriate behaviour are being followed up.

The Commission’s approach is gentle and graduated, shaped by many years of consultation. That approach begins with guidance and support from the ACNC and moves towards intervention, only if a charity is not open to change and meeting its obligations.

The ACNC is designed to serve the best interests of the sector, government and the wider community. It provides a ‘Governance for Good’ guide, a resource to help charities (especially new players) stay on track. The ACNC website has had unexpectedly high levels of traffic from in and outside the sector.  Feedback from large and respected players confirms the ACNC has been reasonable and accommodating in its dealings with charities and Not for Profits. Its people are easy to talk to and not at all heavy-handed.

What we have is a body designed to support the sector so the public can have confidence in the work it does. It’s the quid pro quo for charities getting generous tax concessions worth up to a billion dollars each year.

The Abbott Government often expresses concern about how taxpayer money is spent; arguing that accountability is crucial. And yet  when it comes to charities, which receive significant tax concessions, it seems to prefer no accountability at all.

Among the ideas flagged is a heavy-handed ‘Charity Navigator’, modelled on a US website that ranks charities but has no teeth to intervene. That’s like saying we should replace MySchool with RateMyTeacher.com. Ironically, the founders of Charity Navigator are themselves frustrated by a lack of transparency in a growing sector, and advocates for the US to have an independent regulator like the ACNC.

Despite the government’s rhetoric about the ACNC creating ‘red tape’, the reverse is true. The commission has a Reporting and Red Tape Reduction Directorate, aimed at freeing charities from double reporting. It will facilitate a Charity Passport so charities don’t have to engage in double-reporting.

Under the Abbott Government, handling of the ACNC has moved from the Assistant Treasurer to the Minister for Social Services. This is a mistake. There are many charities and Not for Profits that do not provide social services with Commonwealth government funds. The ACNC recognises the diversity of the sector. It may aim to be a one-stop shop but it is not a one-size fits all agency.

If the ACNC’s public register role is scrapped, charity regulation will default back to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). Now subject to savage staffing cuts, it is hard to see how the ATO would manage the extra workload. And it’s difficult to see how charities are well served by being regulated through a body that focuses only on revenue collection.

Around the world, countries recognise the inherent conflict of interest in having a revenue collection agency decide whether or not a charity should get a tax break. That’s why many developed nations are moving towards the ACNC model. A recent survey of charities found that four in five wanted to keep the ACNC. Australian charities deserve better than a ‘back to the future’ approach from the Abbott Government.

ENDS

Thursday, 13 February 2014

Published in ProBono Australia News

After running #AusPolValentines in 2012, and #ElectionValentines in 2013, I think this must be the year for #EconValentines (I have a pop economics book coming out in August).

Tweet your favourites, and here's a few to get you going.

• Are my expectations rational? #econvalentines


• You're the solution to my optimal stopping problem #econvalentines


• You're the equitable and efficient solution to my problem #econvalentines


• You've got a monopoly on my heart #econvalentines

Update, Thursday night:

• Let's hold invisible hands together. #econvalentines


• You complete me like the perfectly structured pigouvian tax. #econvalentines


• @Elias_Hallaj When you are near me I devalue all my other investments #econvalentines


• @Gary_Rake After more than 20yrs of marriage, still no sign of diminishing returns... #econvalentines


• @AlysJ: you might be low in supply, but you're high in the demand of my heart. #econvalentines


• @rgmerk: "when it comes to love, I want to be your monopsonist." #econvalentines


• @TimHarcourt: with you I am forever in equilibrium #econvalentines


• @julesmoxon: Our relationship is pareto optimal. #econvalentines


• @John_Hanna: I've held nothing in Reserve. #econvalentines


• @OBenPotter: shall I compare thee to a control group? #econvalentines


• @MarciaKKeegan: when you walk into a crowded room, the Gini coefficient of beauty approaches 1 #econvalentines


• @sarahinthesen8: Lets get fiscal. Fiscal. I wanna get fiscal. Let me hear your budget talk... #econvalentines


• @HelenRazer Roses are Red / Violets are Blue / I think I'm a Keynesian statist but never get past the first 3 pages of the General Theory #econvalentines


