Andrew Leigh

LABOR’S PLAN FOR INNOVATION IN DEAKIN

Joint media release with Candidate for Deakin Tony Clark

Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh and Labor candidate for Deakin Tony Clark have today visited the Centre for Regional Knowledge and Innovation at Realm to discuss Labor’s plans for powering a new wave of Australian start-up businesses.

We know that new businesses are the biggest job creators, so providing an environment where start-ups can flourish will be central to growing more jobs in Melbourne’s East. 

During their visit to the centre, Leigh and Clark talked with local entrepreneurs about Labor’s plans to co-invest in breakthrough companies through our $500 million Smart Investment Fund. 

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RADIO INTERVIEW

BBC WORLD SERVICE NEWSHOUR

SATURDAY, 5 DECEMBER 2015 

SUBJECT/S: Gun regulation

OWEN BENNETT-JONES: President Obama has in the past sometimes cited Australia's gun laws as a model for the United States. They were toughened there in 1996 after a gunman went on a killing spree in Tasmania. We've brought together Kate Andrews who is a spokesperson for US Republicans Overseas, and Andrew Leigh, a member of the Australian Parliament for the opposition Labor party who began by recalling the mass shooting in 1996 that lead to a tightening of gun laws.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: The Port Arthur massacre took place in a remote tourist destination in Australia when a single gunman killed 35 people at a tourist attraction. If you think of Australia as being a country that's 14 times smaller than the United States, you'd have to think of that as a mass US shooting that cost more than 400 lives. So it had a huge effect on the Australian political conversation. The then-conservative government headed by Prime Minister John Howard decided to work with the states and territories to tighten gun laws and put in place a significant gun buyback.

AUSTRALIA RICHER FOR GREATER INSIGHTS INTO CHARITIES AND NON-FOR-PROFITS SECTOR

Joint media release with Shadow Minister for Communities Claire Moore

Labor welcomes the Australian Charities and Non-for-profits Commission’s release of the Australian Charities report – the commission’s first comprehensive analysis of financial data on the local charity sector.

Labor believes that the charities and the not-for-profits sector is the backbone of Australia’s community life. The commission’s report confirms their enormous contribution, revealing the sector represents $103 billion of activity around the country. Over 2 million people now volunteer with a charity or not-for-profit, and these organisations also employ another 1 million Australians.

The commission’s good work in registering and monitoring charity activity means we now know more about where and how they do good than ever before. For example, the report finds the greatest number of charities are operating in the areas of education, research and health, while religious charities also play a significant role.  

As we come closer to Christmas, the contribution of some charities and not-for-profits will be particularly clear as they support thousands of Australian families with food, shelter and the festive cheer so many of us take for granted.  

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TV INTERVIEW

SKY PM AGENDA

THURSDAY, 3 DECEMBER 2015

SUBJECT/S: Dodgy Liberal Party-Greens deal to water down tax transparency measures; Mal Brough.

DAVID LIPSON: Labor are fuming today over a deal the Government has struck with The Greens to get its multinational tax bill through the Parliament. It led to one member of the Coalition offering to 'take it outside', and other attractions –a lot of raised voices and gesticulations as well because Labor are not happy with this deal at all. To explain why, I'm joined by the Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh. Thanks very much for your company this afternoon.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Pleasure, David.

LIPSON: This deal, as well as forcing multinationals to disclose their tax arrangements, will also mean around 300 companies, big companies worth over $200 million in earnings a year, will have to disclose their tax arrangements. Why then is it a bad deal?

LEIGH: David, it's important to go through the history on this. If we go back to 2013, Labor put in place transparency laws that would have seen companies with turnover above $100 million have the ATO report on their tax paid. That information was set to flow in just a couple of weeks' time. The Greens supported that right up until a fortnight ago, but have now back flipped and raised the threshold to $200 million. What that means is that about two-thirds of the private companies whose tax would have been disclosed will now be kept secret. The Greens have done a deal with the Government for tax secrecy and Australians will pay the bill.

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DOORSTOP - CHRIS BOWEN & ANDREW LEIGH

CANBERRA

THURSDAY, 3 DECEMBER 2015

SUBJECT/S: Dodgy Liberal Party-Greens deal to water down tax transparency measures.

CHRIS BOWEN, SHADOW TREASURER: Well thanks for coming.

Overnight the Liberal Party and the Greens Party engaged in a backroom deal to let Australia's large private companies continue to avoid tax transparency.

Let's be very clear; the Turnbull Government has been for whatever reason desperate to see large private companies continue to avoid scrutiny and transparency when it comes to the amount of tax they pay.

Now they have a new Coalition partner in Richard Di Natale’s Greens. The Australian Greens under Richard Di Natale’s leadership are the tax transparency traitors of Australian politics, traitors to those Australians who want to see everybody paying their fair of tax.

