Andrew Leigh

TRANSCRIPT – ABC 666 AFTERNOONS WITH ALEX SLOAN
Andrew Leigh MP
Member for Fraser
1 July 2013

TOPICS:                                Battlers and Billionaires, Cabinet reshuffle

Alex Sloan:                          Joining me in the studio is Andrew Leigh who of course is the Parliamentary Member for Fraser, the Labor Member for Fraser  and he has launched his book today which is called ‘Battlers and Billionaires: The Story of Inequality in Australia’. Andrew Leigh lovely to see you.

Andrew Leigh:                  Likewise Alex.



Alex Sloan:                          Now first of all just on the politics and it is reported that you have been, I will just read it now, Kate Lundy is disappointed to lose the Sports portfolio while Andrew Leigh has been dropped all together.

Andrew Leigh:                  After supporting the former Prime Minister in the caucus ballot last week, Alex, I thought it was the honourable thing to do to tell Kevin Rudd I was willing to serve but that I was also willing to step down if he wanted me to do that, and so he’s asked me to step down but has asked me to advise him on economic issues which I am certainly happy to do.



Alex Sloan:                          So it is Ed Husic and Allan Griffin from Melbourne go into your position. Is that correct?

Andrew Leigh:                  Absolutely and Doug Cameron is also stepping up as a Parliamentary Secretary. There is just a range of talented people across the Labor caucus. I mean, it’s a real privilege to sit there are look at the quality that Kevin wants to draw on–



Alex Sloan:                          Tony Abbott is calling it the ‘C Team’.

Andrew Leigh:                  I think this is a fabulous team of Ministers that are going forward; I look at somebody like Melissa Parke that understands international economic issues deeply, people like Kim Carr, Jacinta Collins, Julie Collins moving into Cabinet. These are seriously impressive people who will hit the ground running.



Alex Sloan:                          Andrew Leigh good to see you. Now let’s get onto your book and of course you are former economics professor from the ANU and this book ‘Battlers and Billionaires: The Story of Inequality in Australia’ – how long have you been writing this for? And it will be launched tonight actually by Professor Bob Gregory

Andrew Leigh:                  It will and – well it is a funny question Alex, I guess a lot of my research was on inequality at ANU so in some sense the ideas have been percolating in my head for a decade but the real writing has been done mostly in the last couple of years. My last book came out in 2010 just after the election, so it’s since then that I have been working on Battlers and Billionaires.



Alex Sloane:                       We have a bit of a theme, I’ve talking with Bernard Salt about the middle class but you say in the book that our language has egalitarian cues, the word mate is a universal leveller – and I’ll say thanks mate to a Cabinet Minister and a bus driver sometimes in the same day.

Andrew Leigh:                  Indeed, Australians don’t much like tipping, we sit in the front seat of taxis, we don’t stand up when the Prime Minister enters the room by in large and we’ve got former central bank governors called ‘nugget’ and ‘nobby’. So there is a sense in which Australians don’t like to take class differences too seriously.



Alex Sloan:                          But they are there because you then write the egalitarian spirit is no guarantee of true equality.

Andrew Leigh:                  That’s the concern Alex that those egalitarian ideals don’t necessarily lock in an even distribution of income. Obviously, you don’t want perfect equality but we’ve seen a big rise in the gap between rich and poor over recent decades, so if you are in the bottom 10 per cent of the labour market then your incomes have gone up 15 per cent after inflation since the mid-70s. If you are in the top 10 per cent your income’s gone up by 59 per cent after inflation, so the gap in the labour market’s increased, we’ve seen an increase share in the top 1 per cent, the top 0.1 per cent, indeed we’ve even seen an increased wealth share of the top 0.001 per cent which is basically those in the BRW magazine. CEO salaries are rising, the top 100 CEOs in the mid-90s earned around a million dollars, now they earn around 3 million dollars and you’ve seen –



Alex Sloan:                          And that hits the political spotlight every now and then, the CEO salary issue –

Andrew Leigh:                  It does indeed and so, you know, we’ve looked –



Alex Sloan:                          Should it? Is it –

Andrew Leigh:                  It’s a function, Alex, of the fact that in early 90s we began to carry out international CEO searches, so before that a big Australian company would look for the best Australian to do the job. Now they do a global search and they pay a global salary. I don’t think we ought to cap CEO salaries but I think it is important to give shareholders more say over CEO salaries and the executive remuneration reforms that the government’s put in place hopefully provide a better check and balance for shareholders on excessive executive remuneration.



Alex Sloan:                          When it comes to wealth equality around the Western world how does Australia shape up?

Andrew Leigh:                  So Australia is in about the top third of the OECD pack of developed countries. We’re about where you would expect us to be at as an English speaking country. The US, Chile are towards the top, the Scandinavian countries are among the most equal. Interestingly that’s if we take national inequality, if we take inequality by state and territory, Western Australia has a US level of inequality, the ACT has a Swedish level of inequality – we are the most equal jurisdiction in Australia.



Alex Sloan:                          (laughing )I’ve heard that before – so when it comes to, I believe, female heads of departments and things like that, we’re not doing so well in the ACT. Is that right?

Andrew Leigh:                  I haven’t looked at the gender stats. But, yeah I’d-



Alex Sloan:                          I think this a fairly shocking stat because yes we were described on one hand as the ACT being the Sweden of Australia but then there is inequities when it comes to, I think, female employment, as I understand it, was some NATSEM figures that I was attending a function at and I meant to write them down

Andrew Leigh:                  There you go – No, no, no; if it is ACT public service heads then I don’t have the numbers in front of me.



