Andrew Leigh

I spoke in parliament today about the Youth Connections program, delivered in the ACT by Anglicare, which faces the prospect of cuts this year.

Youth Connections, 3 March 2014

I rise today to applaud Youth Connections, a national youth education program which is delivered in my electorate by Anglicare and to urge the federal government to continue to fund it. At this stage it is uncertain whether there will be funds beyond this year for the Youth Connections youth education program to continue. Youth Connections is designed to keep young people engaged in high school. It offers a flexible service which keeps them in school and on the road to meaningful and decently-paid work.

Take the story of Alice. When Alice moved with her family to Canberra at the age of 12 she found it difficult to make friends at school. She was bullied severely and eventually stopped going to school. Suffering from depression, she started taking harmful drugs, ran away from home and fell pregnant. She found safe shelter in a refuge. Faced with the prospect of becoming a young mother, Alice sought help from Youth Connections. She joined the program, and they provided essential baby items, helped to transport her to medical appointments and—after the birth of her daughter—assisted with domestic violence issues and court proceedings.

Alice persevered and graduated with the Youth Connections program, and then enrolled in a Certificate IV in Youth Work. Evaluations show the program is successful and Alice's story helps to inspire young people.

Education matters, whether it is school, higher education or on-the-job training in a gap year—as with my intern for this week, Tom Russell-Penny, who is with me today. I urge the government to continue to fund Youth Connections—a program whose evaluations are strong and whose stories are powerful.

I spoke in parliament today about the new report rating Canberra as Australia's most liveable city.

Liveable Canberra, 3 March 2014

The member for Canberra and I have long known that this is Australia's most livable city, but a new report from the Property Council has provided statistical evidence to back up that fundamental truth.

Opposition members interjecting—

Dr LEIGH:  I appreciate the calls of support I received from my own side on this. Canberra is a city that enjoys greater levels of sporting participation and greater levels of community activity. Canberrans are more likely to volunteer their time, more likely to donate their money and more likely to be part of a community group that gives back to their society.

Canberra is a city where you do not have to burn a litre of petrol to buy a litre of milk. People can enjoy the experience of suburban living without the traffic congestion that is difficult in some of our other cities. A typical Sydneysider with a full-time job spends 13 days a year sitting in their car. A typical Canberran with a full-time job spends just eight days a year sitting in their car.

This city is one which I believe all members of parliament should be proud. It is not just another city; it is our nation's capital. I encourage my colleagues on both sides of parliament to feel a sense of pride in our nation's capital with the school groups and community members who visit us here.

I spoke in parliament today on a motion relating to Australia's literacy and numeracy performance, and funding for schools.

Australian Educational Performance, 3 March 2014

I thought I would start with a quiz: ‘Joe had three test scores: 78, 76 and 74, while Mary had scores of 72, 82 and 74. How did Joe's average compare with Mary's?’ You are not responding immediately, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I am sure that the answer you have in your head, as other members do, is that both Joe and Mary have the same average. This question was asked on successive tests in Australia from 1964 to 2003. In 1964 88 per cent of students answered correctly; in 2003 just 68 per cent answered correctly. A fifth of students who were able to answer it in the 1960s could not answer it in the early 2000s.

Behind this motion are a truth and a falsehood. I want to focus on the truth first, that Australian literacy and numeracy performance has failed to rise over a very long run, a much longer time frame that even discussed in the motion. Work that Chris Ryan and I published in the journal Education Finance and Policy found a small but statistically significant fall in numeracy from 1964 to 2003 and in both literacy and numeracy from 1975 to 1998. Work that Chris Ryan published in the Economics of Education Review last year looked at the change in PISA scores from 2000 to 2012. It found that mathematical literacy fell at the top of the distribution and reading and literacy fell throughout it. It found that declines in school performance were most marked in private schools. Work that Chris Ryan and I have done on teacher aptitude, which was referred to by the mover of the motion, also found declines in literacy and numeracy of new teachers relative to those within the same class. From 1983 to 2003 the share of teachers in the top fifth of their class halved and the share of teachers in the bottom half of their class doubled.

That is the fundamental truth of this motion, but the falsehood is that money does not matter. To see that falsehood we know you need only look at the previous Liberal Party speaker's speech, where he finished by pledging an increase in funding on behalf of the Tasmanian Liberals in the next election. Money is not a guarantee of better outcomes but it is a necessary condition for better schools. That is why under Labor in government we not only brought down the Gonski review but also put in place national partnerships which see literacy and numeracy coaches in so many of Canberra’s most disadvantaged schools. We put in place the MySchool website which those opposite had talked about for many years but had never been able to deliver. And we put in place unprecedented investment in school infrastructure, which has improved educational outcomes. For example, at Amaroo school in my electorate classroom partitions allow team teaching and allow teachers to share skills.

