Andrew Leigh

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 9 NOVEMBER 2020

I table Petition EN1938 on a strong and diverse news media.

The principal petitioner is former Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd

It is also signed by former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Begun just a month ago, this is the largest e-petition in our Parliament’s history, and I thank each of the 501,876 citizens who signed it. We in this parliament are the servants of the people, and a vital part of our job is to table the views of citizens.

ANDREW LEIGH MP
SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY
SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR CHARITIES
MEMBER FOR FENNER 

SENATOR CATRYNA BILYK

SENATOR FOR TASMANIA

AUSTRALIA’S CHARITIES NEED SUPPORT, NOT SILENCE

Charities across Australia are struggling with increasing demand and dwindling resources as they step up to help people falling through the gaps left by the Morrison Government.

Since the spread of coronavirus started, demand for charities’ help has skyrocketing. Earlier this year, Foodbank reported that demand was up 78 per cent, yet their supplies of donated food had shrunk by 27 per cent. The Salvation Army has seen increased demand, but its Red Shield Appeal has raised less than half of its $8 million target.

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RADIO INTERVIEW

2SM WITH MARCUS PAUL IN THE MORNING

TUESDAY, 3 NOVEMBER 2020

SUBJECT: Commonwealth Integrity Commission.

MARCUS PAUL, HOST: Andrew Leigh is the Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury. He's on the program. Andrew, good morning.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Good morning, Marcus.

PAUL: You've campaigned long and hard for a federal ICAC. Are you at all surprised by the fact that this is a kind of watered down ICAC, if you like?

LEIGH: This is more a cover up commission than a corruption commission, Marcus. I mean, you've been on the case as much as anyone and I think the government is only acting because of the strong public pressure that has been on your program and from Labor, from independents like Helen Haines. What’s been delivered is just like Mike Carlton said - a corruption commission which can't initiate its own hearings, which doesn't have the power to sit in public, which wouldn't have the power to look back through so many of the scandals that have emerged under the Morrison Government.

THE ECONOMICS OF GENEROSITY

Smart Company, November 2 2020

In its early years, Sydney technology company Atlassian had a workplace giving program. Employees could choose to support any charity they favoured, but because of a lack of promotion and a cumbersome sign-up process, only around 2 per cent of Atlassian staff were part of the program. So in 2015 Atlassian revamped the program. They minimised employees’ ability to choose which organisation they would donate to, and focused on supporting the work in Cambodia of Room to Read, a charity that works to improve girls’ literacy. The sign-up pro-gram was massively simplified, so it took just two clicks and could be done in six seconds or less. The first 100 employees who signed up to the revised program were given an Atlassian Foundation sweatshirt.

A literacy charity wasn’t the obvious partner for an enterprise software company, but the firm has built ties by encouraging a group of staff each year to fund their own travel to Cambodia to assist with the charity’s work. Because the sign-up process was quicker and simpler, enrolments increased twenty-fold. Over 40 per cent of Atlassian employees now participate in the program. Room to Read has expanded to over a dozen developing nations, and the option to join Atlassian’s workplace giving program is now embedded in the sign-up process for all new employees.

ME VERSUS WE: 'THE UPSWING'

The Monthly, November 2020

On a summer’s day in San Francisco, a university student waited to cross a zebra crossing. Some cars obeyed the law and stopped. Others whizzed through the intersection. A second student observed the cars and recorded their status, grading them on a five-point scale from beaten-up hatchbacks to luxury sedans. Afterwards, researchers tabulated the data. Among the most modest cars, all stopped at the crossing. Of the most expensive, almost half ignored the pedestrian and drove straight through.

Pan across to Australia in early 2020, as the federal government was devising its economic response to the coronavirus pandemic. While other countries had offered wage subsidies, the Coalition was initially reluctant. Then business leaders began turning up the pressure. In one telephone call, retail billionaire Solomon Lew reportedly cried as he spoke to Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, urging him to provide wage subsidies to affected firms. At the end of March, a package was announced.

Because Solomon Lew had to shut many of his stores, his company – which owns Dotti, Just Jeans and Portmans, among others – experienced a drop in revenue, and qualified for around $45 million in JobKeeper payments. But it wasn’t long before the firm’s fortunes turned around, helped by strong online sales. At the end of September, Lew’s company announced that its profits had matched those in previous year, and paid shareholders a $57 million dividend. As the largest shareholder, Lew himself received more than $20 million. A policy designed to support workers ended up benefiting an Australian billionaire. And it wasn’t an isolated example. Other firms used JobKeeper to prop up profits, and even paid executive bonuses after receiving the taxpayer-funded assistance.