Alex Sloan:                          I think it was just across the board but I wish I had written it down. But moving on-

Andrew Leigh:                  Well the two intersect. You are quite right to raise it because I think one of the reasons why the gender pay gap stubbornly failed to close is because inequality has risen. More women tend to be in the bottom end of the labour distribution, so you increase inequality and that widens the gender pay gaps the two are intertwined.



Alex Sloan:                          Andrew Leigh is with me and Andrew Leigh is, of course, the Member for Fraser, the Labor Member for Fraser and as he opened when I asked him how long he has been writing this book, probably his whole economics life, called Battlers and Billionaires: The Story of Inequality in Australia. Actually, I love the story, Andrew Leigh, the anecdote about the POW, Japanese prisoner of war camp because I suppose if we do say, oh we’re the land of the ‘fair go’ and we have this kind of egalitarian kind of look at life. Just tell me that little story and what you think that illustrates. First of all, tell us-

Andrew Leigh:                  In WWII in the Japanese prisoner of war camp, The Japanese provided rations more generously to the officers than the enlisted me. They provided fewer tents than there were people to go around. And the British dealt with that by allowing the officers to eat more and have the best tents. The Australians pooled everything and made sure those who were unwell good a little more thanks to the leadership of Weary Dunlop. As Tom Uren said in his first speech to Parliament, only a creek separated the two camps but on the British side the law of the jungle prevailed and on the Australian side, egalitarianism was the order of the day. The British saw only about 25 of the 400 men walk out because cholera ripped through the camps and killed so many of their troops. The Australian egalitarian ethos held the men together and allowed so many more of them to survive.

Alex Sloan:                          What do you think that illustrates?

Andrew Leigh:                  I think it does illustrate this powerful egalitarian sentiment, even in a very hierarchical institution like the military. Peter Cosgrove talks, even in Somalia, about the Australian willingness to carry out foot patrols contrasted with the Americans and the French sitting behind sandbags. And that meant that the Australian soldiers were out there, interacting with common folk in Somalia while the other militaries just heard the stories of the elites. And Peter Cosgrove argues that made the Australians much more effective soldiers on the ground. Then you see this egalitarianism in how we do our sport as well. The Americans’ favourite race is the Kentucky Derby. That’s a race without handicapping. Our favourite race is the Melbourne Cup. That’s a race that literally puts lead in the saddlebags of the horses, and we do that because it makes a more interesting race. The British have English Premier League in which Manchester United has won 12 out of the last 20 seasons, can you think of a more boring sport? We have AFL where no team has won more than 3 out of the last 20 seasons largely because we do a whole lot of redistribution, you know, we share out the TV revenue, we have a salary cap, we have a draft, and it ends up making the game more interesting. AFL is a more interesting game than English Premier League because it’s got more redistribution.

Alex Sloan:                          You can start calling now: 1300 681 666. Text number 0467 922 666. Andrew Leigh is with me talking about his book Battlers and Billionaires. When it comes to wealth inequality in Australia, is the starkest point with indigenous Australians?

Andrew Leigh:                  We certainly see if you look at the statistic as to where Indigenous Australians are in the income spectrum, the richest third of households, 1.7% are indigenous, the poorest third, 4.2% are indigenous. And the gaps between indigenous and non-indigenous are a reflection of the substantial inequalities that exist in Australia. That wasn’t always true. If we go back to the early days of settlement, Indigenous Australians and the English settlers were both quite equal communities both because they were so close to the poverty line. But as inequality has grown that’s been part of why the gaps have risen.

Alex Sloan:                          Andrew Leigh, the former Treasurer, Wayne Swan, he started what, you know, was a class warfare in terms of targeting billionaires like Gina Rinehart and Twiggy Forrest, what did you make of that?

Andrew Leigh:                  It’s always perplexed me that it’s a ‘class war’ when people talk about disadvantage and about the importance of making sure we operate well as a community. I actually see the language of inequality as being a recognition that Australia is at its best when we work together rather than when we operate simply as individuals. There’s nothing about the market distribution of income that’s automatically fair. I happen to be born into a society that rewards people who are able to write and speak well. But if I’d been born into a society that rewarded people for being good hunters and good fighters as has been the case for most of human history somebody with a weedy build like me would have done terribly poorly. So there’s a lot of luck in how people are placed and I think that’s why we need a society that has some redistribution in it that ensure that everybody gets a fair go.

Alex Sloan:                          Is there a central message in this, looking back at this history of Battlers and Billionaires in Australia?

Andrew Leigh:                  Australia has a powerful egalitarian ethos and we need to make sure that the economic reality doesn’t lose touch with the egalitarian spirit that we hold so dear.

Alex Sloan:                          And do you think it is?

Andrew Leigh:                  I think it’s a risk. We’ve seen inequality rising – not to US style levels – but certainly significantly from where it’s been in the past. And for so much of the twentieth century, Australia was becoming a more equal place. That turned around somewhere in the late 70s, early 1980s, and we’re now on a course to become a country with unprecedented gaps between the rich and the rest.

Alex Sloan:                          And what do you think contributes most to that?

