Andrew Leigh

Why You Should Host December Drinks, The Chronicle/The Queanbeyan Age,                   Tuesday 6 December 2016

The other day, I was thinking about the many ways our neighbours have helped us. They’ve loaned us lawnmowers and camping tents, looked after a child when another suddenly had to be taken to the emergency room, and helped locate our dog when he snuck under the fence.

But as a society, we’re less likely to know our neighbours than in the past. One survey asked people to count the number of neighbours of whom they could ask a small favour. The average answer given in the 2000s was 1½ fewer people than when a similar survey was done in the 1980s.  Another question asked people how many neighbours they had on whom they could drop in uninvited. This time, respondents reported an average of three fewer close neighbours than in the 1980s.

What can we do about it? For the past decade or so, our family has organised December drinks for our local street. We pick a date, type up a simple invitation, and invite people to join us in our backyard for drinks and nibbles.

As it happens, we quite like our neighbours. But December drinks would be worthwhile even if we didn’t. A friendlier neighbourhood is a safer and happier place to live. Reuniting with old-timers and getting to know the new arrivals is an activity that pays off for the rest of the year.

So why not consider inviting your neighbours over for a summer drink? Tis the season – to get connected.

Andrew Leigh is the Federal Member for Fenner, and the author of Disconnected. 

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS AM AGENDA
MONDAY, 12 DECEMBER 2016

SUBJECT/S: Climate policy; Infrastructure spending.

KIERAN GILBERT: With me on the program now to discuss other issues today is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Andrew Leigh. Let's turn our attention first of all to the issue of climate and climate policy. The Financial Review reports today a billion dollar price tag for the need to increase and enhance energy infrastructure. Most notably those interconnectors between states like Tasmania, South Australia to other eastern seaboard states. Does Labor support that initiative even though the cost is quite large and could be made redundant in terms of advances made elsewhere in terms of energy technology.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Kieran it depends on the particular proposal coming forward but certainly there is a history of the Commonwealth contributing towards interconnectors. The big picture here Kieran is that the Government has now decided that the Government is going to reject the cheapest way of dealing with climate change, an internal energy market recommended by the Australian Energy Market Commission, and a policy that the Government's Chief Scientist said would save the taxpayer $15 billion. So Malcolm Turnbull wants Australians to spend more on electricity and do less to reduce emissions.

If you're looking for some medium-length political reading over the summer, here's a handful of the talks I've given this year:

• The Politics of Love 
• The Age of Ambition
• Markets, Monopolies and Moguls
• Counting the Cost of Inequality (Just Ideas I)
• Explaining the Rise of Australian Inequality (Just Ideas II)

All of these speeches are also available to podcast via Podbean or iTunes.

Why Unions Matter in Australia, The Canberra Times, 10 December 2016

Last week, I read in the press that the Turnbull Government intends to spend 2017 saying to the electorate that unions do a lot of damage to the economy. But while we prepare to re-live Groundhog Day, it’s worth answering the question ‘what did unions ever do for us?’.

Over the years, unions have brought about lasting gains in the workplace. Sick leave in the 1920s. Annual leave in the 1930s. The eight hour day in the 1940s. Unfair dismissal protection in the 1970s. Banning asbestos in the 1980s. The weekend. Careful economic research finds that unions have a causal impact on making workplaces safer. Today, unions are making the case for family and domestic violence leave.

Unions have often found themselves on the right side of history. Maritime unions refused to load ‘pig iron’ onto Japanese ships in the late-1930s because they foresaw the risk that it would come back in bombs. When 200 Gurindji people walked off the Wave Hill cattle station in 1966, it was the trade union movement that supported the right of Indigenous people to be fairly paid. If you’ve ever enjoyed Centennial Park and the Sydney Botanic Gardens, then you should thank the union members who stopped them being destroyed in the 1970s.

Unsurprisingly, unions also increase wages. One recent study finds that unions increase wages by 5-10 percent. Given that union dues are generally 1 percent or less, this is a pretty good rate of return.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP

PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA

FRIDAY, 9 DECEMBER 2016

SUBJECT/S: Australian Taxation Office report on tax payments by large companies

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Thanks very much for coming along, my name is Andrew Leigh, the Shadow Assistant Treasurer.

In 2013 Labor passed historic laws to ensure that Australians knew how much tax big firms were paying. The Liberals and Nationals voted against those laws at the time. About a year ago they voted with the Greens to water down Australia's tax transparency laws, taking two thirds of private companies out of the reporting net.

We still have Labor's historic tax transparency laws, and today’s data release makes for disturbing reading. We have a report today relating to 1504 large Australian firms. It shows that 36 per cent of big Australian companies pay no tax. More than one in three big Australian companies pay no tax.

TAX OFFICE REPORT SHOWS IT’S TIME FOR TURNBULL TO GET TOUGH ON MULTINATIONAL TAX AVOIDANCE 

Despite new figures showing more than 1 in 3 large firms pay no tax, the Turnbull Government still believes that cutting company tax rates should be Australia’s top economic priority.

Today’s data is for the 2014/15 tax year. They cover public and foreign-owned companies with total income of $100 million or more and Australian-owned private companies with total income of $200 million or more.

This report, covering 1904 companies in total, is only available thanks to Labor’s tax transparency laws, which passed the parliament in 2013 over the objections of the Coalition.

