Andrew Leigh

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.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TV INTERVIEW

SKY AM AGENDA

MONDAY, 25 JANUARY 2016

SUBJECT/S: Tony Abbott, Australian Republic, GST, Tax reform, bracket creep.

KIERAN GILBERT: This is AM Agenda, with me now is Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Andrew Leigh, a lot to get across today. First of all the fact that Tony Abbott stays in Parliament, there's one thing in Australian politics over the years that many have commented on and that is our inability to use former Prime Ministers well in terms of their capacity. Mr Abbott wants to keep providing service to the community, why not? 

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Kieran I think you're completely right about our inability to make best use of former Prime Ministers on both sides, it sometimes takes them a while to find their feet. But make no mistake, Tony Abbott is not staying in Parliament because he wants to continue serving his local constituents, he's there reflecting the massive fissure that's going on in the Liberal party between the extremists and the moderates. You're seeing this in New South Wales with the place being ripped apart through a series of factional in fights between different camps of the Liberal party.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP

CANBERRA

SUNDAY, 24 JANUARY 2016

SUBJECT/S: Tax reform, multinational tax, GST, bracket creep, Kevin Rudd 

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Thanks everyone for coming out beautiful Hackett. My name's Andrew Leigh, I'm the Shadow Assistant Treasurer. It's been a rough start to the year in economic terms. We've already seen more than $100 billion wiped off the Australian share market. We've got jitters in China. We've seen the Westpac - Melbourne Institute consumer confidence figures down. In the face of all that, Australia demands clear economic leadership, rather than simply the continued floating of thought bubbles. We know that this government promised before they came to office that there would be a tax white paper delivered in the first two years. And yet, we've seen Scott Morrison now saying that tax reform is going to be kicked further off down the line. Australia doesn't need more dog-ate-my-homework excuses from Scott Morrison. Instead, we need clear promises.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

ABC NEWSRADIO

THURSDAY, 21 JANUARY 2016

SUBJECT/S: Malcolm Turnbull’s plan for a 15 per cent GST; ICAC; Australian economic outlook.

MARIUS BENSON: Let's go to local politics now. The federal Opposition has made an early start on the campaign trail for this election year with Labor leader Bill Shorten selling his message from Tasmania and North Queensland in recent days. At the heart of that message are economic issues with the headline concern, in the Labor view, the government’s plan to push the 10 per cent GST up to 15 per cent. For that Labor view on the economy and the election year ahead, I'm joined by the Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh. Andrew Leigh, good morning.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Good morning, Marius.

BENSON: Can I begin with the story that's broken this morning, reported in The Australian, that the Independent Commission Against Corruption in NSW has found no allegations to be pursued against Arthur Sinodinos, who nearly two years ago stood down because of the ICAC hearings. What's your view on that?

LEIGH: I haven't followed all the twists and turns of the ICAC inquiry but certainly from the outside it looks like Arthur Sinodinos – who I think of as a pretty smart bloke – did some pretty dumb things, particularly not being aware that a company he was chairing was making donations to the Liberal Party at a time when he was responsible for Liberal Party donations. But this will obviously be pleasing for Senator Sinodinos and his family. I guess what it highlights though is that Arthur Sinodinos was the first of the three Assistant Treasurers this Government has had since coming to office, along with its two Treasurers. That lack of continuity is one of the reasons why the economic strategy of the Government is so much in disarray.

This week I joined CCTV America to talk about the direct and important role Australia's gun control laws have played in reducing gun deaths. No matter what gun advocates in the US say, the evidence is clear: our laws stopped mass shootings and reduced gun deaths from homicide and suicide.

Behind bars, The Chronicle, 12 January

As you read this, about 1 in 500 Australian adults are behind bars. Nationally, our imprisonment rate is higher than it’s been in at least a century – and perhaps longer.

Here in Canberra, we’ve always prided ourselves on having a lower crime rate and a more enlightened approach to criminal justice than other parts of the nation. And yet our incarceration rate should give us pause. The ACT’s current incarceration rate is 131 prisoners per 100,000 adults and rising.

Despite the fact that many categories of crime have fallen, Australia continues to lock more people up. Canberra might look good by comparison with other parts of Australia, but that’s only because their incarceration rates have gone up too. Canberra has a higher share of our population locked up than most states and territories did just a couple of decades ago.

Raising the GST is not the way to protect consumption, Herald Sun, 12 January

After another Christmas gift splurge, many Australian families will be tallying the cost of last year’s spending spree with trepidation. But as the Turnbull Government begins putting together the 2016 budget, it should have a similarly wary eye on the nation’s future consumption.     

In an interlinked economy, one person's spending is another's income. When you go to the supermarket, fill up at the petrol bowser, buy some new clothes or eat dinner out at a restaurant, that all provides income to other people. This household spending makes up about three-fifths of Australia’s economy. So changes in consumption matter a great deal for the nation’s overall economic health. Treasurer Scott Morrison seems to understand this, as he recently described protecting household consumption as: ‘the most important thing for us over the next 12 to 18 months’.

If protecting consumption is this government’s top economic priority, then jacking up the GST is just about the worst possible approach for it to take. It’s basic economics: make things more expensive and people will consume less of them.

GST = GOVERNMENT STRUGGLES ON TAX 

The Turnbull Government’s plan to jack up the GST would be doubly damaging for Australian consumption if it does not enforce the same tax rules on overseas retailers.

A report in today’s Australian Financial Review highlights the risk that foreign companies selling goods online will simply ignore their obligation to charge GST and send the money back to Australia when new laws come into effect from next year.  

At the moment, goods bought online worth under $1,000 are 10 per cent cheaper than in Australian shops because foreign companies are exempt from collecting GST. The Government intends to abolish this threshold in 2017, but there are question marks over how it will enforce this change.