Andrew Leigh:                  There’s technology and globalisation that play a big part, the collapse of trade union membership is important, and it’s important to recognise the role of tax changes as well in making us a more unequal society. So the factors that have driven it I think are easier to articulate than the policy prescription for what we need to do to tackle it. But all of those issues [inaudible]

Alex Sloan:                          Simon Crean in his interview this morning with John Faine and John Faine was saying that Kevin Rudd will deal with the unions and Simon Crean hit back saying it was the unions that got through a superannuation scheme and a Medicare scheme.

Andrew Leigh:                  Unions have brought us annual leave, they’ve made sure they campaign often for dollar increases rather than percentage increases which help those at the bottom of the income spectrum more and they’ve campaigned on issues like pay differentials across occupations. So there’s no stronger equalising organisation in Australian public life than unions. So unions and education I think are important. We also need to means test our social support system so it targets to those most in need. That’s the genius of the Australian social support system ever since we means tested the pension in the 1930s. Controversial but so important in making sure the public dollar goes a long way.

Alex Sloan:                          I won’t kick you a ‘Dorothy Dixer’ about Tony Abbott’s paternity leave scheme but Andrew Leigh, lovely to see you. Have fun at your book launch tonight.

Andrew Leigh:                  Thank you, Alex

Alex Sloan:                          Thanks very much. That’s Andrew Leigh, Parliamentary Member, well he is the Member for Fraser and his book Battlers and Billionaires: The Story of Inequality in Australia will be launched this evening by Professor Bob Gregory at the ANU. And tomorrow, by Father Bob

Andrew Leigh:                  Father Bob Maguire in Melbourne tomorrow, and Annabel Crabb up in Sydney on Wednesday. This is a tour. We should have t-shirts made.

Alex Sloan:                          You’re on 666.

• Talking Battlers and Billionaires with Jonathan Green on ABC Radio National (1 July)


• Talking Battlers and Billionaires with Marius Benson on ABC News Radio (2 July)


• Talking reshuffles with Mark Parton on 2cc (2 July)

TRANSCRIPT – ABC 612 WITH STEVE AUSTIN
Andrew Leigh MP
Member for Fraser
1 July 2013

Topics:                        Battlers and Billionaires



Steve Austin:           When I was presenting the evening program, I interviewed a chap by the name of Andrew Leigh. Andrew Leigh’s background is one of being a sociologist and economist. He got into federal politics, he’s now the Federal Labor Member for Fraser in New South Wales, and I interviewed him about a book he wrote then called Disconnected, and it looked at social capital and how it had weakened over the past generation - less people volunteer, less people part of community groups, church organisations, social groups and things like that. He’s changed direction this time, using his educational background, but he’s come to the conclusion that Australia is more unequal today than it was a generation ago. Andrew Leigh good morning to you.



Andrew Leigh:        Good morning Steve.

Steve Austin:           Andrew I want us to go back and look at how the people who have money are making it. How are the rich, the very rich, the stinking, filthy rich of Australia making their money.



Andrew Leigh:        Well Steve, of course governments never use words like ‘stinking’ or ‘filthy’. But if we look at the top 1% of the distribution, about half of those earnings are coming from salaries and about the other half from things like dividends and capital gains. And that’s been a big increase, so if you look back at the 1950s and 60s, the top 1% tend to be much more what the Americans derisorily call ‘coupon clippers’. Increasingly now it’s what labour economists call ‘superstars’: top accountants, top lawyers, top businesspeople, even top sports stars have seen their earnings go up, so it tends to be highly paid workers at the top of the distribution now.

Steve Austin:           Isn’t that funny, I expected you to talk about mining and resource billionaires.



Andrew Leigh:        There’s certainly a bit of that, so you don’t get into the top 200 - you don’t get into the pages of the BRW magazine [rich list] - without some very serious capital gains. So clearly the mining boom has had an impact over the last decade. But the story of the past sort of generation, which is really the period over which we[‘ve seen the recent rise of inequality, is one of labour incomes prevailing. And also that’s been part of the mining boom story. So WA used to be about as unequal as the typical Australian state or territory, now it’s by far our most unequal jurisdiction. The level of inequality in WA is the same as the level of inequality in the United States, which is very high. And a lot of that is because there’s a huge gap in salaries in Western Australia.

Steve Austin:           So wages have gone up for people in certain industries?



Andrew Leigh:        That’s right, and so labour economists talk about these superstar labour markets as being a function of technology. So, one of the stories I talk about in the book, is to compare an opera singer of the eighteenth century, Elizabeth Billington, with Luciano Pavarotti. Billington, the best thing she could do was to sing to full houses in Covent Garden and Drury Lane, and so she earned slightly less than $1 million dollars a year in that period (in today’s money). Pavarotti was getting at least $20 million a year because he was playing to a global audience through CD sales and music downloads.

Steve Austin:           Andrew Leigh is my guest, we’re talking about his latest book, Battlers and Billionaires: The Story of Inequality in Australia. This is 612, ABC Brisbane. So if that’s how the very rich are making their money, how are the very poor losing their money in Australia, Andrew?



Andrew Leigh:        Well the very poor aren’t going backwards in the main Steve, but their incomes aren’t keeping pace. Since the mid-1970s, if you’re in the bottom 10% of the earnings distribution, you’ve seen about a 15% increase in incomes (after inflation), if you’re in the top 10% you’ve seen a 59% increase in incomes. Put another way, if the bottom 10% had seen the same increase in incomes as the top 10% they’d be $14,000 a year better off. So you’ve seen all boats rising but the ocean liners are rising faster than the tug boats.