So nothing in the research body supports a broken funding system, a system which was always designed to be a temporary arrangement in the early 2000s but which was backed by the now education minister as recently as a year ago. The education minister has in the past described it Gonski report as ‘Conski’, and it appears to me that he has not made his way through it. That is indicated by the strong focus on school reform that you see within the Gonski report itself. Chapter 5, Building Momentum for Change, include sections focusing on the great teaching profession, empowered schools, developing and sustaining innovation and engaged parents. We need to focus on this suite of school reforms alongside fixing a broken funding system.

As Amanda Ripley notes in her new book, The Smartest Kids in the World, making education systems work is a confluence of factors. It requires great teachers, engaged parents and a funding system which supports school reform. All of those things were in place under the former government, and I am disappointed to see that the opposition is allowing states to take money out of schools as fast as the federal government puts it in, rather than making a guarantee that no school will be worse off under the National Plan for School Improvement.

I spoke today on the new UN Report into Human Rights in North Korea, chaired by Michael Kirby.

Human Rights Abuses in North Korea, 3 March 2014

Three stories from North Korea's prison camps.

First, a story told by camp survivor Ms Jee Heon A:

‘... there was this pregnant woman ... The babies who were born were usually dead, but in this case the baby was born alive. The baby was crying as it was born, so we were curious, this was the first time we saw a baby being born. So we were watching this baby and we were so happy. But suddenly we heard the footsteps. The security agent ... told us to put the baby in the water upside down. So the mother was begging. 'I was told that I would not be able to have the baby, but I actually got lucky and got pregnant so please let me keep the baby, please forgive me.' But the agent kept beating this woman, the mother who just gave birth. And the baby, since it was just born, it was just crying. And the mother, with her shaking hands she picked up the baby and she put the baby face down in the water. The baby stopped crying and we saw this water bubble coming out of the mouth of the baby.’

Second, an account told by Mr Jeong Kwang-il:

‘A man left his work unit to take some potatoes because he was extremely hungry. Fearing that the guards would try to consider this an attempted escape, he tried to hide. The guards chased tracker dogs after him. The dogs found and mauled the man until he was half dead. Then the guards shot the victim dead on the spot.’

Third, an event recounted by Mr Shin Dong-hyuk. Mr Shin was 13 years old when he reported a conversation he overheard between his mother and brother in which they talked about escaping from the camp. As a result, his mother and brother were both executed. Along with all other inmates, Mr Shin had to watch the public execution of his mother and his brother.

I have only five minutes to speak about the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. But even if I had five hours, I could not do justice to the depravity outlined in the pages the Report of the detailed findings of the commission of inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. People were sent to prison camps for watching a foreign movie, for accidentally using a mobile phone, for accidentally spilling food on a picture of Kim Jong-il or for owning a Bible.

A third of the North Korean population malnourished. At least a third of children stunted. A million or more starved to death. Mass rape. Beatings. Public executions. Forced abortions of people who return from China, a practice that is driven by racist attitudes in North Korea towards Chinese. The collective punishment of families. Trafficking of women and girls. All while the leadership build statues of themselves and import Mercedes and fine cognac.

This report will give you nightmares. It is the closest thing I have read to pure evil, yet it is the truth. The commission of inquiry has carried out its work with impeccable thoroughness. It has conducted extensive public hearings in Seoul, Tokyo, London and Washington. Regrettably, the Chinese government did not cooperate with the inquiry. It is a pity as China has much to gain from ending the abuses on its doorstep.

The inquiry was chaired by Michael Kirby, for whom I had the privilege to work as a judge's associate. Australia has no more powerful advocate of human rights than Michael Kirby. He has done our nation proud in this work—a report underpinned by the fundamental belief that all of us are of equal worth.

The North Korean prison camps have survived twice as long as Stalin's Soviet gulags and much longer than the Nazi concentration camps. The policies of North Korea are responsible for perhaps millions of deaths. The report demands action, yet too many seem to be looking away.

I urge the government to take strong action on this report. That includes arguing in the Security Council for targeted sanctions, using our seat on the Security Council as an opportunity; arguing in the General Assembly for better human rights monitoring of North Korea; supporting referral of the report to the International Criminal Court; and working with our friends in the Chinese government to see them take action that will benefit China. These acts will demand courage by Australia but to do them we must only believe one thing: that the newborn baby I described at the start of my speech was the moral equal of any of us. If we believe that, we cannot stay silent.

