Andrew Leigh

FREE TAX CLINICS WILL MAKE TAX LESS TAXING

A Shorten Labor Government will make our tax system fairer for disadvantaged Australians by funding 10 free tax clinics across the country.

While multinationals and millionaires can afford an armada of experts to navigate the tax system, low and middle-income Australians are often intimidated by the tax system, and unsure where to turn to get help.

Tax clinics will provide free tax assistance for disadvantaged communities. Each tax clinic will have volunteers, students and pro bono tax practitioners on hand to help low income taxpayers and microbusinesses with administrative tax matters, including completing tax returns and responding to queries raised by the tax office.

The former Inspector General of Taxation, Ali Noroozi, has stated that tax clinics “have the potential to be of significant assistance to vulnerable taxpayers”, noting the model of Low Income Tax Clinics in the United States.

EVALUATOR GENERAL: THIRD PARTY SUPPORT

‘The announcement of the Evaluator General is a very welcome one. The more we know about the effectiveness of public programs, the better they can be designed and the more efficiently public money will be used. Well-designed social programs benefit the neediest in society and contribute to making Australian society more equitable. Randomised controlled trials provide the most reliable evidence of policy impacts.’

- Professor Lisa Cameron, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, University of Melbourne

CRAWFORD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, 13 NOVEMBER 2018

In 1958, psychologist David Weikart took up the job of being director of special education in Ypsilanti, Michigan. At that time, schools were segregated, and all the African-American students in the town attended one primary school - the Perry School. Weikart noticed that the school was run down. Instead of a playground, it had a field filled with thistles. Many of the African-American students ended up repeating grades, entering special education or leaving school early.

Yet when Weikart gave a presentation to school principals about these problems, users responded defensively. One sat with arms tightly folded; others stood by the window smoking; a few left the room. When he pressed them to act, they said there was nothing they could do. Black students were just born that way. So Weikart came up with an alternative solution: 'Because I couldn't change the schools . . . well, obviously you do it before school.'

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

JO BRISKEY

LABOR CANDIDATE FOR BONNER

LABOR CLEARS THE ROAD FOR MECHANICS IN BRISBANE

Labor is driving a better deal for car owners and independent mechanics with a plan to make timely access to technical information a reality.

No matter what you kind of vehicle you own, everyone should be able to choose where they get their car serviced. But independent repairers are struggling to get fair access to the standard service information they need.

BAHASA, BUSINESS EXCHANGES AND MATCH-FIT LEADERSHIP: DEEPENING THE AUSTRALIA-INDONESIA RELATIONSHIP

KEYNOTE ADDRESS, AUSTRALIA-INDONESIA BUSINESS COUNCIL

SURFERS PARADISE, 13 NOVEMBER 2018

Selamat pagi. It’s good to be with you today.

When I was anak kecil, I lived in Indonesia for three years. My father Michael was at Syiah Kuala University in Banda Aceh, funded by the Australian Government to work on a special training program designed to improve social science research capacity throughout Indonesian Universities and Islamic Institutes. My mother Barbara was mostly looking after my brother and me, but was beginning the research into the Indonesian education system that would become her PhD thesis, and her studies of traditional Acehnese textiles that would become her book Tangan-Tangan Trampil / The Hands of Time.

It was a pretty extraordinary experience for a child to have. I attended the local Acehnese school, where lessons were conducted in Indonesian. We spent most of the day singing nation-building songs (with a burgeoning local independence movement, the Suharto Government was keen to remind people in Aceh that they were Indonesian first and Acehnese second). Then we played in the muddy playground. As my mother recalls it, the sole white kid in the class was the only one whose white shirt had turned brown by the end of the day.

BUILDING A BETTER FEEDBACK LOOP: LABOR TO ESTABLISH AN EVALUATOR GENERAL

A Shorten Labor Government will deliver better government programs by creating an Evaluator General.

The office of the Evaluator General, to be based within Treasury, will work with other departments to conduct high-quality evaluations, preferably randomised trials, of government programs.

