Andrew Leigh

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, CANBERRA

THURSDAY, 24 NOVEMBER 2016

Suppose for just a moment that the 10 minutes allocated to this speech was distributed as unequally as Australian wealth. If that was true, I would spend the first six minutes and 13 seconds talking about the richest fifth, then two minutes and three seconds speaking about the next fifth, just a minute and eight seconds speaking about middle Australia, 31 seconds speaking about the second-bottom fifth and the last five seconds speaking about the poorest. In short, it would sound an awful lot like the typical Liberal speech.

This is a government that says it fights for freedoms. But the problem is that the sorts of freedoms they fight for are not the freedoms ordinary Australians care about. They fight for the freedom to stash your cash in a tax haven. The freedom for big banks to avoid a royal commission. The freedom to buy a negatively-geared home for your one-year-old baby. The freedom to tax deduct a $6,000 toaster. The freedom to be named in the Panama papers.

Plutocratic politics is on the rise. We on this side of the House thought it was pretty bad when John Howard said he would not move into the Lodge. Now we have a Prime Minister who is too good to move into Kirribilli House. Yet he lectures us about elites. Let's face it: being lectured about elites by this Prime Minister is like being lectured about sportsmanship by John McEnroe, about abstinence by Ozzy Osbourne, about driver safety by Troy Buswell, or about loyalty by the Member for Cook.

This is a government that never takes responsibility. When Adam and Eve were caught in the Garden of Eden, the Liberals sent around talking points saying it was all Labor's fault and that if only we had supported a company tax cut the serpent would not have got there at all.

AUSTRALIAN PARLIAMENT HOUSE

WEDNESDAY, 23 NOVEMBER 2016

I rise representing the member for Blaxland, who is Labor's shadow minister for trade and investment and is presently on parental leave. At the outset I note that the opposition were not provided in advance with a copy of the statement or the document that the minister has tabled, so my comments will be of a general nature responding to the minister's speech and discussing the coalition's role in the fall in Australian investment that we have seen over recent years.

Labor acknowledges the benefits to Australia of foreign investment. As Senator Wong recently noted:

“Last year Australians saved just over $363 billion, yet investment in our economy was nearly $425 billion. This was, of course, nothing out of the ordinary. Over the last four decades, the gap between Australia's national savings and investment has averaged around 4 per cent of GDP.”

By tapping into foreign investment Australia is using the savings of other nations in order to finance investment in our own country. Foreign investment ensures that we enjoy higher living standards and that we have a more productive economy and more sustainable industries. To do away with foreign investment would be to see employment decrease, wages fall, prices rise and the choices offered to consumers decrease. 

E&EO TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

ABC NEWSRADIO WITH MARIUS BENSON

WEDNESDAY, 23 NOVEMBER 2016

SUBJECT/S: “Trumponomics”; Trans-Pacific Partnership; Sugar Tax

MARIUS BENSON: Andrew Leigh, good morning.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Good Morning Marius, how are you?

BENSON: I'm well. "Trumponomics" – entirely unknown in practice obviously at this early stage – but people are seeing and Kim Beazley saw Donald Trump as a very left Republican and particularly they are pointing to this proposal to use the government as the agency to revive the American economy and particularly those rust-belt states. Just on that specific proposal – big government spending – what do you think of the virtue of that for the United  States and for Australia?

LEIGH: The United States clearly has infrastructure challenges, particularly around its airports, but the challenge for them naturally is to make sure that they do that within a reasonable budget envelope. Some of the estimates that I've seen from independent experts put the impact of Mr Trump's tax plan as being between $5,000,000,000,000 and $10,000,000,000,000 additional debt. And that would be a big challenge for the United States going forward.

BENSON: I've seen figures of $5,000,000,000,000, in particular when you add together the proposals for big government initiatives in spending and to reduce taxation, and he's promising at the same time to reduce debt?

LEIGH: Naturally you want to make decisions for the long-term, but the challenges for the United States include dealing with climate change, tackling this huge inequality gap which has been rising and which has seen so many Americans suffering real wage losses over recent years. Many business people have this notion that they'd like lower-paid workers and higher-paid consumers. The problem is that when you move from running a business to running an economy, workers and consumers are actually the same thing.

The United States will benefit Australia most if it's engaged with the world. My real fear with Trumponomics is that these threatened tariffs could well see the United States retreat into protectionism, as it did indeed in the 1920s and 30s, with adverse impacts for Australia.

LAUNCH OF THE CHINA STORY YEARBOOK

AUSTRALIAN PARLIAMENT HOUSE

TUESDAY, 22 NOVEMBER 2016

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Let me start by thanking the Australian Centre on China in the World for inviting me to speak here today. Whenever I visit your premises at the Australian National University, I am reminded of two things. The first is the wonderful work that you produce, like the China Story Yearbook that we are launching here today. And the second, as a long-time occupant of the maze-like Coombs Building, is how much less snazzy my accommodation was than yours.

In these uncertain global times I am reminded of the Chinese proverb that ‘a single tree does not make a forest; a single string cannot make music’. It is in the spirit of the long history of collaboration between Australia and China that I thought we should start with a simple question. What would Australia be like today had China not opened its economy in 1978?

Based just on merchandise exports, Australia’s economy would be almost 5 per cent smaller. That’s $8,000 less for every Australian household every year.

Prices would be higher. Since 2007, the price of goods we import from China has fallen 20 per cent while the price of goods we produce at home has increased by 20 per cent.