• @MattCowgill "There are no Harberger triangles in my heawhen you're around" #econvalentines


• @llewstevens You make my homo-economicus behave irrationally. #econvalentines


• @laurie_msYou maximise my heart's efficiency #econvalentines


• Are my expectations rational? #econvalentines

Update, after Valentine's Day:

• @philippascott It's so easy to love you, I always have the comparative advantage. #econvalentines


• @MichaelAngwin Let our animal spirits run free #econvalentines


• @asingh_au Let's promise to forever maintain our information asymmetry, for I will always be your adverse selection #econvalentines


• Our love is subject to the Jevons effect #econvalentines


• @TimWattsMP You're worth the transaction costs #econvalentines


• You're the maximum likelihood estimator that best fits my function. #econvalentines


• @StevenDooley In the long run, we're all dead. Let's do it. #econvalentines


• @EconNotRocketSc My YOUtilty function is convex, baby #econvalentines


• @hawthorne00 You and me contango #econvalentines


• @troywheatley You're my only Giffen good. #econvalentines


• @ben_mcduff I'm a deadweight loss without you #econvalentines


• @JohnParkerCook My heart is outside of everyone's production possibilities frontier except for yours #econvalentines


• @JohnParkerCook Sorry, Federal Reserve, these bonds are not for sale on the open market #econvalentines


• @szarka The search for a mate Is rather taxing. Can we end it right here And say we're done matching? #econvalentines


• @AnimalSpiritEd Roses are red, violets are blue; when the dating market cleared, my equilibrium was you. #econvalentines


• @ecoen2tardes Love starts with "Let's go for a random walk" #econvalentines


• @jaykody Your curves never make me feel indifferent #econvalentines


• @jmackin2 I'm 95% confident I love you #econvalentines

Also, check out Elizabeth Fosslien's 14 Valentine's Day economic charts.

I spoke in parliament last night about the importance of providing appropriate assistance to people affected by British nuclear tests.

Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill, 11 Feb 2014

The legislation before us today includes a range of measures to improve the provision of assistance to veterans receiving rehabilitation or compensation under the Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986 and under the Australian Participants in British Nuclear Tests (Treatment) Act 2006. The result of these amendments will be a speedier and more efficient process for providing special assistance to veterans, members, former members and their dependants. By continuing to review and improve the mechanisms by which we compensate our veterans, we pay due deference to the ongoing debt that is owed to our service personnel. We owe it to them not only to recognise and remedy the damage they have suffered but to make sure the means by which we do this are efficient and easily navigated.

In particular the bill will clarify the arrangements that assist those affected by British nuclear tests to get the treatment they need. Those who need to travel for treatment face significant transport costs, they need to feed themselves away from home, they need somewhere to stay, and often they need somebody to travel with them. As we learned during discussions around the bill in 2012-13, the department processed over 165,000 claims for reimbursement for travel expenses for treatment purposes. The bill will enable Australian participants in the testing to better understand the support which they can draw on in dealing with the ongoing effects of exposure.

The history of British nuclear testing in Australia offers a case study in the ongoing evolution in the way we make reparations to Australians who have suffered through extreme circumstances in the name of their country. Both Australian and British governments have made mistakes and we aim here to learn from past wrongs. Naturally those mistakes do not undermine the current strong relationship that Australia shares with friends in the United Kingdom. In recounting the events of the British nuclear test, I acknowledge the help of Hariharan Thirunavukkarasu, who worked in my office and helped prepare these remarks.

The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the deadliest conflict in human history. But the arrival of the nuclear age changed the world for other reasons. The balance of power in the world was up-ended and the United States emerged as the undisputed global hegemon. Predictably, the other great powers scrambled to join the nuclear club and redress the new imbalance. Within two decades of Enola Gay's fateful flight, the current permanent members of the UN Security Council had all successfully deployed nuclear weapons. For Britain, the motivation to acquire nuclear weapons was as much about prestige and clinging to the days of its imperial glory as it was about national security. As Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin eloquently told Whitehall officials:

'We have got to have this thing over here whatever it costs, and with a bloody Union Jack flying on top of it.'

