Andrew Leigh

THE HON. BILL SHORTEN

LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION

MEMBER FOR MARIBYRNONG

 

CHRIS BOWEN MP

SHADOW TREASURER

MEMBER FOR MCMAHON

 

ANDREW LEIGH MP

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION

MEMBER FOR FRASER

 

BIG MULTINATIONALS TO PAY FAIR SHARE UNDER LABOR

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

PRESS CONFERENCE

CANBERRA

MONDAY, 02 MARCH 2015

SUBJECT/S:  Multinationals to pay fair share under Labor; Liberal Party’s Unfair Budget; Foreign investment changes; Intergenerational Report; Human Rights Commission; Iraq; Polls

BILL SHORTEN, LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Good afternoon everybody, I'm here this afternoon with our Shadow Treasurer and Shadow Assistant Treasurer to announce Labor's plan for a level playing field for multinational companies to ensure that they pay their fair share of taxation, just like everyone else has to. The following are the principles which underpin our announcement. How can we ask Australians to work hard and pay tax if the rules aren't fair for multinationals too? How can Australian businesses compete if they pay more tax in Australia than big multinationals?

In the last Budget the Liberal Nationals handed back more than $1 billion to big multinationals, but cut the pensions at the same time. In the last Budget they reopened the door for big multinationals to avoid paying tax in this country, but they put a tax on going to see the doctor. Under the Liberals, some large multinationals pay less, while young Australians will pay more for their university degrees. Last year, one of the world's largest companies paid only $80 million in Australian tax on local revenue of just over $6 billion; this isn't good enough. I believe everyone works hard in this country, seeks to grow their businesses creating national wealth for all. That means all of us have an obligation to pay our fair share of taxation. Our tax system shouldn't get softer the higher it goes. How much tax you pay shouldn't depend upon how much you can afford to pay your tax lawyer and specialist accountants.

Today I joined Bill Shorten and Chris Bowen in announcing the first of Labor's significant policy plans. Our multinational tax package aims to ensure that all companies doing business in Australia - big and small - pay their fair share. Here's the details:

THE HON BILL SHORTEN MP

LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION

MEMBER FOR MARIBYRNONG

CHRIS BOWEN MP

SHADOW TREASURER

MEMBER FOR MCMAHON

ANDREW LEIGH MP

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION

MEMBER FOR FRASER

 

MEDIA RELEASE

BIG MULTINATIONALS TO PAY FAIR SHARE UNDER LABOR

Labor will shut down loopholes which allow big multinational companies to send profits overseas, ensuring they pay their fair share of tax, just like everyone else has to.

Labor’s plan will bring at least $1.9 billion back to Australia in tax from big multinationals over the next four years, according to the Parliamentary Budget Office.

This package includes:

Changes to the arrangements for how multinational companies claim tax deductions

Greater compliance work by the ATO to track down and tackle corporate tax avoidance

Cracking down on multinational companies using hybrid structures to reduce tax

Improved transparency and data matching.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP

CANBERRA

MONDAY, 02 MARCH 2015 

SUBJECT/S: Labor’s multinational tax avoidance package.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: When Labor was last in office, Wayne Swan and David Bradbury put together a $4 billion package of measures to tackle multinational profit shifting. This is an issue that many around the world have been concerned with – whether it's the OECD, the G20, or even the Australian Tax Office. But the Abbott Government has dropped the ball. When they came to office, they gave more than $1 billion back to multinationals – firms that need a tax handout from the Abbott Government like Prince Philip needs a knighthood. Over the last year, Labor has been working on our own policies. Figuring that the Government wasn't going to act fairly, we felt we needed to put together our own package. Today, Bill Shorten, Chris Bowen and I will be announcing a $1.9 billion package that will deal with some of the forms of multinational profit shifting. This is a government which has given a billion-dollar handout to multinational firms while cutting the wages of the cleaners who clean their offices. Labor will take a fairer approach, one that ensures a level playing field for businesses and a fair deal for Australian taxpayers. Happy to take questions.

Keeping Immigration in Belconnen and Tony Abbott's disregard for our National Capital 

23 February 2015

My office is currently running a campaign to keep the Department of Immigration and Border Protection in Belconnen. In conjunction with ACT MLAs Yvette Berry, Mary Porter and Chris Bourke, we are campaigning against the Abbott government's flagrant disregard for Canberra. You would expect that the Abbott government would be proud that, when the OECD looked across the advanced world to see which was the most liveable region in the advanced world, it settled upon Canberra. Yet, at every turn, the Abbott government seems to be looking to denude and damage this fantastic city.

Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment No. 7 Bill 2014

25 February 2015 

This bill makes seven changes to tax laws. The first schedule puts in place an ongoing fix to the issue of excess non-concessional superannuation contributions. The previous Labor government enacted similar measures on a temporary basis in 2012 and 2013. The Inspector-General of Taxation recommended a change of this nature.

The second schedule is a non-controversial machinery of government change which moves the tax investigative and complaint-handling functions of the Commonwealth Ombudsman to the Inspector-General of Taxation and merges that function with the Inspector-General's existing function of conducting systemic reviews. That ensures that the Inspector-General of Taxation has the power to take up individual cases as well as systemic matters.

Senate Estimates always reveals one or two key facts about what the government has been up to. Today was no exception...