Our universities would be nearly $6 billion poorer each year. They would educate almost 100,000 fewer students.

Our tourism sector would earn $6 billion less each year with 1.2 million fewer visitors visiting our attractions, eating in our restaurants and buying our souvenirs.

If China had remained in autarky, Australia would have had no mining boom, and not much of a dining boom. I’m guessing that if we removed from your home every item bearing a ‘Made in China’ sticker, you’d think you’d been robbed. 

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TV INTERVIEW

SKY NEWS WITH BEATTIE & REITH

MONDAY, 21 NOVEMBER 2016

SUBJECT/S: AAA credit rating at risk; Deloitte economic report; fixing the Howard Government’s mistakes; World trade outlook

PETER BEATTIE: Dr Andrew Leigh is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer. Andrew, thank-you for joining us.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: It’s a pleasure gentlemen – good to be with you.

BEATTIE: We want to talk about the economy.

LEIGH: Excellent.

BEATTIE: The issue about the country's AAA credit rating. There's been speculation that it may be in danger. Can I ask you this; do you think – because you've been a professor of economics – that the AAA credit rating is in danger, and if it is, what do we need to do about protecting it?

LEIGH: It's certainly at risk, Peter. You've seen today analysis from Stephen Koukoulas- 

BEATTIE: Yes.

PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA

 MONDAY, 21 NOVEMBER 2016

It is traditional at this time of year to acknowledge the many thousands of people who make the work of parliamentarians possible: the cleaners, the security guards, the Hansard operators, the library staff and, of course, our personal staff. But I want to acknowledge in particular a group of people for whom the next couple of months will be particularly challenging, and they are the staff at IHG. IHG recently was unsuccessful in renewing its contract for parliamentary catering and, as a result, most of the IHG staff in this building will not be here when parliament resumes next year.

Labor’s reforms to promote inclusive ownership and inclusive growth, Business Insider,       18 November 2016

In history’s page not much is recorded about events in the Scottish village of Fenwick, except in 1769 – when some members of the Fenwick Weavers Society, so their story goes, lugged “victuals” they’d purchased with Society funds to the front room of a small cottage.

From here the items were sold at a discount to fellow Society members while the profits went into the Society’s funds (deposited – literally – in a box).

This small community enterprise appears to be the first consumer cooperative of which there are records, while the fund the Society established to lend money for members to “purchase high cost items” seems very much like a primitive credit union.

However, equally important as these profit-orientated activities was the motivation of the Society’s members and their objectives.

COUNTING THE COST OF INEQUALITY

‘JUST IDEAS’ TALK #1

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

FRIDAY, 18 NOVEMBER 2016

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One of the many things I love about Australia is our egalitarian ethos. We’re a nation that doesn’t have private areas on our beaches, and likes using the word mate. We rarely stand up when the Prime Minister enters the room, and prefer to pay a decent wage than have people relying on tips. Since the 1800s, when European migrants alighting from boats said that they felt they had entered a ‘workers paradise’, the spirit of Australian egalitarianism has burned bright.

Unfortunately, when there’s a bright light shining in your eyes, it can be hard to see anything else. Sometimes, I fear that we think that equality is merely about battlers and billionaires sharing the showers at Bondi Beach. An equality of manners is a lovely thing, but as many a homeless person has observed, you can’t eat politeness.

How much equality is there in Australia? One way of answering that question is to imagine that we divided up the population into five groups of about five million people each, and allocated the Australian land mass to them in the same way that wealth is distributed in Australia. For simplicity, let’s start from the bottom, and just draw lines of latitude across the nation that match the current distribution of wealth, as measured by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Labor understands that Australians want more competition in the banking sector, and we know that stronger credit unions and building societies will open up more choice for customers.

That’s why we welcome KPMG’s annual review of Australia’s credit unions, building societies and mutual banks (“mutuals”) released today.

The review demonstrates the mutuals industry is flourishing in an environment of low economic growth with an asset growth of 7.8 per cent, compared to 5.1 per cent for the wider banking industry.

The review also called on the Turnbull Government to respond, as a priority, to the Senate Economics References Committee’s March 2016 report into the industry. 

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TV INTERVIEW

SKY NEWS AM AGENDA WITH KIERAN GILBERT

THURSDAY, 17 NOVEMBER 2016

SUBJECT/S: Donald Trump’s tax plan; 457 visas; US alliance; Trans-Pacific Partnership.

KIERAN GILBERT: Joining me on the program now, the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Andrew Leigh. Mr. Leigh, thanks very much for your time. Jennifer Westacott from the Business Council of Australia will tonight – at their annual dinner – be making the case that our country, even more so with a Trump victory, needs those tax cuts to make our businesses competitive alongside the US. Mr. Trump is going to reduce corporate tax down to 15 per cent. 

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: That's what his plan says Kieran. But don't forget that independent experts have that increasing US debt by somewhere between five and ten trillion dollars. It's a staggering amount of money. And whether or not Mr. Trump is willing to go down that path-

GILBERT: Under his plans is that what the forecast is?

LEIGH: That's under his plan. Whether or not Mr. Trump chooses to go down that path, I'm not sure it’s right for Australia to massively blow out the deficient in order to get a very small economic growth pay-off. And this is under the government's own modelling, which suggests that the benefit for households will be trivial, but we know the impact on the debt would be massive.