Andrew Leigh

Returning to an important theme, I spoke to Fairfax Media's Tim Lester about carbon policy, arguing that the ALP has a mandate to champion an emissions trading scheme. We also discussed today's Deloitte Access Economics report and the Coalition's proposed commission of audit which, I am concerned, will try and balance the budget off the backs of the poorest. Watch the video or read the transcript below.

Breaking Politics with Tim Lester – Fairfax Media



MONDAY 21  OCTOBER  2013



TIM LESTER: Labor's shadow ministry meets today as questions emerge about how united the opposition is in the position put by new leader Bill Shorten, that is that it will oppose the repeal of the Carbon Tax. Two names have been mentioned as likely dissenters - Mark Bishop, that's the senator and Nick Champion in the lower house. We're joined each week on Breaking Politics on a Monday by Andrew Leigh. Welcome in Labor member for Fraser in the ACT, and now Shadow Assistant Treasurer. Congratulations on the role.

ANDREW LEIGH: Thanks Tim.

LESTER: On to the question of Carbon. Do you believe there is a split now emerging in Labor ranks on whether to try to hold the line on the Carbon Tax or not?

LEIGH: Well Tim, there's always going to be some diversity of opinion in any sensible political party but we have a strong policy that we took to the 2007, 2010, 2013 elections and for which I believe we have a mandate. And that's that a price on carbon pollution is the cheapest and most effective way of combating carbon pollution. We just had the hottest Australian summer on record, and the hottest Australian winter on record. We know that we get more extreme weather events as a result of climate change so we can't be playing politics with this. We need to identify the most effective strategy and fight hard for that.

LESTER: Okay, the pressure has just begun on Labor really. There is a long and very brutal political game, you would think, being played here to put pressure on the Opposition to buckle and to give in to what looks like the demand of the last election. Are you sure Labor can hold out through all of the turbulence it's likely to face on this issue over the next year or so?

LEIGH: Well you're right to refer to it as a political game Tim because the Coalition has put up repeal legislation for the carbon price which will then be replaced with - well we don't know, because they haven't shown us the legislation for Direct Action. We know why that is. If we go to a member Mr Abbott's cabinet, Malcolm Turnbull has said very clearly that direct action is a policy whose chief virtue is that it can be easily dismantled. It's more expensive on households. When we brought in a carbon price, we cut taxes on workers, we raised taxes on polluters. Mr Abbott thinks the best way to fight climate change is to raise taxes on workers and cut taxes on polluters. That makes no economic sense whatsoever, and I think if 2010 taught us anything, it's that maintaining our policy integrity on the issue of climate change is absolutely vital.

LESTER: Now I mentioned two names out of 86 because they're mentioned in the morning press and The Australian, Mark Bishop and Nick Champion. Do you think that dissent to Labor's position is that small in the 86-member caucus, or might it be much bigger?

LEIGH: Well, we have a strong policy position on this Tim. It's in our party platform. It's in what we took to the last election and I think my colleagues are fundamentally united around the view that putting a price on carbon pollution is the most sensible way of dealing with climate change, and united also in the notion that Mr Abbott's ‘soil magic’ Direct Action plan just won't work. It will cost households too much.

LESTER: Labor could not back down on this?

LEIGH: I believe that this is the right policy for us to be pursuing. It's the policy that we have held continuously for the best part of a decade, and it's a policy which is shared by every serious scientist and economist, not just in Australia but around the world. You're seeing countries now moving to price carbon. China will likely move from its emissions trading pilots in big cities to a nationwide emissions trading scheme by 2020.

LESTER: Okay, all of that said, you would expect some discussion on this in the shadow ministry today.

LEIGH: Sensible parties have discussions about important issues Tim. But, would you really want Australia - the country with the highest per capita emissions of any developed nation to be running in the opposite direction from the rest of the world on how to deal with climate change? To be taking the ostrich approach, sticking our heads in the sand and saying that maybe if we don't do anything, it will be alright. Direct Action can't solve this problem; carbon price is solving it already.

LESTER: Deloitte Access Economics says that achieving a sustainable surplus for government is becoming a herculean task, given rising costs faced in a few very big cost areas. Are they right?