They've become the gutless Greens.

RICHARD DI NATALE’S GREENS: COALITION PARTNERS IN GUTTING TAX TRANSPARENCY

Joint Media Release with Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen

Richard Di Natale’s Greens have today teamed up with the Liberal Government to help Australia’s richest companies keep their tax dealings secret, selling out ordinary Australian taxpayers in the process.

In a closed-door deal between Richard Di Natale and Scott Morrison overnight, the Greens have walked away from reinstating tax transparency for private companies earning over $100 million. They will instead team up to double this threshold to $200 million.

Kippax Christmas Gift Appeal, The Chronicle, 1 December

For several years now, Kippax Uniting Church has been running a ‘Let’s Give everyone a Christmas’ campaign – providing hampers and gifts to needy families. One year, a mother turned up a day late for her scheduled appointment to collect the toys and food. Deeply apologetic, the mother explained that she had been giving birth to her fourth child the previous day. Without the gift appeal, she explained, there would have been no Christmas in the family that year.

Christmas should be a time of celebration, but for many families it can be a time of stress. One in twenty Australian families say they cannot afford Christmas gifts. Relationship counselling services report that financial worries negatively impact families, and Lifeline has documented a spike in calls during late-December. 

Statements by Members 

30 November 2015 

Adele Horin's last article centered on the topic of luck:

… I’ve attributed my moderate successes in life to luck—

she began—

Yes, hard work and intelligence do play a part, but luck stands out as queen of the trifecta.

Ms Horin's understanding of chance never led to fatalism or cynicism; rather it became the foundation for the gratitude she felt for all of the beautiful things that had marked her life. Her loving partner, her two sons, her parents and her upbringing; her long and eclectic career as one of Australia's leading female journalists. As a cadet journalist, Ms Horin once earned the ire of Western Australian farmers when she misreported the time of sunrise on the weather pages. She went on to earn a name for herself as a Walkley-winning social issues journalist of remarkable rigour and empathy. Adele Horin applied her prose and intellect to many issues that saw her become a voice for the voiceless: euthanasia, poverty, sexual harassment, there were few topics of poverty and disadvantage that escaped her pen. If any of us were in her position—almost 65 and struck down with lung cancer without ever having smoked a cigarette—Adele Horin's affliction could be painfully difficult to accept. Writing in her last blog post, she appears tempted to give into this idea:

I want to say it's unfair.

But she returns like a magnet to her refrain:

Whatever happens, I’ve been so lucky.

Statements by Members

30 November 2015 

Politics is a team sport and in this final sitting week of 2015 I thank the team who has supported me this year. I thank my full-time staff, Lyndell Tutty, Jacob White, Thomas McMahon, Jennifer Rayner and Nick Terrell; and part-timers Gus Little, Lillian Hannock, Hayden Shaw, James Koval, Matt Jacob, Adam Triggs, Joe Walker and Michael Quincey-O'Neill. And I thank my volunteers, including Alison Humphreys, Ken Maher, Emma Bacchetto, David Winter, Waheed Jayhoon, Anthony McAdam, Helen de Landre, Sonia Loudon, Amy Haywood, Luke Martins, Justin Heatley-Hart, Tom Burgess, Matthew Morris and Eleanor Robson.

Staff and volunteers in my office do a vast array of jobs, including engaging with the most populous electorate in Australia with over 141,000 voters; arranging community events such as Welcoming the Babies, yesterday's climate march or our regular street stalls; drafting speeches and opinion articles, and answering correspondence and telephone calls; and simply reaching out to assist the people of North Canberra in the problems and challenges facing them on a daily basis. I want to thank team Leigh for all they have done to support me and Canberra this year and wish each and every one of them all the best for a safe and relaxing break.

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TV INTERVIEW

SKY AM AGENDA

MONDAY, 30 NOVEMBER 2015

SUBJECT/S: Blow-out in Budget deficit; Paris climate conference.

KIERAN GILBERT: Joining me on the program now is Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh. Andrew, the Deloitte Access Economics Budget Monitor has quite a dire forecast here. Chris Richardson, a respected economist, is saying the Budget bottom line will be $30 billion worse off given the softening in commodity prices and the shift in the Chinese economic trajectory. What do you make of this analysis? It is quite a worry.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Kieran, it certainly is. It points to many of the things we have been pointing to in the economy over recent years. Unemployment is now at around 6 per cent; growth is 2 per cent. That’s well below the 3 per cent that you need to start getting people into work. We have consumer confidence 8 points down from where it was at the election and, Kieran, the Deloitte report was written before last week’s atrocious capital expenditure figures came out which showed a 9 per cent drop in capital expenditure. That’s the biggest drop we have seen since 1987. So it does point to the fact that we need a clear economic plan as to where we go next.