This morning I joined Fairfax Media host Chris Hammer and Liberal MP Andrew Laming for a wide-ranging discussion including the importance of keeping Qantas in Australian hands, protecting the Great Barrier Reef and concerns about the potential harm of winding back racial vilification laws.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

INTERVIEW
BREAKING POLITICS – FAIRFAX MEDIA

MONDAY, 3 MARCH 2014



SUBJECT/S: Qantas Sales Act and jobs; ‘Green Army’ and jobs; Great Barrier Reef and tourism jobs; Offshore processing of asylum seekers; Repeal of hate speech laws.

CHRIS HAMMER: Well, the big political story of the day is undoubtedly Qantas with Cabinet meeting to decide on what assistance if any the Government can give it. Joining me to discuss this issue and others in Andrew Laming, the Liberal Member for Bowman in Queensland and Andrew Leigh, Assistant Shadow Treasurer and Labor Member for Fraser in the ACT. Gentlemen, there seems to be a standoff here. You've got the Government saying it doesn't want to give a debt guarantee for Qantas. You've got Labor saying it doesn't want to relax the Qantas Sales Act at least as far as foreign ownership's concerned. Andrew Laming, can you see any way through this impasse?

ANDREW LAMING: Well, these are options that are being considered today by Cabinet. I must admit that I sense that Qantas must be feeling positively manhandled by political commentators at the moment. We've had every imaginable recipe for their survival. But in the end the affairs rest in the hands of the company itself. They've got to find that balance to look after shareholders, staff and customers and I'm just hoping that can be done as seamlessly and painlessly as possible and those options are in the hands of Cabinet effectively.

HAMMER: Is there any qualitative difference between Qantas and the carmakers? With the car markers most Australians weren't buying Fords and Holdens, they were buying imported Hyundais. It's the same with holidays and going overseas. They're just buying tickets on price. Should the Government be intervening to help Qantas?

LAMING: Well, certainly airlines are a more internationalised sector, so that means if we wish to retain some of sense of Australian identity, then we're going to have to look at every competitive advantage for Qantas in an open market, not unfair support. But in the end these are decisions for the company. They have to look after their own affairs and the more we interfere, even if we think it's benign, may just prolong the inevitable. We need the company making long term decisions for their survival.

HAMMER: What's the inevitable?

LAMING: Well, the inevitable is increasing competition. The inevitable is getting rid of the carbon tax here in Australia which costs Qantas $106 million last year. These are things that we can do to improve things immediately for the immediate survival of Qantas as John Borghetti at Virgin pointed out just recently.

HAMMER: Andrew Leigh, Labor has suggested giving Qantas a debt guarantee but that seems to be off the table. Tony Abbott's ruled that out. On the Qantas Sales Act is there room to move there from Labor's point of view?

ANDREW LEIGH: Chris, we're in this strange situation at the moment where Qantas has asked for a debt guarantee and the Government has now said no after having given very clear indications that it would provide such a guarantee with the four-part test laid out with Joe Hockey in December. Qantas hasn't asked for a change to the Qantas Sale Act and yet the Government is pushing that as its number one solution. So, it really does seem to me that when it comes to saving the Flying Kangaroo the Government is flying chicken. It's not doing what the company is asking for and is instead pursuing a route which, if it were successful, would see us lose our national carrier. We would effectively see Qantas become a foreign owned airline.

HAMMER: Are you concerned that if the Government doesn't do anything then Qantas may fail?

LEIGH: I think the Government needs to act to save jobs. Tony Abbott, before the election, said that he would create a million jobs, but we're already seeing jobs being shed; 63,000 fulltime jobs gone. So that five year jobs target is now beginning to recede. I worry that isn't an overall plan for job creation from the Government, just slogans around the carbon tax but without a long term plan for the investments in education and infrastructure that will generate jobs of the future. The sort of floating of thought bubbles, the conflict between the Treasurer and the Prime Minister is, I think, a risk for Qantas.

HAMMER: Can either of you gentlemen, Andrew Leigh first, suggest something that could help Qantas that has bipartisan support, or has the potential to have bipartisan support?

LEIGH: Well, Labor is happy to talk with the Government about a debt guarantee. We're happy to engage with the Government around changes to Qantas Sale Act that don't involve majority foreign ownership, that don't involve shipping jobs overseas. So, we're keen to work with the Government so long as they're keen to save the Flying Kangaroo.

HAMMER: Andrew Laming?

LAMING: Well obviously changes to the Sale Act can be considered but not other forms of support that are unique to Qantas and denied to other players in the industry. That, I think, would the range of possibilities that came up that we would consider.

