Andrew Leigh

This afternoon I spoke to ABC Canberra 666 host Alex Sloan about today's High Court ruling against the ACT's marriage equality legislation. Listen here.

ACT Federal Labor members also issued a joint statement expressing disappointment and urging the Prime Minister to bring the debate to the floor of the Parliament. While the High Court found the landmark ACT law unconstitutional, the Court also stated that ‘marriage’ in the Australian Constitution includes a marriage between persons of the same sex. This means that the Parliament can legislate for marriage equality.

JOINT MEDIA STATEMENT



Federal Labor Members in the ACT

Andrew Leigh MP, Member for Fraser
Gai Brodtmann MP, Member for Canberra
Kate Lundy, Senator for the ACT

CALL FOR TONY ABBOTT TO ALLOW SAME-SEX MARRIAGE CONSCIENCE VOTE


We are very disappointed with the decision today by the High Court to strike out the territory’s same-sex marriage law.

This is a sad day for those same-sex couples that took advantage of the ACT’s ground-breaking legislation and tied the knot since Saturday.

We commend ACT Labor on its efforts to advance the cause of equality.

We also respect the decision of the High Court.

The Prime Minister must now deliver on his pledge that the Liberal Party room will revisit the question of whether to have a conscience vote on same-sex marriage.

The Abbott Government chose to mount this legal challenge at a cost to taxpayers when this is an inherently political decision that should be decided in the Federal Parliament.

ABC 666 Canberra Afternoon interview 12-12-13

Stretching the brain in different directions, this morning I had a laugh with ABC 666's Ross Solly and Jo Laverty about the classic Dead Parrot sketch by Monty Python. Here's the chat and here's the link to the skit.

ABC 666 11-12-13

Last night I delivered a speech in Parliament commending members of my electorate for the quality and quantity of their social and volunteer interactions as well as the great work of our young social entrepeneurs:

I rise tonight to speak on the strength of community in my electorate of Fraser. As is well known, the ACT has some of the highest rates of social capital in the nation. The most generous postcode, as measured by tax deductible gift donations, is 2602. The highest rates of volunteering of any state and territory are in the ACT. The ACT also has high rates of sporting participation, community club membership and even, according to the Clean Up Australia Day survey, low rates of litter.

Australians may have become disconnected over recent decades, but Canberra is a strongly connected city. Last Thursday, it was my pleasure to attend Volunteering ACT's Volunteering EXPO held in Albert Hall. The Volunteering EXPO brought together a plethora of ACT community groups, each looking for new volunteers. Ninety per cent of ACT voluntary groups say that they want more volunteers. It was a real pleasure to stroll the through the halls set up, as it were, as an Easter show of giving back to the community. Many of the local groups I spoke to had already signed up volunteers and were hoping to do so the following day.

I acknowledge the hard work of Maureen Cane, Rikki Blacka and Emilie Van Os Schmitt, from Volunteering ACT for their tireless efforts over recent weeks to make the volunteering expo a success. Volunteering ACT have been hard at work on other products as well. They recently produced a report, Promoting youth engagement and wellbeing through student volunteer programs in ACT schools, which I would commend to the House. Generating that culture of volunteering is so vital because volunteering, like so many other things, such as the habit of giving something back when one is at school, is indeed important work.

Volunteering ACT has also put together a booklet called 100 Volunteer Stories, compiled by Sarah Wilson and Emilie Van Os Schmitt. That book discusses so many of the great Canberra volunteers: Marjorie Boyer and Sheila Turner of Palliative Care ACT; Ian Goudie of Diversity ACT; the Railway Historical Society and its project to restore old trains; Cathy Starling and Judy Tier's stories of their involvement in Australian Business Volunteers, assisting developing countries to foster entrepreneurship and innovation; Ricardo Alberto and his hard work as President of the Gungahlin United Football Club; and the voluntary work that makes Volunteering ACT itself such a success.

I was also pleased on Friday to host one of my regular social entrepreneurs breakfasts where I bring together in my electorate office a set of social entrepreneurs who are doing good work in the local community. It is born out of a sense that I have and which, I believe, many members on both sides of the House share, that Australia needs more innovation and entrepreneurship. One area in which I believe I, as a local member, can do something to promote that is in bringing together local social entrepreneurs. They are an inspiring group, working on issues that are wide and diverse. Those who were able to attend Friday's social entrepreneurs breakfast included Julia Diprose of Vocal Majority; Pierre Johannessen of Big Bang Ballers; Brad Carron-Arthur, who runs a mental health organisation; Tony Shields, who is involved with Menslink; Ben Duggan, the founder of Raising Hope; and Danielle Dal Cortivo, founder of raize the roof.

I was also grateful to Fiona Nelson and Lincoln Rothall of WIN News for providing some opportunities through this breakfast to promote some of those great voluntary organisations in the local media. These organisations are inspiring and it is important that these social entrepreneurs have an opportunity to discuss with one another the shared challenges that they are facing: setting up a board, finding appropriate funding, managing the organisation in such a way that they do not burn out in their personal lives; thinking about who will succeed them in running their organisations; and thinking, too, about appropriate partnerships.

The strength of Canberra's community extends to its technology entrepreneurs. On the weekend I popped into Hackathon ACT, an IT boffin's delight held in the entrepreneur space, Entry 29, on the edge of the ANU campus. There I spoke with Rory Ford and Matt Stimson, who took me around the room and introduced me to various of the bleary-eyed entrepreneurs—this was early on Sunday afternoon and many of them had pulled an all-nighter all through Saturday. Caffeine was in abundance as was junk food. It was terrific to see the community of programmers and the innovative ideas they were working on. A team from one of the local schools was working on an app for Google Glass. I had not even realised that Google Glass was available in Australia, but they were not only using it but also developing a new app for it. There was a group working on an app for mortgage comparison. and another one working on an application for better form filling in order to save time for large organisations and indeed for government, cutting down on the amount of forms that have to be printed and reducing the amount of time that we spend queuing.