Australia's role in the rush to nuclear came through Britain's race to acquire the bomb. Initially, the British government sought to obtain a transfer of nuclear technology from the United States. After all, the British assumed their collaboration with the Americans and the Canadians on the Manhattan Project entitled them to the technology. But in 1946 congress passed the McMahon act, which prohibited the transfer of nuclear technology to foreign governments. This was at least partially driven by a mistrust of the nuclear security of their allies. Presaging the plethora of British defectors that would emerge during the Cold War, the British physicist Alan Nunn May was caught in 1945 passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. Spurned by their great wartime allies, the British tried to obtain permission to conduct nuclear testing in the Nevada desert but were again refused. So they turned to Australia.

When the then British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, proposed conducting nuclear tests on Australian territory, Prime Minister Menzies agreed immediately, without consulting his cabinet colleagues. This was not an anomalous event. It reflected the tenor of the time. British interests were seen as synonymous with Australian interests, and Australian sovereignty was subordinate to Britain. Indeed, the British government told Menzies which Australian ministers could be informed of the operation, and, as the Royal Commission into British Nuclear Tests in Australia found, 'the Australian news media reported only what the UK government wished'. The extraordinary secrecy was a legacy of the war. As Margaret Gowing has noted:

'Wartime secrecy produced a distortion of constitutional government in countries such as Britain where atomic matters were never discussed within the small War Cabinet, and Mr Attlee, as Deputy Prime Minister, the Service Ministers and the Chiefs of Staff knew almost nothing about it.'

The culture of secrecy was so ingrained that Menzies even misled the public, in a newspaper interview, about the possibility of nuclear testing in Australia. It is a lesson for the current generation about the risks of excessive secrecy. With the benefit of hindsight, it may be a mistake to keep secret even those things that seem worth keeping secret at the time.

After the tests were made public in the early fifties, there was minimal public dissent. When opposition was voiced, critics were denigrated as:

'… Communists and … fellow travellers who wanted our tests to stop while Russia continued with hers.'

A Gallup poll in 1954 found that Australians were among the most enthusiastic—even compared with Americans—towards their allies' development of nuclear weapons as a deterrent against communist aggression. An equally sanguine perspective was apparent in the media, with atomic bombs expected to, as The Sun-Herald put it, 'eventually become the Australian Army's hardest hitting weapon'.

Beginning in the 1950s, the British, with Australian assistance, started testing nuclear weapons in Australia. Between 1952 and 1957, 12 major nuclear tests were conducted. The majority took place at Maralinga and Emu Field in the South Australian desert, while some also occurred at Montebello Islands, off the north-west coast of Western Australia. The Maralinga tests continued up to 1963 and included hundreds of so-called 'minor trials', which were anything but. The minor trials seemed to have been drawn from Hollywood scripts. They included experiments such as crashing planes with nuclear weapons on board, setting fire to atom bombs and placing them in conventional explosions. Ironically, it was the radioactive materials dispersed from the minor trials, not the atomic bombs, which have left the legacy of plutonium contamination at Maralinga today.

In the vernacular of the Pitjantjatjara people, Maralinga translates as 'field of thunder'. This originally referred to the dry lightning strikes that occur in the climate of the Central Australian desert, but 'field of thunder' came to take on a new, more insidious meaning. Don Martin, an Aboriginal man, was in the area for one of the tests. He said:

'When the bomb was fired, you [would] get the sight of every shadow in front of you from the flash, and you [would] turn around and [you'd be] watching the mushroom cloud forming, just like a big, boiling oil-fire …

'It's that technicolour effect inside the bomb that makes it so magnificent.

'But you're not thinking, because it's so far away …

'And there's no noise.

'And then suddenly you can see this wall coming towards you.

'And as it comes towards you … it picks up more and more dust.

'And then … the shock hits you.

Karina Lester's father was there, too. She says:

'He describes it like a black mist that rolled through, along the ground, through the tops of the trees, and … silently it moved.

'It totally confused the animals.

'Animals were so used to dust storms, and the noise that [a] dust storm brings … but this was a black mist that came silently across the land.'

Karina's father was Yami Lester, of whom Paul Kelly sings:

'My name is Yami Lester / I hear I talk I touch but I am blind / my story comes from darkness / listen to my story now unwind.'