A PROPER COVID-19 RECOVERY MUST START WITH BIG THINKING IN PARLIAMENT

The Canberra Times, 29 October 2020 

At the end of World War II, my grandparents Jean and Roly Stebbins built their own beachside house near the Melbourne suburb of Altona, making the bricks by hand. As a teacher and a railway worker, they raised four children into a society built on the promise that the 1950s would be better than the 1930s.

My mother's family were among the millions of Australians who benefited from the foresighted policies of that era. As the fight against fascism drew to a close, prime minister John Curtin commissioned H. C. "Nugget" Coombs to lead a team to write a white paper on full employment. The two men had gotten to know each other watching Aussie rules matches in Canberra, and Coombs was known for his breadth and boldness.

Produced in 1945, the white paper noted that from 1919 to 1939, "more than one-tenth of the men and women desiring work were unemployed", and it committed the nation to full employment as "a fundamental aim of the Commonwealth government". The white paper emphasised the need for high-skill jobs, harnessing the "spirit of enterprise". It focused on ways of raising productivity, and the importance of ensuring that workers received "a fair share of increased output flowing from the growing productivity of labour".

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 28 OCTOBER 2020

Emil Zatopek once said, 'If you want to win something, run 100 metres. If you want to experience something, run a marathon.'

The Czech locomotive knew what he was talking about. In the 1952 Helsinki Olympics he'd won gold in the 5,000 and 10,000 metres, and he decided to enter the marathon. He had never run a marathon before, but he maintained a blistering pace in order to win that race.

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RADIO INTERVIEW
2SM WITH MARCUS PAUL IN THE MORNING

WEDNESDAY, 28 OCTOBER 2020

SUBJECTS: ASIC; the need for a federal ICAC; the recession.

MARCUS PAUL, HOST: Andrew Leigh is the Deputy Chair of the Standing Committee on Economics in Canberra. He's been leading the charge on this issue with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, ASIC. He’s been grilling them in a House Economics Committee hearing, and he also has a fair bit to say about the need for a federal ICAC. Is it any wonder? Andrew, good morning mate.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Good morning, Marcus. Great to be with you.

PAUL: Just explain to me what's happened here. We know that Karen Chester, the acting Chair of ASIC, says it took far too long for the corporate watchdog to respond to the knowledge it had overpaid its boss and deputy nearly 200 grand.

LEIGH: Yes. Red lights should have been flashing last year when it was reported that the senior lawyer at ASIC was being paid more than the Chief Justice of Australia, once you included the relocation allowance. And it seems as though the Audit Office then came in, the Auditor General said ‘you’ve got to fix this’ and according to Karen Chester ASIC moved at a glacially slow pace. Josh Frydenberg learned about this more than a month ago, but still didn't move on it. And the fact is that the very body that caught it, the Auditor General, is having his budget cut by the Morrison Government. So the watchdog’s being punished, despite the fact that he's the one that's saving the taxpayer money.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 26 OCTOBER 2020

Between ad rorts, water rorts, regional rorts, reef rorts, robodebt, stacking the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and forging documents, the Morrison government is making the Rum Corps look like Mary MacKillop.

The Australia Post board now doubles as a Liberal Party branch meeting, handing out Cartier watches to executives while postal workers cop pay cuts. Over at ASIC, the corporate watchdog paid one of its senior staff a $69,000 relocation allowance that pushed his pay packet higher than that of the Chief Justice, while another received $118,000 in tax advice so he could 'optimise' his Australian tax.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC NEWS RADIO

MONDAY, 26 OCTOBER 2020

SUBJECTS: ASIC expenses and the resignation of the Deputy Chair; the need for a Federal ICAC.

GLEN BARTHOLOMEW, HOST: The Deputy Chair of the corporate watchdog has quit after an audit raised concerns about thousands of dollars in expenses he was given. The Australia National Audit Office flagged irregularities with payments made to Dan Crennan and ASIC Chair James Shipton. Mr Shipton’s stood aside pending the outcome of an investigation. Labor MP Andrew Leigh was among those questioning the ASIC arrangements at a committee hearing at federal parliament on Friday. He joins us now. Thanks for your time.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Pleasure, Glen. Great to be with you.

BARTHOLOMEW: Remind us, how exactly had these regulators breached regulations?

LEIGH: Yes, it was a bit of a bombshell on Friday. We'd been expecting to get a regular sort of update from ASIC and suddenly we had James Shipton saying that he was stepping aside. He disclosed that ASIC had paid $69,621 in housing costs on behalf of Daniel Crennan, and also a tax bill of $119,557 for his own tax affairs. Mr Shipton said he'd be standing aside until the end of the year. The concern is that those payments were a form of remuneration and therefore breached the remuneration guidelines.