Finally, I recognise the sense of holistic pride that the ACT government has brought through its Brand Canberra campaign. Launched on 28 November, it features a new logo—CBR, standing for confident, bold and ready. It provides a framework through which to tell Canberra's story through five attributes: challenge, free spirit, ideas, quality of life and discovery. That positive message is one I believe pervades community groups in the ACT. It is not just a new logo, as the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister have acknowledged. As Chief Minister Katy Gallagher put it, it is also something that:

… gives us the tools to be able to tell others what a great city Canberra is—proud to be the capital of Australia and the centre of government, but also a confident and bold city.

The campaign has been praised by the ACT Chamber of Commerce and Industry and by the chair of the Canberra Business Council, Michelle Melbourne. I acknowledge too the work of Jamie Wilson and Warren Apps of Coordinate.

Too many Australians think of Canberra as being just the city of government, but it is in fact not just the national capital; it is the social capital of Australia. It is a place where voluntary organisations thrive and can thrive even more still. I pay tribute to the many volunteers here in the ACT and the organisations that sustain them.

Yesterday I joined parliamentary members in expressing sadness over the passing of the former South African President, Nelson Rolihlahla Nelson. I gave this condolence speech:

Richard Stengel, who worked with Nelson Mandela on his autobiography, told the story of when he was out walking one morning in the Transkei with Mr Mandela and they spoke about when he would be joining his ancestors. Mandela said:

Men come and go. I have come and I will go when my time comes.

He had an extraordinary life. The first time he shook the hand of a white man was when he went off to boarding school. He was born into a relatively privileged family by black South African standards. He grew to stand six foot two and he had a strong education. Nonetheless, when he was a young man in Johannesburg people spat on him in buses, shopkeepers turned him away and whites treated him as if he could not read or write. He thought to himself that, if that was how he was treated, how must it be for so many other black South Africans?

He was tried for his revolutionary activities for the ANC and sentenced. In the sentencing hearings, he spoke for four hours, finishing with the final statement:

During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

His defence team urged him to take out the last sentence for risk of antagonising the judge and, as history has suggested, it may have been a close-run thing. Another member of the Johannesburg bench claims that he persuaded the trial judge, Quartus de Wet, to change his mind over a cup of tea in the judicial common room just before he returned to the court for sentencing: de Wet had been set on hanging.

The 27-year sentence saw Nelson Mandela become prisoner 466/64. He was held for 18 years in an eight-foot by seven-foot cell. It was a brutal sentence. He was a man who loved children but spent 27 years without holding a baby. As was reported, when he was being pursued by thousands of police, he secretly went to tuck in his son in his bed. When his son asked why he could not be with him every night, Mandela told him millions of other South African children needed him too. He lost his eldest son, Madiba Thembekile, in a car crash in 1969 and felt terrible guilt.

Mandela did not eschew violence entirely, as Gandhi did. He said, 'At a certain point, one can only fight fire with fire.' He never disowned the struggle and he was the founder of Umkhonto weSizwe, the Spear of the Nation, the military wing of the ANC. He regarded violence as a tactic not as a principle. As my media adviser, Toni Hassan, has pointed out, Mandela reached a point of taking the view that violence was a necessary strategy. But when the time came, he said to the ANC:

We must accept that responsibility for ending violence is not just the government's, the police's, the army's. It is also our responsibility.

This was most difficult when Chris Hani was killed by an assassin commissioned by the right-wing conservative party. It was Mandela who called aggrieved black South Africans not to take revenge when the country could have been plunged into bloodshed. He noted that a white woman of Afrikaner origin risked her life so that 'we may know and bring justice to the assassin'.

When Mandela was released from jail, almost a generation had passed. It was said that when he saw a television soundman waving a boom microphone at him he thought he was 'wielding a fancy assassination device'. But Mandela brought black and white South Africa together as the first president of a multiracial South Africa. In the moment when the country hosted the 1995 Rugby World Cup, Mandela wore captain Francois Pienaar's No. 6 jersey on the field. The crowd loved it and loved him. They experienced a great moment of unity.

I am very pleased to see the bipartisanship with which Nelson Mandela has been acknowledged, but it is important to note that this was not always so. When people like Meredith Burgmann protested against white-only South African sporting teams, she was attacked by many Australian conservatives. Reading through the Hansard reveals John Howard opposing sporting sanctions against South Africa in the 1980s and Michael Cobb calling in 1990 for the resumption of sporting contact with South Africa. It also reveals Liberal members calling for the expulsion of the African National Congress from Australia and people like Senator Crichton-Browne saying:

When Mandela gets out of gaol he will be just in the ruck with all the rest. As long as he is in gaol he really is a symbol of all that the blacks represent. The sooner he gets out, the sooner, in my view, his influence will be considerably diminished.

One is so glad that those words have been consigned to the dustbin of history. There was a great moment in that speech when Senator Crichton-Browne said:

No one, in my view, has an absolute mortgage on morality.

And the late John Button said:

Certainly not you, Senator.

Mandela was a towering figure the likes of which we may not see again. His example to all of us was an extraordinary one. We are lucky to have shared this planet with him for that great run of 95 years he was on it. May he rest in peace.

I joined erudite Drive host Richard Glover, Reserve Bank board member Heather Ridout and former Liberal leader John Hewson for a wide-ranging discussion about government suport for Qantas and General-Motors Holden, climate policy, the 30th anniversary of the floating of the dollar, remembering Nelson Mandela and the importance of tenacity. Here's the ABC 702 audio to listen to. The transcript is below.