LEIGH: Balancing a budget is always tough Tim. You saw in the last budget for the first time, as I understand it in Australian history, a drop in real spending.* Now that was tough. We had to make hard decisions such as phasing out the baby bonus, tough decisions around getting rid of the dependent spouse tax offset, and changing the structure of fringe benefits tax. We got attacked by the Coalition on all of those things, but they allowed us together to reduce total spending without, I think, hurting the most disadvantaged. The Coalition now want a commission of audit which is going to be balancing the budget off the backs of the poorest, which is going to probably be recommending harsh cuts on social services following in from the Coalition's planned policy of ripping superannuation money away from three million of the lowest income earners in Australia. You don't have to do that if you keep the mining tax Tim. But they went to the election promising that Clive Palmer and Gina Rinehart would get a tax cut through the abolition of the mining tax and so they're putting mining billionaires ahead of battlers.

LESTER: You think that the audit will be that brutal?

LEIGH: Certainly the indication that we get from say, the Queensland Commission of Audit is that this is really a ‘commission of cuts’ hitting the most disadvantaged. If you want to boost productivity, then you want to look at why you would be paying millionaire families $75,000 to have a child and why you'd get rid of a mining tax that was the central recommendation of the Henry Tax Review. Good economic policy isn't three word slogans and populist politics, it is the hard work of listening to experts and implementing good reforms, and I just don't think the evidence is that you'll get that out of the commission of audit the Coalition's proposing.

LESTER: A large news survey suggests that 27% of Australians believe that government can almost always be trusted. That was 48% four years ago. There has been a remarkable drop in trust of our Federal Government if this survey is right. Why?

LEIGH: Trust in politicians is an issue I'm pretty passionate about Tim. I wrote a book in 2002 called The Prince's New Clothes - Why Australians Distrust their Politicians. I co-edited it with David Burchell.

LESTER: Seems they trusted us more than, than they do now.

LEIGH: It does, it does and look let's be clear, even then our publisher thought the problem was so bad that they put a picture of one dog sniffing another dog's backside on the cover. So if things are declining still, then that's a real concern. Frankly it's more of a concern for my side of politics than for the conservatives. Theirs is a party that can live with a distrust of politics because they don't believe that government has a powerful role to play in making a difference in the lives of Australians. I do. That's why it's a Labor government that brought in place DisabilityCare, a Labor government that's worked to transform Australian schools. So trust in politics is a Labor issue and it's one that I want to work to try and redress.

LESTER: It's also Labor's problem isn't it? Because that slump in trust from 2009 to 2013 has happened under a Labor government with Labor promises about the carbon price and other commitments, budget surplus, at issue. So Labor has to shoulder a fair bit of the blame doesn't it?

LEIGH: Well we had a minority parliament and we had the most negative opposition leader in Australian history, and an opposition leader who is relentlessly negative rather than focusing on ways of finding consensus and building a better Australia…

LESTER: So it’s Tony Abbott’s fault?

LEIGH: I think Mr Abbott does bear a fair degree of responsibility for it, and as an economist, let me give you some empirical evidence for that. Look at the consumer confidence numbers broken out by party. As soon as Mr Abbott becomes leader, confidence in the economy - which is surely not a partisan issue - starts to tank. The partisan gap that opens up under Mr Abbott is bigger than under any other opposition leader. So, he did a very good job of attacking government as a whole, but I think we now need to work on rebuilding. That's why I think Labor in opposition shouldn't follow the negativity playbook that Mr Abbott set down. We need to be an opposition of ideas, as well as holding the Government to account.

LESTER: Andrew Leigh, great to have you back at Breaking Politics. Thanks for coming in.

LEIGH: Thank you Tim.

* Andrew should have said ‘nominal spending’. In 2012-13, real government spending fell 3%, and nominal spending fell 1%.

This morning I was a guest of AM Agenda on Sky News. I joined Liberal Senator Mitch Fifield and television host Laura Jayes to discuss the morning's headlines with subjects including disaster relief, climate change, a commonwealth commission of audit and asylum seekers.

TRANSCRIPT

Sky News AM Agenda with Laura Jayes



MONDAY 21  OCTOBER  2013



LAURA JAYES: Let's go to our panel now and the Assistant Minister for Social Services, Mitch Fifield, and the new Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Andrew Leigh, congratulations to you. First Mitch Fifield, looking at this situation, can you tell us what kind of payments are available for bushfire victims; what kind of assistance they can expect from the government here?

