Andrew Leigh

Voluntary Euthanasia 

17 August 2015 

House of Representatives 

Jay Franklin lives in constant pain and has all his life. He has a congenital bowel disease known as Hirschsprung disease. As a result, his pelvic cavity is riddled with infection, even after more than 100 operations. In 2013, the Victorian man announced his plans to buy a one-way ticket to Switzerland where he was to receive life-ending medication. However, because of the severity of his condition doctors were unsure if his digestive system would be able to absorb the drugs that were intended to end his life. They were concerned the drugs might, instead, leave him in a vegetative state. Jay decided not to board the plane to Switzerland. Instead, he became a passionate advocate for voluntary euthanasia in Australia, running as a Victorian state candidate for the Voluntary Euthanasia Party in 2014.

Popular opinion in Australia is clear on this issue. A 2009 Newspoll survey found that 85 per cent of Australians support or advocate for voluntary euthanasia. Another Newspoll survey three years later garnered near identical results. Nearly one in four of those surveyed in the 2012 poll would even change their vote if the candidate they otherwise would have voted for was opposed to assisted dying law reform. Three out of four Catholics, four out of five Anglicans and over nine out of 10 Australians with no religion say they, in principle, support voluntary euthanasia. There is almost no difference across age groups, with middle-aged people being those who favour voluntary euthanasia the most, and limited differences across political parties. In 2012 the Australia Institute released their national survey of 1,422 people, also finding 71 per cent support voluntary euthanasia.

It was a pleasure to be able to move a motion on the great work being done by the Indigenous Marathon Project to promote active and healthy lifestyles in Indigenous communities. 

Indigenous Marathon Project Motion

17 August 2015 

 I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) established in 2010, the Indigenous Marathon Project (IMP) plays a valuable role in promoting healthy lifestyles in Indigenous communities, creating Indigenous role models and inspiring Indigenous people;

(b) the IMP is part of the Indigenous Marathon Foundation (IMF), a health promotion charity that changes lives through running and that celebrates and showcases incredible Indigenous achievement and resilience;

(c) through the IMP, young Indigenous men and women aged from 18 to 30 are given the opportunity to unearth their own sense of self-worth and pride by completing a full marathon;

(d) participants in the IMP mostly train in their communities, attending four one-week training and education camps, and must complete a Certificate III in Fitness, acquire a Sports Aid Certificate and attain both Level I and II Accreditation in Recreational Running Coaching with Athletics Australia;

(e) the capstone achievement of the IMP is for participants to represent their families and communities and complete the biggest marathon in the world, in the biggest city in the world, the famous New York City Marathon held each November;

(f) in the last five years, the IMP has successfully graduated 43 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island men and women with 11 more enrolled in this year's program, coming from remote communities, regional towns and major cities;

(g) most of these IMP graduates had never run before, but in just six months, had all run a full 42.2 kilometre marathon, with the motto 'the harder the struggle, the greater the reward', which builds self-worth and self-belief by setting difficult goals and achieving them; and

(h) in communities around Australia, graduates of the IMP have continued to run, established running and walking groups and organised hundreds of 'Deadly Fun Runs' each year that encourage local communities to lead active lifestyles and help reduce the incidence of disease and social dysfunction; and

(2) commends the work of Rob de Castella and his team in helping to change lives through the IMF and the IMP.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

ONLINE INTERVIEW

FAIRFAX BREAKING POLITICS

MONDAY, 17 AUGUST 2015

SUBJECT/S: Marriage equality; Tax transparency; Environmental Protection Act.

CHRIS HAMMER: Andrew Leigh, given that it appears that it's unlikely there will be a vote in Parliament on same-sex marriage and there's now a debate about plebiscites verses referendums before, during or after the election, where do you think we should head?

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Chris, I think people are making this more complicated than it needs to be. When the Marriage Act was changed in 2004 to prevent same-sex marriage, none of the conservatives – Tony Abbott included – said that that should go to the people. The talk now of a plebiscite or referendum is just a delaying tactic, a blocking tactic which is, as today's polls show, against the wishes of two-thirds of Australians.

HAMMER: It's not a scuttling tactic?

LEIGH: It's probably that as well. But this is not a reform which ought to be threatening to Australians. This will strengthen traditional marriages, not weaken them. It will put us in the position of following the rest of the advanced countries in the English speaking world – countries like New Zealand, Britain, Ireland and the United States where the forecast plagues of locusts have not materialised since same-sex marriage has been allowed. 

JOE AND JOSH PRESS THE PANIC BUTTON AS TAX INACTION LAID BARE

 Joint media release with Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen

The Abbott Government is a shambles on multinational tax, as ministers desperately try to hide their inaction on making multinationals pay their fair share.

Later today the Senate’s corporate tax inquiry will table a report which lays bare the worrying scale of tax avoidance by big multinationals. 