Steve Austin:           Why aren’t the very poor getting jobs in the mining and resource sector, I mean things, whether you can drive heavy machinery, it doesn’t require academic qualification to get a well-paying job.



Andrew Leigh:        They are to some extent, and the very low unemployment rate in Western Australia is an indication of that. Full employment is one of the best policies that you can have to benefit the whole income spectrum. But you know you also see gaps in educational attainment, and this goes back to the very beginning. So if you take a three year old from an affluent household and a toddler from a disadvantaged household, the toddler in the advantaged household has heard 30 million more words than the toddler in the disadvantaged household. So these educational gaps begin early, and that then plays into people’s ability to make the most of technology. If you’ve gone to university, you’re much more likely to benefit from technological advances than if you struggled through school and then left in year 10.

Steve Austin:           So are you telling me Andrew that you can actually tackle inequality somewhat in a poorer household by reading to your children? Or what’s the word, exposing them to reading and books as soon as possible if you’re in a low income household?



Andrew Leigh:        Absolutely, it’s not just of course about the number of books. So there’s a famously failed program by Rod Blagojevich, the disgraced governor of Illinois, who thought that he could change the outcomes of children just by posting book packs to new parents. It doesn’t have any impact because people in the affluent households read them, people in the disadvantaged households don’t read them. So there’s something happening differently in those households. It’s part of the book I found most difficult to talk about, because progressives don’t normally talk about what’s happening inside families, but you see very big differences in family structure and also in parenting style, and it’s just so strong through the research …

Steve Austin:           Which is why I like interviewing you Andrew Leigh by the way,  you do talk about what’s happening inside the family structure, which is unusual for the left of politics.



Andrew Leigh:        Yeah, you’ve nailed it there, and to give you one statistic that makes me uncomfortable, one third of Northern Territory Indigenous kids don’t have a father’s name on the birth certificate. I ‘m not sure I know how to fix that, but I do know that it’s a concern. We also know for, example, that there’s differences in parenting practices. The sociologists talk about ‘concerted cultivation’ – treating children like small adults, providing them, encouraging them to sit at the dinner table, to engage in conversation, to talk to the doctor, to basically, to feel like they have a bit of a sense of entitlement in the world. You don’t see that sort of same phenomenon going on in the most disadvantaged households according to the sociologists. How do we change it? Well that’s a hugely difficult questions, but I think it’s worthwhile people like me at least talking about this issue.

Steve Austin:           It’s unusual to hear someone from the Labor party talking about it in these terms. Andrew Leigh, is there anyone, I mean you’ve written this book more as a sociologist than a politician, is there anyone else acknowledging that in the Labor side of politics that you’re aware of?

Andrew Leigh:        I think there certainly is, and we’re very aware in the changes we’re making, making childcare more accessible for example, that that has a big impact on children’s life chances. The means-testing of social welfare which we’ve engaged in through the last two terms of government, have been very much about recognising that if you want to make sure everybody finishes the race, it’s not about putting lead in the fastest runners’ shoes, but it might be about buying a pair of runners for the person at the back who’s barefoot at the moment.

Steve Austin:           So Andrew Leigh, you’re telling me, those families that just get on with it … sorry let me rephrase my question, if you see yourself as a victim and complain about being disadvantaged and as a victim, it becomes a prophecy, a self-fulfilling prophecy in your life?



Andrew Leigh:        I’m not sure we know a great deal about that Steve. I certainly think that there is, there’s big institutional factors that affect people’s outcomes, there’s the luck of the skills that you’re born with, but there’s also the luck of the society you’re born into. So I’m a fairly lightly built guy, I don’t think I’m a particularly good fighter. So if I’d been born into the prairies, where the main activity was fighting with other people and managing to hunt down wild animals, I would have done very, very badly. So people who talk about merit – ‘well let’s just make it a meritocracy’ - forget the important role luck plays. And I think that’s why when you look at the survey evidence, most Australians prefer a more egalitarian distribution of income. Most Australians prefer a society in which we help up those most in need.

Steve Austin:           I know the billionaire Warren Buffett often puts a lot of his success down to the luck of birth, being born in the United States, which he says played the greater part in why he’s so wealthy today.



Andrew Leigh:        Warren Buffett is extremely articulate on this point, and I think it’s a really important one to recognise. And once you recognise that luck plays a role in where we end up, you realise it might not only be fairer but perhaps more interesting to have a society with a fair amount of redistribution. Let me tell that through a football analogy, that’s probably ill-suited to Queenslanders. Compare English Premier League and AFL. In English Premier League, Manchester United’s won 12 out of the last 20 season. In AFL, no team has won more than 3 out of the last 20 seasons. And that’s not an accident, AFL has a whole lot more redistribution, they have salary caps, they share the TV revenue more equitably, they have player transfers. And the effect is that the game becomes more interesting. English Premier League has become deathly boring because of the incredible inequality that’s entrenched within it.

Steve Austin:           My guest is Andrew Leigh. Andrew Leigh is a Federal Labor Parliamentarian from NSW, he’s a sociologist and economist by training, we’re talking about his latest work, Battlers and Billionaires: The Story of Inequality in Australia. His previous book was called Disconnected, which was a personal favourite, Andrew Leigh. But I’ll keep going on this one now, can I ask you about mining billionaires, because I get the call from listeners quite often that they see a sense of illegitimacy, or ill-gotten gains from mining magnates in Australia. That, yes they’re successful, and yes they’ve done well, but there’s a sort of a … they don’t deserve it because they didn’t actually create the mineral resources they’re digging out of the ground. Now you haven’t mentioned them per se and I sort of expected you to as a Labor politician, what’s your view on the extreme wealth of Gina Rhinehart in Western Australia, Twiggy Forest over there, and say Clive Palmer here in Queensland?



