Andrew Leigh

The Australian Honours System has been acknowledging the contribution of amazing Australians for 40 years now. I was proud to join a great many of them for the anniversary celebrations at Government House this week.

40^th ANNIVERSARY OF THE AUSTRALIAN HONOURS SYSTEM

Government House, Canberra

Your Excellencies Governor General Sir Peter Cosgrove and Lady Cosgrove, ladies and gentlemen.

I am delighted to be here today representing the Leader of the Opposition the Honourable Bill Shorten on this special anniversary.

One of the great privileges of being a parliamentarian is that you get to meet so many remarkable people. Over the past week, I’ve spoken with a woman who runs a technology start-up, a teacher who works with newly arrived migrant children, the head of an international aid organisation, and a mental health campaigner. In a job like this, it’s impossible not to be an optimist about Australia’s future.

Parliament today debated a motion respectfully urging the Indonesian Government to grant clemency to convicted drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.

Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, 12 February 2015

For three years as a child I lived in Indonesia—a year in Jakarta and two years in Banda Aceh. It had a profound influence on me as a little boy seeing a country with a great sense of generosity. I remember very warmly the celebrations at the end of Ramadan; the willingness of people in homes in northern Sumatra to welcome us in and offer us a drink—often heavily sweetened coffee which would set my little brother and I off for the next few hours—and to give to us, even though they had so little. I have also seen what it is like on the inside of a jail—not Kerobokan Prison but other prisons in Indonesia. I am aware of the hardships there and that is also relevant in thinking about the role that Andrew Chan has played since his imprisonment.

I have seen, too, the impact of drugs and I understand why, for Indonesia, cracking down on drug smuggling is an important issue. Drugs can ruin young lives. Just as those who traffic drugs tend to be poor and underprivileged, those who use them tend to be poor and underprivileged. And so Indonesia's work to reduce the scourge of drugs in its community has my full support.

Tom Uren 

10 February 2015

It is a pleasure to follow the Father of the House in speaking on this motion. One of the most brutal tests of national identity was described by Gavan Daws in his study of prisoners of war. Looking at men who had been starved and beaten down to what he called 'barely functioning skeletons' weighing less than 40 kilograms and surviving on less than 1,000 calories a day, Daws imagined that perhaps the national characteristics would all disappear, but it was not so, he found. He wrote:

The Americans were the great individualists of the camps, the capitalists, the cowboys, the gangsters. The British hung on to their class structure like bulldogs, for grim death. The Australians kept trying to construct little male-bonded welfare states … Within little tribes of Australian enlisted men, rice went back and forth all the time, but this was not trading in commodities futures, it was sharing, it was Australian tribalism.

Kep Enderby 

February 11 2015 

Jonathan Swift once said that vision is the art of seeing the invisible. The ability to see through the fog of the present to the clarity of tomorrow exemplifies the great progressives of our age. From early on in his life and legal career it was clear that Keppel Enderby, known as Kep, was something of a master in this art. Initially drawn to a burgeoning Canberra in the early 1960s to lecture in law at the Australian National University, Kep wasted no time making his presence felt in the bush capital. By 1970 he had secured Labor preselection for the Australian Capital Territory electorate—and he entered parliament in the same year.

As it happened, my parents knew him through a mutual friend. They recall him as a whirlwind of ideas. Apparently, I even stayed at his home in 1972. It was a few months before I was born, so my memories of it are a little hazy.

There's a great deal of uncertainty in the global economy right now. On ABC NewsRadio, I joined Marius Benson to talk about why it's important that Australia's government addresses this uncertainty, rather than adding to it. Here's the transcript:

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

ABC NEWSRADIO

THURSDAY, 12 FEBRUARY 2015

SUBJECT/S: Economic summit proposal; Global economic outlook

MARIUS BENSON: Andrew Leigh, there's been a call for a summit on Australia's economic future. That call has been backed, in part, by Tony Abbott but it came from Clive Palmer and also Rupert Murdoch. Echoes of Bob Hawke there – are you in favour of a summit?

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Marius, Labor is always happy to talk economics. But you've got to worry when you hear calls for bipartisanship, because let's face it: expecting bipartisanship from Tony Abbott is like expecting humility from Malcolm Turnbull. He turned down the opportunity to be involved in the multi-party committee on climate change when Labor was in government, and he turned down the opportunity to be part of the tax forum. If this is a conversation about how we deal with the challenges of the future, including things like climate change and inequality, then we're happy to be part of that conversation. But if it's just a fig leaf to cover cuts to the most vulnerable, then Labor isn't going to support measures which harm the Australian social contract.