MITCH FIFIELD: Sure. Well, the Australian Government Disaster Relief payments are in operation and that's a thousand dollars to eligible adults and $400 for eligible kids. That's being made available to people whose homes have been destroyed, whose homes have been damaged or who have sustained an injury. In parallel with that are joint commonwealth/state disaster arrangements which make provision for food, clothing, [and] accommodation. People who have queries, who want to know what's available should get in contact with the Commonwealth Department of Human Services who are acting as the lead Commonwealth agency on the ground in those areas.

JAYES: I understand that the eligibility payments have been changed when it comes to federal assistance [for] from those who've had their home destroyed or severely damaged. To those who have been cut off or their electricity has been cut off from their homes, they're no longer available, eligible for these payments. Is that correct?

FIFIELD: There's a range of categories which can be activated for any emergency. The decision that the government has taken is to initially provide assistance to those who have been directly and immediately affected by way of [their] home being damaged or destroyed. As the situation develops the Government will continue to assess the situation.

JAYES: Andrew Leigh, this is a change from Labor policy. These payments still going to the most effected.

ANDREW LEIGH: They are going to the most affected Laura. But I would urge the Government on this case, be a little more generous to open up that payment category to people who've been unable to access their home in the previous 24 hours. The trauma that comes from being cut off from your home, I know that for many of these Blue Mountains residents, whether they're living in evacuation centres at the moment and the challenges you face with kids. I think that's an appropriate use of taxpayer funds. So, I hope that the government does change that decision there because I'm a little concerned by the reports I read in the paper today about challenges for families accessing payments.

JAYES: Okay, we'll move on to some political policy areas and one thing that has been bubbling away is the Carbon Tax issued. This will be considered by Shadow Cabinet today, no doubt. You've also accused Greg Hunt of playing politics with climate change. What do you mean by that?

LEIGH: Well, at the moment what we've seen from the Coalition is a bill to repeal the carbon price but not a bill to put anything in its place. So, what they want to do is they want to scrap the measure that's already working to reduce at lower cost than we anticipated and replace it with, well, we don't really know. I mean as Malcolm Turnbull pointed out a couple of years ago the chief virtue of Direct Action is its ability to be easily dismantled if one decides to that climate change isn't real. But after the hottest winter on record which followed the hottest summer on record I think it's very clear that climate change is happening. Humans are causing it. We need to deal with it in the cheapest possible way.

JAYES: Do you point to this bushfire situation as an example of climate action in action?

LEIGH: I don't think any particular event can be traced to climate change, but we do know that climate change is going to cause more extreme weather events and more of those extremely hot days. We've seen that in the weather records in Australia just over the past year.

JAYES: Mitch Fifield, the Direct Action plan, this is certainly an area that Labor is trying to shift the debate from Carbon Tax to focus on the Direct Action plan. Do you see weaknesses here for the Government?

FIFIELD: Look, it's only, Greg Hunt outlined before the election, in fact, two elections back, the broad outline of our Direct Action plan and further detail of that will be presented by the Minister. But you're right Labor are trying to deflect to another subject because they don't want to talk about the fact that they introduced a Carbon Tax. They don't want to talk about the fact that the electorate comprehensively repudiated the fact that they introduced a Carbon Tax, despite the fact that former Prime Minister Gillard said that she never would and that Labor never would. What's entirely unclear at the moment is what Labor are going to do when the Carbon Tax repeal legislation hits the parliament.

JAYES: Andrew Leigh, there seems to be a split within the party at the moment. WA Senator Mark Bishop, just the latest, saying that Labor should let this legislation go, go through. Nick Champion was the first after the election to say that Labor should abstain in the Senate and shift the fight to Direct Action. What do you think the party should do?

LEIGH: Well Laura, certainly Mr Abbott has been a weather vane on climate change but I don't think we ought to. Just because the Prime Minister has held every conceivable position on this issue...

JAYES: Do you accept that not everyone's on board?

LEIGH: I think this is a challenging issue as things often are after an election. But our party policy is very clear. Pricing carbon is the most straight forward way, the cheapest way. And if you go to the Direct Action, frankly, what that's doing is to cut taxes on polluters and raises taxes on workers...

JAYES: Should Labor go to the next election then promising to reinstate a ETS?

LEIGH: We've just had an election. I don't think we're about to sit here laying out our policies for the next election but I can tell you is that our policy is very clearly that pricing carbon is the cheapest way of dealing with climate change. Households can't afford Direct Action. It's just too expensive.

