Andrew Leigh

THE HON. BILL SHORTEN MP

LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION

SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS AND ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDERS

MEMBER FOR MARIBYRNONG

THE HON. BRENDAN O’CONNOR

SHADOW MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS

MEMBER FOR GORTON

THE HON. ANDREW LEIGH MP

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION AND PRODUCTIVITY

SHADOW MINISTER FOR CHARITIES AND NOT-FOR-PROFITS

SHADOW MINISTER FOR TRADE IN SERVICES

MEMBER FOR FENNER

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP

CANBERRA

MONDAY, 27 MARCH 2017

SUBJECTS: Malcolm Turnbull’s cut to penalty rates; energy crisis; Government’s $50 billion big business tax giveaway; Tropical Cyclone Debbie; China Australia extradition treaty

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION AND PRODUCTIVITY: Well, thanks very much for coming along everyone to this centre in the middle of my electorate where we have had an opportunity today to speak to apprentices working in the beauty industry about two issues that are important for Labor. One is our support for apprentices, making sure that Australia has strong apprenticeship programs with high completion rates. 

And the other is Labor's fight for penalty rates. You can be pretty sure that none of the people that Bill Shorten and I spoke with today will be benefiting from Malcolm Turnbull's millionaire tax cut when it cuts in in the middle of the year, but many of them may well suffer from the cuts to penalty rates that Malcolm Turnbull and his team are championing. 

It's my pleasure now to hand over to Bill Shorten to say a few words.

BILL SHORTEN, LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Good morning, everybody.

It's been a real privilege this morning to meet women training up in the beauty industry, getting the qualifications, working hard to make ends meet so they can pursue a career. But today, we're here to also talk about the fact that penalty rates in the hair and beauty industry are the next set of penalty rates which are on the chopping block. I think the apprentices and trainees today, who have been very well trained, they're working very hard, are really concerned to discover that if the penalty rate application is successful, that they could lose up to $77 as a fulltime worker on a Sunday. The young women here, the mature age women here who are retraining or training themselves for the future, doing everything this country expects of them, shouldn't have to face a cut to their real wages, to their real standard of living. 

THE HON MARK BUTLER MP

SHADOW MINISTER CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENERGY

MEMBER FOR PORT ADELAIDE 

 

ANDREW LEIGH MP

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION AND PRODUCTIVITY

SHADOW MINISTER FOR CHARITIES AND NOT-FOR-PROFITS

SHADOW MINISTER FOR TRADE IN SERVICES

MEMBER FOR FENNER

Labor has been calling for the ACCC to investigate electricity prices for a long time, so we welcome today's belated annoucement - but it's not enough.

After four years in Government – and wholesale electricity prices more than doubling during that period – this is really the best the Liberals can come up with?

Under Malcolm Turnbull, the energy crisis is getting worse, and Australians are paying the price. Power prices are up, pollution is up, and jobs are down. 

Australians know this investigation alone will not solve the nation’s immediate energy crisis.

As the Australian Energy Council (AEC) has recently said, “In Australia, the lack of national policy certainty is now the single biggest driver of higher electricity prices.”

The Prime Minister’s failure to articulate let alone deliver a viable national energy policy is causing power prices to climb while reliability collapses.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

ABC CANBERRA AFTERNOONS WITH LISH FEJER

RADIO INTERVIEW

FRIDAY, 24 MARCH 2017

SUBJECT: ‘Keep Me Posted’ Campaign

LISH FEJER: How full is your mailbox these days? Not your email, but your actual letterbox. The one the postie drops the mail into. What do you get in the post? We write letters less, but you’re lucky to even get a bill in the mail these days, unless – increasingly – you pay for the privilege. More and more companies such as banks and phone companies and electricity companies are streamlining their processes. They're moving away from paper bills to give them to you electronically. You can still opt-in to get the paper bills, but lots of companies are now charging for the service. 

I've got a list in front of me here for many of the companies that are charging for paper bills. Some of them up to $2 per bill. Or $2.20! Even more! $2.75 for some energy bills! Would you pay for a bill? Is that fair you have pay that to get the bill in paper?

Andrew Leigh is the federal Member for Fenner and Kellie Northwood is the Executive Director of the 'Keep Me Posted' campaign –looking at this whole idea of having to pay for paper bills and they join me in the studio.

Kellie, how many people don't realise that they could be paying – what looks like a small amount – but every month, and for a lot of people that's a large chunk? 

KELLIE NORTHWOOD, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR – KEEP ME POSTED: We think more and more people are realising and more and more people are getting upset about it. We are looking at fees of $2.50, $2.75. We are also seeing $6.70! We're seeing $3.20. It's such a range that it's hard to understand what it's all about.

FEJER: What are they saying this money is for?

NORTHWOOD: Well, we have written to them all, and the general response is that this is the cost of doing business. We challenge that. We went back and had a look at how much it cost businesses to pay to post. They pay a lot less than you and I do. And also how much it costs to print it and put it in an envelope. It costs them about 88 cents a unit. So when we are looking at fees starting at a $1.25 and going all the way up to about $6 – averaging about $2.50 – we're arguing that they're maybe double-dipping.

FEJER: Why is there such disparity between the fees?                                     

