Andrew Leigh

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
 
ANNE ALY
MEMBER FOR COWAN
 
LABOR TAKES THE WHEEL FOR MECHANICS IN PERTH

Labor is driving a better deal for car owners and independent mechanics with a plan to make timely access to technical information a reality.
 
Whether you own a Toyota Corolla or a Ford Ranger, 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.
 
Under Labor, car manufacturers will have to share the same technical information with independent mechanics that they currently provide to authorised dealers.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

2GB WITH ROSS GREENWOOD

WEDNESDAY, 22 AUGUST 2018
 
SUBJECT: Liberal Party leadership crisis, policy paralysis.
 
ROSS GREENWOOD: A man who will be a senior member of his team, no doubt, will be Dr Andrew Leigh who is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, who is on the line right now. Many thanks for your time, Andrew.
 
ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER; Absolute pleasure, Ross. That was quite an intro.
 
GREENWOOD: It was the day as it unfolded today and, as I said, if people think it's a schmoozle, it probably is. Let's go now to a Government that has no company tax cuts to the next election, it's had to drop those because of the political inevitability. It also doesn't have a National Energy Guarantee to take to the next election, or at least not in the form it wanted to. From Labor's point of view, it means that there is potentially more money in the tank to spend if you come to office after the next election. What will you do with that extra money?
 
LEIGH: Ross, it's never been about the extra money for us. It's always been about the choice - the decision to take money out of our schools and hospitals and give it to some of the biggest firms, despite the fact that there is very little evidence that it'll boost economic growth. It always seemed to us like a bad economic call. That's the number one policy that Malcolm Turnbull had in his 2016 budget and he's already said that he would be committed to it at the next election. Mathias Cormann said that ‘a moment will come when this Parliament will have to revisit the proposal’. I don't think anyone believes it’s off the table.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

2SER RADIO

WEDNESDAY, 22 AUGUST 2018

SUBJECT: Liberal Party leadership crisis, policy paralysis, Territory rights.

MICK RAD: Crazy couple of days in politics and we're all trying to work out what's happening and what's coming up next. I thought I would get a person who has been on the ground in Canberra observing it all going around because he is in the opposition and Andrew Leigh is the Federal Member for Fenner he is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Shadow Minister for Competition and Productivity, Shadow Minister for Trade in Services - it's a long list, he's also written a book. But the old adage that a week is a long time in politics certainly holds true this week, it's like an episode of Survivor right now with Peter Dutton challenging Malcolm Turnbull for the leadership but Andrew Leigh is on the phone from the city of roundabouts. How are you, Andrew?

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Very well Mick, maybe Hunger Games? They seem to be very interested in fighting among themselves, but not so interested in kind of issues like inequality, wage growth and climate change 

RAD: Or running the country.

LEIGH: Exactly.

RAD: But to be a fly on the wall and some of those Liberal Party rooms at the moment it's really there's a lot of squabbling going on within the Liberal Party at the moment we've seen the challenge yesterday morning of course. And now we hear Dutton's shoring up the numbers for another challenge. What's it been like the last couple of days to be in Canberra? 

LEIGH: Utterly crazy. As you say, the Liberal Party is riven between economic liberals and tinfoil hat conservatives, who don't believe in the science of climate change, who believe that don't believe in sensible economic policy. That divide down the Liberal Party is going to remain regardless of who they choose as leader. It's almost as though they're deciding whether they're a small-L liberal party or a capital-C Conservative Party.

KEYNOTE ADDRESS, CUSTOMER OWNED BANKING ASSOCIATION REGULATORY AFFAIRS SUMMIT

National Gallery of Australia, 22 August 2018

Thank you, Michael [Lawrence], for that introduction. As a member for the ACT, welcome to those of you who are not Canberrans to the best city in Australia (as rated by the OECD). I acknowledge that we're meeting on traditional lands of the Ngunnawal people and pay my respect to their elders past and present.

At the outset I wanted to say a few words about where the Australian economy is tracking. I’ll begin, because I'm a natural optimist, with the things that look positive. The Reserve Bank recently noted that there has been a broad pick up in global growth in 2017 which has largely carried through to 2018. Chinese growth is increasingly consumption driven, East Asian semiconductor trade is healthy, European machinery investments has been strong. In the United States and Japan and Germany and in Britain, unemployment is in a multi-decade low. Forecasts for global growth have been revised up for 2018 and 2019.

For Australia, commodity prices remain solid. Analysts are a little concerned about the medium term outlook. Some of that turns on the changes that China is making around managing local production to improve urban air quality. A good thing for the air in their cities, but it may have knock on effects on our iron ore exports.

If you're a business, global interest rates are now as low as they've been since 3000 B.C., according to analysis done by the Bank of England. So that's the upside. That's my Edward de Bono ‘yellow hat’ analysis.