Glover: Monday’s political forum Heather Ridout, Reserve Bank board member and former head of the Australian Industry Group, Dr John Hewson former Liberal leader of course and economist and Andrew Leigh, the Labor member for Fraser and the Shadow Assistant Treasurer is also a former professor of economics at the ANU. Andrew welcome to you in Canberra.

Leigh: Thank you Richard.

Glover: And Heather and John welcome to you here in Sydney. Now both QANTAS and General Motors Holden are in the sort of trouble that leaves them vulnerable if not given some sort of government help. So is it a case of the tax payer to the rescue yet again, or do we let such icons sink or swim? Heather Ridout.

Ridout: Thanks for that one.

Glover: Just a hot-ball-pass straight to you.

Ridout: Look, I think both QANTAS and Holden are in similar but different places. Both operating in, their Global players in a Global economy, playing in a global economy with high cost structures and that makes it very hard. But that's where the similarity ends. I mean I think QANTAS wants to be very careful people don't get the wrong impression. It’s a very strong company with a very strong asset base with a very strong balance sheet.

Glover: Their making $300 million dollars also.

Ridout: Yeah and they've got plenty of cash, and yeah, well they are. You know I think that's an issue they've got a lot of options to solve and I think in the airline act restricts their ownership that's one structural issue government can do something about. But they do have options internally and this is an important period in their history. But people shouldn't be concerned about the future of QANTAS.

Glover: Before you go on to Holden should the government liberalize that foreign ownership act?

Ridout: Well I think they should have a look at it. I'm very pro-foreign investment and I think this is one area where business needs to show a bit of good leadership. Australia wouldn't be the country it is if it wasn't for foreign investment. We've always wanted to spend more than we save here and we want to continue to do that because that's given us high living standards etc.

Glover: Okay some people say airlines are different because there's a deference issue about having a national carrier who can help you out in times of trouble.

Ridout: Well I think an awful lot of countries have made that argument but I'm sure there's other ways to skin that cat. But I mean we can still retain a strong interest in the airline and that's only one option. But I don't think, Holden doesn't have those options. I was on the advisory board for Holden for quite a few years. It’s a fantastic company, whenever manufacturers wanted to find a process engineer or a person who knew about innovation… they went to the automotive industry and they still do. Because that's been the hub of innovation, skills, development you name it. But I think there's a much greater ambivalence about the government  racing into put more money on the table because people are very concerned the viability of the industry in Australia.

Glover: In other words we might be throwing good money after bad.

Ridout: Yeah, I mean we only make about 200,000 cars now and if you look at a global scale car manufacturer that's a pretty moderate size one plant. But then again I'm very worried that the economy is not that resilient at the moment. To absorb all these people, and there'd be 50,000 direct people that would be affected by this decision. 15.000 or so in South Australia and the average age of the worker in manufacturing, 20% of them are over 55 and you have to wonder whether these people are going to find more opportunities. Whatever government does it shouldn't be about saving money  in the short term, it shouldn't be about short term politics, it should be within the context of a very strategic framework about what they’re going to do about those issues.

Glover: John Hewson, are we throwing good money after bad? Does the tax payer need to come to the rescue with these companies?

Hewson: Well in terms of Holden, I mean it’s been on the cards for a long time. I remember answering these questions in the early 90's saying that we'll probably end up wasting billions of dollars and it will end up in tears anyway. It's an inevitability given it’s a global business as Heather said, the decisions are not made in Australia with Australian interests at heart really. So I think what you need to do is look at the reality that it is going to go, and the transition for that which Heather's actually mentioned in terms of some of the problems with older workers and so on. You can argue that they've all known about it for quite some time but nevertheless the government could play a part in facilitating the transition away. And preserving the design and engineering skills that underline the motor industry in some form.

Glover: Is that possible? See some people would say that if you want the motoring industry to do what it’s been doing over the last 40 years which is to provide this training and this sort of basin this knowledge of engineering at the heart of the economy that's difficult to replicate in any other way.

Hewson: It may be true but I’d have to say that the Australian population has moved against Australian made cars anyway. I think we've got more models per capita than any other country in the world and there tastes have shifted away from Fords and Falcons and Commodore's.

Glover: I was told we've sold 98,000 cars this year to date. 12,000 of them were in Australia. The rest of them imported.

Hewson: Yeah and this is making the point, so you are in that sense you are throwing good money after bad. Trying to just save them, give them another 150 years which I thought one proposal was today, which you know is not going to achieve the result. The decision I would guess has been made on global considerations. You source the parts, you source the people, you source the processors in the cheapest location that gives you the product you want. Globally they are going to do that and they've been doing that in the car industry for a long time. A car is a global product not a national product whatever we might like to think.

Glover: If that's a hopeless cause what about QANTAS?

Hewson: QANTAS is difficult because I mean it’s an icon there's no doubt about it and there're arguments about it, but I personally think QANTAS has been very badly managed over a long period. I mean there were opportunities back it the 80's I believe the link QANTAS or merge QANTAS with Cathay pacific, which would've given us a really genuine, significant Asian-based airline ahead of everyone else, ahead of Singapore, ahead of Emirates and so on. Which would've been a very good opportunity, and it’s still probably there. You could change the foreign investment restrictions and allow someone like Singapore or emirates to buy 25% of QANTAS for example. But the value of QANTAS is not reflected in its share price, I mean Heather's right its inherent value its breakup value is much more than the share price. So, there's a lot of options internally that they could pursue?

Glover: You mean if they sold Jet Star or they sold frequent flyer?