HAMMER: Okay, can we move on. Andrew Leigh, you mentioned jobs. More details are emerging of Tony Abbott's 'Green Army', up to 15,000 jobs using the term loosely, because they wouldn't be paid as much as the minimum wage. How's it possible for the Government to defend a scheme when people are essentially being paid less than the minimum wage?

LAMING: Well, of course there's a range between not working and being paid income replacement at around $6 an hour or $250 a week, up to the $622 per week minimum wage. Somewhere in that area we have to transition people who don't have any form or any hope of employment into a level where one day they can aspire and hold down a job and that's why the Green Army is such an important segue there, offering wages of between $400-500 to get people a start. Where better to do it than environmental work.

HAMMER: Where do you get the figure of $500 because the reporting has been as low as $300?

LAMING: Yes, that's right. A supervisor can earn as much as $60,000 plus so there are a range of salaries that are being paid. In essence, this is small projects, 9-10 people locally deployed, highly effective and for the first time some form of activity requirement who can't get work in the private sector. I think it's a big positive.

HAMMER: This is work for the dole under a different banner, isn't it?

LAMING: Work for the dole is an obligation to work for your payment whereas this is something far different, although it fits into the spectrum you've just referred to, which is somewhere between having no work and the minimum wage.

HAMMER: Andrew Leigh, it sounds like a good idea doesn't it, to get people out working, get them some skills?

LEIGH: Chris, I think there's too much ideology in industrial relations and in employment services more broadly. I think Paul Howes made that comment very articulately at the National Press Club recently. So, I'm just purely driven by the evidence on this. Show me a program that works and I'll be keen to back it. The thing about the Work for the Dole is the best study that we have, commissioned by Tony Abbott when he was the employment minister, found not only that the program didn't boost employment but actually that it had the opposite effect: because people locked in doing Work for the Dole jobs, they had less time searching for long term employment. Therefore, Work for the Dole was actually harmful. So, if you want a program that is going to decrease exit rates of income support, that's Work for the Dole, it's actually a government program that will do harm. That why I'm so concerned to see a Government driven by ideology and what feels good - rather than evidence and what practically works. Ask Jeff Borland, the man that did the study. It just doesn't work.

HAMMER: Andrew Laming, most of the work in the Green Army is manual work. These are young people. Is that the kind of training we want to equip them for in this 21st century, out digging ditches?

LAMING: Look right now what you're trying to do is get your 360,000 Australians between 17 and 24 in some form of regular routine, meaningful work and an opportunity to train and to work shoulder to shoulder with others. It's often a transitional situation and the evidence that Andrew refers to was at a time when the Howard Government was bringing unemployment down to very low levels where it was getting harder and harder to place people in employment. Where in the other situation. We're touching 6 per cent unemployment and now of course we have to look for new segues to get people from having nothing to do except fill out log books to having a chance at private sector employment.

HAMMER: So, is this simply a construction to lower the unemployment rate?

LAMING: Well it's certainly adds in an additional opportunity for people to earn way more than the dole but less than the minimum wage and be engaged in some form of work other than what they're doing at the moment which is filling in a log book.

HAMMER: So, is this an employment program or is it an environmental taskforce?

LAMING: It's definitely the latter but there's nothing wrong with it being both.

HAMMER: Andrew Leigh?

LEIGH: I think Andrew Laming makes an important point around the potential for programs that were unsuccessful in one environment to work in another environment. But I guess, all I'd say to that is if your best study finds that this is a program that did harm in another environment, then I think the wisest course of action would be to run a small pilot with high quality evaluation and see whether things have changed so much that this new program does good, rather than doing harm.

HAMMER: Andrew Laming, this is badged as an environmental program, although as you say it has employment benefits as well. Yet at the same time the Government has approved the dredging of the Great Barrier Reef around Abbott's Point. There's now newspaper reports of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority did a report into this and said don't do it, it's going to damage the reef. How can you be supporting the environment over here with the Green Army and yet ignoring expert advice on the Barrier Reef on the other hand?

LAMING: Well there’s a range of expert advice, even out of the authority itself. The amount that’s proposed to be dredged is about 1/10th of the original application, which was applauded by the then Labor state government. Sure, this is silt and sand that’s going into a portion of the marine park but it’s well away from the reef. So in all these situations you have to think of the counterfactual. If we don’t expand this location, do we then have a proliferation by the smaller ports that do way more damage? So the proposal to dredge and to dump, as has been put forward, potentially also came from experts in the field and has been rigorously scrutinised. I am very comfortable with that decision because I know that the alternative could be way worse.

HAMMER: Why not use the ‘Green Army’ to put the dredging spoil on land?