FIFIELD: Labor's policy is anything but clear. Andrew's saying it's clear but are they going to support the Carbon Tax repeal legislation. Simple question - ‘yes or no?’ Mark Bishop is someone I've got a great deal of respect for and he has made it clear that Labor should heed the message from the election and that is to support the repeal of the Carbon Tax. Labor can't say their position is clear until they give us an answer on that.

LEIGH: Have you ever said you had respect for him before this very moment now Mitch? Is it just the fact that he...

FIFIELD: Well, actually as fond as I am of you, I have frequently expressed my admiration in the Senate for Mark Bishop. He is a quality Senator.

JAYES: Just the last question on this Andrew Leigh. It hasn't been clear over the last week, you'd have to say. There's been debate publicly and both privately I understand. So, when Shadow Cabinet meet, you do expect a fight over this? There are some within Labor who just want to let the legislation go through and there are some who want to fight it all the way to the election.

LEIGH: We'll have reasonable discussions on this and other things Laura and I've got strong respect for people like Nick and Mark who take an alternative view. But ultimately you ask me my view and that is that pricing carbon is the right reform. It's the reform that Labor has been committed for the 2007, 2010 and 2013 elections. I think we ought to stick with it because it’s the cheapest and most effective strategy.

JAYES: Okay. Andrew Leigh, Mitch Fifield, don't go away. After the break we're going to look at this commission of audit and also the issue of asylum seekers.

(Commercial)

JAYES: Welcome back. Andrew Leigh and Mitch Fifield join me on the panel this morning. Mitch Fifield, first to you, the commission of audit. The terms of reference are due to signed off by cabinet tomorrow, as I understand it. There are also reports this will look at structural saves than short term budget saves. Is this the right way to go? And is this a change from what was promised at the election?

FIFIELD: The commission of audit and its terms of reference will be released in the near term. We've always said that the purpose of a commission of audit was to look at how to make government as efficient as possible. How to ensure that taxpayer dollars get the maximum value and that remains the case. The scope and the terms of reference, we'll see when they're released.

JAYES: Andrew Leigh, what will also be signed off on in cabinet is the repeal legislation for the Mining Tax. This is one of Tony Abbott's promises in the first 100 days of government. We've been kind of sidelined by looking at the Carbon Tax and focusing on that but what will Labor do here when it comes to that legislation?

LEIGH: It's a great irony isn't it Laura? You've got the Coalition running a commission of audit where they are trying to find savings by cutting services to the poorest Australians and then you've got them sitting there signing off on mining tax repeal which is going to give huge tax break to some rich mining billionaires. Put those two together, if you didn't get rid of a profit-based mining tax you be able to pay decent wages to childcare workers. You wouldn't have to rip away superannuation...

JAYES: But the Mining Tax under Labor didn't raise as much as was forecast so...

LEIGH: Well, the Commonwealth Treasury has in its forward estimates, I think it's around five billion dollars in mining tax revenue. That's not trivial when you're talking about the sorts of cuts that the Coalition is looking at making to services that affect the most disadvantaged.

JAYES: Mitch Fifield.

FIFIELD: Well, we've got to come back to the fact that the MRRT was a confidence sapping and therefore job destroying tax.

LEIGH: How? It either raises no money or it saps confidence, come on.

FIFIELD: No, you can. It did cause pause for foreign investors in relation to Australia. You do have options when you are a foreign investor as to which country you put your money into. So, it did hit confidence. It did hit the certainty in terms of the policy environment in Australia and that's damaging. And perversely, it also raised, and I think the technical economic term is, 'stuff all money', um, and yet the previous government managed the unique feat of spending money that hadn't actually come in. So, it's not a good tax. We will get rid of it and Labor should support that.

JAYES: Are you confident the Government will be able to achieve a surplus earlier than what Labor has promised, because there are reports this morning that in fact, Deloitte Access Economics has put out a report saying reaching a sustainable surplus will be a herculean task with growth below trend. Is this something to government should be sticking to. Is this just playing politics with it or is it something you can absolute commit to?

FIFIELD: We're not playing politics. We'll do what we always have to do after we form government and that is repay Labor's debts.

JAYES: That's a hell or high water promise?

FIFIELD: Well, we've got to get the budget back under control. We've got to get the budget onto a sustainable footing. Government has to live within its means and that's what we've got to do.