Hewson: Yeah and focus their activities more directly. You know I guess that, I remember Alan Joyce a year or so ago when his bonus was in question because it had been tied to the share price. The share price had collapsed and he was still arguing that he still deserved a bonus even though the share price had collapsed. Those sorts of things actually leave a lasting a lasting taste in your mouth, and then you turn around and ask the tax payer to bail you out. When your borrowing status is junk status and you ask to government for a triple A borrowing status, I mean you're asking an awful lot. I don't think that should be perused and I don't think putting cash in or the government buying shares is sensible. But perhaps easing the foreign investment restrictions and allowing them to link sensibly with another major regional global airline would make a lot of sense.

Glover: Andrew Leigh your side of politics has said firmly no today to that idea of loosening the foreign ownership requirements on QANTAS.

Leigh: We have Richard and our view is QANTAS ought to remain a majority Australian owned Australian Airline. It’s the national carrier it’s one that I think Australians are pretty proud of and so we've taken then view it ought to be a majority Australian carrier.

Glover: What if that makes it impossible to run successfully in a modern world?

Leigh: Well I think there are a range of approaches that can be taken here. Chris Bowen for example has suggested a modest equity injection by the government as a show of faith to the markets. But I think it is time for careful and consider deliberations on this. And I do get a bit worried when I see fraught by so much in-fighting over these questions rather than that sense of unity and purpose that I think you need on both QANTAS and Holden.

Glover: But let’s talk about Holden for a second. I think it’s been put quite firmly by Heather and John, really this is not sustainable that we could throw $150 million at it and not really see anything in the end for our money.

Leigh: Well I think it also has to do with the confidence that you send to the markets. Again the in-fighting between Ian MacFarlane and Joe Hockey over this hasn't been helpful. And when you look at the Wall Street journal report today suggesting Holden pulling out of Australia, I think that's in no small part driven by the sense that there isn't a sense from the Australian Government that they strongly sought to keep a strong manufacturing base in Australia. I think that is important. As an economist we talk about the two economical reasons for industry support as being spill-overs into other industries and geographic concentration, and those things do exists in the car industry. Highly geographically concentrated and tied into a very large network of part distributors all of whose jobs are at risk if Holden falls over.

Glover: But if Australians don't want to buy the cars what can you do about them? You can’t force them to buy them?

Leigh: Absolutely not unless you're talking about the government fleet, in which case the federal government has been doing very well in purchasing Australian made cars and some of the states could frankly lift their game. But overall I think it’s about making sure that there's good product on offer. Australian made cars aren't a majority in the market but they are a significant minority and they are good vehicles.

Glover: Okay, the tax payer money is valuable. I mean they've been given such a lot of money over the last 20 years, do you really give them more?

Leigh: Well the point that somebody like Kim Carr would make for example, is that there isn't an automobile on the road that isn't supported in some way by government assistance from a government around the world. And Kim would argue Australia needs to make a strategic choice about whether we want to remain one of the dozen or so countries in the world that can make a car from scratch, or whether we want to step back from that and be a nation that can't manufacture an automobile.

Glover: Heather Ridout, Lez on the email makes the same point. He says check out the sort of assistance given by the Germans and American governments to their car industry. In other words the idea of subsiding cars is done around the world.

Ridout: Well it is and we're per capita quite a low subsidizer, but you know the thing is American and German productivity is much higher than ours. They've got much more scale and their industries have much more future and I think that's very important to recognize. The other thing we have to remember we don't just make cars in Australia, we make trucks, we make caravans, we make a lot of fuel intensive things like cars and if we employ 50,000 directly say in automotive manufacturing we'd employ another 25,00 or so in this other area. They get very little assistance and they're doing not too badly and the supplier industries to them are not doing too badly. So the end of car manufacturing would be I think regrettable but it’s not the end necessarily. These trucks go to the mining industry; we make half of the trucks that go into the mining industry in Australia. We make them you know all over the place.

Glover: So you're agreeing with what John Hewson said earlier, is that if you want to keep manufacturing and engineering skills supporting the car industry is not the only way to do it?

Ridout: It’s not the only way. High tech manufacturing in the defence industry is another way. A lot of people who used to supply to the car industry now supply defence and government need to get their act into gear in that regard. So there are opportunities that I cannot underline the fact more that this decision will be very important to Australia and it needs to be very carefully handled because a lot of people will be badly affected by it.

Glover: …We'll check the Sydney traffic in a tic, but first this. It’s the 30th anniversary of the floating of the dollar. Part of the push under Paul Keating [was] to see tariff walls removed, foreign investment embraced and government owned enterprises privatised. Was it a great period economic rationalism or economic liberalisation depending on how you look at it? Looking back at that period did we take some of the changes too far or too fast? Or is it a case of as Mr Keating has clearly been putting television to Kerry O’Brien that he created the basis for Australian prosperity during this period, John Hewson?

Hewson: Look I don't want to get into the debate between Bob and Paul as to who did what and when and how, but I've heard both versions. Look I think there is an inevitability, when I came back from working in the IMF in the early 70's to work in the reserve bank, I was absolutely convinced our inward looking, insinuator, un-competitive financial and economic system was going to have to change, it was going to have to be opened up. We couldn't have centralised wage determination the way we'd had it, we couldn't live with the tariff levels we'd had, we couldn't live with the regulated financial system we'd had. So that process was actually started in the Fraser government and I thought there was an inevitability that whoever was in power come the end of 83 or early 84 when there was the next run on the exchange rate that they'd float and I actually predicted that. I did see that happening.

Glover: Why couldn't we stay as we were?

Hewson: Because you could not defend the indefensible. We had an exchange rate that was set at an artificial level, we had a regulated baking system which lacked any form of effective competition and tariff walls were unsustainable in a world that was globalising. So I think there was inevitability about it. Having said that give them credit where credits due. I mean they did take the decisions when they were there. I remember for example I think in the Labor party platform in 1983 they still had bank nationalisation listed and they licensed 16 foreign banks. It was inevitability, they had to change. To their credit they did, they managed the process very well without entering the fight between Bob and Paul.