Following the findings of the McClelland royal commission in 1985, the Keating government paid $13.5 million in compensation to the local Maralinga Tjarutja people.

Currently, the number of Australian participants in the British nuclear test program, according to information obtained from the Parliamentary Library, is a bit under 17,000, almost evenly split between military personnel and civilians. In addition, thousands of British soldiers, mostly men completing their compulsory national service, were involved. Lance-Corporal Johnny Hutton was one of these men. Hours after an atomic bomb was detonated, the 19-year-old would drive out to near ground zero and unearth instruments that were buried to monitor the blasts. For their job, the Army gave them shovels—and steaks for a good meal afterwards. But the Army did not provide anything to cook the steaks with. So, Corporal Hutton says, he and his squad just washed the dirt off the shovels and cooked their steak and eggs on them, over a fire.

Most of the time the men wore shorts and boots, but they were given protective gear to wear when they drove out to the crater to collect the instruments. After doing strenuous work, the heat built up inside the suits and the masks fogged up so that they could not see what they were doing. So, Corporal Hutton says, they took them off for some relief, breathing in the dust and radiation.

A more malevolent plan, codenamed Operation Lighthouse, was scheduled for 1959 but thankfully was never implemented. This was because Britain had gained access to testing facilities in the Nevada desert and because of a temporary international moratorium on nuclear testing. But the intent was chilling: the plan for the experiment, so secret that the Americans were not permitted to see it, was to expose nearly 2,000 soldiers, including 560 Australian troops, to a series of atomic explosions. While those tests did not proceed, other deliberate testing did.

In May 2001 the British government admitted that Australian troops had been ordered to run, walk and crawl across contaminated nuclear test sites. However, it denied negligence, insisting that the troops were only exposed to low levels of radiation and were not at risk. The British Ministry of Defence claimed that the testing was to gauge the effects of radiation fallout on clothing, not on personnel.

History is essentially a process of revision and revisiting. We revisit the past and assign meaning to it from our perspective here in the present. It gives us an opportunity to take pride in elements of the past which once shamed us, like our convict history. But it also allows us to recognise our past mistakes, like our treatment of Indigenous Australians. This ability, nurtured in Australia over our century as a nation, reflects our maturity as a society and our coming of age as a nation.

In the case of British nuclear testing in Australia, we can acknowledge the inadequate role of both governments' handling of the tests and their aftermath. We can make amends by supporting those individuals who were wronged, as this bill helps to do. A local man, Canberran Alan Batchelor, spent six months at the Maralinga site. He was a lieutenant in charge of an engineer group. Most of his comrades from that group are dead now. The tests have had long-term effects on Mr Batchelor and his children. After he returned from Maralinga, his wife fell pregnant then miscarried a badly deformed foetus. He was then sterile for nine years. He was later able to have two more children, one is healthy but the other suffers from intestinal difficulties and deformed teeth.

Recognising the kind of debt we owe to men like Alan Batchelor involves recognising an obligation that is ongoing. It encompasses the damage done to Mr Batchelor's life and the damage done to his family. Service, as other speakers in this debate have noted, can extract severe costs from veterans and their families. The story of Maralinga touches on a broad range of those costs.

The spirit of the amendments recognises that our commitment to compensate our veterans and service personnel includes an obligation to shape protocols and procedures that place as light a burden as possible on recipients. By compressing and streamlining the mechanisms through which we administer compensation to veterans, we will be better placed to meet the pressing needs of those who have been damaged by their service. This bill is a step in that direction and I commend it to the House.

This evening, I joined host Waleed Aly and NSW Senator Arthur Sinodinos for a discussion about the implications of the death of car manufacturing in Australia and the Assistant Treasurer's attempt to windback Labor's consumer-centred Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) reforms. Here's a podcast.

This morning I joined Fairfax Media host Chris Hammer and Brisbane-based Liberal MP Andrew Laming to congratulate Terri Butler on her bi-election win in Griffith against a high profile rival.