JAYES: Andrew Leigh, this report would suggest that, well, below trend growth until 2015. There's certainly a job ahead for the Government?

LEIGH: It's pretty concerning isn't it Laura? Let's remember why we have a profits based mining tax. We had a tax review done, headed by Ken Henry. Its major recommendation was that the best way of taxing minerals is to make sure that when the world price goes up, Australians actually get a share of that increase in price. If you scrap the mining tax, and go back to the old royalties’ regime, you're basically saying if the iron ore price goes up tenfold, Australians enjoy none of that benefit. I don't think that's fair, and it's certainly not fair when the government is looking at cutting back superannuation to low income Australians.

JAYES: I just want to turn to the asylum seeker issue now, Mitch Fifield. The was concerns raised yesterday by Tony Burke that the way in which we are getting information on the number of boat arrivals and what happens on Manus Island, well it is creating a culture of secrecy and a culture of cover up that could lead to incidents down the track, in ten years or so, where you see more issues like we did see with Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez. Do you see any of those concerns and how can they be alleviated?

FIFIELD: Yeah, look there's no culture of secrecy or hiding of information. There's...

JAYES: Perhaps though it's not timely in the way journalists and the Australian public are getting information. The incident on Manus Island for example, we got an update yesterday late, but it did take a number of days to source clarification as to what actually happened.

FIFIELD: Well, Scott Morrison and the commander of ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’ are doing very comprehensive weekly briefings and where there are other incidents on occasion, where additional information is warranted and needed, then that's provided and that's the case with the Manus Incident of a few days ago so the objective here is to make sure that every tool that the government has at its disposal to beat the people smugglers and to destroy their trade is deployed and the government will be upfront about what's happening, but look we're...

JAYES: And are these policies starting to work? Is that what we're seeing in the reduced number of boat arrivals?

FIFIELD: Well, I'll leave it to Scott Morrison to provide commentary as to the efficacy of the particular measures, but the early signs are promising.

JAYES: Andrew Leigh, are the boats starting to stop and is it due to the new government's policies or the previous Labor government?

LEIGH: Well, we were already seeing a decline in boat arrival numbers before the election Laura, but really under the Coalition only two things have changed. You've seen a removal of the regular updates when boats arrive, a new veil of secrecy has descended over the department, and then you've seen Mr Morrison's insistence that all boat arrivals be referred to as illegals - as though the real problem with Australia is that our public culture wasn't hostile enough to refugees already. But frankly, those measures aren't going to have an impact on boat arrivals. The towing back of the tow back policy after Mr Abbott visited Indonesia I think, has made clear that really what you've got are the settings put in place under our government with the refugee resettlement agreement.

JAYES: Tony Burke claimed yesterday that it was the PNG resettlement plan, in part or mostly that has seen in a decline in the number of boats. Do you agree with him?

LEIGH: I do. It's a very firm message that we're sending to people smugglers. It's a very clear one. Don't get on a boat. Don't risk the lives of yourself and your children because you do you won't be resettled in Australia. Its impact was, I think, to avert drownings at sea and we thought to allow us to take more refugees but the Coalition's cut back.

JAYES: Mitch Fifield, I'll quickly get your response to that.

FIFIELD: It needs to be remembered that it was Labor in government who dismantled offshore processing in the first place and said it was immoral to do and then, in the face of reality, had no option but to start to implement, some, not all, some elements of our policy.

JAYES: But they fixed it though.

FIFIELD: Look, they, Labor didn't fix it because they didn't put in place all the previous elements of our policy which we are setting out doing.

JAYES: Okay, Mitch Fifield, Andrew Leigh, we will have to leave it there.

LEIGH: Thanks Laura. Thanks Mitch.

FIFIELD: Thanks.

JAYES: Thanks for joining me this morning.

Yesterday, my federal ACT colleagues and I issued a media release condemning the Abbott Government's plan to cut public service job at an extraordinary speed in coming months.

20 October 2013

COALITION TO CUT A PUBLIC SERVICE JOB EVERY HOUR

Federal Labor representatives in the ACT say Coalition policy costings provided on Friday would send a chill up the spine of Canberra public servants.

The Parliamentary Budget Office Post-election Report confirms details of the Abbott Government's plans affecting the Australian Public Service (APS).

The APS will be reduced by 6,000 staff in the nine months to June 2014. That's one public service job lost every single hour until the end of the financial year. A further 6,000 jobs will go in the two years after that.

