Andrew Leigh

Malcolm Turnbull’s Government is threatening cuts to the collection of some of Australia’s most important statistics, with statistics on housing finance, retail sales, early childhood, foreign ownership and crime victimisation in the firing line.

Dr LEIGH (Fenner) (19:16):  This is a government which is pretty strong when it comes to taking on the weak. If they are taking on the pensioners, those with disabilities or carers in the community, then they are pretty tough. But when it comes to taking on some of the biggest companies in the world, this government goes weak at the knees. For years they have been arguing against Labor's attempts to shut down multinational tax loopholes. When we said we wanted to close debt deduction loopholes and the Leader of the Opposition put together a carefully crafted package on debt deduction loopholes, where were they? Are they standing on the side of the little guy? No, they were standing on the side of multinationals.

GOVERNMENT VOTES TO CALL ON ITSELF TO EXPLAIN WHY IT HAS FAILED ON TAX TRANSPARENCY

The House of Representatives has this afternoon voted in favour of my amendment to the International Tax Agreements Amendment Bill 2016.

The amendment “calls on the Government to explain why it has failed to close tax loopholes and increase transparency in Australia.”

Dr LEIGH (Fenner) (18:42): I was 11 years old when I bought my first computer. It was back in 1984 and the machine called an Aquarius. It had rubber keys, a cassette drive, a black and white television was its monitor and it held a little less than four kilobytes in memory. Back then, the machine was, well, not start of the art, but pretty close. We have come a fair way from that to the advent of the iPad Air.

We didn't get there by settling for second best. We did not get there by saying, 'Well, the technology of today will do us for the course of the next generation.' That is the lesson that this government has failed to learn with its National Broadband Network. It is a government that thinks that investing in the future involves buying millions of metres of copper. Since the change of government, we have seen Australia fall from 30th to 60th in global internet rankings.

THE AGE OF AMBITION*

SPEECH TO THE THIRROUL ALP BRANCH 50^TH ANNUAL DINNER

THIRROUL RAILWAY INSTITUTE HALL

THIRROUL

SATURDAY, 8 OCTOBER 2016

***CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY***

Members of the great Thirroul Branch of the Australian Labor Party, it is my honour to be invited to join you here in the evocative ‘Valley of the Cabbage Tree Palms’ on the occasion of your 50th consecutive annual dinner, in the 104th year of your branch’s existence.

For any regional branch of any organisation to remain a going concern for over a century is a tremendous achievement. To have broken bread together for half a century beneath the Thirroul branch banner is equally glorious. Few other Labor branches have published a book on their history. My thanks to Chris Lacey for sending me a copy of his terrific Illawarra Agitators. Naturally, I have read all 376 pages, and stand ready to be quizzed on it later this evening.

On behalf of the federal Labor caucus, I thank the members of the Thirroul Branch for the example that you set for us, and the reminder of how much we have to learn from our shared past.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TV INTERVIEW

SKY AM AGENDA WITH KIERAN GILBERT

WEDNESDAY, 5 OCTOBER 2016

KIERAN GILBERT: I'm with the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Andrew Leigh. Do you think that Labor should now rein in the call for a Royal Commission given the sort of scrutiny that we're seeing here this week?

ANDREW LEIGH SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Good morning, Kieran it's great to be with you and your viewers. Labor's view, as is the view of many Australians, is that a hearing like this is no substitute for a Royal Commission.  What a Royal Commission can do is go through forensically what happened with CommInsure and the Bank Bill Swap Rates scandal, with many of the other financial rip-offs that we've seen that have laid bare some of the systematic problems. What we got yesterday was just an opportunity for a short amount of questions. I know my Labor colleagues had hundreds of questions that went unanswered in their quizzing of the Commonwealth bank CEO. And that means that Australians don't get the answers that they deserve. I think a Royal Commission isn't just in the interests of all Australians, it's ultimately in the interests of the banks as well who want their industry to be seen as squeaky clean whereas over recent years we've really seen a significant fall in the standing of big banks.

ANDREW LEIGH SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Thank you for coming along. My name is Andrew Leigh, Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Federal Member for Fenner. We've discovered today that the ACT Liberals have a $7 million hole in their election costings. This is a result of the ACT Liberals not following the instructions on the first substantive page of the ACT Government's Standard Costing Parameters. Those Standard Costing Parameters say very clearly that the estimate of the cost of a nurse should be $173,000. That's a figure which includes on-costs, worker compensation, superannuation leave and so on. 

But we see that the ACT Liberals put in a costings request on 29 September 2016 in which they cost 16 nurses at $1.7 million. That works out to just $107,000 per nurse. In other words, the ACT Liberals are using estimates of a cost of a nurse which are simply wrong.

Why having the best social welfare system in the world matters to Australia - Business Insider

Quiz time. Of the roughly 200 nations in the world, which country’s welfare state is best targeted to those in need?

If you answered ‘Australia’, then you’re absolutely correct. It’s also a healthy sign that you haven’t been paying too much attention to Liberal Ministers like Scott Morrison and Christian Porter.

Because despite the demonisation of Australia’s social security system, Australia really does have a world-class social safety net. Not ‘world class’ in the aspirational sense – but world class in the Kyle Chalmers, Carol Cooke, Chloe Esposito kind of sense.

Put simply, a dollar spent in the Australian social security system does more to reduce inequality than a dollar spent in any other welfare system in the world.

The Good Life, The Chronicle, 4 October

"One of the phoniest phrases in modern, contemporary language is quality time", Lindsay Tanner tells me, "There is only one form of quality time - that's quantity time."

I'm chatting with the former Finance Minister not about dollars, but about making sense of modern life. Being a good parent, he argues, isn't something you can do on a few hours a week.

The conversation was part of a new podcast I've started, which focuses not on politics and policy, but on living a happy, healthy and ethical life. Over recent years, I've become less interested in intelligence, and more in wisdom.

It seems to me that Australia probably doesn't need more parliamentarians with snappy slogans and incisive insults. But there may be a case for politicians taking a bit of time to explore the deeper questions, of how we make the most of our brief time on the planet.

The podcast is called "The Good Life", a phrase coined by Aristotle about 2300 years ago to sum up what it is to live life to the full. In the podcast, I’ve spoken with Michael Traill, who jumped ship from banking to become the founding head of Social Ventures Australia. I’ve explored food and fun with Australia's happiest epicurean Annabel Crabb.

I’ve delved into trauma, healing and meditation with SANE Australia head Jack Heath. With palliative care nurse Nikki Johnston, I discussed what makes a good death, and what the prospect of mortality can teach us about living well. And with Graeme Simsion, author of "The Rosie Project", we talked about autism, writing and the fine line between success and failure.

I'd love to get your thoughts on The Good Life, and who you look to for guidance on being healthier, happier and more ethical in your own life.

To download the podcast, search "Andrew Leigh Good Life" on iTunes, or go to www.goodlifepodcast.podbean.com.