Andrew Leigh

AUSTRALIA’S COST OF LIVING SEESAW

Fiji Times Australia, 11 April 2019

Do you feel like the cost of living is higher than it used to be? You’re not imagining it.

For many Australians, life can feel like a lop-sided seesaw. On the high part of the seesaw, we have electricity bills, childcare costs, and health insurance costs. Almost two million Australians are unemployed or underemployed, meaning they can’t find work or enough hours at work.

The other part of the seesaw is stuck on the ground: wages, incomes and savings. Wages growth has been lower every quarter under this government than any quarter under its predecessor. Wages growth has been as low as 1.9 per cent since the 2013 election. Even during the global financial crisis, wages didn’t drop below 2.9 per cent.

TAX PIRATES AND TAX FAIRNESS

DEVPOLICY CENTRE, CRAWFORD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

12 APRIL 2019

I acknowledge the Ngunnawal people, on whose lands we’re meeting today, and pay my respects to their elders past and present.

It is common for forms of serial fiction such as comic books, or film or television franchises, to have a new start of that universe – often called a ‘reboot’.

On occasion, when discarding the previous continuity or plotlines, the rebooting producers will change the tone of the text, perhaps favouring a gritty, realistic tone.

LABOR WILL HELP DEVELOPING COUNTRIES WARD OFF TAX PIRATES

A Shorten Labor Government will help developing countries claw back cash from tax avoiders, by supporting a tax compliance program that returns $100 in revenue for every $1 invested.

Tax Inspectors Without Borders, launched in 2015 by the OECD and the United Nations, helps countries collect tax, including from multinational companies squirrelling funds away in tax havens such as Bermuda and the Bahamas.

Tax havens hurt equality, especially in developing countries. Globally, two out of every five dollars of multinational profits are estimated to be channelled through tax havens. For regional neighbours such as the Philippines and the Solomon Islands, the amount shifted into tax havens is over 2 percent of GDP.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT 

RADIO INTERVIEW 

ABC MELBOURNE DRIVE 

WEDNESDAY, 10 APRIL 2019 

SUBJECTS:  Electric vehicles, Labor’s cancer plan, Adani. 

RAF EPSTEIN: Tim Wilson is the Liberal MP for the seat of Goldstein. He's also the head of the House Economics Committee. He's been running an Inquiry into Labor's changes to dividend imputation. Tim Wilson, thanks for coming in.  

TIM WILSON: Thanks, Raf. It’s wonderful to be here. It's even better to represent a community that is going to have its first Medicare licensed MRI. I see a copy of my letter in front of you. 

EPSTEIN: Yes, well one of your constituents has a bone to pick with you but we'll get to that, we'll get to that. Andrew Leigh also joins us in our Canberra studio. He's the Shadow Assistant Treasurer. He's the Labor MP for the seat of Fenner in Canberra. Andrew Leigh. 

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: G’day Raf. Great to be back with you.  

MELBOURNE’S MECHANICS SHIFT INTO TOP GEAR WITH LABOR’S REFORMS 

Labor is fixing a broken system for car owners and independent mechanics in Melbourne with a plan to make timely access to technical information a reality.

Whether you drive a Nissan Leaf or a Toyota Hilux, everyone should be able to choose where they get their car serviced. But independent repairers are being driven to despair by their inability to get fair access to the data and software upgrades they need.

LABOR’S CENTRIST ECONOMIC AGENDA

PER CAPITA REFORM AGENDA SERIES

MAURICE BLACKBURN LAWYERS, MELBOURNE

11 APRIL 2019

I acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation and pay respect to their elders. My thanks to Per Capita, particularly Executive Director Emma Dawson, for the chance to speak with you today.

Last month, journalist David Speers asked senior Liberal Party frontbencher Linda Reynolds a reasonable question: ‘Do you agree that flexibility in wages and keeping wages at modest levels is a deliberate feature of our economic architecture?’.

‘No, absolutely not’, replied Reynolds. ‘For Bill Shorten to even suggest that…’

‘I’m quoting Mathias Cormann’, Speers pointed out.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP
COMMUNITIES@WORK CANBERRA
WEDNESDAY, 10 APRIL 2019

SUBJECTS: Labor’s plan to restore and boost emergency relief funding in Canberra.

DAVID SMITH: Look, it's great to be here in the Electorate of Bean. My name is David Smith, Labor Senator for the ACT and we're here at one of the great social enterprises of the ACT, Communities at Work at their headquarters and alongside me is our Shadow Assistant Minister for Communities and Families, Jenny McAllister and I'm also with Andrew Leigh, Member for Fenner and Alicia Payne, our candidate for Canberra.

One of the things that Labor is well aware of is that the fight against inequality is real. It's real here in Canberra. Here in Canberra at any time up to 35,000 Canberrans are living in poverty and that includes people who are working one or two jobs. That includes 9,000 children across the Territory.

Communities@Work does amazing work right across children’s services and senior services but there's particular work that they do in emergency relief work and that's why we're here today to talk about Labor's commitments both locally and nationally to restoring funding to this critical work here and across the country.

LABOR WILL SUPPORT AUSTRALIANS IN FINANCIAL HARDSHIP IN THE ACT

A Shorten Labor Government will provide $40 million over four years to emergency relief organisations across the country.

The funding will reverse Liberal cuts to emergency relief organisations and provide a much needed funding top up to the sector.

Over the next four years Labor will provide further funding to the emergency relief organisations that work in the Australian Capital Territory including:

• $30,000 to Communities@Work to deliver services across the ACT.
• $26,000 to the Migrant and Refugee Settlement Services of the ACT to deliver services across the ACT.
• $18,000 to the Young Women's Christian Association of Canberra to deliver services across the ACT.
• $35,000 to the Companion House Assisting Survivors of Torture and Trauma to deliver services across the ACT.

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER BUDGET BOTCH UP FROM FRYDENBERG

After bungling the Energy Assistance Payment, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has now bungled his promised tax offset.

As soon as the budget was handed down last week, Labor said that we would support immediate tax relief for low and middle-income Australians - it was Labor policy, after all.

With two sittings days following the budget, the government could have easily passed these changes into law. 

Yet instead, the Liberals chose to sit on their hands, with Scott Morrison claiming “if the Labor Party says they support our tax cuts, then the Tax Office can administer it on that basis.”

A FAIRER DEAL FOR TASSIE HOTELS

 Today, Andrew Leigh joined Member for Bass Ross Hart in Launceston to talk about how Australian hotels benefit from Labor’s plans to outlaw ‘price parity’ clauses.

Price parity clauses prevent Australian hotels from advertising that travellers can get a better deal by booking directly. This has the effect of channelling bookings through the two major online booking platforms, which have a combined market share of 84 percent, and take up to 30 percent of the total hotel bill.

Price parity clauses would be banned under a Shorten Labor Government, giving local accommodation providers greater control of their own businesses and reducing the price of a weekend away.