Four agencies are exempt from the cuts – Australian Customs, Australian Federal Police, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and Australian Secret Intelligence Service. Only serving military and reservists are exempt in Defence.

“This confirms that thousands of public servants in the Defence Department in Canberra face uncertainty,” said Gai Brodtmann.

“We now know where the cuts won't come from, but we don't know yet where they will come from, how they will be delivered and what impact they will have on frontline services” she added.

Andrew Leigh said, “It's hard to believe the speed and severity of the cuts won't erode public services.”

“We have already heard how Centrelink call centres, hit by staff cuts, are struggling to meet customer needs. This disproportionately affects low-income Australians needing tailored support.”

The PBO notes that its findings are of “low or medium reliability” because of the data available to it.

“The savings are difficult to forecast because it relies on who leaves the APS and when,” added Dr Leigh.

“We can only assume that these cuts are not motivated by wanting to trim waste, but by Prime Minister Abbott’s disdain for Canberra and ideological opposition to the public service,” said Senator Kate Lundy.

“Since Prime Minister’s Abbott’s election, I’ve been calling on him to come clean with the detail of his planned public service cuts,” Senator Lundy said.

“The Abbott Government seems to be operating under a cloak of secrecy. Canberrans deserve to know how these 12,000 job cuts are going to be delivered, and what further cuts the Abbott Government has in mind.”

My op-ed today discusses the flaws of Direct Action - as outlined by a prominent member of Cabinet.

Put the heat on Abbott, The Australian, 21 October 2013

Australians just experienced a winter of discontent; the hottest on record.

We are bracing ourselves for a shocking summer. It has been too hot in NSW to even continue property-saving hazard reduction. Climate change is a clear and present danger to the nation.

This is no time to be playing political games on climate change. But, alas, Environment Minister Greg Hunt seems to be doing just that: putting up repeal legislation without a detailed alternative plan to tackle climate change.

The Coalition's vague Direct Action policy will do less and cost more than a carbon price. It's hard to find a serious economist who will argue otherwise.

In May 2011, Malcolm Turnbull pointed to the flaws in Direct Action: "Liberals reject the idea that governments know best. Schemes where bureaucrats and politicians pick technologies and winners. Doling out billions of taxpayers' dollars is neither economically efficient nor will it be environmentally effective."

Turnbull later described Direct Action as having the "virtue" of being easily terminated.

"If you believe climate change is going to be proved to be unreal, then a scheme like that can be brought to an end." Not much consolation after the hottest 12 months on record.

My colleague Mark Butler was spot on when he said last week that the legislation the government would present to the parliament in November was simply duplicitous:

"(It) presents parts which he (Greg Hunt) thinks are attractive to the parliament very quickly and leaves those bits which he knows have failed over three years to attract one single significant supporter from the climate science or the economics field."

In 2009, Turnbull wrote: "It is not possible to criticise the new Coalition policy on climate change because it does not exist. Mr Abbott apparently knows what he is against, but not what he is for." Today the same is true. Just as they have played "hide the boats" and "hide the ministers", the Coalition is now playing "hide the legislation".

Negativity and secrecy were hallmarks of the Coalition in opposition. Not much has changed in government.

Coalition members should remember that a mandate means people who campaign on a platform should vote that way on the floor of parliament. For example, the Coalition took a carbon pricing plan to the 2007 election, so failed to recognise their mandate when they voted down carbon pricing in 2009. What a mandate does not mean is that parties should abandon their election pledges if they lose.

Sure, Mr Abbott's life would be easier if my Labor colleagues and I turned into rubber stamps, but that's not how democracy works. Mr Abbott should instead focus on the approach for which both parties have a mandate: ending the fixed price period on July 1, 2014, and moving immediately to an emissions trading scheme.

If he did that he could still claim that he had "axed the tax", but we would be left with a low-cost alternative. Instead, households will end up paying thousands of dollars a year to pay polluters: in a bizarre command-and-control scheme that won't do the job.

Andrew Leigh is the federal member for Fraser. www.andrewleigh.com

MEDIA RELEASE

Andrew Leigh

Shadow Assistant Treasurer
Shadow Minister for Competition
Member for Fraser

FRIDAY 18^TH OCTOBER 2013

I am delighted with the opportunity to serve in the Opposition’s economic team as Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Shadow Minister for Competition.