ANDREW LEIGH

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION

MEMBER FOR FRASER



E&OE TRANSCRIPT

INTERVIEW
BREAKING POLITICS – FAIRFAX MEDIA

MONDAY, 10 February

SUBJECT/S: Terri Butler’s win in Griffith; Building industry corruption; Federal Budget.

CHRIS HAMMER: Tony Abbott's Government has faced its first electoral test on the weekend with the Griffith by-election. It seems Labor has retained the seat, Kevin Rudd's old seat but that there has been a slight swing towards the Coalition. So that's left both sides of politics claiming vindication. We're joined in the studio now by Andrew Laming who has a seat nearby in Brisbane and Andrew Leigh who's from Canberra. Andrew Laming can I start with you? Give us your spill. Why is this a vindication for the Coalition?

ANDREW LAMING: Well it's remarkable that the two results, last year and the by-election are so close. I think what commentators is that we've seen a departing Prime Minister and with him goes a certain personal vote and I think that's simply compensated for what would have been a swing to an opposition during a by-election. It's hard to quantify Kevin Rudd's impact on that seat over the decade or so that he was there. But certainly replacing him was a great challenge for the Labor Party. They've managed to do that. They've managed to hold as close as they could to their vote last year. I think they're the main factors; the departure of an ex-Prime Minister and of course, the typical by-election swing that should run against a government.

HAMMER: So are you saying this is a good result for Labor?

LAMING: Well yes. Actually, I am. I'm saying both parties campaigned very hard. This became the Somme, a World War One battle front. The fact that we got an almost identical front just shows that both parties through everything at it and I think, if you've got a departing Prime Minister, it's usually pretty hard to hold your vote and Labor's almost managed to do that.

HAMMER: Okay, Andrew Leigh, well Andrew Laming has been a bit counter-intuitive here and said it's a good result for Labor. Your turn, is it a good result for the Coalition?

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: I think Andrew Laming has been appropriately generous to Terri Butler who won on the weekend, as I think we always ought to do after an election. It leaves Andrew now as the only doctor in the House, the only person with medical qualifications in the House of Representatives. Terri will be a great addition to the team - two young kids and a lawyer in a national law firm - somebody who is keen to work with people of different ideological views, which is I think what you really want in a parliamentarian, somebody who doesn't just come in wanting to knock heads together, but actually build a better country for everyone.

HAMMER: Now, I'm wondering in this spirit of consensus, whether we can agree on this. I'll ask you first Andrew Leigh, given that this by-election has happened so early in the term of the Abbott Government, really before it's budget strategy has been revealed, before it's legislative program has been introduced, that really trying to draw any conclusions from this by-election is sort of an exercise in futility, that by the next election it will be well and truly forgotten.

LEIGH: You can do a lot of spin about why someone got a particular win. Ultimately I think we ought to be praising Terri, recognising other candidates in the race put in a hard effort as well but recognising that the parliament will be a better place for having someone who comes into it with the right ideas and passions. Andrew and I, as it happens, both have young kids and I think that shapes the way you think about politics. There was a lovely piece in The Economist a couple of years ago which said that  politicians with young children think about the world as a little kinder, a little gentler and there's sometimes a little more understanding of mistakes, because parents make plenty of those.

HAMMER: And is it a good think for the Labor Party that Kevin Rudd has now departed the scene?

LEIGH: Mr Rudd made a mammoth contribution to Australian public life. He was appropriate that he got to step down under the terms of his own choosing. I'm sure he'll continue to have an impact whether that's in international organisations or on issues locally that are important to Andrew and me, like Indigenous reconciliation, where he's spoken about this enthusiasm to continue to get involved.

HAMMER: Okay, and Andrew Laming, would you agree that this by-election it can be over-analysed but it doesn't have any real implications for what's going to happen in the future.

LAMING: Yeah sure. We should analyse it as much as we can for about 24 hours. The Coalition Government has a set of objectives that are not quick turnarounds. With the greatest of respect to the Apology, to the 20/20 Summit, nothing in the Coalition's agenda is necessarily going to happen overnight. That means there's not a great deal to show for it come a Griffith by-election. So I think the people of Griffith were faced with early days scenario of the Abbott Government but they were also having to digest I think a lot of scare campaign from Labor, particularly the notion that you won't be able to take your child to see a doctor for a sniffily nose and the tax on health and this sort of thing. So, they did have to wade through a fair bit of that and in the end we've seen a very close result to what we saw last year.