Glover: Andrew Leigh did we take things too far or too fast during that period?

Leigh: It's funny Richard when I heard you ask the question I though John Hewson was going to answer (c) not fast enough, given the debate over it that happened in 1993. But the credit really has to go to John over this as well for not pushing the raw politics of the issue. I think trade liberalisation and a floating dollar have always been inherently tough issues. They are complicated economic areas and I guess the distinction I'd draw, and I don't want to be too political about this but is between the view that John took in 1993 and his former media adviser Tony Abbott in 1994 was still against the float of the dollar. I think the float of the dollar was a great thing in that it provided a shock absorber if you like against the Asian finial crisis, the tech wreck, the global finial crisis. You know previously these terms of trade shocks when they came along in the 30s, the 50s, the 70s, they blew the place up. We had inflation, unemployment going through the roof and thanks to a floating dollar we didn't have any of that and thanks to good politicians on both sides of the house. Keating of course but also national interest Liberals who supported him.

Glover: Let me ask about tariff walls coming down. I ask because partly because of course because we're still talking about this with QANTAS and with Holden in particular in a sense. What do you say to people that were employed in the clothing and footwear industry and saw their jobs disappear as the tariff walls disappear and now face a world where you really can't with ease buy an Australian shirt or an Australian pair of undies?

Leigh: I think it goes back to something that Heather said before about the importance of moving up the value chain. She was talking about manufacturing but it holds in textiles as well. We moved from making kids pyjamas and school shoes into doing high fashion, that's the Australian clothing and footwear sector today.

Glover: It’s a lot smaller though, it’s a much smaller sector isn't it?

Leigh: It is but consumers have benefited to the tune of a few thousand dollars a year in the pockets of the typical house hold. I remember my parents used to have to save up for a pair of kids school shoes and now you can buy them for $6 or $7 in Aldi. And that's a big difference to a family that's struggling to afford the essentials

Glover: Was all that stuff that happened 30 years ago a good thing Heather? Did it go too far, too fast, not far enough?

Ridout: I thought it was fantastic and you know I think those reforms set Australia up, and they coincided with a time when the whole world economy was globalising. When we really needed to take advantage of the freeing up of world trade and I think that it was a series of reforms, they were very hard won. You might say that we had some bi-partisanship around them but it wasn’t easy because outside of parliament. There were piles of vested interest lined up against these, so they were very well executed. I think going to what Andrew said I was going to make the same point the floating of the dollar did help us whether our way through a number of shocks to the world economy and we haven't had recession in 22 years in no small part due to that. Now the high dollar at the moment has got everyone exercised and that's really causing a lot of structural change across industries and Australia. But there is no doubt that Keating and Hawke and his predecessors and everyone around did a great job.

Glover: What about the privatisation part of it? I mean some people still say QANTAS if only we hadn't of sold it. Commonwealth Bank would've given us a means of controlling things through the economy, setting interest rates, stopping profiteering. Even the situation with Sydney airport people say natural monopoly why was it sold?

Ridout: Well I don't think the government owning those things solves the problem. I think you have to have very smart regulation and you have to have incentive for private sector investment to keep them current, to keep technology up to date, to keep their business practices sharp and that's what competition and the private sector can bring to it. You know the idea that the government would go back to owning 100% of QANTAS, well forget them ever making a profit. So I just don't think that's the answer. For one thing I think Australians have become much more risk adverse, it might be a GFC type response but it’s not reform complacency in Australia I think we're rather risk adverse. This is a real challenge to leadership who want to start arguing we ought to privatise Australia Post. Oh god what would happen? Nothing much you know it would probably be better.

Glover: And of course complacency is its own risk.

Ridout: Yes we'd probably get letters delivered on the weekend rather than just five days a week. You know and you'd probably get a whole lot of other things happening and I think this risk aversion that is really endemic in Australia and can be really easily re-enforced by conservative leadership that isn't willing to make some of the big calls. I think it’s a really dangerous thing for Australia

Glover: Monday’s political forum with Heather Ridout, Dr. John Hewson and Andrew Leigh. Now Australia has won the second test after a long series of defeats. What’s the thing in which finally victorious after number of less successful attempts? Andrew Leigh.

Leigh: I used to be a race walker Richard, it’s not exactly the sexiest sport in the world. But I took it up when I was fairly unfit as a kid at school.

Glover: A race walker?

Leigh: Race walker yes. And worked and worked and worked at it and wanting to at some stage win a medal. And then finally after 5 years of training 3 times a week and racing on the weekends I finally managed to win a nationals team medal at a competition down in Tasmania.

Glover: And then you've slumped back have you?

Leigh: Exactly, exactly. I think I switched sports and then out of race walking but it’s a tight knit community and I remember so many times getting disqualified from it. It broke my heart Jane Saville was disqualified in the 2000 Olympics. Because I'd trained with Jane and I'd gone through a tiny fraction of what she had but race walking is that kind of sport where you can work really hard, you can get disqualified and you’re just out of the game.

Glover: Heart breaking. John Hewson, victory after a number of defeats?

Hewson: I attempted to focus on some sporting achievements and so on but look I think at a very personal level I think marriage. I didn't think I'd find the love and peace that I found in my current marriage.

Glover: A few people put up their hands a victory after following defeats if you talk about romance I guess. Heather Ridout.

Ridout: Well I'm trying to figure out a few things that I've done that really challenged me like race walking or several marriages.

Glover: What ones been enough?