Katrina Dawson

February 10 2015

One of the things that strikes me about the job of a parliamentarian is how often we touch tragedy—how often we find ourselves speaking in our communities or in this place about those who have passed. Sometimes there is, amidst the sadness, a sense of satisfaction—of a full life lived well—as there will be shortly, when this House pays tribute to Tom Uren. But at other times the pain is overwhelming, as it is in the case of young lives cut short in the midst of their success.

The member for Robertson has spoken movingly of Tori Johnson, one of the two victims of this tragedy. I want to speak about Katrina Dawson. Katrina Dawson was at Sydney university law school a couple of years after me; I was closer in cohort to Sandy Dawson, her brother. But Katrina's brilliance shone strongly. She scored a perfect hundred in her HSC. She was a star of the Sydney bar. She had three extraordinary young children and she touched so many lives.

I am fortunate to have so many young and engaged people living in my electorate conscience of the world around them. United Nations Youth Australia is a volunteer organisation of passionate young people building interest in global issues and opening the eyes of young Australians the the world they live in. 

United Nations Youth 

February 9 2015

I would like to acknowledge the work of United Nations Youth Australia and their role in educating young people in my electorate. UN Youth is Australia's largest by youth for youth organisation, focusing on peer-to-peer education. With thousands of volunteers over the country, the organisation runs major national events, including debating championships and international relations conferences. In particular, I want to take note of their overseas development tours to Timor-Leste and the Middle East.

I spoke on the sad passing of Labor legend Vic Adams whose contribution to the movement over many decades has been immeasurable. A foot soldier of the Labor cause and never one to shirk from contributing to and shaping the debate. I will miss Vic dearly and know that his passing will be a great loss to all those who knew him. 

Vic Adams 

February 9 2015 

On the last day of 2014, Canberran Victor Joseph Adams died aged 68. Vic was a proud veteran who served in Vietnam as the commander of the 1st Platoon A Company 2RAR. He was committed to his military mates and to social justice, which he expressed through his activism in the Labor Party, Amnesty International and other organisations. Vic was a great campaigner for Mike Kelly in Eden-Monaro in the 2007 and 2010 federal elections. He lived an extraordinary life, as was outlined at his very moving funeral service, at Norwood Park Crematorium on 8 January. Eulogies were delivered by Ross Ellis, Phil Evenden, Anthony Adams and Mike Kelly, and some beautiful pieces of music were played, by Leonard Cohen, Simon and Garfunkel and Three Dog Night, from among Vic's beloved music. 

International tax has been in the news again with allegations a major bank has been helping wealthy individuals dodge their tax obligations. I joined Stuart Bocking to talk about what we can do to prevent this; here's the transcript:

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

2UE SYDNEY

TUESDAY, 10 FEBRUARY 2015

SUBJECT/S: HSBC banking leaks; multinational profit shifting; Tony Abbott’s cuts to pensions; 2015 budget

STUART BOCKING: There's been interesting reports today about HSBC's international banking arm, which detail a whole heap of secret accounts which have been operated by all sorts of people including A-listers like Christian Slater, Joan Collins, Phil Collins, and the motorcycle ace Valentino Rossi. A number of high-profile Australians have been caught up in this as well, including Elle McPherson and also the late Kerry Packer. Now, there's no suggestion that any of them have broken the law, but the Australian tax Office is now probing the Swiss bank accounts of 261 Australians as new details emerge of what is the biggest leak in banking history. Dr Andrew Leigh is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer and he's on the line. Dr Leigh, good morning.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Good morning Stuart, how are you?

BOCKING: I'm well. It isn't illegal to have an offshore bank account, is it?

LEIGH: No, that's right. It's just illegal not to notify the Australian tax office. 

BOCKING: So this is quite extraordinary because they're saying there's potentially an additional $30 million which is owed to the nation's coffers. 

LEIGH: That's right. Certainly this new Common Reporting Standard which developed countries around the world have agreed to implement is going to make it much harder for firms and individuals to hide information, as seems to have happened in this case. But what has concerned me is that the Abbott Government is implementing that Common Reporting Standard a year later than most other advanced countries, meaning there's an extra year that people are able to exploit loopholes like this.

My Chronicle column this week is on urban planning, good and bad.

Streets and Roads Essential, but Avoid the Dreaded Stroad, The Chronicle, 3 February 2015

What’s the difference between a street and a road? According to planner Charles Marohn, the answer is fundamental to good urban design.

As Marohn sees it, roads get us quickly from one place to another. Streets are where people stroll and shopfronts flourish.

We should think of roads like train lines for cars. They have plenty of lanes, sweeping curves and a high speed limit. Engineers love them.