HAMMER: Part of the Government's agenda that will stretch out to the next election it seems is this attack on the union movement through a Royal Commission that we expect to be announced today. Why the need for a Royal Commission? Much of this union corruption has been exposed. Isn't this simply a political exercise?

LAMING: Well, I note Bill Shorten's come in a little bit like a tobacco company arriving at the hospital and saying 'you can only use a tablet, not chemotherapy for the cancer’. This is a major erosive, corrosive effect on our economy. I come from Queensland where massive infrastructure projects are subject to union-negotiated agreements that erode public finance and lead to projects, quite often, not even clearing the cost benefit bar simply because of the cost of building them. We're in the awful situation where we haven't got the infrastructure bang for our buck and a lot of it can be put down to union activities, be it corruption, be it whatever, we must get to the bottom of it and a six-person police unit and a sniffer dog just ain’t going to do it.

HAMMER: Okay, let's separate a couple of issues here. Is the issue with the unions simply that some are marred by corruption or is there a wider argument being prosecuted here that wages and conditions, particularly conditions, are too generous?

LAMING: Well, I think you've given the spectrum and I think the answer will be determined by the terms of reference, potentially somewhere in between.

HAMMER: Okay. Andrew Leigh, Tony Abbott's doing Labor a favour here isn't he because by the time the next election comes around all those unions that aren't tainted by corruption will have a clear Tony Abbott stamp of approval and the connections with the Labor Party won't be a millstone round your neck?

LEIGH: Well Chris, I'm less interested in the politics of this than how we focus on the substantive issues. I find corruption in Australian life, wherever it rears its ugly head morally abhorrent, whether that occurs in corporations or within the union movement or other sectors of Australian life. And then the question is how best you tackle that. And as someone said about Royal Commissions, they're a little bit like the queen in Alice in Wonderland, let's have the verdict first and the trial afterwards. By contrast, what Labor has proposed is an AFP taskforce as we did with the $64 million anti-gangs taskforce which can get straight to work, which can begin prosecutions from day one if the evidence is there. We believe that's the best way of cracking down on it, but we also believe that there's an appropriate role for unions in public life. Building sites are some of the most dangerous workplaces we have in Australia. It's appropriate for people working on building sites to be able to work together to secure better conditions and better pay. Let's face it, wage growth has been running below trend in recent years, so that I think gives the lie to some who've argued that the real problem with Australia is a wages breakout.

HAMMER: But a Royal Commission, the reintroduction of the ABCC they don't preclude workers from teaming together and campaigning for better wages and conditions do they?

LEIGH: I'm just concerned Chris that we don't see a broad scale attack on unions who are, after all, the folks that brought you the weekend and the eight-hour day. It is vital that we recognise that there are hardworking unionists in workplaces across Australia today doing the right and decent thing. And I'm sure that's something which Andrew would agree. The question is how you tackle the instances of corruption and whether that's better done by giving police more resources as Labor has argued or by setting up a Royal Commission which is an expensive, a slow and potentially a less effective way of dealing with the problem that Andrew and I are both concerned about.

HAMMER: Well, Andrew Laming, in these instances of corruption, it takes two to tango. If the unions are extorting money out of corporations, then the corporations are party to this corrupt behaviour. Why not have a Royal Commission into corporate corruption?

LAMING: Well I guess the nidus of the problem is the unions. I agree with Andrew's case that the unions still do some very good things as well. But it's interesting that there's a sudden urgency in Bill Shorten's voice and Paul Howes but we've had six years where we've also could have addressed this and we haven't. So you need to remember that there was a government that simply refused to consider this to be a problem until now. It is some credit but a little too late that they now vocalise this in opposition.

HAMMER: Okay, can we turn to parliament beginning tomorrow. One of the first big tests of the Government and I guess something the Government wants to emphasise is economic management and budget management. Can I ask you Andrew Laming, how much does Joe Hockey have to stick to his tough line. Now his drawn the line in the sand. Can he compromise at all?

