Andrew Leigh

Despite the Abbott Government's promise before the election that there would be no forced redundancies in the Australian Public Service, there are reports today that The Treasury has launched a 'spill and fill' process that will lead to up to 40 forced sackings. Here's my comments in response:

MEDIA RELEASE

DON'T SACK TREASURY MUMS

The Abbott Government has broken yet another of its pre-election promises, with news that staff at The Treasury are being forced to take part in a ‘spill and fill’ process that will result in up to 40 forced redundancies.

Before the last election, Tony Abbott promised that any jobs lost in the Australian Public Service would go through ‘natural attrition’, and stated:

“I really want to stress that we are not talking about forced redundancies, we are talking about not replacing everyone who leaves, that’s all.” 

— Tony Abbott, 11 October 2012

This morning I spoke with Mark Parton on 2CC's Breakfast program about the government's moves to force up to 40 Treasury workers to accept involuntary redundancies. Here's the transcript:

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

2CC CANBERRA

THURSDAY, 31 JULY 2014

SUBJECT/S: Forced redundancies at The Treasury

MARK PARTON: The Canberra Times is reporting this morning that The Treasury is forcing nearly all of its staff – including newly-recruited graduates and women on maternity leave – to reapply for their jobs. They've gone with this so-called 'spill and fill' to dismiss about 40 staff, with the central agency conceding that its voluntary redundancy process has run out of steam. We always thought that would be the case!

Andrew Leigh is the Federal Member for Fraser and he's on the line right now, morning Andrew.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Good morning Mark.

PARTON: There was always talk about this being done naturally, but the plans of this government – and indeed, it must be said, the plans of you blokes when you were in power – there was always going to be a point where the voluntary stuff just didn't cut it.

LEIGH: Mark, we were always clear before the election that there wouldn't be forced redundancies, as were the Liberal Party. It was their pledge beforehand, and when we said there was going to be more than 12,000 jobs cut and that we'd see forced redundancies, they called us liars. But frankly this is another broken promise from Mr Abbott, who is now making all the Treasury staff re-apply for their jobs. Including women on maternity leave, new graduates who have just been hired - it's a pretty shocking way to treat some of Australia's best economic minds.

This week I've been launching my new book 'The Economics of Just About Everything' with a series of public lectures around Australia. Here's the text from the Canberra launch, which was generously hosted by my old colleagues at the Australian National University:

SPEECH

WHAT DO DATING, DIETING AND SPORTS STATISTICS HAVE IN COMMON? 

LAUNCH OF 'THE ECONOMICS OF JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING'

ANU, CANBERRA, 29 JULY

Can I of course acknowledge that we are meeting tonight on the land of the Ngunnawal people, and recognise their elders past and present. There are so many good friends present in the room tonight, but I wanted to particularly acknowledge Bob Gregory and Rabee Tourkey for putting this together, and Beth Lawton and her team for making tonight happen. It was an event whose boundaries continued to expand and I'm very grateful to all of them for allowing that.

This book, 'The Economics of Just About Everything' comes from being at ANU and having extraordinary colleagues. I see many of them here around me in the room today, and in some sense this is your book as much as mine because I had such interesting and productive collaborations with many of you. 

As Bob said, the book is  'The Economics of Just About Everything', and when I mentioned this to my seven-year-old son, Sebastian, he said: 'Has it got dragons in it?' Sadly, I had to say: 'No, it doesn't have any economics of dragons.' And likewise, it doesn't have anything on the economics of Liberal Party leadership, or indeed on Labor Party leadership. But there are other contributions that you'll have the chance to read about.