Andrew Leigh:        I’m very happy to talk about it, and I think there’s certainly an element of entrepreneurialism, but there’s also an element of luck. One way in Battlers and Billionaires: The Story of Inequality in Australia that I talk about that is by comparing Gina Rinehart with her father Lang Hancock. Lang Hancock when he died was worth $150 million, Gina Rhinehart is now worth somewhere around the vicinity of $20 billion. So, either you believe that Gina Rhinehart is hundreds of times more ingenious than her father, which doesn’t seem to hold up with the way in which she describes her father. Or else you think that when the iron ore price jumped tenfold, that delivered significant windfalls to Ms Rinehart. And if you believe that there is an important component of luck, then I think that makes something like a profits-based mining tax seem like a more reasonable response to the big jump in commodity prices.Steve Austin:           So would you recommend that Kevin Rudd have another look at his MRRT tax and bring it back in, sorry his super profits tax, and bring it back in?



Andrew Leigh:        I think the Minerals Resource Rent Tax is in some sense the real world version of the Resources Super Profits Tax. That’s partly because of the political challenges of getting something like this into place. But it partly also just reflects the fact that in the design of the Resources Super Profits Tax, there hadn’t been enough account taken of how, for example, the banks would treat deductibility. But certainly I wouldn’t be advocating the removal of a profits-based mining tax and going back to the old outdated royalties regime, which is of course what the other folks on the other side of politics are suggesting.

Steve Austin:           Andrew Leigh, another point you raise in your book Battlers and Billionaires: The Story of Inequality in Australia I think is really interesting - that the poor have disengaged with politics. Now under previous, in previous times that was not the case. Particularly with previous Labor leaders, they came from you know railway clerks, and those really working class occupations that weren’t high wage levels. What happened? Why have the poor disengaged from politics when it’s their biggest defender, potentially?



Andrew Leigh:        It is striking isn’t it Steve. I mean you, you notice, for example, if you look at the share of people that have participated in a protest or a march, that that’s only 7% of low income earners, but it’s 14% of high income earners. Or people who say they’re interested in the election campaign: 75% of low income earners, 85% of high income earners. And I think that’s part of the challenge that we face in making sure we’ve got a democracy that includes everyone. On the one end, I’m concerned about the role that excessive campaign contributions might play in distorting political outcomes. On the other, I want to make sure we’ve got an Australia in which everybody feels included in the common good. And that’s at risk where you have a sort of two Australias scenario, in which you have a group of people who are so affluent that they can opt out of public schools, opt out of public hospitals, opt out of even publically provided roads and publically provided police forces, and buy all of those things privately. I think that then is a risk to the common good and I’d like to see more people recognise that challenge.

Steve Austin:           I’ll leave it there Andrew, best of luck with the book, it’s lovely speaking with you, thank you very much.



Andrew Leigh:        Thank you Steve.

TRANSCRIPT – 'BREAKING POLITICS WITH TIM LESTER'
Andrew Leigh MP
Member for Fraser
1 July 2013

TOPICS:                                New ministry list, Coalition cuts, Boat turn-backs, new inequality book

Tim Lester:                          Now another of our regulars on Monday on Breaking Politics, Andrew Leigh, the Labor MP here in the ACT in the electorate of Fraser. Welcome in, nice to have you in.

Andrew Leigh:                  Thanks Tim.



Tim Lester:                          Andrew, your response to the announcement of the ministry this morning. What do you think of the front bench?

Andrew Leigh:                  Kevin Rudd’s got a team around him which he feels confident with, and which will lead us strongly to the next election. It’s a team that’ll be campaigning on the big reforms of these last two terms, and talking about the importance of continuing to invest in the future. It’s also a team that can talk about the risks of a Tony Abbott-led Opposition. And we know that the British conservatives with their savage austerity have sent that economy back into recession. We know that the Coalition’s wacky ‘turn back the boats’ policy is a policy that could easily lead to conflict with Indonesia. So there’s real risks with Tony Abbott, and there’s strength of renewal and also continuity in the Labor front bench.



Tim Lester:                          And Andrew Leigh is not on the front bench. And yet some would say, you know, talented, strong background in economics, has done everything right, he should be there. Take us through your own situation.

Andrew Leigh:                  I told the Prime Minister I was willing to serve, but in the circumstances of last week, in having supported the incumbent, I felt it was ethically the right thing to do to offer my resignation. The Prime Minister has accepted that and has asked me to help advising him on issues in international economics, which I’m very happy to do and which I think are important to Australia as our economy rebalances, and commodity prices come off.



Tim Lester:                          Doesn’t that make you a case in point that division lives on within Labor? That if Labor were perfectly calm about what had happened last week, the fact that the way you voted would have been looked beyond, and your talents would have been rewarded?

Andrew Leigh:                  I don’t agree with that at all. I think that the Prime Minister has chosen the team that he feels most comfortable with, and the great thing about the Labor caucus is there’s such a depth of talent. So you look at people like Melissa Parke being promoted to a minister, she’s just going to charge into that international aid portfolio, understanding the constituent groups, understanding international development, and she’s really going to make a great contribution there.