OPENING ADDRESS, 2018 ADB-ASIA THINK TANK DEVELOPMENT FORUM:
UPGRADING HUMAN CAPITAL AND SKILLS DEVELOPMENT FOR FUTURE ASIA
 
Australian National University, 22 August 2018

Thank you for that generous introduction. Welcome to all of those of you who are visiting Canberra, especially those who are visiting for the first time. I acknowledge we are meeting on traditional lands of the Ngunnawal people and pay my respects to elders past and present. I particularly acknowledge Asian Development Bank Vice-President Bambang Susantono. Thank you to the Australian National University’s Shiro Armstrong for organising today's event. 
 
In 1964. Richard Hofstadter wrote an influential article called ‘The Paranoid Style in American Politics’ in Harper's Magazine. He described a view grounded in dark conspiracies, secret networks of leftist activists. The paranoid style was an apocalyptic world view which held that civilization was in the balance. These paranoid personalities thought that secret bodies were running things and you need secret institutions to fight back. Half a century on, Hofstadter's essay remains relevant. A Gallup Poll this year reported that just 35 percent of US Republican voters believe the scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change. Research by Alberto Alesina, Armando Miano and Stefanie Stantcheva shows that in the United States and Europe, native-born respondents think that there are two to three times as many immigrants in the population as there really are. 

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP

PARLIAMENT HOUSE

WEDNESDAY, 22 AUGUST 2018

SUBJECT: Liberal Party leadership and policy paralysis.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Good morning everyone. My name is Andrew Leigh, the Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Federal Member for Fenner. I don't often agree with Eric Abetz, but Eric Abetz was on the radio this morning saying that this isn't just about personalities, it's about policy. I think that's fundamentally right. The biggest environmental issue facing the planet is climate change and the Liberal Party is riven about it. One of the biggest issues facing Australian households is energy prices and the Liberal Party again doesn't know what to do.

The powerful and rising Tea Party faction within the Liberal Party is destroying consensus, destroying strong mainstream politics. The Liberal Party no longer knows whether it's a liberal or a conservative party. Only a spell in opposition will allow them to sort that out. Whether they chose Malcolm Turnbull or Peter Dutton or Scott Morrison or Julie Bishop, the fact remains that the Liberal Party is a party disunified, an opposition in exile. They are a party that is unable to make the big decisions that Australians need.

TERRITORIANS SHOULD NOT HAVE THEIR RIGHTS RESTRICTED

The Riot ACT - 20 August, 2018

In 1997, as the Commonwealth parliament sought to remove legislative rights from the ACT and the Northern Territory, then Liberal Chief Minister of the ACT Kate Carnell appeared before a committee of this parliament to say “what is at issue here is nothing less than the democratic rights of the citizens of the ACT”.

She referred to the proposed Andrews Bill as “limiting our self-governing powers”. Ms Carnell emphasised the long-term effects of depriving citizens of democratic rights enjoyed by those in the states, but the Andrews Bill passed the parliament and the restriction of the democratic right of territorians is with us today.

WE TERRITORIANS WILL KEEP UP THE PRESSURE TO HAVE OUR DEMOCRATIC VOICES HEARD

House of Representatives, 20 August 2018

I move that this bill be now read a second time.

Twenty-one years ago this parliament restricted the rights of territorians to have their voices heard through their elected representatives on the issue of voluntary assisted dying. Back then, they said that these parliaments were too immature to be given the power of voluntary assisted dying. They said that no state had done it and a territory shouldn't be the first. Today, those arguments are gone. Victoria has now legislated on voluntary assisted dying. The whole notion that there might be some mass migration of Australians towards a territory that was the first to legislate on euthanasia — that argument is out the window.

And parliaments have grown up. Back in 1997, when Kevin Andrews passed his private member's bill, the ACT assembly was just nine years old—just a kid attending primary school. Now it's grown up, left home and shown itself to be a mature debating chamber. Yes, the ACT is a unicameral assembly, but so is Queensland. The ACT has a bigger population than Tasmania. A 30-year-old mature assembly has tackled complicated issues, from light rail to infrastructure investment, from innovation to higher education. This is a parliament that has shown itself to be fit to handle a difficult challenge such as voluntary assisted dying.

LET'S BRING THE A-LEAGUE TO THE CAPITAL

Queanbeyan Age - 18 August, 2018

If you know all the north Canberra Bels - Belnorth, Belsouth, Belwest, the Devils and the Foxes - if you know the Uniteds, Citys and FCs, the Medusas, the Gliders, the Pumas, Olympic, the Panthers and the Spurs, the Bulls, White Eagles and Wanderers, the Knights, the Magpies and the Blues, then you'll know these names: Warren, Grella, Zelic, Shipard, Valeri, Farina, Perry, Rogic, Arrows, Cosmos, Arzani.

Those great names of Australian soccer have all played a part in the growth of football here in Canberra as well as across the nation.

SILENCE ON THE DIN

Director identification numbers are the most important reform required to crack down on illegal phoenix activity. Yet the Turnbull Government is still no closer to implementing them.
 
Minister Kelly O’Dwyer yesterday released draft phoenix legislation that did not include director identification numbers.