Ridout: Yes ones been enough. One and a few kids and a Job and the whole thing. I think probably skiing, I'm so unco you know I fall over and I'm scared of heights. I think years ago when I did that and I was desperately unsuccessful and I learnt to do it and I quite enjoyed it, and now I don't do it anymore because I'm frightened of hurting my knees.

Glover: But you could remember the fear that you had to get over.

Ridout: Yes the fear, the absolute fear you know and then the thrill when I actually felt comfortable that I could go down. That was pretty heavy stuff.

Glover: That’s what the Australian cricketers have experienced a victory after a number of defeats is far sweeter.

Ridout: I hate that talk. I think Australians should be really magnanimous in defeat and all this sort of silly talk that goes on I think it’s quite unfortunate.

Glover: Between Australia and England?

Ridout: Yeah they're good teams and you know you understand a bit of banter on the field. But I think we've got to get a bit of the testosterone out of it all although that might make us win it I don't know. If you got that out of it they might be pussy cats and we'll lose.

Glover: Well this was a great issue wasn't it in the Bradman tour of 48, I've recently read a book about it. The people that had been serving during the war on both sides wanted to play all matey mates because they'd just been through hell together. The people who hadn't for various reasons been in the war said lets go back to the old style cricket of trying to pound each other into the ground.

Ridout: I guess we do it more with words rather than actions.

Glover: Back to the World War II spirits on the cricket ground. Thank you very much to Heather Ridout Reserve Bank board member and Dr. John Hewson here in Sydney thank you very much. And former professor of economics and now Labor member for Fraser in our Canberra studios Andrew Leigh Thank you very much

Leigh: Thank you Richard

702_ABC_Sydney_20131209 Glover_Lee_Hewson_Rittout_PoliticalForum

This morning I had the pleasure of debating the Liberal's Andrew Laming in my regular slot on Breaking Politics with host Tim Lester. One of the topics was whether the government should intervene to save Australia's car industry.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

ONLINE INTERVIEW

BREAKING POLITICS – FAIRFAX VIDEO

MONDAY, 9 DECEMBER 2013

SUBJECT/S: Car manufacturing, QANTAS, carbon policy, debt limit

TIM LESTER: Imagine Australia as a country that does not build cars, Mazdas, Hyundais or BMWs but for that locally built Holden's, Fords and Toyota's they'd be gone. Well it may be government and car maker decisions in coming weeks set us up for that future. On Monday, Breaking Politics is proud to have the two Andrews in the studio, Andrew Laming the Liberal MP in the Queensland electorate of Bowman and here in Fraser in the ACT, Labour’s Andrew Leigh. Welcome to you both. Andrew Laming one person in Labor who really ought to know, Kim Carr, says that for less than $150 million a year, according to one estimate government could keep Holden in Australia. Would that be money well spent?

ANDREW LAMING: Well this has been a tantalizing proposition for every government right up to today and here we are Groundhog Day again wondering whether or not we can save our vehicle manufacturers. It’s not too much the quantum of money but it’s the social impact of not having vehicle manufacturing and all of the support industry continuing so governments of both sides of the political fence work very hard to keep our manufacturing here in Australia. And I never ever forget the social benefits of keeping that industry here and the employment it provides.

LESTER: So you think this Government needs to work pretty hard to keep the car industry in Australia?

LAMING: Oh there’s nothing new. All governments up until today have worked extraordinarily hard - some would say too hard - to keep vehicle manufacturing here. We need to make sure if we are providing some assistance to keep it happening in Australia, that at an employment level we are also getting factories and manufacturing that is as efficient as possible and competitive.

LESTER: What’s your sense, have governments spent too much in the past to keep vehicle makers in this country, or do you think we've got it pretty right?

LAMING: Well self-evidently how much we've invested has simply led to the same question being raised again today, and we will have this on-going negotiation with overseas owners about how to keep manufacturing here.

LESTER: Andrew Leigh, $150 million well spent or would it be a waste of money?

ANDREW LEIGH: Tim, I share Andrew’s views about the importance of high-tech manufacturing to Australia. The typical car has a couple of hundred microchips, Kim Carr tells me. So its high-tech manufacturing. What I worry about though is the amount of time Mr Abbott has spent over the last few years focussing on the impact of the carbon price which is a very small impact on motor manufacturing, but then very little emphasis on the targeted assistance which is being provided to vehicle manufacturers which is a much larger component of their decision to locate in Australia.

LESTER: Okay, we know the price tag. Is the price tag worth paying.

LEIGH: Well there’s two reasons economists talk about the benefits of industry assistance. Of course in general economists take a pretty dour view of it, but the two reasons to support it are spill overs to other industries, research and development spill overs, and also geographic concentration.  And you see both of those things in the car industry I think. A lot of parts manufacturers and so on are tied into the production chain and benefits into other areas such as defence manufacturing. But also very heavy regional concentration  and it would be a bitter blow for some of these communities to lose car manufacturing.

LESTER: I'm taking you're saying money well spent?

LEIGH: Certainly those two criteria that economists apply to industry assistance can, I think, be effectively applied to car manufacturing.

LESTER: Andrew Laming the same ideological argument go on each time this comes up, over whether we should support the industries that can't make their own way or not. What’s your end conclusion on whether the Government ought to spend this money or say ‘say la vee’?

LAMING: Well in the end we've created a vehicle industry pedestal where to fall of the pedestal is something very difficult for any government to contemplate. My argument is that our nation has some of the least mobility of our workers between states, that has been pointed out by demographers before. We have large concentrations of unemployment, the highest proportion of unemployed workers living in completely unemployed households in the OECD after one or two non-English speaking economies. So we have a real problem with getting households working and we have a real problem getting unemployed workers to move to where there’s suitable work. Those reforms are absolutely vital before we can contemplate loosing something as significant as the vehicle industry.

LESTER: Right, so aren't you saying we need to keep the vehicle industry ticking over for a fair while yet?