LAMING: Well, they have decided that is going to be, environmentally, even worse with the acid sulphates. So the effects are even worse doing it on land, than ocean-based dumping.

HAMMER: Andrew Leigh, does it strike you as strange that the government is supporting a tourism facility for Cadbury’s in Tasmania and yet, is dredging the Great Barrier Reef?

LEIGH: Well, Greg Hunt is a man whose title is ‘Minister for the Environment’ but whose every action seems to fit somebody who’s the ‘Minister Against the Environment’. He is fighting hard against strong action on climate change, one of the great victims of which would be the Great Barrier Reef. He’s approved a dredging proposal, which Minister Butler, his predecessor and now the Labor Shadow Minister, was not willing to approve. We need to be really careful with the Great Barrier Reef, because, even if you’re not concerned about it as an environmental asset, and I suspect no one in Australia would believe that, you still need to think about in terms of the tourism jobs in the future. But of course this is a great environmental icon, and we ought to have policies that protect the Great Barrier Reef for generations to come. Future Generations would look pretty unkindly upon today’s Australians were we to simply say that we could have a short term hit to the prosperity of a small number of Australians at the cost of a great national environmental icon.

HAMMER: Can we just touch on a couple of issues finally before we finish? Anna Burke, the former speaker, has come out and said that she opposes offshore processing of asylum seekers. Andrew Laming, you first. Are you completely comfortable with offshore processing of asylum seekers?

LAMING: One word answer, yes.

HAMMER: Andrew Leigh?

LEIGH: I think that we need policies of compassion and that compassion means stopping drownings at sea. It means taking in an appropriate number of refugees. I'm disturbed by a couple of things in the Government's policies. Firstly, the cutback to the refugee intake from 20,000 to 13,000, which I think is pretty stingy for a country of Australia's level of development, but I'm also concerned that we haven't seen refugees being processed out of the Manus Island camp. This is a Refugee Resettlement Agreement and part of that requires that Papua New Guinea begin to work with Australia in processing refugees. I hope that will be an outcome of Minister Morrison's visit of Papua New Guinea, but the fact that it hasn't happen is one of the key reasons for the tension in that camp, which lead to the tragic death of Reza Berati.

HAMMER: So you're not completely comfortable with offshore processing as it is at the moment?

LEIGH: I think the way in which the current government is handling migration policy means that there are certain risks to asylum seekers and there are risks to the system as a whole. I'm pretty concerned too, by the half dozen incursions into Indonesian territorial waters. People are really asking the question 'how could you be running a policy which now has Indonesia complaining to the US Secretary of State about Australia's policies?' We ought to be having a great relationship with Indonesia. Not one where they're complaining to the US about their mistreatment at our hands.

HAMMER: The reality on this issue is that if the boats stop coming or are stopped form coming, then most people in the electorate are happy with that, and there's not much Labor can do about it.

LEIGH: My main focus Chris, is on the compassionate outcomes. Stopping the drownings at sea and taking in what I believe to be our reasonably share of asylum seekers from around the world. We ought to be driven by compassion because we have to recognise the number of great Australians who've been refugees. Frank Lowy, Majak Daw, Les Murray, Anh Do. There's so many terrific Australians that have come here as refugees. We ought to have compassion in our hearts as we try to stop drownings and take deserving people who are at risk of persecution to Australia.

HAMMER: Andrew Laming, the so-called 'PNG solution' has been presented quite clearly as 'you will not be settled in Australia', but if you're found to be a refugee you will be re-settled in Papua New Guinea. There seems to be a question mark over that now. The Government has said one thing but it isn't delivering on that.

LAMING: In what way?

HAMMER: In that the asylum seekers are being told that they will not be resettled in Papua New Guinea.

LAMING: I'm not sure where those sources are, but I acknowledge that original solution was negotiated by the previous government and as a support act in all of this, the Australian Government is supporting the Papua New Guinea Government as part of a multilateral solution here in the South Pacific and you just want all of those that are held in those camps to be a safe as possible. You want the best quality services and care while they are in detention. But obviously, if there's an agreement that they are re-settled in Papua New Guinea, that’s a matter for the PNG government.

HAMMER: But can you tell us now, what happens to asylum seekers that have been processed on Manus Island that have been found to be genuine refugees? What happens to them?

LAMING: The same that has always happened regardless of where they were processed. Once they're determined to be refugees then there has to be a third country that accepts those refugees. That has been, in the past, brokered with New Zealand and in this case is brokered with Papua New Guinea.

HAMMER: Well, what are the third countries?

LAMING: Well if you're not going to take them here in Australia, you're have to negotiate with other economies obviously, that’s been the push of both governments. You're asking me, 'will they be settled in PNG or Australia?' that's something to be decided once somebody has been deemed to be a refugee.

