Andrew Leigh

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RADIO INTERVIEW

6PR MORNINGS

THURSDAY, 4 NOVEMBER 2021

SUBJECTS: The Morrison Government’s mismanagement of JobKeeper; Scott Morrison’s double standards in chasing down debts from social security recipients; the cashless debit card; the Morrison Government’s failure to provide transparency over JobKeeper spending.

LIAM BARTLETT, HOST: A lot of these revelations, the new revelations in the past month or so that we've spoken about on the program, I've got to say have only come about because of fresh analysis by the Parliamentary Budget Office, PBO. and that's been carried out on the back of constant questioning from federal Labor MP Andrew Leigh, who's also the Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury and Charities. He joins us again. Andrew, good morning.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: G'day Liam, great to be with you and your listeners.

BARTLETT: Andrew, I'm not giving you that sort of leg up for any other reason - and you could be, you know, a member for the Green Vegetarian Society for all I care - but it's only been that constant haranguing that has got these figures out. They are startling, aren't they, still?

LEIGH: It's a stonking amount of money, Liam. Look at the amount that was given to firms with rising revenue - we now know that to be $20 billion over the course of a year-long scheme. For every Australian household, that's $2,000. Imagine your typical Aussie household sitting down tonight, they say 'we've got a spare $2,000, what do we spend it on?' Maybe it's going to be fixing the roof. Maybe it's going to be buying the kids some new school shoes. Maybe it'll be a holiday or a donation to charity. I don't think many Australian households would say 'let's take that $2,000, go and find a big firm whose revenues are rising, and plonk it down and give it to them.' That's effectively what Josh Frydenberg and Scott Morrison did on our behalf.

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RADIO INTERVIEW

2SM WITH MARCUS PAUL IN THE MORNING

TUESDAY, 2 NOVEMBER 2021

SUBJECTS: COP26 and climate change; Scott Morrison accused of lying to the French President; Scott Morrison’s proposed voter suppression laws.

MARCUS PAUL, HOST: Scott Morrison, our Prime Minister, has addressed the COP26 summit in Scotland. He says Australia is on track to reach net zero emissions by 2050. He says science and technology will help us reach the target.

SCOTT MORRISON: Driving down the cost of technology and enabling it to be adopted at scale is at the core of the Australian way to reach our target of net zero emissions by 2050, that we are committing to at this COP26.

PAUL: 'It's the Australian way' - wrapping himself, of course, in the Australian flag, being all patriotic. Do you buy it? Andrew Leigh, good morning.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Good morning, Marcus. How are you?

PAUL: Yeah, good. Do you buy it?

LEIGH: No, not in the least. This government is a government that has been fearmongering on climate change for the last eight years; which came to office on a pledge to undo action on climate change; which has said that electric vehicles will end the weekend and that a big battery is as useful as a big banana; and brandished lumps of coal in parliament. Now, forced to front up in front of world leaders, Scott Morrison has put together a brochure which is basically a combination of Labor commitments and hopes that new technologies that don't currently exist will get us there. It's a wing and a prayer, not a plan. He doesn't have any serious commitment to tackling climate change, as demonstrated by the fact that Barnaby Joyce - the man currently Acting Prime Minister in Australia - doesn't even support net zero by 2050. This is the Joyce-Morrison Government when it comes to climate change.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 27 OCTOBER 2021

Just months away from the federal election, the Liberals have decided they want to change the rules to make it harder to vote. By requiring that voters present identification at the ballot box, the government would disenfranchise thousands of Australians.

Who will their bill hit? The poor, the homeless, Indigenous people, older people who've given up their driving licences, people who can't wait in the long lines that will result. They don't like what people have to say, so they're making it harder for them to say it. If you can't stuff the ballot box, tell disadvantaged voters to stuff off.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 27 OCTOBER 2021

On New Year's Day 2020, this city, my beloved home city of Canberra, had the worst air quality in the world. Bushfire smoke had blanketed the city, and what being outdoors did for your lungs was the same as what smoking a pack of cigarettes a day would do. Increased severe weather events had been warned about since Ross Garnaut's work commissioned by the Rudd and Gillard governments. Yet Prime Minister Morrison denied that there was any link between bushfires and climate change. It led to countries around the world shaking their heads at the inaction from the Morrison government on climate change. In 2020, the Climate Change Performance Index put Australia dead last for our climate policies.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 27 OCTOBER 2021

No advanced country is more affected by dangerous climate change than Australia. Extreme weather events, including floods and bushfires, have afflicted Australian agriculture and households. Australia has the highest emissions per person in the advanced world, yet we're doing the least to combat climate change. According to this year's Sustainable Development Report, Australia ranked last of 193 countries for action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. What little reduction there has been under the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments has occurred despite them, not because of them. Labor's renewable energy target and state government land-clearing policies have accounted for the lion's share of the emissions reductions, which nonetheless are significantly smaller than we saw under the six years of the Rudd and Gillard governments.

