Andrew Leigh

Henry Parkes envisaged a federated Australia not held back by its vast size and relative isolation. On the 200th anniversary of his birth I took the opportunity to reflect on his contribution to Australian egalitarianism and the contemporary debate about access to education.

Henry Parkes and Australian Egalitarianism 

House of Representatives

22 June 2015 

Americans revere founding fathers. Yet in Australia, as a younger and possibly more modest nation, we often seem less likely to trumpet their achievements or even to know their names. Sir Henry Parkes' achievement is all around us. Rightly regarded as the 'Father of Federation', this 27 May marked 200 years since his birth. Moving to Australia from the UK, Parkes would go on to become NSW Premier. An autodidact from a working class family, he would also become one of the most articulate and powerful advocates for a federated Australia, noting the crimson thread of citizenship which ran through our nation.

Parkes served as NSW Premier on five separate occasions. In that office, he implemented sweeping political and social reforms including the landmark Public Schools Act and the expansion of free trade policies. Jane Reynolds' Foundation 1901 seeks to expand the knowledge of Henry Parkes. 

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

ONLINE INTERVIEW

FAIRFAX BREAKING POLITICS

MONDAY, 22 JUNE 2015

SUBJECT/S: Abbott Government’s secret school cuts plans; Citizenship; People smuggling; Economic situation in Greece

CHRIS HAMMER: Andrew Leigh is Labor’s member for Fraser here in the ACT and he’s also the Shadow Assistant Treasurer – good morning.

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER ANDRW LEIGH: Good morning, Chris.

HAMMER: Now, suddenly out there this morning is a Government discussion paper on schools and education – your observations?

LEIGH: It’s a secret plan for cuts to Australian schools that I think ought to be deeply disturbing for all parents. One of the great things about our public education system is that it recognises that everybody can send their child to a local public school without needing to pay. That gives you a greater diversity of backgrounds and local schools, and reflects the fact that when a child gets more education there’s a public good component to that. One of the whacky things about this paper is it seems to suggest that the Commonwealth has a natural role for funding non-government schools, but no natural role for funding government schools. I can’t see any economic logic in that.

MORE HOLES SHOWING IN JOE’S FLIMSY TAX PACKAGE

The Abbott Government’s rushed and flimsy multinational tax package continues to unravel, with the Law Council of Australia warning Treasurer Joe Hockey not to go ahead with his draft bill.

In a submission on the Exposure Draft of the Government’s proposed changes to Part VI A of the Tax Act, the council has cautioned that the Treasurer’s plan:

“does not accord with, and in many respects derogates from, key design principles for a fair and effective tax and transfer system."  

The Council has highlighted a range of problems with the proposal, including that it will create different levels of taxation for companies carrying out similar business activities, and risks breaching Australia’s existing Double Taxation Agreements. 

Homelessness and Housing Affordability 

Federation Chamber 

15 June 2015 

The degradation and inequity caused by homelessness are a blight on our civilised society. As the motion reflects, on any given night over 100,000 Australians are without a home. Here in the ACT we have the second-highest rate of homelessness in the country, behind only the Northern Territory. On census night in 2011, 1,785 Canberrans were homeless. The total homeless numbers were up since the 2006 census, albeit that the number of rough sleepers for the ACT was down.

I want to speak to two common misconceptions about homelessness and to use evidence from my own home town to provide clear illustrations as to why those notions are false. The first misguided perception is that homeless people have no-one to blame but themselves; if they could just work harder, some say, then their lot would improve. But people fall into homelessness for a variety of reasons as compelling as they are indiscriminate: domestic violence, housing unaffordability and mental illness are common drivers of homelessness.

Tax Superannuation Laws Amendment (2014 Measures No. 5) Bill 2014

House of Representatives 

17 June 2015

Labor's position is to oppose this bill. Labor opposed these measures when they were included in the Superannuation Laws Amendment (2014 Measures No. 5) Bill 2014. Moving them from TSLAB 5 of 2014 to TSLAB 3 of 2015 in no way reduces Labor's in-principle opposition to these measures. We oppose the abolition of the seafarer tax offset and the reduction in the research and development tax credit. The abolition of the seafarer tax offset does not have the support of the Australian shipping community. As the Australian Shipowners Association has noted:

The Seafarers Tax Offset … helped to reduce the operating costs of Australian vessels, increased the competitiveness of Australian shipping and provided significant opportunity for employment of Australians in international trades … the impact [of abolition] is severe with regard to future opportunity.

Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2015 Measures No. 1) Bill 2015

House of Representatives

16 June 2015 

The Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2015 Measures No. 1) Bill 2015 contains seven schedules, and I should say from the outset that Labor will be supporting the bill. But the context of this debate provides an opportunity to go to some of the issues raised within this bill which go to the cessation of the first home saver accounts scheme and the government's commitment to housing affordability; to the abolition of the dependent spouse tax offset and the government's view, somewhat inconsistent, on this scheme; and to offshore banking units and the government's frankly lacklustre approach to tackling multinational profit shifting.

On the issue of housing affordability we have seen a great deal of talk from the government, but unfortunately much of that talk has managed to put much of Australia offside. It was only last week that we had the Treasurer telling a press conference that if housing were unaffordable in Sydney no-one would be buying it. As has been pointed out, one can easily take 'housing' out of that sentence and replace it with any noun you like. If diamond encrusted iPhone covers were unaffordable, no-one would be buying them, you might well say. But of course such a statement would be ridiculous.

LABOR READY TO MAKE TASMANIA THE INNOVATION ISLE

Joint release with Senator Lisa Singh

Federal Labor will encourage more Tasmanian school students to learn coding, entice more Tasmanian university students into studying science, and create the incentives for more people to start up their own firms in an effort to reduce the state’s unemployment.

“New firms generate a disproportionately large share of the jobs in any modern economy, so part of the answer to reducing unemployment in Tasmania has to be building its culture of science and research to generate start-ups,” said Dr Andrew Leigh, the Shadow Assistant Treasurer.

“Labor’s vision is to take advantage of Tasmania’s intellectual and infrastructure capacity and make it one of the first choices in Australia for science, research and new innovation industries.

ABBOTT GOVERNMENT FIDDLES AS CANBERRA OFFICES EMPTY

The release of BIS Shrapnel data on empty office space across Canberra has added to concern about the future of the Belconnen Town Centre if the Department of Immigration is moved elsewhere.

As another week passes without news on the potential move, the BIS Shrapnel data shows Canberra now has one of the highest commercial property vacancy rates in the country.

More than 100,000 square metres of space – enough for over 7,000 workers – is vacant in Commonwealth-leased buildings alone.

Our right to know if big firms pay their fair share, Daily Telegraph, 19 June

Here’s a question for you: who pays for your nearest hospital? Whose money fixed the road you use to get to work? Who shells out for the books and computers that keep kids learning at the local school?

You do, of course. We all contribute to funding these things through the tax that comes out of our fortnightly pay. Recently though, it has become clear that some of us are contributing more than others.

Someone earning the average Australian income pays about 21 per cent in tax; a small business pays the corporate rate of 30 per cent on their profits. But in the past few years there have been increasingly regular reports about huge companies paying just a fraction of that.    

For instance, in a recent Senate inquiry we heard evidence that one big multinational firm may have paid as little as 2 per cent tax on billions of dollars in revenue. If the average Australian wage earner paid tax at that rate instead of their standard 21 per cent, they’d be paying almost $15,000 less a year.

Here's to a sharing economy, joint op-ed with Member for Newcastle Sharon Claydon, Newcastle Herald, 17 June

On the second floor of an unassuming building on Beaumont Street in Hamilton, Justin Hales and his team (he’s the one inside the caravan in the photograph) are trying to shape the future of self-drive holidays. Their start-up, Camplify.com.au, lets owners of caravans and campervans rent them directly to other users.

Justin’s family used to take camping holidays when he was a child, and he fondly recalls their annual trips to the Breakers Caravan Park in Port Macquarie, where his family would park their blue and white Viscount caravan amid their neighbours, and enjoy the sense of community and freedom. His favourite part of it, Justin says, was knowing he was sleeping on the kitchen table every night.