LAMING: Without taking the eye off the more important area of reform around long term unemployment and mobility for work.

LESTER: Okay, how will you feel then if the federal government does not change its spending formula  for the car industry and Holden says ‘bye bye’?

LAMING: Well obviously any government either side of the fence will be working so that day doesn't arrive so that’s a negotiation we hope will be successful.

LESTER: Am I missing something here or isn't this government drawing a line on Holden here, saying it can't go further financially?

LAMING: Well that of course is the rhetoric one would expect before a negotiation so of course the Government will be expecting every pound of flesh out of Holden, the vehicle manufacturers to do their best. But when the negotiation eventually reaches its conclusion we've got to get the best deal we can for tax payer.



LESTER: So what we're seeing from Joe Hockey  and Tony Abbott is negotiation here it’s not a final decision?

LAMING: Well it’s self-evident that the negotiation is in progress. In the end we've got to get the best deal we can.



LESTER: Do you accept that Andrew Leigh, that the Government is doing all it can in terms of setting a strong negotiation position and is simply being careful with tax payer dollars here?



LEIGH: Well you're talking about confidence in head offices I think Tim. I’m concerned that the governments overly bolshie position with car manufacturers doesn't send strong signals to headquarters about our support for the industry. Much as I'm concerned that Mr Abbott's approach to QANTAS effectively seeming to say that QANTAS is just another private company. It makes him sound a lot like the way Mr Howard was speaking about Ansett in the early 2000s.

LESTER: Okay, what would you do with QANTAS that Tony Abbott isn't doing How do you deal with that? Do we really buy back in to a national carrier?

LEIGH: What shadow treasurer Chris Bowen has suggested is that a small equity injection from the Government would send a strong signal to capital markets of the Government’s commitment to the national carrier. I think Australians would be pretty shocked by the collapse of QANTAS, the downgrade of QANTAS's shares is of deep concern to many Australians. This isn't, in my view, just another airline. And I get concerned when the Prime Minister suggests that it might be.

LESTER: Andrew Laming time to buy some of the QANTAS pie?

LAMING: Well that’s one of a number of options. We have the QANTAS Sale Act which really appropriately now needs to be a part of a national conversation. I think saving the QANTAS brand is important to every Australian but unlike the vehicle manufacturing issue, this is a more complex and international one where there are potentially a whole lot more solutions to this problem. So I think it’s right we keep our options open on QANTAS.

LESTER: Okay, Andrew Leigh the senate votes this week on the carbon tax withdrawal. Is Labor really better frustrate a change for another seven months that appears a new senate is going to make anyway?

LEIGH: What the Senate has done is decide to have a bit of scrutiny into the government's alternative proposals for dealing with climate change, and I think that's appropriate. What the government is trying to do in this debate is push off to one side what it would do about climate change, because it knows it has this dog of a policy, so called "Direct Action", which won't work and will cost more. So they want the focus to be on the carbon price, which, let's face it, is a policy which is already reducing  emissions, a seven percent emissions reduction on the national electricity market strongly praised by economists across the board, doing its job at a low cost. And you've got the Clean Energy Finance Corporation already making returns from targeted investment in clean technology. You know, really, if you believe the science and you believe Australia's future should be a clean energy future then I think we have the policy settings right and its reasonable that the Senate takes a while to contemplate the frankly retrograde  proposals being put forward by the government.

LESTER: Andrew Laming?

LAMING: Well, why this blowtorch-like intensity is on the current Labor opposition is that they had all these opportunities to come up with wise ideas as alternatives to a carbon tax when in government and they didn’t. We now have a situation where the relentless negativity of this opposition is now being cast as sticking to Labor values. So, one wonders whether Labor's values are simply relentless negativity around this issue. So the carbon tax is not being accepted by the Australian people. They voted accordingly and yet you have this pre-Christmas nickel-and-diamond from the new opposition. That's why I think Australians would be scratching their head wondering exactly what they're trying to achieve.

LESTER: Okay, but we are we not, or at least the Government is seeking is it not, to dump one carbon solution without really properly outlining and getting ready for the new carbon solution?

LAMING: Well, obviously a Direct Action based approach is little different to what many economies around the world do right now and keep in mind that what the Labor opposition when in government had up to three point eight billion dollars’ worth of direct action in their plan. I mean, every time you go directly to a brown-coal fired power station and try and improve the situation in that plant, that's a form of direct action. So, I wouldn't say that we should have this antipathy towards direct action. It's being used world-wide, used in nations as diverse as Japan, Norway and even the UN itself.

LESTER: Okay, one more topic before we close. The Greens are about to combine with the Government in the Senate to scrap the debt ceiling after so much criticism from the Government, Andrew Laming, of the Greens, you know, the 'economic fringe-dwellers' and the like. How comfortable are you partnering with them to do this?

LAMING: Well, obviously we have an agenda, and that is to allow us to fix the economic mess created by the former government, address the ten billion dollars that we're paying every year in interest, and we have to do a deal with one of these two players down in this place to make sure that we can get it through, and to get it through quickly. Whether it's a deal with Labor or the Greens, in the end, we can get about fixing the economic mess created and that's what we are doing.

LESTER: Andrew Leigh, will there be some great damage done when the debt ceiling disappears and the Government is unrestrained, in terms of how far it can borrow?