Tim Lester:                          To be blunt, how long do you need to spend in the sin bin, Andrew Leigh? Because –

Andrew Leigh:                  - I don’t think that’s the right –



Tim Lester:                          - Because would an election win for Labor recorrect things and allow you to come back again, or are you sin binned longer term?

Andrew Leigh:                  I don’t think that’s the right way to regard it, Tim. I regard myself as a strong advocate for Labor. I will be happily campaigning on the economic issues that I worked on when I was a professor of economics at ANU, and which have been so central to what the government has done. Saving jobs in the global downturn, and now making sure we invest in skills because that’s what’s really important with an economy in transition.



Tim Lester:                          Kelly O’Dwyer says to us, look you want the real measure of Labor ministry, have a look at the fact Stephen Smith is still in Defence a few days after he told us he would be leaving the parliament and would not be contesting the election in what, weeks, certainly within a couple of months. Should we really have people who are so committed to leaving politics in such a short time serving on the front bench?

Andrew Leigh:                  It’s a ridiculous proposition that once you’ve announced you’re going to retire at the next election, you immediately have to stop doing anything in politics. There are people who have announced their retirement as members who are continuing to serve their electorates, and I think similarly a minister who has announced their retirement can easily continue to work in that portfolio. Stephen’s a passionate and hardworking Defence minister – he’s done amazing things to change the culture not just within Defence, but for women within every male-dominated organisation and he will go out with his head held high.



Tim Lester:                          12 point turnaround for Labor two party preferred in this morning’s opinion polls. Describe the feeling inside the party now that you can look at those kinds of numbers – competitive numbers in an opinion poll.

Andrew Leigh:                  Australians recognise the real risks that an Abbott government poses. And Kevin Rudd is emphasising for many voters the great Labor reforms, the Labor legacy, but also the things still to be done, the investments still to be made, and the importance of bringing something like the National Plan for School Improvement, so that every school gets more resources. Because if you want an Australia that’s ready for economic change, you want an Australia that provides a bedrock of fairness, then you’ve got to have a better school funding model than what we’ve got now.



Tim Lester:                          Ok, but the mood inside Labor at those numbers? You guys must be, to quote a term, ‘pumped’ to see that kind of a turnaround in a week on Newspoll’s numbers.

Andrew Leigh:                  Tim I’ve never paid much attention to polls, whether they’re up or down. But certainly what I see among my colleagues is a sense of unity and conviction, a sense of pride in the reforms that have been done, and a sense that it is so important that we go to the next election being clear with Australians that the choice is not one that involves personalities, but one that involves parties. And that Mr Abbott and his team lack an education policy, they lack a health policy, they have a massive costings gap which means they either have to raise taxes or cut services, and they’ve got to stop hiding behind smokescreens like a commission of cuts that they’re promising.



Tim Lester:                          Has the Prime Minister gone too far with his comments on Indonesia? Or do you share his view of the risks from an Abbott government to Indonesia being as sharp as Prime Minister Rudd suggested a few days ago?

Andrew Leigh:                  I certainly share the Prime Minister’s views on this Tim. I think he has emphasised that if you are pursuing a policy as Mr Abbott is, that is straight out rejected by Australia’s huge neighbour to our north, then you are headed to a collision course. The Indonesians could not be clearer that turning back the boats is a policy that they will not accept, and yet Mr Abbott can’t buy that, he can’t change his policy to work in with our nearest neighbour, the largest Muslim country in the world, nearly 300 million people, a country we need to be strengthening our relationship with.



Tim Lester:                          But Mr Rudd used the word ‘conflict’. Now, ‘conflict’ rings alarm bells that other language simply doesn’t, does it? I mean, that is quite an alarming description of what could happen.

Andrew Leigh:                  Well if Mr Abbott wants to avoid conflict with Indonesia, there’s a very easy way.



Tim Lester:                          Is conflict the right word?

Andrew Leigh:                  I think it is, yes.



Tim Lester:                          It’s that serious?

Andrew Leigh:                  Well Mr Abbott wants to take boats and tow them back to Indonesian waters. What happens then if Indonesian naval vessels start to tow the boat back out towards us? That’s a real potential conflict on the high seas and I just don’t think Mr Abbott has thought it through, to say nothing for the risks to asylum seekers and to naval personnel of this policy. You’ve got [Admiral] Chris Barrie saying this is an unworkable policy. Mr Abbott needs to rethink it for the sake of asylum seekers, for the sake of our naval personnel, and for the sake of our diplomatic relations.



Tim Lester:                          Now to close, we’re pretty much out of time, you’ve written a book – you might pick it up and show us.

Andrew Leigh:                  Battlers and Billionaires: The Story of Inequality in Australia.



Tim Lester:                          I’m sure it’s a fascinating tale, but can I just ask you – how does a guy like you get the time to write a book, when you’re doing the job you’re doing?

Andrew Leigh:                  I feel one of the core roles parliamentarians can play is on advancing public debate. At the beginning of this electoral term, I brought out a book on social capital called Disconnected, which looked at the change in Australian community life over recent decades. Battlers and Billionaires looks at inequality - at the gap between rich and poor - and how that has changed. And it’s an issue on which I’d like to see a stronger national conversation. Wayne Swan kicked off a bit of that conversation, and I’m looking to put some data, some numbers, and most importantly some stories behind it.



Tim Lester:                          Not letting the grass grow under your feet. Andrew Leigh thanks for coming in to talk to us.

