Andrew Leigh

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

SKY PM AGENDA

PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA

WEDNESDAY, 3 FEBRUARY 2016

SUBJECT/S: GST, tobacco excise 

DAVID SPEERS: With me now is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Andrew Leigh. Thank you for joining us.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Pleasure, David.

SPEERS: On this spending point that Paul Keating has made today: “we need to trim our spending and not accommodate more of it by ever more taxation”. Labor is promising more taxation, more spending. 

LEIGH: There is no magic level of government spending. If you look across the advanced world, Australia sits towards the bottom of the pack. The size of government is similar to Mexico, Korea and the United States; well away from countries in Europe with 40 or 50 per cent of the economy being government.

MORRISON’S VAUDEVILLE ACT ON MULTINATIONAL TAX FOOLS NO-ONE

Perhaps to make up for Malcolm Turnbull’s suggestion yesterday that fairly taxing multinationals is “controversial”, the Treasurer came packing his best faux-outrage to Question Time today.  

Unfortunately however, he forgot his cheat sheet detailing the Coalition’s woeful record on tackling tax avoidance. As always, he attempted to bluff and bluster his way through while mangling the facts in the process. 

John Bannon

3 February 2016

For those of us on the Labor side of the House, when we think about South Australian politics so often we think about Don Dunstan, that great social reformer who brought South Australia out of the 1950s and 1960s with a splash of sartorial flair and with an openness to social reforms that reflected the social change of the 1960s. Don Dunstan was a unique political figure and the social reforms he put in place in South Australia presaged much of what the Whitlam government did.

Yet often sitting in Dunstan's shadows is John Bannon, who did for the economic side of South Australia what Don Dunstan did for the social side. He was the longest-serving Labor Premier of South Australia, and during the entirety of his 10 years as Premier he also held the position of Treasurer—an extraordinary feat. Some of his more notable achievements in expanding the economic potential of South Australia include winning the Grand Prix for Adelaide, establishing Australia's submarine industry, developing the River Torrens bank as an events and tourism precinct, converting part of the Adelaide railway station into a convention centre and facilitating the establishment of the Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine in 1988—I should say after a not inconsiderable effort on John's part to change Labor Party policy.

Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill 2013 [No. 2], Building and Construction Industry (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2013 [No. 2]

3 February 2016

There is a central tenet here in this debate, and that is that workers in the building and construction industry should be subject to the same laws that apply to other workers. That is consistent with the principle of equality before the law—a principle with which the now Prime Minister would have strongly espoused during his time as a lawyer and possibly even as recently as last year. The principles underpinning the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill 2013 [No. 2] potentially jeopardise those goals of equality and the principles of natural justice.

On Fraser becoming Fenner, City News, 3 February

FOR the past five years, I’ve been fortunate enough to represent an electorate named after the great parliamentarian Jim Fraser. But after former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser passed away last year, the Australian Electoral Commission has decided to rename the ACT seat of (Jim) Fraser, with a view to creating a new seat of (Malcolm) Fraser in Victoria.

As of this week Fraser will become Fenner; for the remarkable Australian scientist and public health advocate Frank Fenner. Here’s five fascinating things you might not know about this electorate’s new namesake.

An antidote to disengagement, Northside Chronicle (Canberra), 2 February

Four decades ago, Roy Morgan began asking Australians whether they thought politicians were ethical and honest. Back then, only one in five said yes. Today, the figure is down to one in seven.

The drop worries me, particularly as it comes alongside other signs of disengagement. More people voting informal. Fewer people following the campaign through newspapers. Shorter soundbites.

For too many Australians, politics feels out of reach, and they’re frustrated that their politicians are out of touch.

But there’s one person I’ve never heard accused of being out of touch: Mary Porter.

Good govt requires more than mere memories, Canberra Times, 2 February

A little over a century ago, GK Chesterton wrote that ‘Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.’[1]

Well told, history is always more exciting than the present. In her latest Quarterly Essay, ‘Political Amnesia’, Laura Tingle demonstrates how a fine wordsmith can skip the dull bits, and compress the achievements of decades into a handful of pages. We’re treated to the best insights of the post-war economic policymakers known as the ‘Seven Dwarfs’. We hear about the creation of capital gains and fringe benefits taxes, over the objections of the naysayers. I challenge you to read Tingle’s description of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating’s achievements, and not want to carve their faces onto the side of Mt Ainslie.

MAKING MULTINATIONALS PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE IS CONTROVERSIAL? ONLY FOR MALCOLM

The more we see of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, the more he reveals about his true values.

In Question Time today, Mr Turnbull flippantly described making big multinationals pay their fair share of tax as: “highly controversial”.

You read that right: the Prime Minister who is ready and willing to force a higher GST on every Australian household thinks asking some of the world’s largest companies to pay their fair share of Australian tax is a controversial move.

Competition and Consumer Amendment (Payment Surcharges) Bill 2015 

2 February 2016

Labor welcomes the introduction of the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Payment and Surcharges) Bill 2015 because it does two things which are vitally important for the Labor Party. It reduces the cost of living for Australians and it boosts competition so as to increase productivity, wages and living standards. The Financial System Inquiry recommended improving surcharging regulation by ensuring customers using lower cost payment methods cannot be over-surcharged. The final report of the Financial System Inquiry was released in November 2014. In that sense, it is mildly disappointing that it has taken the government over a year to implement this largely noncontroversial recommendation, which, as the House would have noted, enjoys furious bipartisan support.

"A NEW PRODUCTIVITY PUSH"

SPEECH TO THE AUSTRALIAN ECONOMIC FORUM
SYDNEY

28 JANUARY 2016

Princeton economist Paul Krugman once put it neatly: ‘Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run it is almost everything.’

As an economist, I love hearing real-world examples of how firms are raising productivity. A couple of years ago, I visited a manufacturing firm that makes mining machines. So baroque had the production line become that when they revamped the layout, the firm found that it was able to get the same work done on a line just one-thirteenth the length. The result was a one-third improvement in productivity for the company.

Visiting Fortescue’s operation in the Pilbara, I heard about its company-wide competition called ‘Have a Crack’, with the prize being $50,000 for the best productivity-boosting suggestion. The winning idea increased the efficiency of the machines that load iron ore onto bulk carriers, saving the company tens of millions of dollars each year. Not a bad return on investment.

This kind of innovation is what companies like the ones represented here today do so well. Coming up with the creative improvements which let workers do more with fewer resources. Honing in on the little productivity gains which make a big difference to profits and growth. As you well know, this is work that never ends. Companies like yours are always looking for fresh ways to stay ahead of the curve as technology and the global economy evolves.

Smart governments need to do the same.