Andrew Leigh

AUSTRALIAN HOTELS DESERVE A BETTER DEAL, WRITES LABOR’S ED HUSIC AND ANDREW LEIGH

Smart Company, 1 April 2019

Australia has some amazing little hotels. There are beachfront places where guests track sand into the lobby. We’ve got cosy bed and breakfasts off the beaten track. From Magnetic Island to Manly, there are a plethora of places where you can feel at home while enjoying a night away. 

Over recent years, we’ve increasingly come to book those places through online travel platforms. They trade under a host of names — Expedia, Kayak, Hotels.com, Wotif, Priceline, Booking.com, Trivago and more — but they’re really just two large firms, which together control 84% of the market. Both are multinationals, headquartered in places that seem chosen more for their tax advantages than their proximity to the accommodation sector.

The online booking duopoly has used its market power exactly the way an economics textbook would suggest. The commission hotels are charged isn’t just a few per cent, as with a credit card, but can be up to 30%. That’s right: just for linking up customers with accommodation providers, they’re charging up to 30% of the bill. That leaves only 70% for the people who change the sheets, wash the towels, vacuum the carpets and run the reception. 

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TV INTERVIEW

TELEVISION RADIO

MONDAY, 1 APRIL 2019 

SUBJECTS: The Budget, Labor’s Climate Change Action Plan.

KIERAN GILBERT: Now the Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh. Ahead of the budget, Mr Leigh, thanks very much for your time.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Pleasure.

GILBERT: Already the Government's come out saying this is a carbon tax. What do you say to their criticism, their critique already?

LEIGH: It's not. And if it were then their own policy would be a carbon tax. Kieran, this is simply an extension of a scheme put in place by Malcolm Turnbull. Business has told us that they are sick of the climate wars. They're sick of the bickering over climate and they want bipartisanship. Our view is the best way of achieving that is to extend the Turnbull Government's safeguard mechanism that applies to 0.01 per cent of companies, puts in place a pollution cap and is part of our commitment to seeing Australia meet our internationally agreed carbon targets. As you've said before, we're also taking advice from business to improve the scheme by giving firms access to international credits.

Review of Judith Brett, From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage: How Australia Got Compulsory Voting

Sydney Morning Herald, 30 March 2019

There’s a puzzle about Australian politics I’d never been able to figure out. Given that compulsory voting advantages progressives, why did conservatives let it pass parliament in 1924?

It wasn’t as though they weren’t warned. In 1915, a conservative government in Queensland mistakenly thought that compulsory voting would bring affluent but apathetic property owners to the polling booths. They introduced compulsory voting, and were smashed in the subsequent election by the Labor Party, who went on to govern the state for the next 14 years.

CHRIS BOWEN MP

SHADOW TREASURER

SHADOW MINISTER FOR SMALL BUSINESS

MEMBER FOR MCMAHON

MADELEINE KING MP

SHADOW MINISTER FOR CONSUMER AFFAIRS

SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR SMALL BUSINESS

SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR RESOURCES

MEMBER FOR BRAND

ANDREW LEIGH MP

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION AND PRODUCTIVITY

SHADOW MINISTER FOR TRADE IN SERVICES

SHADOW MINISTER FOR CHARITIES AND NOT-FOR-PROFITS

MEMBER FOR FENNER

TOUGHER PENALTIES FOR COMPETITION RIP-OFFS

Labor will make the Australian economy fairer and more competitive by raising the penalties for competition and consumer breaches to levels in line with other advanced nations.

In recent years, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has brought cases against a veritable who’s who of major firms. Telstra was fined for misleading consumers about its premium direct billing services. Ford was fined for engaging in unconscionable conduct in relation to a problem with its transmissions. Japanese shipping companies Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha  and K-Line were convicted of criminal cartel conduct. Senior staff at three major banks currently face criminal cartel charges relating to a $2.5 billion capital raising.

MADELEINE KING MP

SHADOW MINISTER FOR CONSUMER AFFAIRS

SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR SMALL BUSINESS

SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR RESOURCES

MEMBER FOR BRAND

ANDREW LEIGH MP

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION AND PRODUCTIVITY

SHADOW MINISTER FOR TRADE IN SERVICES

SHADOW MINISTER FOR CHARITIES AND NOT-FOR-PROFITS

MEMBER FOR FENNER

LABOR FIGHTS FOR SMALL BUSINESS WHILE COALITION SIDE WITH THE TOP END OF TOWN

The Coalition has once again failed small business by failing to take proper action on unfair contract terms.

