Andrew Leigh

ANDREW LEIGH MP, ACTING SHADOW TREASURER

CATHY O'TOOLE, MEMBER FOR HERBERT

TOWNSVILLE COMMUNITY FORUM

Last night, Townsville locals gathered at CQ University to share their experiences with and concerns about the big banks.

These stories, along with the revelations of dodgy behaviour in the banking sector, prove how important the banking royal commission is.

ANDREW LEIGH, ACTING SHADOW TREASURER

MURRAY WATT, LABOR SENATOR FOR QUEENSLAND

RUSSELL ROBERTSON, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR CAPRICORNIA 

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP

ROCKHAMPTON

TUESDAY, 12 JUNE 2018

SUBJECT: Your Car, Your Choice.

RUSSELL ROBERTSON, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR CAPRICORNIA: Good morning everyone. My name is Russell Robertson, I'm the ALP candidate for Capricornia and we're here at The Mechanic Shop to talk about legislation in which the ALP is putting forward. I'm also joined here by Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Andrew Leigh and Senator Murray Watt. This is another great initiative by the Labor Party and again to help out smaller businesses so an initiative to try and expose and get some information to keep these businesses viable. So again we've got the Labor Party right at the front looking after small and medium sized businesses and keeping the locals employed. I want to hand over now to Andrew and he'll talk more specifically on the pieces in which the Labor party are going to highlight.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Great. Thanks very much, Russell and great to be here talking about an important Labor initiative. Over a year ago, Labor pointed to the problem that independent mechanics don't have the data they need to fix modern cars. Modern cars are computers on wheels. They’ve got between 20 and 50 onboard computers and without those re-initalisation codes and software updates, independent mechanics are struggling to fix modern cars.

Here in Rockhampton there's around 70 independent mechanics, but less than 10 authorised dealers. So the majority of Rockhampton mechanics are independent mechanics. They need to get those software updates. Labor called for this over a year ago. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has since backed us in. We've now said that a Shorten Labor Government would put in place a mandatory data sharing policy. It simply says we should have a level playing field, that independent mechanics should get the same car data that the authorised dealers get.

No one tells you what car to buy, and no one should tell you where to get it fixed. Data sharing with independent mechanics is fundamentally about creating a level playing field, it's good for drivers, it's good for mechanics. I'll hand over now to Murray to say a few words about the regional impact of this policy.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER AND SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION AND PRODUCTIVITY

MURRAY WATT, LABOR SENATOR FOR QUEENSLAND

RUSSELL ROBERTSON, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR CAPRICORNIA

LABOR TAKES THE WHEEL FOR MECHANICS IN CENTRAL QUEENSLAND

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.

ANDREW LEIGH,SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

RUSSELL ROBERTSON, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR CAPRICORNIA 

ZAC BEERS, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR FLYNN

ROCKHAMPTON COMMUNITY FORUM

Last night, Rockhampton locals gathered at the Giddy Goat to discuss what they want to see from a future Labor Government.

Concerns over wage growth, penalty rates and inequality were among the issues discussed.

Labor understands that ordinary Australians have been left to struggle with sluggish wages growth and increasing inequality, which is now at a 75-year high.

With profits now growing six times faster than wages, now is not the time to be handing out billions of dollars to big business.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER & SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION AND PRODUCTIVITY

SUSAN LAMB, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR LONGMAN

LABOR TAKES THE WHEEL FOR MECHANICS IN LONGMAN

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
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
ABC NEWS BREAKFAST
SATURDAY, 9 JUNE 2018

SUBJECTS: Economic growth figures; Labor’s plan for a bigger, better and fairer tax cut; Indigenous treaty; gender quotas.

HOST: We are speaking now with Andrew Leigh, the Shadow Assistant Treasurer. Thank you so much for your time this morning.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Pleasure. Great to be with you.

HOST: Are these economists right? Is it as good as it gets?

LEIGH: You have to look at the fragility around the numbers. The household savings rate is now at a 10-year low, wages growth is as slow as a dead duck, and we're seeing some softness in the housing market. That suggests that what households have been doing in some cases is reducing their savings in order to spend. Not spending because they have more in their wallet, but choosing to put less in the bank and spend more down the mall.

GENDER EQUALITY AND THE VALUE OF WORK

CEDA

SYDNEY

FRIDAY, 8 JUNE 2018

Thank you Ursula for the most generous introduction. Can I too acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, on whose lands we’re meeting today and pay my respects to their elders past and present. And just to say how chuffed I am to be back at CEDA, speaking on this critical topic. I thank CEDA, Macquarie University and Deloitte for putting on today’s event, acknowledge Lee Kelly, Mary Delahunty, Narelle Hooper, Lucy Taksa and particular Libby Lyons, the head of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency. It’s not many countries that can boast that the head of their gender equality agency is also the granddaughter of the first female parliamentarian. So we should be pretty proud of that.

I have some good news and some bad news for you. The good news is the gender pay gap is closing. The bad news is that it is happening at a glacial pace. According to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s most recent report, the gender pay gap among full time workers was 16 1/2 per cent in 1997. Twenty years later, in 2017, it had narrowed to 15 1/2 per cent. That’s a gap of $250 a week. If we continue at that rate - closing the gender pay gap by half a percentage point every decade - then in just 310 years we will have done it.*

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER AND SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION AND PRODUCTIVITY

MARK DREYFUS QC, SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL AND MEMBER FOR ISAACS

PETA MURPHY, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR DUNKLEY

LABOR TAKES THE WHEEL FOR MECHANICS IN DUNKLEY

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 . But independent repairers are struggling to get fair access to the standard service information they need.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER AND SHADOW MINISTER FOR CHARITIES AND NOT-FOR-PROFITS

SENATOR CATRYNA BILYK, SENATOR FOR TASMANIA

GROWING INEQUALITY IS CHANGING THE FACE OF TASMANIA

Over the past generation, Australia has become more unequal, and Tasmania has slipped further behind.

In the late 1970s, Tasmanian household incomes were 90 per cent of household incomes in NSW. Today, that figure is down to 78 per cent.

As novelist Richard Flanagan put it in a recent speech to the National Press Club: “Our society grows increasingly more unequal, more disenfranchised, angrier, more fearful. Even in my home town of Hobart, as snow settles on the mountain, there is the deeply shameful spectacle of a tent village of the homeless, the number of which increase daily.”

Fairness is fundamental to Australia’s national identity. Australians prefer saying “mate” to “sir”, and generally don’t have private areas on our beaches. Gated estates are rare, and many of us sit in the front seat of the taxi.

Clean up the park and build networks

The Chronicle, 5 June 2018

Two car tyres, a desk chair, building materials, and dozens of bags of rubbish. After just a couple of hours, that was the collection of garbage we had collected from Lyneham Wetlands and its surrounding paths.

Over recent years, I’ve been working with colleagues in the Legislative Assembly to arrange Saturday afternoon clean-up events in our local community. With Andrew Barr, Rachel Stephen-Smith, Gordon Ramsay, Tara Cheyne, Michael Pettersson, Suzanne Orr and others, we’ve joined with the local community to help pick up rubbish in Umbagong District Park, the North Mitchell Grasslands, John Knight Park and Yerrabi Pond.