Andrew Leigh

SPEECH, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

WEDNESDAY, 30 MAY 2018

I move the second reading amendment that has been circulated in my name:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

“whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House calls upon the Government to seriously tackle phoenixing and the black economy, including by urgently introducing legislation requiring every company director to be issued with a unique Director Identification Number”.

A couple of years ago, the Australian Taxation Office conducted a number of audits into illegal phoenixing activity. Following one of those audits, a Tasmanian business owner was charged with fraud for phoenix activity, which was alleged to have involved an original company that operated a chain of restaurants.

SPEECH, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

TUESDAY, 29 MAY 2018

In Tasmania today people are camping out in tents in the Hobart Showground. One of them, Rachel, is due to give birth in October, and she is having to suffer through icy Tasmanian temperatures. She says:

… if I can't see it, it's not happening. Just stay in a ball and you'll be fine.

That's Rachel's way of dealing with the homelessness crisis Tasmania is currently struggling with.

One of my own constituents, Adrian, wrote to me about his family's struggles. His children and grandchildren are finding it difficult to get into the housing market. He currently shares his house with his married daughter and her husband. Since his eldest was born 40 years ago, he has had only six months of living without his offspring. Lina, a woman in my electorate, recently wrote to me about living out of a suitcase after losing her mother. Annie, an older woman, has been left with few housing options after finding herself with little superannuation and no family.

This is why Labor won't yet support the government's whole six-year income tax cuts plan

Business Insider Australia, 29 May 2018

Imagine that one day your boss tells everyone that the firm has a terrific three-part plan for pay rises. Part one will give everyone a $10 a week pay rise, starting in a matter of weeks. ‘What about parts two and three?’, you ask. You’ve heard a rumour that they give a lot more to the senior executives, and might lead to layoffs. He shouts angrily: ‘If you don’t support the whole plan, you can pack your things and get out!’.

That, in a nutshell, is how Treasurer Scott Morrison is presenting the personal income tax cuts in its 2018 budget. One part of the tax cuts, due to take effect in just under six weeks, is targeted towards low and middle-income earners. Another tranche, due to take effect in just over six years, gives the most to those who have the most.

JOEL FITZGIBBON, SHADOW MINISTER FOR AGRICULTURE 

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION AND PRODUCTIVITY 

Dairy farmers deserve better

The Age, 29 May 2018

In 2016, dairy farmers Bec and Glen Casey heard from milk producer Murray Goulburn that they would be cutting the price of milk. Worse, Murray Goulburn told them that it had been overpaying its producers, and would have to claw back some of the money they had been paid. The decision cost the Caseys’ 320-head operation a full two years of profit. Bec said that Glen ‘feels like someone's come in and taken half the herd from underneath him’.

In one sense, milk is big business. The average Australian drinks over 100 litres of milk a year. Add in butter, cheese and exports, and dairy farming turns out to be the fourth-largest agricultural sector.

LGBT+ Rights are Human Rights

Star Observer, Friday 22 May 2018

Over the past half century, Australia has made significant progress. We have decriminalised homosexual acts between consenting adults. We have removed many forms of institutionalised discrimination against LGBT+ Australians. And we have belatedly legislated same-sex marriage.

There is more to be done in Australia, but there is much more to be done around the world.

TURNBULL WON’T TACKLE TAX HAVENS

The taskforce which has clawed back millions of dollars hidden away in the Cayman Islands and other tax havens is losing its funding.

The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions today confirmed in Senate Estimates that the Turnbull Government will end funding for the Serious Financial Crime Taskforce from July 2019.

Tax cheats must be popping the champagne at this announcement.

Just two months ago, the Minister for Revenue and Financial Services praised the Serious Financial Crime Taskforce for uncovering “Australia’s biggest tax fraud”, which involved the Cayman Islands.

SPEECH, FEDERATION CHAMBER

THURSDAY, 24 MAY 2018

During my lifetime we in Australia have decriminalised homosexual acts between consenting adults. We have removed many forms of institutionalised discrimination against LGBT+ Australians. And we have belatedly legislated same-sex marriage.

There is more to be done in Australia, but there is much more to be done around the world. According to the ILGA's 2017 report, as of May 2017, 72 states continue to criminalise same-sex consensual activity—that is, more than one-third of the world's nations. There are currently eight nations in which the death penalty is imposed as a punishment for same-sex consensual sexual acts.

SPEECH - HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

WEDNESDAY, 24 MAY 2018

There is a reason the government ran out of speakers on this debate. There is a reason the Treasurer had no-one behind him. It's because this government is, deep down, ashamed of the package they have. They're ashamed that we on this side of the House are offering tax cuts which are better, bigger and fairer than theirs. On budget night, the Treasurer cunningly put together two sets of tax cuts—a set that comes in in about six weeks time and a set that comes in in about six years time. The set that come in in about six weeks time would, according to the Grattan Institute, make the tax system more progressive. That's why Labor is happy to support those tax cuts due to take effect in six weeks time. In fact, we won't just back them. We'll do better. We will offer an average Australian an additional $400 a week compared to those opposite.

SPEECH - HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

TUESDAY, 22 MAY 2018

There's one thing worse than right-wing ideologues, and that's unoriginal right-wing ideologues who have to borrow their tax-cutting strategy from overseas. The story of this government's personal income tax plan originates in United States Republican law, with people like Irving Kristol and Grover Norquist. To see the origins of this, you need to look back to the Bush tax cuts implemented in 2003, which saw 53 per cent of the cuts going to the top one per cent. American taxpayers making $10 million or more pocketed an average of $1 million a year. But, in order to hide from the American people the impact of that tax cut, a short-term stimulus was put in place, and so everybody saw an immediate handout but, over the long run, it was the most affluent who received the most.

Launch of National Volunteer Week 2018

Parliament House 

21 May 2018

[Acknowledgements omitted]

When I think back to my childhood, volunteering is among the most memorable things I did. Working with the Australian Trust for Conservation Volunteers to build a track in Nowra. Standing in Hornsby shopping centre dressed in a clown suit, selling juggling balls to raise money for Oxfam. Volunteering at Redfern Legal Centre and the ACT Welfare Rights Centre as a law student and junior lawyer.

But while we have this huge strength for volunteering which Minister Tehan has referred to, the overall statistics suggest a problem. As Australia has become more ‘disconnected’ on a range of dimensions. So too, volunteering has fallen. The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates that the share of people who volunteered in the past year has fallen from 36 per cent to 31 per cent. We need to turn that trend around. That’s why Labor leader Bill Shorten after the last election made the historic decision of creating a portfolio for charities and not for profits, recognising that volunteering doesn't sit neatly within environment, law or social services but spans all of those areas and much more.