Despite their own review finding that the current provisions are not enough to protect small businesses from the big end of town, Assistant Treasurer Stuart Robert can't even commit to making unfair contract terms illegal.

Weasel words offering options – which may or may not be implemented after further delays – are not enough.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP INTERVIEW
NOWRA
THURSDAY, 28 MARCH 2019
 
FIONA PHILLIPS, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR GILMORE: Ok, I'd like to welcome everyone here today. I’m Fiona Phillips, Labor's Candidate for Gilmore. I'm here today with Senator Jenny McAllister, the Shadow Assistant Minister for Families and Communities and Dr Andrew Leigh, the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, but also the Shadow Minister for Charities.

Look, we are here today, we know that the Gilmore electorate - there's many people in the Gilmore electorate are doing it really, really tough and as Labor's candidate for Gilmore, for years and years, I have been listening to local stories. How people can't access financial counselling when in hardship. I have heard story after story, where people can't pay their bills. They can't afford to buy food and that is really increasing. So look, really, really pleased to have worked with the Labor team and today we’ve got a great announcement to basically increase funding for emergency relief and also to double the number of financial counsellors across Australia.

LIBS SUFFER TRUTH DEFICIT

The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun and Courier Mail, 29 March 2019

Con artist George Parker was 20 years old when he first sold the Brooklyn Bridge. The trick was to start by asking a passing tourist for help on the tollbooth of the newly opened bridge. When the tourist got interested in the economics, Parker professed not to be much interested in the big picture, and suggested that the passer-by might want to purchase the whole structure. Parker reputedly sold the Brooklyn Bridge many times over, at prices ranging from $50 to $50,000.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC NEWS RADIO
THURSDAY, 28 MARCH 2019

SUBJECTS: Scott Morrison’s lack of leadership on One Nation, gun reform.

SANDY ALOISI: Labor MP Andrew Leigh is co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Gun Control. His legal mentor Zoe Hall and her boyfriend Glenn Pears were killed in the Port Arthur massacre. And Andrew Leigh says Pauline Hanson's apparent insinuations are disgusting.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Like many Australians, I was touched by the Port Arthur massacre. I’d been a junior lawyer working in a Sydney law firm, where my mentor Zoe Hall worked - just a wonderful, vivacious, smart lawyer who was one of the victims of that awful atrocity. I've met with Walter Mikac, who lost not only his wife Nanette, but also his two daughters Alannah and Madeline. So it's frankly just disgusting to me that anyone would suggest that this is some kind of a hoax. It was an awful, awful tragedy in which wonderful Australians died.

BRENDAN O’CONNOR MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS
MEMBER FOR GORTON
 
ANDREW LEIGH MP
SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER
SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION AND PRODUCTIVITY
SHADOW MINISTER CHARITIES AND NOT-FOR-PROFITS
SHADOW MINISTER FOR TRADE IN SERVICES
MEMBER FOR FENNER
 
FIONA PHILLIPS
LABOR CANDIDATE FOR GILMORE
 
LABOR WILL BACK OUR SUBBIES IN GILMORE

Today, Andrew Leigh and Fiona Phillips met with sub-contractors in Gilmore to discuss the benefits of Labor’s Tradie Pay Guarantee.

We heard stories of local tradies even losing their home due to the lack of payment from big companies.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP INTERVIEW
SURFER’S PARADISE
WEDNESDAY, 27 MARCH 2019

SUBJECTS: Labor’s plans to give Australian hotels greater control of their own businesses, Scott Morrison’s lack of leadership on One Nation, gun reform.

TRACEY BELL, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR MONCRIEFF: I’m Tracey Bell. I'm Labor's candidate for Moncrieff and it's great to be in Surfers Paradise today joined by Andrew Leigh, Labor's Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Luz Stanton Labor's candidate for Fadden, Aaron Santelises, Labor's candidate for McPherson and other tourism industry professionals. We're here today to discuss Labor's plans on how Australian hotels can have greater control over their own businesses. Over to you, Andrew.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Thanks. It's great to be here with Labor’s terrific Gold Coast candidates Tracey Bell, Aaron Santelises and Luz Stanton, talking about Labor's plan to make sure that Aussie hotels get a fair go. Right now, a lot of Australians book their travel through one of the multinational booking platforms, run under names like Booking.com and Expedia.  They’ve got 85 per cent of the market and they can charge margins up as high as 30 per cent of the total hotel bill. That means 30 per cent of the bill is going to people who don't wash the sheets, who don't sweep the floors, who don't prepare the rooms. It means 30 per cent of the bill is going overseas, rather than staying right here on the Gold Coast.