LAMING: Well he'd prefer not to and he'd prefer to remind every backbencher, every member of the Government, this is going to be an extremely tough budget. I sense this is where it's going. We're also, on the other hand, proving major projects all across the country, at a commerce level, almost $400 billion worth of new projects. That means new jobs and opportunities that can be flying through over the coming months and years. So, it's about getting the private economy started as Tony Abbott's made so very clearly at the G20 and I guess there's also the invidious job that our Treasurer has to do leading up to his first budget.

HAMMER: Andrew Leigh, the budget does need repairing, does it not? Isn't Joe Hockey on the right course here?

LEIGH: Governments always have to make values choices Chris. The question is whether when you're making savings decisions they fall on those who can most afford to pay or those who can least afford to pay. At the same time as he's taking away the Schools Kids Bonus from low and middle-income families, Mr Hockey and Mr Abbott are putting in place a parental leave scheme that will pay $75,000 to the most affluent families when they have a child and they're giving tax breaks to mining billionaires, some of the richest people on the planet. They're taking away superannuation tax concessions from low wage workers and they're taking away financial protections in the form of best interest financial advice tests which we put in place after the Storm Financial collapse. So I'd like to see the ‘age of entitlement’ rhetoric actually flowing through into policy decisions that look after low and middle income Australia.

HAMMER: Andrew Laming, isn't the Coalition vulnerable to that sort of criticism of double standards cutting perhaps middle class welfare on one hand, generous paid parental leave on another, not giving assistance to car manufacturers, SPC Ardmona on one hand, yet still giving out sizable money to mining companies etc.?

LAMING: Well, obviously we have to have to identify where the money is best spent. I think in every policy proposal you can almost spin it do find a middle-class person who benefits from, call it, middle-class welfare. But in reality the Government's made a series of election commitments and they are well known I think throughout the community and Australians I think, just want a government that keeps its word and delivers on its promises. So, what you will be seeing is very few surprises, rolling out exactly what we said we'd do prior to the election and then obviously coming out before the budget there could be a few more tough calls. That's to be expected.

HAMMER: Okay gentlemen, thanks very much for going round the grounds with us. But before I let you Andrew Laming, I must ask you, Australia Day, hand stand, skolling beer, what was that all about?

LAMING: Well, I admire Bob Hawke and admire Aker Manis and I thought I'd just pull to into one and I guess, when it comes to Australia Day you can celebrate however way you wish and if I can manage to prove that males can multitask, that's another benefit as well.

HAMMER: Do you regret doing it?

LAMING: I loved every second of it and I'll be doing it again next Australia Day.

HAMMER: And what's the response been?

LAMING: Oh it's been fantastic.

HAMMER: So, next Australia Day, you'll do it again?

LAMING: There's something sacrosanct about the backyard Chris, a private party among friends.

HAMMER: Andrew Laming, Andrew Leigh, thank you so much.

LEIGH: Thanks Chris, thanks Andrew.

ENDS

MEDIA CONTACT: TONI HASSAN 0426 207 726

On 10 Feb, I joined host Kieran Gilbert and Liberal Senator Scott Ryan to discuss Labor candidate Terri Butler's win in the Griffith by-election, the best way to tackle corruption allegations, and bipartisanship in politics.http://www.youtube.com/v/R8l-Hn2Zarg?version=3&hl=en_US

ANDREW LEIGH MP

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION

MEMBER FOR FRASER

MEDIA RELEASE

ABBOTT WRECKING BALL STRIKES THE ATO

News that the Australian Tax Office (ATO) has offered 500 voluntary redundancies in its effort to slash 900 positions represents a broken promise that jobs would be shed only by natural attrition.

The Abbott Government promised cuts to the Australian Public Service (APS) solely through natural attrition. It’s a lie. Redundancies are now in full flow.

“Well, we’ve said that it will all be though natural attrition. We want government to be no bigger than it has to be and obviously it’s much bigger than it needs to be right now.” – Tony Abbott, 14 July 2013 Doorstop interview, Sydney

On being elected Mr Abbott said he would lead “A government that says what it means and means what it says. A government of no surprises and no excuses.”