Joe Hockey and Josh Frydenberg have been out spinning hard in response, but they can’t even get their own policies straight.

Teamwork the key to success, The Chronicle, 4 August 2015

In 1990, as the Voyager 1 spacecraft was leaving our solar system, astronomer Carl Sagan persuaded NASA to turn the camera around and take one last photo of earth. In the image, our planet appears as a pinpoint in the midst of space.

The photo – known as ‘Pale Blue Dot’ – hangs on the wall of my Parliament House office, as a reminder to keep things in perspective. But the fact of the photo is also an awesome reminder of what humans can achieve together.

PYNE: STOP THE PAYBACK AND PAY WHAT YOU OWE

Joint media release with Shadow Minister for Tertiary Education Kim Carr

The Abbott Government is vindictively withholding funding from the University of Canberra, despite being required to pay it under a signed contract.

In mid-2013, the university signed an agreement with the Commonwealth to establish a ‘Centre for Quality Teaching and Learning’ at the University of Canberra.

The role of the centre was to help Australia place in the top five countries globally in reading, maths and science by 2025 through increasing teacher effectiveness.

In 2014 – nearly a year into the agreement – Education Minister Christopher Pyne cancelled the contract for the Centre. The Government has since refused to pay the $4.4 million that the University of Canberra says it is owed.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

ONLINE INTERVIEW

FAIRFAX BREAKING POLITICS

MONDAY, 10 AUGUST 2015

SUBJECT/S: Entitlements; bracket creep; GST; budget.

CHRIS HAMMER: Andrew Leigh, six weeks of parliamentary break, the Government is still doing badly in the polls. Is that simply because of the entitlements issue or do you think there is more to it than that?

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Chris, as many serious commentators are    starting to ask: what is the point of the Abbott Government? Where is their serious reform agenda? Where are the things they want to put in place in order to create a better future for the next generation of Australians? We have got a Government which is so beset by internal infighting, so concerned with itself that it has lost touch with the concerns of everyday Australians. The importance of seeing more jobs, better paid jobs, has been lost in a context now in which we have got the highest unemployment rate in two decades. We have got sluggish wage growth, and according to the Climate Institute, we are not going to make our 2020 carbon targets. There is a range of really concerning intergenerational factors about the current state of play in Australia.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TV INTERVIEW

SKY AM AGENDA

MONDAY, 10 AUGUST 2015

SUBJECT/S: Speaker; tax rate competitiveness; emissions reductions targets.

KIERAN GILBERT: With me now is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Andrew Leigh, and also Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Steve Ciobo. Gentlemen, good morning. Steve, after the Budget it looked like it was a more solid performance, things had started to turn around. But now the trend is back away from the Government. That's got to be a bit of a worry as we head back into the spring session of Parliament?

STEVE CIOBO, PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND TRADE: Kieran, in shocking news, I'm going to tell you of course we make policy decisions based on what we believe to be in Australia's national interest. None of us get particularly excited about polls that go up, polls that go down, there are polls done almost every second day. As far as I'm concerned, as far as the Government is concerned, we were elected to do a job and that was to stop the boats, to abolish the carbon tax, to make sure that as a nation we get our finances under control and every single day we work toward doing that. Our $89 billion announcement to make sure that both our defence industries and South Australia are on a solid footing going forward is an example of that. And we continue to pursue economic reform that is in Australia's best interest.

PROJECT TETRIS ADDS TO UNCERTAINTY FOR IMMIGRATION

News this week that the Abbott Government is looking to fill over 30,000 square metres of vacant public service office space through ‘Project Tetris’ has only increased concern that the Department of Immigration will be moved out of Belconnen.

Parliament’s Public Works Committee has been told the Commonwealth plans to fill this space by moving agencies between premises and delaying new leases.

The leases on four of the office buildings in Immigration’s current complex at Belconnen expire in February 2016. Since putting the tender out for new facilities in October last year, the Abbott Government has resolutely refused to say whether it will keep the department in the spot it has occupied since the 1970s. 

My new book, The Luck of Politics, is about the role that chance plays in shaping political outcomes (and in life more generally). The book will be launched in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Brisbane, and I'd be delighted if you could attend.

• Monday 31 August, 6pm for 6.30pm - Sydney University (MacLaurin Hall), in conversation with David Marr (RSVP here)
• Tuesday 1 September, 6.30pm - Melbourne University (Copland Theatre), introduced by Glyn Davis (RSVP here)
• Wednesday 2 September, 6pm for 6.30pm - ANU (Manning Clark Theatre 3), introduced by Katy Gallagher (RSVP here)
• Thursday 3 September, 6pm for 6.15pm - University of Queensland (Forgan Smith Building, St Lucia Campus) (RSVP here)

For more information about The Luck of Politics, see the publisher's website.