I thank my colleagues for giving me the chance to serve in the Shadow Ministry, and thank Opposition Leader Bill Shorten for entrusting me with this role.

Labor has a proud economic record. We saved Australia from recession, built vital infrastructure projects and invested in a better education system. With the carbon price package, we switched the tax mix: lowering the tax burden on work and increasing it on pollution. Inflation stayed low, and we maintained the open-economy settings that have helped raise prosperity.

The work of improving productivity and boosting innovation is vital in raising living standards for all Australians. And the ethos of the fair go demands policies that narrow the gap, rather than perpetuate inequality.

Over the next three years, I will be enthusiastically engaging with the business community, the social sector, the union movement, and my former colleagues in academia.

I particularly look forward to working with the other members of our economic team, including Chris Bowen, Tony Burke, Ed Husic and Bernie Ripoll.

ENDS

This morning I joined 666 ABC host Ross Solly and Liberal MP Peter Hendy for a discussion about parliamentary entitlements, carbon policy and mandates. I argued that as the member for Fraser, I would be breaking faith with north Canberrans if I backed away from a carbon tax and the transition to an emissions trading scheme. Listen to the audio by clicking here.

This morning I spoke with 2CC presenter Mark Parton about the new Labor frontbench featuring 11 women appointed yesterday by leader Bill Shorten. Labor's ministry team again highlights the disappointing lack of diversity in Tony Abbott's cabinet. Listen to the full interview or read the transcript:

TUESDAY 15  OCTOBER  2013

MARK PARTON: Well, we will get the full unveiling of the Labor front bench, the opposition front bench on Friday, but we know that Andrew Leigh, the Federal Member for Fraser is back where he belongs. He's a part of the main team.  He's on the line now. Hello Andrew.

ANDREW LEIGH: G'day Mark. Thank you for that, that's very kind of you.

PARTON: Well, I mean and you know because I've said it publicly for a long time. I just am of the belief that you're one of the most talented and smartest people on the team and you should be in the cockpit driving the plane for God's sake. Now I'm sure, I'm sure that you know more about what portfolio you're going to end up with.

LEIGH: I don't actually. I haven't had the opportunity.

PARTON: Oh come on Andrew.

LEIGH: I'm looking forward to sitting down with Bill Shorten at some stage during the week, but haven't had the chance to even have that face-to-face discussion with him and, as he put it, if you have some sense as to what you're doing then go away and tell your spouse and then walk into an empty room and tell that empty room as well. So I'll be following that sage advice if I do find out what I'm getting.

PARTON: How does it work though? Like in the lead up to now and Friday, you can't tell me that you're not going to have discussions. Are you going to, I mean, do people lobby and say ‘hey, I'd really like this or I'd really like that’.

LEIGH: That's right. People will talk about where they think they'd be best placed to make a contribution. There'll be people who served for a while in particular roles and want to continue doing it. There'll be people who want to move on and Bill Shorten has to take all of that information, crunch it down and produce the best allocation of portfolios.

PARTON: Are you in a position to tell us what you'd like or would you rather not?

LEIGH: Well look, let's stick with your plane analogy Mark. I'm just excited to have gotten a ticket on the plane. I'm making no grabs for the cockpit controls just yet.

PARTON: I've gotta say, I'm a little taken aback by the way that the media focuses on these ructions and you know, the fact that some people are unhappy. Got to understand that everyone that runs for political office has an ego, because if you didn't have an ego, you couldn't do this job. And so when people, more than the required amount of people are going for a certain amount of positions, some of them are going to miss out, and it's not really all that remarkable that people that miss out aren't going to be happy.

LEIGH: That's right, and the other thing that you have is just, you have far more talent in the Labor Party room than there are spots available. So, you could easily fill a second front bench and you'd take people like Ed Husic, Stephen Jones, Kate Lundy. I could pretty comfortably put them up against Abbott ministers of the likes of Peter Dutton and Warren Truss and you'd still have a stronger second team than the Liberal Party's first team.

PARTON: Well, according to you Andrew of course, and of course you've got to say that, wearing that particular coloured jumper. A lot of ...

LEIGH: No, well there's a lot of talented people in that room and I particularly feel for Kate Lundy having missed out, but there's a lot of other people who came in in 2010 or earlier who haven't had the opportunity to serve in the ministry, who if given that chance would do so with distinction.

PARTON: Anna Burke is a feisty Labor soldier. Are you disappointed with the way that she's dealt with this or dealt with this set back of hers?