MEDIA RELEASE

HOCKEY'S SPIN BILL SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL

The Abbott Government has spent at least $650,000 of taxpayer money to work out how to spin its long-overdue Tax White Paper.

This news was revealed today in Senate Estimates, and comes on top of the discovery that the government is gearing up to spend over $300,000 on advertising for the Intergenerational Report.

The Tax White Paper was set to be released in December but the Abbott Government has been sitting on it since then. 

Last week I joined NSW Deputy Opposition Leader Linda Burney in announcing that a future Foley Labor Government would sign New South Wales up to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. In this piece for Pro Bono Australia, I've looked at why that's exactly the kind of practical red-tape reform Australian charities will benefit from. 

Keeping the ACNC opens the door to real reform, Pro Bono Australia, 24 February

Do you run a not-for-profit in Victoria or Queensland? What about a charity in Western Australia or Tasmania? If so, you’ll know that qualifying for state and federal charitable status means jumping through a lot of hoops. With two sets of paperwork to fill in and two bureaucracies to navigate, it can take a lot of time just to get to the point where you can actually start helping your community.

That’s why I was pleased to join the NSW Opposition last week in announcing that a future Foley Labor Government would sign that state up to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. By aligning the New South Wales state rules with the national scheme, this decision would make life much easier for over 18,000 charities across the state.

On a day when the Prime Minister laid out his government's approach on national security, I joined Fairfax Breaking Politics to talk about the importance of keeping Australians safe while maintaining a balance between freedoms and protections. Here's the transcript:

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

ONLINE INTERVIEW

BREAKING POLITICS

MONDAY, 23 FEBRUARY 2015

SUBJECT/S: National security

HAMMER: Andrew Laming is the Liberal MP for Bowman in Queensland and Andrew Leigh is the Labor Member for Fraser here in the ACT. Gentlemen, good morning. Ok, national security is clearly the topic of the day. Andrew Laming to you first, the prominent lawyer Julian Burnside has more or less accused the Prime Minister of playing the terror card because of his political standing. He wants to bolster his standing so he's trying to impart fear into the community about terrorism. Now, there will be an element of society that is sceptical about the Prime Minister's motives on this. So how do you convince them that he's doing this for genuine reasons rather than pure political ones?

ANDREW LAMING, FEDERAL MEMBER FOR BOWMAN: I don't believe I have to convince anyone. Australians in the main concede that we've faced a period of heightened and long term terror alert and they'd expect any government, both sides of politics, to respond accordingly. That's why he's saying bipartisan support is important, certainly around these increased efforts and increased resourcing. It's a very complex issue, there are no easy solutions and so the Prime Minister's address today really sets the stage for what I think will be a series of small but significant changes to keep Australia a more secure nation and one that is able to respond quickly, early and pre-emptively to these sort of threats.

HAMMER: Andrew Leigh, I want to ask you essentially the same question. There is scepticism in the community about Labor's stance on national security, that for political reasons Labor will simply stick like glue to whatever the government announces because that's not the area you want to fight the next election on. How do you convince people that Labor has their best interest at heart rather than your own political interests?

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Chris, there's clearly a risk of an upsurge in terrorism – resulting in large part from returning foreign fighters from Syria and Iraq. People who have been both radicalised but also learned dangerous new skills. That's why President Obama convened a high level international summit at the White House last week on the topic. The question for us is how we manage to adapt our laws to deal with the threat. I'm guided by something Justice Hope, whose 1977 Royal Commission laid the ground work for the modern ASIO, said. He said that individual liberty and public safety work together rather than in tension. We need to realise that there is a right to freedom of speech just as there is a right to get a coffee and walk about in safety. These are fundamental rights. One of the best weapons we have against extremism is our values, our status as a modern pluralist democracy.

There are worrying signs from the Abbott Government that it will use the Productivity Commission's industrial relations inquiry to undermine penalty rates for casual workers. In this piece for the Hobart Mercury, Brendan O'Connor and I explain why protecting penalty rates protects more than just the wages of low-paid workers.

Penalty rates based on family values, Hobart Mercury, 23 February

When was the last time you planned your child’s birthday party for a Monday morning? Went to a christening on Tuesday? Invited friends to your house for a BBQ lunch on a Wednesday?

If the answer is ‘hardly ever’, then you’re a beneficiary of one of the greatest social inventions of humankind: the weekend.

In economic jargon, weekends help solve a coordination problem. If you’re planning to invite fifty guests to your wedding, it helps if there’s a common time that they’re unlikely to be working. 

ANZSOG/VPSC Victoria Lecture Series

Melbourne

19 February 2015 

In late 2001, at the age of fifty-five, the Australian journalist Elisabeth Wynhausen decided to take leave from her job and try life as a low-wage worker. Following in the footsteps of George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London and Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed, Wynhausen’s Dirt Cheap documents her year living in budget accommodation and working at entry-level jobs.

In one job, Wynhausen moved to a country town and worked packing eggs. She earned $14 an hour in a job that started at 6 a.m., left her body aching at the end of the day, and where the smell from the nearby chook sheds was constant. Three weeks in, the manager, a millionaire several times over, came to speak to the workers. He announced that the company was selling its egg division. ‘It’s not all doom and gloom,’ he told them – but they knew their jobs were going. Wynhausen was struck by the fact that none of the workers challenged the manager: ‘seeing them standing mute in front of the boss was like seeing them stripped of all defences’.