LEIGH: Well it will be in a pretty strange situation, Tim. I mean, if Andrew had gone to the good voters of Bowman before the election and said ‘I'm going campaign in this election to strike a deal with the Greens’, a party that Tony Abbott has described as being more extreme than any other because it doesn't in economic growth, he says. And if Andrew had said, ‘look the best thing I'm going to advocate is that we get rid of the debt limit altogether’. I suspect that would've been a page one issue during the campaign, it would've been seen as a gaffe by the Member for Bowman. Andrew, of course, didn't do that during the campaign. Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey are doing it now. A real broken promise to add to the litany of broken promises you've had from the Government. So, boat buy-back, non-existent. Unity ticket on school funding isn't happening. Superannuants are being hurt if they're low income superannuants, and now the so-called 'budget emergency' and our promised budget update within a hundred days isn't happening and the debt cap's been blown sky-high.

LESTER: Unlimited debt in a deal with the Greens is a bit of a mismatch from the Coalition's campaign isn't it?

LAMING: Tim, not at all. The average Australian, and certainly those in my electorate and in fact Andrew's, would simply say you only need a debt ceiling when you have a government with a debt problem and I can say to every Australian this Christmas they will have neither.

LESTER: Andrew Laming, Andrew Leigh, great to have you in the studio. Thanks for coming in.

LEIGH: Thanks, Tim. Thanks, Andrew.

LAMING: Thank you.

This morning I spoke to reporters about the Government's deal with the minor party Greens to scrap the debt ceiling - due to pass the Senate this week. Here's the doostop transcript:

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP INTERVIEW

PARLIAMENT HOUSE

MONDAY, 9 DECEMBER 2013

SUBJECT/S: Debt cap, carbon policy and emissions, Holden.

Andrew Leigh: Today, the House of Representatives is going to vote on removing the Australian debt cap, and it’s worth just reminding ourselves of some of the things that Prime Minister Abbott has been saying over recent months. He said during the election that the Greens were the only party that didn’t believe in economic growth. He said that they were more extreme than any other political party running in the election. He said that if debt is the problem, more debt isn’t the solution. He promised to release a budget update within a hundred days. He’s done none of those things, and today he’s going to be striking a deal which, if people had known about it before the election might well have affected the way they voted. And let’s face it, this broken promise from Mr Abbott isn’t the first. Mr Abbott has broken promises over school funding, over his promise that no superannuants would be left worse off, and he’s broken his promise over the boat buy-back. I think that Mr Abbott might have thought that if he just kept his fingers crossed behind his back all the way through the last three years perhaps he could get away with all this promise-breaking. Frankly, I think the Australian people are beginning to think that the only promise you can believe from Mr Abbott is his pledge that if he hasn't written it down, you probably shouldn't take it too seriously. I’m happy to take questions.

Journalist: Why is it so bad to strike a deal with the Greens when you guys struck a deal with the Greens to help form minority government in the last Parliament?

Leigh: This is just the rank hypocrisy of this decision. The going out there before the election, holding press conferences in front of debt trucks. Now, if Mr Abbott had wanted to be honest about that, stand in front of the debt truck and say the real problem with this debt truck is that it’s got a speed limit, he'd like to take the speed limit off entirely, he would have been entitled to do that, but he didn't. He ran on one set of policies, now he's delivering another.

Journalist: Julia Gillard said there would be no carbon tax under the government she leads in the election campaign when she struck a deal with the Greens.

Leigh: Mr Abbott is the Prime Minister and I'm perfectly entitled to hold him to account on his promises to the Australian people, particularly given his interview with Michelle Grattan just days before the election in which he very clearly says that the Australian people would be entitled to take a dim view of politicians who promise one thing and then do something else.

Journalist: Mr Leigh, you’re an economist obviously. Is there actually a need for a debt cap or is it more a symbolic thing?

Leigh: The Labor Party believes that the debt cap is appropriate. We certainly believe that if you're going to increase the debt cap beyond where peak debt estimated to go, then you need to release that Budget update. Mr Abbott promised to do that, he promised to release that Budget update within a hundred days of wining office. Labor always released it in either October or November. Mr Abbot is now pushing it well into December clearly because he doesn't want to level with the Australian people about what his decisions have done to blow out debt; the nine billion dollars to the Reserve Bank now so he can get a bigger dividend later, seventeen billion in tax cuts to mining billionaires and big polluters. Those are Mr Abbott and Mr Hockey's decisions, and they're blowing out debt and that's what he's trying to hide from you.

Journalist: Did Labor do enough to help Holden when it was in government?

Leigh: Labor is committed to a strong car industry. We believe that the car industry is an important part of Australia's manufacturing, and yes, we put significant effort into making sure that Holden had a viable future in Australia, not simply treating it like any other business that could go to the wall, which seems to be the approach that the Government has taken.

Journalist: The carbon tax has reduced emissions by 0.1 per cent. The CEO of Origin is saying it's not working. Is that a good result in terms of emissions reduced?

Leigh: Oh, goodness me! Let's try and find again one serious economist around the country who thinks that Direct Action, so-called 'soil magic' is going to be better at reducing emissions than a carbon price.

Journalist: But is 0.1 per cent? Is that a good achievement so far?

Leigh: This isn't an economy-wide carbon price and if you look at the national electricity market, you've got emissions down seven percent. You're seeing effects of the carbon price taking effect immediately and you're not seeing any of the economic horror stories that Mr Abbott and his team told you would see before the election. If anyone has bought a hundred dollar lamb roast lately, let me know.

Journalist: Back to Holden, we've got predictions it will take a $150 million a year to convince Holden alone to stay in Australia. Is that money well spent?

Leigh: Well, the Government's going to have to make these decisions, but it seems to me that they're not making them in the long-term interests of Australia. This sort of hand-waving and pretending it's not their fault stands in stark contrast from the approach that Minister Kim Carr and others had during our time in office.

Journalist: But is that sustainable though? The long-term future of the industry being propped up by quite a far bit amount of government money? Is that sustainable?

Leigh: There's a range of ways of assisting industries and certainly Labor in government was assiduous in making sure the car had a strong future. Alright, thanks.