Second Reading Speech

Thursday 23 March 2017

There are species of animals known as tardigrades—or water bears or moss piglets—which are considered to be some of the most resilient species in the universe. They can go without food or water for 30 years. They can survive at temperatures of 150 degrees Celsius and minus 200 degrees Celsius. They can withstand pressure of 6,000 atmospheres, six times the pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. They can be dehydrated for 10 years, withstand 1,000 times more radiation than other animals, cope with environmental toxins and survive in outer space. They are indestructible—and so too are bad National Party economic ideas. They just do not die.

Today, I was pleased to host the ‘Keep Me Posted’ team along with many Canberra residents at an open forum to promote the campaign for paper bills and statements to be issued to Australians without financial penalties.

With me at the campaign’s first Canberra forum was Colin Ormsby from Fair Go for Pensioners and Kellie Northwood, Executive Director of the ‘Keep Me Posted’ campaign.

In 2017, numerous banks, telecommunication companies and other service providers are pressuring their customers to accept electronic bills and statements, even though many Canberra residents find it difficult or impossible to access their papers online.

Keep Me Posted is challenging corporations to remove ‘pay-to-pay’ penalties for Australians who prefer paper communications.

Labor welcomes the news that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has been honoured with an international award from the World Bank and the International Competition Network.

The award recognizes the Commission for its role in making competition policy a key part of Australia’s economic agenda.

Which begs the following question….considering the Commission is working with one regulatory arm tied behind its back, imagine the honours with which it would have been showered had it the powers Labor proposed before the 2016 election?

CHRIS BOWEN MP

SHADOW TREASURER

MEMBER FOR MCMAHON

ANDREW LEIGH MP

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION AND PRODUCTIVITY

SHADOW MINISTER FOR CHARITIES AND NOT-FOR-PROFITS

SHADOW MINISTER FOR TRADE IN SERVICES

MEMBER FOR FENNER

UMM, MALCOLM...SCOTT’S STARTED IMPROVISING POLICY AGAIN

The Treasurer’s latest idea is a last-minute amendment to the Competition and Consumer Act that he will reportedly move today in the House of Representatives.

In the words of Monty Python’s Life of Brian: “He’s making it up as he goes along!”

Second Reading Speech 

Tuesday 21 March 2017

I move:

That all the 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 on the Government to explain why it is desperate to hide in this bill, and the Diverted Profits Tax Bill 2017, a $50 billion tax cut for big banks and multinationals behind a phoney war on tax avoidance".

Labor will support the Treasury Laws Amendment (Combating Multinational Tax Avoidance) Bill 2017, but we do note, in debating this bill, that this government are 'the hollowmen' of multinational tax action. How is it that the government's actions on multinational tax end not with a bang but with a whimper? The $200 million of revenue that accompanies the diverted profits tax is the bounty of a government that has launched a phoney war on multinational tax avoidance, desperate to distract from their $50 billion tax giveaway to the very companies that they claim to be targeting with this bill. This is entirely in keeping with the government's inconsistency on the issue of multinational tax avoidance—when the coalition was in opposition and now in government. That should be no surprise to impartial observers. To paraphrase David Hume, the coalition are so much the same in all times and places that history informs us there is nothing new or strange in this particular. History's chief use is only to discover the constant and universal principles of their nature.

Address-in-Reply

Wednesday 22 March 

I rise to speak on the many virtues of Australia's Bush Capital, a city which is, according to the OECD, the most liveable region in the OECD. It is a great privilege to represent the north side of Canberra, the electorate formerly known as Fraser and now known as Fenner, after the great Australian scientist Frank Fenner. With community volunteers, we organised a 'Clean up Yerrabi Pond' afternoon last Saturday and were pleasantly surprised at the number of locals who turned out to assist us with making that part of Canberra just a little cleaner.

I would like to acknowledge my staff, Nick Terrell, Eleanor Robson, Lillian Hannock, Jacob White, Nick Green and Taimus Werner-Gibbings, and the many volunteers, including Rob and Robin Eakin and Gerry Lloyd, plus other community volunteers, who helped us not only to pick up some of the garbage that had been strewn on the ground there but also—after we had washed our hands—to cook a barbecue for the community. It was a reminder of the strong community spirit that exists in Canberra and the Gungahlin area in general and Yerrabi Pond in particular. One of the things I love about Yerrabi Pond is it is a terrific spot take the kids with its flying foxes and state-of-the-art play areas. It is also the start area for the Gungahlin parkrun. I know that my colleague Ross Hart has recently spoken about the virtues of parkruns. This parkrun is very well attended and certainly one that I have enjoyed running in the past.

Burma and Australian Foreign Aid 

Monday 20 March 2017

Australia has had a diplomatic presence in Burma, now known as Myanmar, since 1952. Unlike other countries, we never withdrew, even at the peak of the military rule. In 2013, I had the honour of representing Prime Minister Gillard to welcome military President Thein Sein to Canberra. It did not occur to me at the time that just a few years later I would be in Myanmar with this bipartisan delegation, funded by the Gates Foundation and organised by Save the Children, meeting democratically elected leaders from the National League for Democracy. Labor welcomes the 2015 election result and the strong economic progress that has been made in Myanmar over that period.

During our visit to Myanmar we saw firsthand the good that foreign aid can do. We visited projects run by Oxfam, World Vision, the United Nations Development Programme and the Danish Refugee Council. We saw Australian Volunteers for International Development volunteers. We visited Phandeeyar, where CEO David Madden told us about how Phandeeyar is working on building microenterprises. It is doing everything from teaching the Harvard CS50 computer science course and running accelerator programs for firms to working on democracy projects for its Open Development Myanmar program.