Andrew Leigh

Unlocking the Australian dream of owning a home

One of the great things about an election campaign is the chance to chat with people all over the nation; from far north Queensland to Tasmania, from Perth to Melbourne. It’s a true privilege to be able to listen to the lived experiences of so many Australians.

One story that lodged in my mind was told at a town hall meeting in Maleny, in Queensland. It came from Tony, a burly tradesman, who stood up and told the room about his fear that none of his four children, now in their 20s, will ever be able to afford a home. Tony is worried that they won’t have a chance to share that part of the Australian dream.

Our nation faces significant challenges. Since the last election, living standards – as measured by real net national disposable income per person – have fallen by 4 per cent. Under the Liberals, net government debt has risen by more than $5,000 per person. Wage growth is at a 30-year low. The home ownership rate is at a 60-year low. Inequality is at a 75-year high. In the past generation, the top 1 per cent has doubled their share of income. And yet the Liberals want to deliver a tax cut to those earning over $180,000, 94 per cent of which will go to the top 1 per cent.

Nowhere is inequality more stark than in the housing market. When John Howard and Peter Costello halved the capital gains tax rate in 1999, they expected it would lead to a surge of investment in innovative companies. Instead, we saw a flood of investment in property speculation.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC 666
MONDAY, 27 JUNE 2016

SUBJECTS: Labor’s positive plans for the Budget.

PHILIP CLARK, PRESENTER: Andrew Leigh, Member for Fraser, Shadow Assistant Treasurer, is in the studio here with me this morning. Andrew, good morning.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Good morning, Philip. Great to be with you.

CLARK: Last week of the campaign, it will all be over soon. Forecast, or deficit forecasts, or forecast of what the budget is likely to be in ten years or so have to be met with a great deal of scepticism and the Government is getting into Labor for saying that, well, your forecasting a bigger deficit in the near years – you're both saying that by 2020-21 the budget will be back in some sort of surplus. So you're both predicting that that'll arrive at around the same time, but it's just the path to get there is different. But how much stock could we put in these things anyway?

LEIGH: Philip, there are clear differences in the way in which the parties have couched a number of big decisions. In the case of our changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount, existing properties are grandfathered. So these are savings that build over time, like money put in a term deposit. The Coalition's biggest promise – indeed, the biggest promise of the election – is a $50 billion tax cut to the largest companies in Australia. That too, builds over time in its cost to the budget, like a stick of dynamite with a very long fuse. So that's why the Coalition aren't going to be giving you their ten year numbers, Philip, because they are not at all proud of them. They have got a ten year plan to cut company tax, but they're not going to give you the ten year costings around that. I think Canberra households are making long-term decisions. Sending a child to school is a decision for thirteen or fourteen years. Taking on a mortgage is a decision for twenty or thirty years. So voters don't want a government that can only plan for a couple of years in advance.

COULD YOU LIVE A MONTH IN A SHARING ECONOMY?

Claire Marshall's goal was simple: to see if she could live for a month in the "sharing economy".

Emerging in recent years, the sharing economy connects suppliers of goods and services with people who need them. More than one in 10 of us have used a ride-sharing service like Uber.

More than one in 200 homes are on apartment rental sites like AirBNB. If you need a parking spot, Parkhound lets you rent a nearby driveway. If you'd like a caravan for a week, Camplify lets you lease one.

According to one estimate, the sharing economy is growing at 140 per cent per year, driven by the combination of smartphones, fast internet and clever entrepreneurs. But like most advances, it isn't all upside.

LABOR HAS PUT SCAMMERS ON NOTICE. THE LIBERALS? *SAD TROMBONE*

A recent wave of allegations of misleading and often unconscionable conduct by pharmaceutical, food, a recently-privatised health insurance company, and private colleges that targeted vulnerable people, has left many Australians hoping the consumer watchdog will be given the powers it needs to have their back.

Only Labor has put scammers and dodgy operators on notice.

A Shorten Labor Government will introduce a comprehensive suite of competition reforms that deter and punish anti-competitive and anti-consumer conduct.

To date, the Liberals have been deafeningly silent on consumer protection.