HAMMER: Okay, just finally Australia's race discrimination commissioner has come out in opposition to repealing section 18C of the Race Discrimination Act. Andrew Leigh, your thoughts on this? It's come down, it seems, to an argument about the possible impact of racial comments against the right to free speech.

LEIGH: Tim Soutphommasane is one of the most thoughtful scholars of race in Australia. Somebody who is really very nuanced in his views on race. The view that he's taken is that hate-speech ought not be allowed in Australia. It's a provision that’s been rarely used but its been used for example to deal with vilification of an Indigenous woman and holocaust denial. I think there's no absolute right to free speech. Our Prime Minister, of course, has availed himself of defamation laws from time to time. I don't see why somebody who has been racially vilified ought not have recourse to the law, but the Prime Minister, when he feels that his good name has been traduced, should have access to the law.

HAMMER: Andrew Laming, what are your thoughts on this? Where should the balance lie?

LAMING: Freedom of speech and racial vilification should never be inconsistent. There's definitely balance, so you're talking about where that pendulum should fall. I think, after the Attorney General George Brandis has talked to a range of stake-holders, he'll be coming up with something, I think to take to Cabinet. Now, my observations are that there is no way we ever want to support or in any way have a system that allows hate speech as you define it to exist. But at the same token you have to weigh up the rights of a commentator to make genuine observations in a situation where there is freedom of speech in a nation that’s cherished it for decades.

HAMMER: But how does the existing law stop me as a commentator making a well-balanced view on one element of the society or not at the moment. Is free speech really being hampered?

LAMING: Well, if you're taken to court and found guilty for instance, then you are. So that's the balance that one is looking for.

HAMMER: Gentlemen we'll leave it there. Thank you very much for your participation.

LEIGH: Thanks Chris, thanks Andrew.

LAMING: Thank you.

Last Friday, I issued a media release about my concerns that Minister Kevin Andrews has little regard for the views and experiences of charities who overwhelmingly want to keep the ACNC.

ANDREW LEIGH MP

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION

MEMBER FOR FRASER

MEDIA RELEASE

Friday, 28 February 2014

ZERO CONSULTATION AS GOVERNMENT PREPARES TO SCRAP CHARITIES COMMISSION

Senate Estimates hearings this week confirm that the Abbott Government’s promise to consult charities about its plans to abolish the charities regulator is hollow.

Minister Kevin Andrews promised charities a discussion paper on the future of the Australian Charities and Not for Profits Commission by the end of January and a formal consultation process beginning this month.

It’s the end of February and nothing has happened.

The Minister has stopped listening and does not care to listen.

A survey of the charitable sector found that four in five people support the ACNC. Yet those members of the sector that have written to Minister Andrews supporting the ACNC have been given short shrift.

Morale among the ACNC’s highly specialised and committed staff is suffering.

The Senate Economics Committee was told of a higher than usual attrition rate and how uncertainty about the ACNC’s future is impacting its 100 staff.

Senator Louise Pratt: Why have you lost staff over the recent period?

David Locke (Assistant Commissioner for Charities Services): Obviously there is uncertainty regarding the future of the agency, which is unsettling and difficult for staff.

The Committee also heard that the ATO is preparing to transition for the axing of the ACNC before any repeal legislation and take over some of the regulator functions of the ACNC.

This is a slap in the face for thousands of Australian charities that do not want the ATO to resume responsibility for the sector.

It is astonishing that this Government should talk about the need for transparency and accountability and yet seeks to abolish a first-rate agency that supports public confidence in the integrity of charities.

ENDS

On Sky AM Agenda, I joined host David Lipson and Liberal MP Josh Frydenberg to discuss the Abbott Government's dithering on Qantas, and other political issues of the day.http://www.youtube.com/v/f-0H9pxuwyA?hl=en_US&version=3

I spoke in parliament today on the need for a national approach to reducing the harm done by dangerous dogs in our community (and here's a podcast of me talking about it on ABC 666):

Dangerous Dogs, 27 February 2014

More often than we like we are confronted by the hurt, loss, guilt and confusion that bleeds out through families and communities after a fatal dog attack.

Three years ago in Victoria a group of children were playing in their front garden. At the same time, a neighbour's hunting dog had found its way free from its yard. The dog was agitated by the activity and noises of the children, and its instincts took over. It began to stalk the children. As they ran from it, it pursued them into the family home. When the mother of one of the children tried to fight it off, the dog focused its attack on her four-year-old daughter. Unfazed by the mother's efforts to drive it off, the dog began to maul the young girl; the mother was helpless. It was only when the child stopped struggling that the attack began to subside. Then the dog returned calmly to the yard. Paramedics soon attended, but only to take the dead child from her home. They would later reassure the mother that her daughter's death had been quick.