LEIGH: Anna's entitled to say in the media what she wants to, but I think she served us very well as speaker in very trying circumstances in that parliament there. It was a cauldron into which she was thrust, but that last period of the government where Tony Abbott was doing his best to try and make the parliament break, and Anna just looked back with eyes of steel and maintained order in the house.

PARTON: Can I tell you I never want to have a face-to-face argument with her.

LEIGH: She does seem to be one of the most terrifying people in the parliament, but she's also a very gentle person who's given me a lot of advice in my first term in parliament.

PARTON: But what fascinates me is she's carrying on about the fact that the factions are still ruling here in the one sentence, but in the next sentence then says ‘Oh, well yeah there's 12 women, but there's not enough from this faction’  and it's like, well hang on a second, you can't have it both ways.

LEIGH: Anna Burke has earned the right to make public comments without a whippersnapper like me cutting across it the next day. I'll do her that deference.

PARTON: Alright, there will be a lot made of the fact that there are 11 women in the front bench team. I personally think that there'll be too much made of it because, can I tell you, when I look at the former Labor leader in Julia Gillard, I don't necessarily see her as the first female prime minister, I just see her as the 42nd Prime Minister. To me, it's just about irrelevant the gender of people that are thrust into power. I'm sure you'll disagree with me.

LEIGH: Well I just think it's important to have a front bench that looks like Australia, Mark, and the Abbott front bench is really something out of Mad Men.

PARTON:  Out of Mad Men?

LEIGH: Yeah absolutely. You've got one woman in the room, but if the foreign minister's plane is late coming back from an international engagement, as could well happen, then the cabinet is all blokes sitting down to make decisions about the nation's future. And the fact is that where you come from does influence your ability to make decisions. You know, I try and be as sensitive as I can to a range of views, but in the end, I'm a white middle-class bloke and a parliament full of white middle-class blokes, a cabinet full of white middle-class blokes is not a cabinet that's going to govern in the interests of all Australians. I think diversity's a great strength, and I think Mr Abbott's cabinet could have been stronger had he chosen to have more gender diversity as we have with our front bench.

PARTON: I just, I don't know. I just don't subscribe to this whole concept where we are, in some circles, expected to apologise for being a white middle-class bloke. I mean, I just don't get it.

LEIGH: It would matter to you in other dimensions wouldn't it Mark? I mean surely, you wouldn't think it was appropriate to have a cabinet that was all made up of people from Victoria? You'd say, ‘Well, that's pretty unrepresentative, and you'd say...’

PARTON: I don't know, I still reckon Andrew if all of the best people happen to be from Victoria, so be it.



LEIGH: Well, that's certainly not the view that Mr Abbott took. I mean, he was quite careful to achieve representation on a state basis because he thought, I think rightly, that there are different perspectives that come from representing different states. But he didn't apply that same principle to trying to have a cabinet that was representative by gender as we've done…



PARTON: …If only Sophie had got up...

LEIGH: …you never get these things perfectly right. I’m sorry?

PARTON: If only Sophie had got up.

LEIGH: Indeed. But even still, you would have had two women in the cabinet and there you would have been at the stage of maybe the cabinet of Afghanistan rather than being lower still. It's a bit odd to have as many women in cabinet as we had in 1975. I think the country has come a long way in that period. Most corporate boardrooms look more gender diverse than the federal cabinet does today. Diversity isn't everything but I think it matters.

PARTON: Andrew, obviously we're looking forward to finding out what particular gig you've got on Friday. Thanks for joining us this morning.

LEIGH: Thank you Mark.

On 14 October, I spoke with Waleed Aly on ABC RN Drive about the new shadow ministry, Labor's support for a price on carbon, and the need for Labor in Opposition to remain positive and ideas-driven. Here's a podcast.

Average Australians are now the richest people on the planet according to the latest Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report. Has Australia got the balance right between freeing people up to generate wealth and distributing it fairly? Wealth distribution was just one of the topics discussed with ABC 702 host Richard Glover and fellow guests Dr John Hewson, former Liberal leader, and Reserve Bank board member Heather Ridout for Monday Political Forum. Hear our tips for students swotting for their higher school certificate and more.

I'm honoured to be chosen by my colleagues today for a spot in the shadow ministry. I spoke with local ABC Drive host, Adam Shirley, about the development. Listen here .