Below is a helpful checklist of positive competition and consumer policies and actions.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS PM AGENDA
WEDNESDAY, 22 JUNE 2016

SUBJECTS: Asylum seekers, Marriage equality, Labor’s positive plans for Medicare, Costings

DAVID SPEERS: You're watching PM Agenda. Plenty to talk about as we were canvassing before the break and I'm pleased to say with us this afternoon, both here in the Canberra studio, the Finance Minister Mathias Cormann and the Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh. Thanks for joining us. I want to start on asylum seekers, Malcolm Turnbull said today 28 boats have been trying to come to Australia, 734 passengers in total under the Coalition's watch. So they haven't tried to stop coming here have they Senator? 

CORMANN: But we've been successful in stopping them coming here and that's because we had a very clear policy framework with temporary protection visas with regional processing and with a commitment to turn the boats around where it's safe to do so. And of course what we know is that more than 50 Labor members and candidates in open defiance against Bill Shorten's assertion that he would continue the strong policy framework of the Coalition.

SPEERS: A few candidates overnight have been expressing various views. Let me ask you, Andrew Leigh, would this specific boat though, from what we know, the vessel was intercepted, people taken aboard the Navy and Border Force vessels, their boat was scuttled or burnt in the water and flown back to Vietnam after being processed at sea, is that what Labor would do?

LEIGH: David, we've said we'd pursue the same set of policies the Coalition would in terms of deterring people coming to Australia. But we don't believe that it's necessary to have people locked up in punitive conditions in Manus and Nauru in order to achieve that.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP
PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA
THURSDAY 23 JUNE 2016

SUBJECTS: Medicare, Vaccination register, Lucy Turnbull, Brexit.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Thanks everyone for coming along today. My name's Andrew Leigh, the Shadow Assistant Treasurer. The Coalition's attempt to privatise Medicare by stealth continues again today with further news they've put out a tender for the privatisation of the Australian School Vaccination Register. This could potentially see the confidential details of the vaccination of Australian school children falling into private hands. We know the Coalition has never liked the public nature of Medicare. For a quarter of a century they campaigned against it. We've seen under the Abbott-Turnbull Government the promise of no cuts to health, which turned around after the election into savage cuts. The Coalition attempted to impose a GP co-payment. Stuck in the Senate is a $5 increase in the pharmaceutical benefits co-payment. 

We've also got the Medicare payments freeze, a six year freeze which is increasing the private costs of health care in Australia. In 2009, Malcolm Turnbull said he thought it would be best if all Australians had private health insurance. So you can see the Coalition's ongoing agenda to try and increase the private share of Australian health care. Frankly, believing that the Coalition are going to come to love the public nature of Medicare is like believing that the Rolling Stones want to stop touring. They want to do it. They've always wanted to do it. Their fans want them to do it. The Coalition are going to continue to attempt to privatise Medicare by any means possible. 

Finally, I just want to make some comments on the reports that the Liberal Party has attempted to use the public position of the Prime Minister's wife in order to raise money for the Liberal Party. This is the second time in which we've seen this sort of thing happen from the Liberal Party. The taxpayers of Sydney pay the Prime Minister's wife in order to do a job. They should be entitled to know that the Liberal Party won't attempt to raise money by using that political position. Happy to take questions.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP
PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA
WEDNESDAY, 22 JUNE 2016

SUBJECT/S: Two out of three economists prefer Labor’s economic plan.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: On July the 2nd, many Australians will walk into the polling booths, and they'll ask themselves the question: am I better off than at the last election? And they'll be aware of the fact that living standards in Australia - Real Net National Disposable Income Per Person - has fallen 4% since the last election. Most Australian voters are worse off than they were at the last election. Wage growth is at a 30-year low. Inequality is at a 75 year high. The home ownership rate in Australia is as low as it has been in 60 years.

In that environment there are two economic plans being put before the Australian people. 