But the Government's extreme agenda has seen a worsening of the employment situation across Australia, especially in regional areas, since the Coalition was elected.

Savage cuts to the APS inevitably result in a loss of services including compliance. Can the Government guarantee otherwise?

Redundancies at the Tax Office immediately add uncertainty to ATO workplaces and stress for those who’ll remain.

Cuts to the APS are having a depressing impact especially in the nation's capital. The Abbott Government is yet to explain how its hostility towards the APS impacts productivity.

The Government’s axe, driven by ideology and a bias for outsourcing, stifles the kinds of innovations the public expect of an independent and robust Commonwealth Public Service.

Most pressing for the bureaucracy is the anticipated outcome of the Commission of Audit, which key departments fear will hit them like a wrecking ball.

ENDS

8 FEBRUARY 2014

My op-ed in the SMH online looks at why we need to make sure multinationals pay their fair share of tax.

Tough tax talk short on action, Sydney Morning Herald Online, 7 February 2014

If your boss were to come to your desk and ask for you to arrange a double Irish Dutch Sandwich for him, you could be forgiven for thinking it would involve a trip to the local pub at lunch time. In fact, the double Irish Dutch Sandwich is a complex tax avoidance arrangement used by many multi-national companies involving Irish holding companies as the bread with a Dutch subsidiary wedged in between them as filling.

For tax division of a tax-minimising multinational, it might sound delicious. For the rest of us who have to foot the bill, the double Irish Dutch Sandwich is enough to give you a serious stomach ache. Because the more we let multinational firms avoid tax, the more the rest of us have to pay to maintain good services.

Cracking down on multinational profit-shifting isn’t just about making sure that firms pay their fair share of tax. It’s also about making sure that the tax burden is fairly shared across companies. For a local Aussie company without subsidiaries in offshore tax havens, it’s hard to compete against a multinational that’s able to get away with paying a lower share of tax. Unfair tax arrangements also distort investment decisions by creating an incentive to invest overseas and put local companies at a disadvantage against international conglomerates.

The early rhetoric of the Government suggests that they are looking to use Australia’s G20 agenda to push for reforms in this area. Given that under the Treasurer Joe Hockey’s watch the deficit has blown out by more than 50 percent, you can understand why Mr Hockey would be looking for more tax revenue. Unfortunately, like a ‘gourmet’ restaurant that serves up fast food, the Government’s publicity has not been backed up by good public policy.

The Prime Minister used his recent speech in Davos on the Government’s G20 agenda to argue that ‘the G20 will continue to tackle businesses artificially generating profits to chase tax opportunities.’ However, the only action the government has taken on multinational tax integrity is to dump Labor’s thin capitalisation reforms at a cost of $700 million dollars. To put this figure into context, $700 million would buy a new regional hospital. At the same time as giving multinationals a tax break, the Government has slugged families by removing the low income superannuation contribution and the school kids-bonus.

Alongside repealing important measures to limit multinational tax avoidance, the Assistant Treasurer Arthur Sinodinos has let it be known that he wants to repeal Labor’s tax transparency reforms. These reforms would have ensured the public could see how much tax Australia’s largest companies are paying. As US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously wrote, ‘Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants’.

If the Government is serious about making sure companies pay their fair share of tax, why are they trying to let these same companies hide how much tax they’re paying? Just as publicly available food inspector reports led to cleaner restaurant kitchens, so too a little publicity about tax paid is likely to serve the public.

The Government’s tough talk and lack of action on multinational tax avoidance is a worrying trend that is repeated time and again regardless of policy area or promises made before the election. As Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott was on a unity ticket with Labor on school funding, but sought to scrap it not six months into his term. Tony Abbott was the champion of workers from Holden in Adelaide, to SPC Ardmona in Shepparton, but again has done a U-turn fast enough to give you whiplash. The Prime Minister who said last year that ‘the ABC will flourish under the Coalition’ is now attacking the national broadcaster for being unpatriotic.

To paraphrase UK Labor leader Ed Miliband, Tony Abbott’s government has shown in its first few months that it is strong at standing up to the weak, but weak at standing up to the strong.

Andrew Leigh is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, and his website is www.andrewleigh.com.