TIM HAMMOND MP

SHADOW MINISTER FOR CONSUMER AFFAIRS

SHADOW MINISTER ASSISTING FOR RESOURCES

 MEMBER FOR PERTH

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 

SCOTT MORRISON NEEDS TO LISTEN TO LABOR AND HIS OWN EXPERTS

 Labor welcomes the release of the Productivity Commission’s interim report into Consumer Law Enforcement and Administration.

It is the most recent example of expert support for Labor’s policy to increase penalties for companies that breach the Australian Consumer Law.

In April this year, Rod Sims, Chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, said;

“(W)e do have general concern about penalties under the Australian Consumer Law as not being adequate to give the right amount of deterrence.” 

In May, Labor announced that we would bring the penalties in-line with the competition provisions of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 and:

“(R)aise the maximum penalties from $1.1 million to $10 million because scammers and shonks shouldn’t be able to profit from ripping off Australian consumers”.

‘EXPLAINING THE RISE OF AUSTRALIAN INEQUALITY’

JUST IDEAS TALK #2

PER CAPITA’S REFORM AGENDA SERIES

MONDAY, 5 DECEMBER 2016

There are many forms of inequality, but perhaps the starkest is the difference between those who own no assets and earn their living by selling their labour – and those who earn vast assets, and can live off the proceeds.

Between these two extremes lies home ownership. It’s not a perfect marker, but if you don’t own a home, it’s likely you live by the sweat of your brow. Conversely, if you’re living off your investments, it’s a pretty good bet you own your home.

At the end of World War II, Australia was a nation where just 53 percent of households owned their homes.[1] In the major cities, the figure was just 46 percent.[2] Most city-dwellers rented. And most homes were made of wood or fibro cement.

Then in the post-war years, something remarkable happened. The Australian home ownership rate surged. By 1954, it was up to 63 percent. By 1961, it was 70 percent. In just over a decade, the distribution of Australian housing wealth became significantly more equal.

It wasn’t just homes. Shared prosperity in the post-war decades meant cars became cheaper. By the 1960s, most Australian homes had a vacuum cleaner, a washing machine, a television and a fridge – items that in the pre-war era were only owned by the most affluent.[3] Even access to university was shared. For someone like my grandfather Keith Leigh, attending Melbourne University would have been impossible on a modest clergyman’s wage. Only a post-war veteran’s scholarship made it feasible.

The intellectual seeds for these changes were sown in John Curtin’s white paper on full employment, and his clearly professed view that ‘there will have to be a fairer distribution of wealth’.

But the surprising thing is what happened next. 

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
RN BREAKFAST WITH FRAN KELLY
MONDAY, 5 DECEMBER 2016

SUBJECT/S: Widening inequality in Australia; levels of home ownership; value of unions

FRAN KELLY:  The widening between the rich and the poor manifests itself in different ways around the world. Here in Australia the marker between the haves and the have-nots is fast becoming whether you've managed to get your foot on the property ladder or not. That's just one of the drivers of rising inequality in this country according to Labor's Assistant Treasurer, economist Andrew Leigh. Later today he'll give the second of three speeches he's written on inequality, in which he'll also identify Australia's tax system, falling union membership and increased market concentration as factors behind the widening gap between the rich and poor in Australia. Andrew Leigh, welcome back to RN Breakfast.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Thanks Fran, great to be with you.

KELLY:  Before we get to the reasons why inequality is on the rise in this country, let's get some perspective here. Because the gap between rich and poor in Australia is nothing like that in the US where CEO pay has skyrocketed and some states don't even have mandated minimum wage. Here in Australia we have a high minimum wage, a comprehensive welfare system, a national health scheme, and a state pension system. What really do we have to worry about?

LEIGH: You're right to say that inequality here isn't as bad as in the United States, but certainly if you look across the advanced world we're in the top third of the most unequal countries. We're a nation where inequality has risen markedly over the course of the last generation. The top one per cent's share has doubled; earnings have risen three times as fast for those at the top of the distribution like financial dealers and anaesthetists, compared to those at the bottom like cleaners and check-out workers. And that great egalitarian-

KELLY: So the rich are getting richer is the point?

LEIGH: They are indeed. You're right to say that, unlike the United States, it hasn't been true that the middle has completely stagnated, but we're a nation that prides ourself on our egalitarianism. A nation where we like sitting in the front seat of taxis, we don't much like tipping, we don't have private areas on the beaches. Egalitarianism is central to the notion of what it is to be Australian. And that's why it really matters that that egalitarian ethos is under threat from this continual rise in inequality we've seen.

The Turnbull Government has added competition reform policy to its 2016 list of failures and broken promises by reneging on the commitment it made in its response to the Harper Review to “unleash the spirit of competition”.

This time last year new Treasurer Scott Morrison was describing competition reform as:

“one of the best options we have to boost growth and productivity in the years ahead, and this is why it’s at the heart of the Government’s economic plan.”

Now it has abandoned its support for the funding altogether until the budget “is in better shape”.

This leaves only Barnaby Joyce’s “effects test” – which will have a chilling effect on competition and drive up the cost of living for Australian families – as the Coalition's signature competition reform.

This absurd focus on the effects test, according to Productivity Commission Chairman Peter Harris, demonstrates how far Australia has, ‘fallen off the pace in national economic reform.’