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RADIO INTERVIEW

2SM MARCUS PAUL IN THE MORNING

TUESDAY, 26 OCTOBER 2021

SUBJECTS: Glasgow climate summit; national integrity commission

MARCUS PAUL, HOST: Our #JobKeeperWarrior, we catch up with him every Tuesday, Andrew Leigh, good morning.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Good morning, Marcus. It's great to be with you.

PAUL: Thank you, mate. You, too. Look, the Prime Minister, I see today, has had his speech writers performing miracles in The Daily Telegraph. 'Australia will not force resources and agricultural industry to close and will incentivize heavy manufacturers to lower emissions under the federal government's plan to reach net zero by 2050. The PM says Australia will reject any mandate to force the closure of industries.' This is news to me, considering I thought we hadn't had the detail yet of what Nationals and Liberal MPs have been discussing behind closed doors. Albo, on the program yesterday, having a bit of a swipe at Coal Pitt - I'm sorry, Keith Pitt - on the program. He, of course, is being given a pay rise, as we're still yet to hear the Coalition's long-awaited plan to make Australia carbon neutral in less than 30 years. Of course, it'll be a part of the goodie bag that Scott Morrison takes to Glasgow. What do you make of it all?

LEIGH: Well, it's always the way with the Morrison Government, isn't it, Marcus? Big announcements, lots of ads, no follow through.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 25 OCTOBER 2021

On Saturday I joined Labor leader Anthony Albanese at SolarHub, which has installed solar panels for more than 10,000 Canberra families since it was founded a decade ago. Yet, while Australians are keen on renewables, the Morrison government has let us down. One-tenth of new vehicles in Britain are fully electric; in Australia, the figure is less than one in 100. Australia's grid isn't sufficiently joined up.

We've seen the Nationals tail wagging the Liberal dog. Senator Canavan wants homeowners to pay higher mortgages to support his climate denialism. The member for Hinkler wants a $250 billion fund—$25,000 for every household—to fund uneconomic fossil fuel projects. And yesterday we saw a Fight Club result in the National Party, signing up to net zero emissions by 2050—over the opposition of Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce. This will make the federal government the last government in Australia to support net zero.

LINDA BURNEY
SHADOW MINISTER FOR FAMILIES AND SOCIAL SERVICES

SENATOR JENNY MCALLISTER
SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR COMMUNITIES AND THE PREVENTION OF FAMILY VIOLENCE

ANDREW LEIGH
SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR CHARITIES

ANTI-POVERTY WEEK A REMINDER THE GOVERNMENT MUST DO BETTER
 

Today marks the end of anti-poverty week.

And as COVID restrictions begin to ease in parts of the country, many families are doing it far tougher than the Government admits.

The economy simply isn’t delivering for those who need it most – too many people are looking for more hours, and many more have simply dropped out of the job market in despair.

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RADIO INTERVIEW

2CC CANBERRA LIVE WITH LEON DELANEY

TUESDAY, 21 OCTOBER 2021

SUBJECTS: JobKeeper

LEON DELANEY, HOST: The Parliamentary Budget Office has revealed Australian businesses that actually increased turnover claimed almost $20 billion all together across the nation, and here in the ACT the figure was almost $200 million. Andrew Barr yesterday described it as one of the biggest wastes of taxpayer money in history, and I think that view is shared by the Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury and Charities and the local member for Fenner, Dr Andrew Leigh. Would I be correct?

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Absolutely, Leon. Good to be with you and your listeners, and yes, it's $20 billion nationally, $197 million here in the ACT, going to firms whose revenues were going up during the pandemic rather than down.

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RADIO INTERVIEW

5AA MORNINGS WITH LEON BYNER

THURSDAY, 21 OCTOBER 2021

SUBJECTS: JobKeeper

LEON BYNER, HOST: Andrew it's good to talk to you.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Great to talk to you again, Leon.

BYNER: I want to talk about some new data that suggests that almost $1 billion in JobKeeper payments were handed out to SA businesses that actually posted an increase in revenue. How did that happen?

LEIGH: We all wanted JobKeeper to succeed, and it did save jobs. Many firms needed it, but firms got it that didn't need it, and that includes this $964 million that went to South Australian businesses whose revenues were increasing rather than decreasing. That's your taxes at work. That's money that will need to be paid back through higher income taxes for Australians for years to come. It didn't need to happen. The Treasurer was warned at the time, but he didn't do anything to stop the rot.