Tragedies of this kind confound the community. Since the year 2000 there have been around two deaths annually from dog attacks, and typically the victims are children under five. Children are the least aware of how to behave around dogs and the most vulnerable to the severest consequences of attack. The event I have described prompted a change in the Victorian state laws to recognise the accountability of dog owners and to match the extreme consequences of negligence with fitting penalties. It also prompted former Attorney-General Robert McClelland to acknowledge that the time had come for the federal government to work with states and territories to establish uniform dog laws.

Sharing our lives with dogs makes us happier, healthier, better at making friends and more empathetic to others. But dogs are not born tame, and dogs and people do not always understand each other, so living with them involves risks. Fatal dog attacks are very rare. They are the extreme consequence of a more commonplace problem. But the horror stories——the needless, senseless tragedies and the haunted, shattered families they leave behind—stay with us. They are hard to ignore and even harder to forget. The kind of intense community engagement and political investment that flares up in response to high profile dog attacks can be productive—but only to a point. We should draw on the shock and dismay we share with suffering families to galvanise a commitment to get the solution right. Then, with cool heads, we should gather facts, listen to the experts and collect evidence about what works.

The facts show that a more widespread problem underlies the headlines. While two people a year die from dog attacks, around four people every day are hospitalised by dog-bite injuries. That is 1,400 victims annually, and these 1,400 cases are only the most severe of the 14,000 dog-bite victims who present to emergency departments each year. Add to them the cases who take their injuries to a GP and you end up with around 100,000 dog-bite incidents per year. The Australian Companion Animal Council estimates that each year we spend $7 million patching up victims of dog bite injuries.

So what are the experts saying? They are now telling us that local and state initiatives must feed into and be guided by consistent national regulations, by consistent conditions of enforcement and by clear expectations about owner accountability. Around the country we have a patchwork of regulatory frameworks which have often crystallised suddenly in reaction to a single incident. These approaches are a banked fund of policy capital. But they have been generated in isolation and stored separately; what we need to do now is to pool our capital. Doing so, as Mr McClelland saw, requires the guiding hand of the federal Attorney-General. The process of establishing a framework for productive collaboration across all levels of government still has some way to go, and it is Senator Brandis who must now provide the guiding hand.

Across states and territories there have been moves in the right direction. Dangerous-dog laws have been updated in New South Wales and Victoria, and in the ACT classifications made by any other jurisdiction are recognised as if they were issued by territory authorities. But, if the experts are right that clarity and consistency are critical to solving the problem of dangerous dogs, the first step must be a set of guidelines which do not change when we cross a state or territory border.

What about evidence? We do not have enough of it. That, too, is why federal oversight of a nationally coordinated strategy is crucial. We can look at evidence from strategies trialled across the world and learn, for instance, that banning specific breeds does not reduce dog attacks; but out own record-keeping is fragmented and incomplete. One of the fundamental building blocks of a national strategy should be a national register of dog bites—a database to track incident rates countrywide. Without reliable data, how can we know the extent of the problem or which measures are working to reduce it? Authorities need clear guidelines from enforcement. Our children and our communities deserve better than a make-do patchwork of local law.

The strategies which would serve to reduce dog attacks are not complicated. But, without the national consistency Commonwealth oversight can deliver, a meaningful and long-term approach to education, prevention and regulation is impossible.

I spoke in parliament today in defence of that great national institution, the ABC.

ABC, 27 February 2014

There are more than 200 ABC employees in the Australian Capital Territory. They cover national politics from Parliament House and local issues from Dickson. They cover everything from disasters to national politics. Of course, under this government, those are not mutually exclusive categories. I do not always agree with their perspective or the questions, but I absolutely respect the role of the ABC.

I am fortunate to chat regularly with Waleed Aly and Senator Sinodinos on Radio National, a conversation with two men I genuinely respect and which I think probably makes me a better politician. When I am at home, my three boys love watching Bananas in Pyjamas, the Wiggles and Playschool. If we are in the car, you will likely find us listening to triple j, NewsRadio or one of the thoughtful podcasts such as Conversations with Richard Fidler; the Religion and Ethics Report, with Andrew West; or Geraldine Doogue's Saturday Extra.

Thousands of my constituents have registered their support for a robust, well-funded and independent national broadcaster. They are worried that this government confuses state funded media with state run media. They were worried when they heard ABC managing director Mark Scott tell Senate estimates this week:

If our funding were somehow cut, we would need to look at all our services—radio, television, online—in the cities and in the bush.