Increasingly, policymakers in other nations are testing programs through randomised trials, with the same kind of control group used to evaluate new pharmaceuticals in clinical drug trials.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP 

GOLD COAST

MONDAY, 12 NOVEMBER 2018

SUBJECT: Labor's plans to crack down on dodgy phoenix directors.

DES HARDMAN, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR FORDE: Good morning everybody. My name’s Des Hardman, I’m Labor’s candidate for Forde at the next federal election. I'm here today with Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh and our candidate for Moncrieff Tracey Bell, as well as Bernard Moolman from Ozzie Electrical and Solar. Today, Andrew’s been down on the Gold Coast, talking to business owners about our proposed changes to laws for phoenixing companies and the impact that we expect that we can make and have and to improve the lives of working people here in our community. It really is a shame that companies can take advantage of the current situation and the current laws to their own advantage without giving any consideration whatsoever to the impact that they're having on the lives of working people and their families in our community. 

TRACEY BELL, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR MONCRIEFF: I'm Tracy Bell. I’m the candidate for Moncrieff. I'm really, really happy to see this policy and to be standing with Labor and beside Andrew and Des here to announce this. We really, I see firsthand how the effects are, how this affects the normal everyday working people. I'm a director of child care centre and I'm having these conversations myself with families, even this morning, who can't afford to pay their things because they haven't been paid for reasons like this.

PROTECTING GOLD COAST WORKERS FROM DODGY DIRECTORS

Honest workers and businesses on the Gold Coast will have greater protections under a Shorten Labor Government and its plans to name and shame dodgy phoenix directors.

Phoenix activity – where dodgy directors deliberately burn companies in an attempt to avoid their obligations to employees, government and honest businesses – is estimated to cost the Australian economy as much as $5.1 billion.

On the Gold Coast, more than 130 tradies and staff have been left millions of dollars out of pocket as a result of just one incident of alleged phoenix activity. 

REQUIRING REMITTANCE PROVIDERS TO PROVIDE FULL FEE TRANSPARENCY: THIRD PARTY ENDORSEMENT

“The Federation of Ethnic Communities Council of Australia welcomes this policy announcement by the Australian Labor Party. We believe that it is unfair for banks and financial institutions to charge large and often unclear fees when people transfer money overseas to help their families and loved ones.”

- Mohammad Al-Khafaji, Director of Strategy and Engagement, the Federation of Ethnic Communities Council of Australia

“CHOICE was consulted on this proposal, and we offered our strong support for these changes. Transparently advertised fees for remittances are essential to helping consumers navigate this market confidently. When you purchase any other product, you should know upfront exactly how much it will cost, and whether another provider is offering a better deal. International remittances should be treated no differently. Banks and money transfer companies have been getting away with pushing poor value products onto consumers, but this reform will make the market more competitive and leave more money in consumers' pockets.”

- Sarah Agar, Head of Campaigns and Policy, CHOICE

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP

SYDNEY

WEDNESDAY, 7 NOVEMBER 2018

SUBJECT: Labor's plans to make remittances simpler and fairer.

SAM CROSBY, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR REID: I'm Sam Crosby, I’m the candidate for Reid. Reid is overwhelmingly one of Sydney’s most multicultural communities. We outstrip just about every index in the country or national average in the country for multiculturalism and migrant communities, which are obviously one of the big beneficiaries of this policy or losers under the current system. So when Andrew told me about this I thought what a fantastic idea, what a genuine help for people. So, very happy to be here.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: The basic principle of this policy is that financial institutions shouldn’t make money by bamboozling their customers. Only one in five people now realise that in addition to the flat fee, they also pay an exchange rate spread. That exchange rate spread can be big. One study suggests that if you send a $1000 to a developing country, it costs $77. That’s 7.7 per cent eaten up in transaction fees. That $77 cost is $23 more than people in America pay, it's more than people in Britain and Canada pay.