URBAN TASKFORCE AUSTRALIA DEBATE, SYDNEY

TUESDAY, 21 JUNE 2016

***CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY***

I acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands on which we meet today, and pay my respects to elders past and present. Thank you to Chris Johnson and the Urban Taskforce for organising today's debate on an issue of central importance to this election. I acknowledge my fellow debaters – my reformist teammate John Daley, and anti-reformers Nigel Stapledon and Angus Taylor.

One of the great things about an election is that you get a chance to meet such a broad range of people. I was in Maleny recently, doing a town hall meeting with our Labor candidate for Fisher, Bill Gissane. A tradie stood up – a real one – to ask me about housing affordability. His name was Tony, and he is a building worker, with four children in their twenties. Tony told me that he worries that none of them might ever be able to afford a home of their own.

LIBERALS' WAR ON FACTS CONTINUES

The Liberals are waging a War on Facts. Their new glossy – Labor’s War on Business – is just the latest case in point.

Finding exactly where to start pulling it apart is hard, but let’s give it a go with two examples.

Example 1

Page 3 alleges that Labor’s proposed changes to the Capital Gains Tax discount will hurt small businesses. Rubbish.

Labor’s fact sheet clearly states: The CGT discount will not change for small business assets. This will ensure that no small businesses are worse off under these changes.

The suggestion that our changes to Capital Gains Taxation will hurt sole traders and small businesses is just plain wrong.

But hey, it’s war on facts amirite, ScoMo?

Example 2

Last night, Scott Morrison told ABC’s The Business: “Changing negative gearing is… going to undermine the value of people’s homes and it’s going to crash house prices”.

But on page 15 of the glossy: [page 15] CAMEO Belinda earns $80,000 per year. She buys an established home as an investment property after 1 July 2017, which she intends to use to fund her retirement in 10 years’ time. She takes out a loan to buy the property and makes a net rental loss of $6,000 each year. In 10 years’ time Belinda stands to make a capital gain of $400,000. Over the next ten years she will pay the following amounts in income tax…..

By the Liberal Party’s own document, under Labor’s policies house prices will continue to rise, investors will not abandon the housing market like Mr Turnbull claims, and in fact investors like Belinda will continue to reap healthy capital gains from their housing investments. The claim that house prices will crash comes with a resounding “yeah, nah”.

Rather than using facts, Scott Morrison would rather defend tax concessions that overwhelmingly benefit the top 10 per cent of income earners.

The Liberals have no plan to boost new housing supply.

Labor will continue to defend facts, and promote fair and sensible reforms that improve the budget bottom line, increase housing supply, and help young Australians buy their first home.

THE HON JENNY MACKLIN MP

SHADOW MINISTER FOR FAMILIES AND PAYMENTS

SHADOW MINISTER FOR DISABILITY REFORM

MEMBER FOR JAGAJAGA

THE HON DR ANDREW LEIGH MP

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION

MEMBER FOR FRASER

CANDIDATE FOR FENNER

LABOR’S LINE IN THE SAND: IT’S TIME FOR GOVERNMENT AND CHARITIES TO WORK TOGETHER AGAIN

The best kind of care for our community comes from within our community. The best-placed organisations to identify and respond to social and community issues are those organisations that base their strength, energy and grit on the people who are that community.

Labor understands this principle. Labor supports and protects this principle.

The Liberals don’t. The Liberals won’t.

Labor understands the critical role played by Australia’s not-for-profit sector in building the capacity of individuals and communities, strengthening cohesion, addressing inequality and harnessing opportunity.

We know that government alone cannot solve all our social problems. Only by working in partnership with community organisations – and communities themselves – can we bring about lasting change. Labor views the efforts of this sector with pride and gratitude.

The Liberals view the not-for-profit sector with little more than contempt.

There’s proof:

• In only three years, the Liberals have ripped more than $270 million worth of funding from frontline services.
• They gutted peak advocacy organisations of their funding and slashed money from community legal centres and family violence services.
• Then they completely botched their community grants process – pitting community organisations against one another and leaving many frontline services without funding certainty. As a result, some frontline services have had to cut staff or reduce their services. Some have been forced to close entirely.
• The Liberals also tried to scrap the Australian Charities and Not-For-Profit Commission (ACNC) – only to be fought off by a relentless campaign by Labor and the community sector.