Andrew Leigh:                  Thanks Tim.

TRANSCRIPT – ABC THE WORLD TODAY
Andrew Leigh MP
Member for Fraser
1 July 2013

TOPICS:                                Battlers and Billionaires

SCOTT BEVAN:                  As welfare groups warn of growing demands on their services, there are warnings about growing inequality in Australia. In his new book, Battlers and Billionaires, the Federal Labor MP Andrew Leigh, outlines the history of income inequality in Australia, which he notes is now approaching the highs of the 1920s. Mr Leigh says that's at odds with Australia's reputation as an egalitarian society. He's spoken to our reporter, Lexi Metherell.

LEXI METHERELL:              Andrew Leigh, in your book, you write of the Australian national character as having a peculiarly Australian quality of egalitarianism. What evidence do you have to support that?

ANDREW LEIGH:              There's lots of lovely Australian habits which have an air of egalitarianism about them. Most of us don't like tipping, we tend to sit in the front seat of the taxi and "mate" is a much more common word than "sir". We've had past central bank governors called Nugget and Nobby, which I guess reflect the larrikin spirit when it comes to the people in positions of high office. So, I think that egalitarian sprit still burns strong in Australia. The question is whether the economic reality is getting out of touch with it.

LEXI METHERELL:              As you write, the income share of the top 1 per cent has doubled over the last 30 years. Why are we seeing this growing inequality?

ANDREW LEIGH:              There's a number of big factors driving the rise in inequality: the collapse of trade unions has had a big impact. Unions had a strong, equalising influence on the work force and we've also seen globalisation and technology increase the gap between the top and the bottom. You see this particularly in the very top of the income distribution. So, since 1980, we've shifted about $400 billion from the bottom 99 per cent to the top 1 per cent.

LEXI METHERELL:              And, what are the implications of growing inequality for social fabric and for society at large?

ANDREW LEIGH:              Well, if you show people pictures of income distributions and ask them the society they'd prefer to live in, most choose the society with the more equal income distribution. I think it's because too much inequality offends our sense of fairness. If you were starting life and you didn't know which income group you'd end up in, you'd probably prefer a more equal distribution of income than a more unequal distribution.

LEXI METHERELL:              You're a big proponent of the measures included in Ken Henry's tax review of a couple of years ago - the former treasury secretary's tax review - and some of those measures are aimed at ensuring that there is better income distribution and that there isn't a growth in inequality. Is it time for the Government to look again at measures included in that review and revive some of them that seem to have been abandoned?

ANDREW LEIGH:              Well, I think what Battlers and Billionaires does is it illustrates, to some extent, why we need things like means testing, why it's really important for the educational system to be better for the most disadvantaged than it is for the most advantaged, and why we have to have that progressive taxation system and progressive expenditures, because, if we lose that, then we're really in danger of going down a track towards a society where the gap between rich and poor becomes too wide to bridge. I don't think that's happened yet, but it's certainly headed down that road with sky high executive salaries and a wealth gap that's grown significantly.

LEXI METHERELL:              How fundamental is the tax system though to addressing inequality?

ANDREW LEIGH:              Taxes are important, but so too are laws around unionisation and investment in education. Education is the greatest force that we've developed, not only for boosting productivity, but also for making Australia more equal. That's really important that we continue to have an education system that makes sure that the circumstances in which you're born don't determine the circumstances in which you die.

SCOTT BEVAN:                  Author and Labor MP, Andrew Leigh, speaking there to Lexi Metherell.

TRANSCRIPT – SKY AM AGENDA WITH KIERAN GILBERT
Andrew Leigh MP
Member for Fraser
1 July 2013

TOPICS:                                Cabinet appointments, NDIS.

Kieran Gilbert:                   Liberal front bencher, Senator Mitch Fifield and Labor front bencher, Andrew Leigh, gentlemen good morning to you. Andrew, first to you, I know you supported Julia Gillard right to the end but was Labor right to go to Mr Rudd given the polls of the last couple of days?

Andrew Leigh:                  Well certainly, Kieran, I think you’ve seen that the Government has a sense of energy about it and that’s because of the set of policies we’ve been pursuing. There is a great reform agenda that we will be going to the Australian people to talk about, from disability –

Kieran Gilbert:                   But was Labor right to change to Kevin Rudd now, do you think? Or, I know you backed Gillard to the end, but given what you’ve seen, and given this energy that you talk about, was it the right move?

Andrew Leigh:                  These are questions historians will pick over, Kieran. My view is that we have a fantastic set of policies and I’m going to be campaigning enthusiastically with Kevin Rudd to make the case for continuing the reform agenda, and-

Kieran Gilbert:                   Are you happy to be Parliamentary Secretary to a Prime Minister that you didn’t vote for? Because that’s your current job, isn’t it?

Andrew Leigh:                  In politics you do whatever job the leader asks you to do. I’m certainly somebody who’s never criticised Kevin Rudd; I think he’s served as a terrific Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, and he is passionate about these important reforms. Like the NBN, which is a big Labor reform which is at risk at the election.

Kieran Gilbert:                   The NBN which will have Anthony Albanese taking responsibility for the National Broadband Network, and Communications along with his Infrastructure responsibilities. Let’s go to Senator Fifield, is the Liberal Party a bit worried by this, or do you think that the poll bounce is just a sugar hit?