The ABC's mandate is to inform, entertain and educate. It is not all about ratings and it is certainly not about pleasing political masters. The ABC has earned strong audience support as one of Australia's most trusted and highly valued institutions.

In 2004, the Howard government announced a funding adequacy and efficiency review. Its subsequent findings, not made public, were reported to have shown the ABC's value and cost-effectiveness. Under stingy budgets in the Howard era, the ABC maintained audiences and grew platforms. Under Labor, funding was expanded, and the multimedia platforms that the ABC developed to engage news audiences are now the envy of its competitors.

But history has a way of repeating, and now we have another efficiency review commissioned by communications minister Malcolm Turnbull. Some see this review as the prelude to an amputation, a ritual of permission that will justify deliberate excisions.

Every Australian government has an obligation to provide the ABC with the resources it needs to bring Australians rigorous reporting and analysis and to fiercely expose what is in the public interest. But will the Prime Minister's pre-election promise not to cut the ABC end up as just one more broken promise? Australians cherish their national broadcaster. Regardless of where they live or how they vote, people are passionate about the ABC.

Prime Minister, don't put the Bananas in the blender. Don't stifle our frank and fearless public broadcasters, and don't put narrow partisan agendas ahead of the national interest.

I spoke in parliament on the government's failure to turn a G20 growth aspiration into a clear plan for prosperity.

MPI - G20, 26 February 2014

I congratulate the Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development on his decade-old diggings, but I am happy to assure the House that I, like all members on this side, do not support a GP tax. The aspiration set by the Treasurer for an additional 0.4 per cent growth per year over the next five years is a perfectly reasonable aspiration, and nobody in this parliament would disagree with it, but an aspiration is not a plan.

There are two very clear plans for growth on offer in this parliament. This side of the parliament believes that growth is driven by investment, by education and by fairness. That side of the parliament believes it is driven by cuts, cuts and cuts—cutting infrastructure, cutting services and cutting wages.

On this side of House, we are committed to building the National Broadband Network. We took Australia from being 20th in the OECD for investments and infrastructure to being first. On this side of the House, we believe in education. That is why we brought forward the National Plan for School Improvement and demand-driven universities. And we believe in fairness. We believe very firmly that government has a role in looking after the most disadvantaged.

But that side of the House is cutting infrastructure. The government does not believe in urban public transport, so it is not investing in projects like Brisbane's Cross River Rail project, the Melbourne Metro, the Perth Airport link and Adelaide's Tonsley Park public transport project. That side of the House does not believe in supporting services, which of course, in a fragile period for the labour market, has a negative impact on demand. If you cut back on that schoolkids bonus, you are taking money straight out of retail spending. But, if you give $75,000 to a millionaire to have a baby, the chances are that they are just going to pay off the mortgage. The spending cuts are going to hit spending hard, and that is going to hit jobs as well.

But also those on that side of the House believe that they need to cut wages. That is their solution every time to boost productivity. You hear the head of the Prime Minister's Business Advisory Council, Maurice Newman, say things like:

… Australian wage rates are very high by international standards and … our system is dogged by rigidities …

Mr Newman gave a speech to CEDA in which he cited a number of countries, among them Canada, the European Union, Britain and New Zealand, and he said that Australian wages were high relative to those countries. What he failed to grasp, as Stephen Koukoulas has pointed out, is that all of those 'low-wage' countries have higher unemployment rates. The unemployment rate in Canada at the time Mr Koukoulas was writing was 6.9 per cent; in the US, seven per cent; in the eurozone, 12 per cent; in New Zealand, 6.2 per cent; and, in the UK, 7.6 per cent. When the going got tough, the Australian system outperformed that of other nations.

Of course, we have seen just recently new data out on wage growth which has given the lie to those who say that the secret to Australian prosperity is to cut wages. We have seen the release of the seasonally adjusted wage price index. In the December quarter, it rose 0.7 per cent, giving a growth rate for 2013 of 2.6 per cent. That is below the rate of inflation, which is 2.7 per cent, so Australian workers have had a real wage cut. This comes after a 35-year period in which wages for the bottom 10 per cent grew by 15 per cent and wages for the top 10 per cent grew by 59 per cent.

And yet those opposite, led by people like Maurice Newman, believe that the secret to Australian prosperity is to cut wages. They are utterly out of touch. And while they want to cut wages, they want to keep open loopholes. As the shadow Treasurer so eloquently pointed out, the multinational tax-shifting arrangements that the government took to the G20 were Labor's arrangements, minus the $700 million measure that the government took out and minus the transparency measure that Senator Sinodinos is going to scrap.