This morning I talked with David Lipson and Alan Tudge about the Abbott Government's harsh new Work for the Dole requirements (and also snuck in a plug for my new book, The Economics of Just About Everything!). Here's the transcript:

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TELEVISION INTERVIEW

This morning I spoke with Fairfax Media's Breaking Politics program about the government's harsh new Work for the Dole requirements and the inequality in Joe Hockey's budget. You can watch the full conversation here:

I recently sat down with Jonathan Pryke from the Development Policy Centre to talk about inequality and how developing countries can manage this important challenge as their economies grow. Here's a quick summary, but you can also listen to the full discussion here: 

Inequality: should developing countries be worried? An interview with Andrew Leigh MP

by Jonathan Pryke and Andrew Leigh

I began by asking Andrew why he sees inequality as such an important issue:

I think inequality is a public good… I’ve always liked the John Rawls Veil of Ignorance way of thinking about this, where he asks you to imagine what sort of an income distribution you’d want if you were in utero and about to be born into a society where you didn’t know if you’d be born into the top 5^th or the bottom 5^th. Would you want the kind of Australia where the top 5^th has 62% of the wealth and the bottom 5^th has less than 1% of the wealth? If you knew that there was an equal probability of you ending up in either of those two quintiles, would you maybe want a more egalitarian distribution of income?

My latest opinion piece in The Australian looks at how increased diversity in our community can enrich Australians socially, culturally and economically. Here's the details:

Urgent case for a diverse nation, The Australian, 24 July 2014

This is no longer enough. Our ideas must expand beyond platit­udes about multiculturalism giving us good places to eat. We need to recognise the real economic and social benefits that flow from diversity and acknowledge the challenges so we can find ways to maintain cohesive societies in the face of these.

To see the positive impact of diversity, go to Silicon Valley. Half of all start-up teams include a first-generation migrant, from Russian-born Sergey Brin at Google to Hungarian-born Andy Grove at Intel.

Overnight I gave a speech to the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington, DC, exploring how the increasing diversity of our communities creates both opportunities and challenges for Australia and the USA. Here's the full text:

SPEECH

PROGRESSIVE POLICY INSTITUTE

WASHINGTON DC, USA

WEDNESDAY, 23 JULY 2014

Thirteen years ago, in summer 2001, I worked as a fellow here at the Progressive Policy Institute. Here I was lucky enough to co‑author reports on digital government and the digital divide, attended stimulating seminars by resident and visiting experts, and even helped put on an ‘Aussie breakfast’ of bagels and vegemite.

I knew Americans tend to be pretty self-assured, but even so I was particularly struck by the confidence that the Progressive Policy Institute had a fresh idea to contribute to just about every policy conversation in this city – and you were right! Like a Gaul in Caesar’s Rome, I drank it all in.

Think-tanks play a vital role in our democracy. Located at the intersection of academia and politics, you help to make university research accessible, and forge new policy proposals based on the best available evidence.

The Progressive Policy Institute (with, at that time, the Democratic Leadership Council) has played a special role. After Democrats lost Presidential elections in 1984 and 1988, your organisations were crucial in reclaiming the notion that governments could lead from the ‘radical centre’.

You showed that a belief in tackling poverty and inequality could best be realised by a commitment to open markets, a culture that fostered entrepreneurship, a commitment to strong economic growth, and rigorous evaluation of social programs. You reminded progressives that values must come first.

My op-ed in today's Canberra Times is on the importance of improving access to university.

We Can't Cut Our Way to Being a Clever Country, Canberra Times, 18 July 2014

Inhabiting planet earth just isn’t enough for Nicholas Badullovich. He dreams of working for NASA with space as the new frontier. As a Star Wars fan, the former Moruya High student is the youngest of five children and the first in his family to go to university. He is now studying science at the Australian National University.

My Chronicle column looks at how software is changing our lives.

Software Revolution Enters Our Livelihood, The Chronicle, 8 July 2014

Nestled in the heart of Braddon, between car dealerships and funky cafes, is one of Australia’s largest computer game design companies. Employing nearly 50 people, 2K Australia make games such as BioShock and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel.

To visit 2K’s offices is to be reminded of how complex computer games have become. Today’s game designers include people who previously worked as architects, artists and artificial intelligence programmers. As he showed me around the office, CEO Tony Lawrence talked about how they’d just had a team of actors in to record the voices for their latest game.