Mitch Fifield:                      Well Kieran, we’ve always said that winning elections isn’t easy; that to win from opposition is like climbing Mt Everest. And we’ve always said that the polls would tighten. It seems that there was only one side of politics who thought that the election was a foregone conclusion, and that was the other side. But we’ve always known that this will be difficult –

Kieran Gilbert:                   Ok, I’ve got to interrupt you there, Senator Fifield. Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister, let’s cross to [inaudible]

[CLIP:                                    Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announces new Ministry]

Kieran Gilbert:                   Let’s go back to our panel now to go through the announcements by Kevin Rudd. Much to have known from the formal announcement there in Newcastle of his Ministry. Some other details have emerged. We’ve got Senator Mitch Fifield and Labor MP, Andrew Leigh with me this morning. Andrew first of all I want to go to your job, you were the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, but you’re no longer. Kevin Rudd said when he took the job people could stay where they were if they wanted to, but you’ve been demoted, why is that?

Andrew Leigh:                  Well Kieran, I told the Prime Minister I was willing to serve but if he needed my resignation in order to build the team around him he most wanted then I was happy to give that to him. I thought that was the ethical thing to do in the circumstances. Kevin Rudd has accepted that and he’s also asked me to play a role advising him on international economic issues, which I’m very happy to do. I think this is a challenging economic time for Australia.

Keiran Gilbert:                   So this is not retribution because you voted for Julia Gillard?

Andrew Leigh:                  No. Look, I think the Prime Minister has chosen a team around him that he thinks is what he wants to lead him to the election and I wanted to give him full flexibility in doing that. It’s a short period to the election and this is an election where a lot is at stake for Australia. I think it’s vital that we’re out there, all of us, making the case for the great Labor reforms and the risks to Australia’s economy. I mean, the British Conservatives put their economy back into recession with their savage austerity – that could easily happen here – Tony Abbott could put us back in recession.

Kieran Gilbert:                   Kevin Rudd was playing down the fact that there were, that it might be a gender issue, he said he doesn’t see things through the prism of gender, but three additional women into the Cabinet, the biggest female representation in a Ministry in Australian history, surely, is that not at least in part playing politics there to in part, I suppose, to counter a negative reaction to Labor dumping Australia’s first female Prime Minister?

Andrew Leigh:                  I’m very happy to go to each of those people, Kieran, and talk about why they’re incredibly strong Ministers and make great additions to Cabinet. Melissa Parke is one of the strongest activists on foreign aid-

Kieran Gilbert:                   She’s on the outer Ministry, though. She’s not on the-

Andrew Leigh:                  Well you’re talking about the women who’ve been promoted; I think Melissa is first rate. I think Julie Collins is a terrific Minister who understands, back to front, issues affecting the status of women, her current portfolio, and is razor sharp when it comes to picking up on new issues.

Kieran Gilbert:                   Ok, let’s look at some of the other key portfolios, like immigration, Tony Burke moves into that. He was a strong supporter of Julia Gillard throughout; he’s been moved into this key portfolio. Is that a sign from Kevin Rudd that he’s willing to let bygones be bygones? That he wants to bring in some of the Gillard camp? Or is that simply the best person for the job?

Andrew Leigh:                  Well, as I recall, this is a portfolio that Tony held when we were in opposition. He understands the issues well. His seat is one of the most diverse in Australia. And Tony recognises the importance of striking a regional solution on asylum seeker flows. He’s someone who’s used to working collaboratively and internationally. And maybe he’s the person who can bring the Opposition over the line to back the Houston Panel Recommendations.

Kieran Gilbert:                   He and Mark Butler now very much at the front and centre of the political debate too, of the younger and better performers of the Labor Party. Senator Fifield, I want to go to you on this, your reaction to that front bench that you’ll be facing in the lead up to an election, which looks like it’s going to be, well, a lot more competitive than it looked a couple of weeks ago.

Mitch Fifield:                      Well firstly, commiserations to Andrew.  You know, I don’t think that Kevin Rudd can afford to lose the contribution of people who have the talent that Andrew has so, sorry mate. But I think Kevin Rudd really summed things up in his opening comments where he said when he was first Prime Minister and was facing the global financial crisis, he had to learn on the job. That’s something that isn’t going to be the case if successful at the next election. Tony Abbott has been a long serving minister; he won’t have to learn on the job. There are lots of former ministers in his Cabinet; they won’t have to learn on the job. There are people like Kelly O’Dwyer, Tony Smith and myself who’ve served in senior positions in Treasurer’s offices; we won’t have to learn on the job. And that’s the issue: that after the Government have been in office for almost six years, they’re still learning on the job. They’re still coming to grips with it. And I don’t take any comfort from some of the appointments, like Chris Bowen as Treasurer. Yes, the Prime Minister is right, Chris Bowen is a good guy, but you need a strong person to be Treasurer of the country and Chris Bowen showed when he was Immigration Minister that he could not stand up to Julia Gillard and say, ‘you’re pursuing the wrong policies! Turn round, go back.’ You need a strong person as Treasurer and I don’t have any confidence that he or Kevin Rudd have a plan for how to start paying back our debt.

Kieran Gilbert:                   One of the elements we’ve mentioned this morning is this greater representation of women on the front bench. Mr Rudd was asked about it, let’s play you a little of what he had to say:

[CLIP:                                    This is a strong team. I’m proud to lead this team. This team has been selected on the basis of merit. I’m delighted that in this Cabinet of ours, we’ll have the largest number of women of any Cabinet in Australia’s history. This is a very strong team; Penny Wong at the head of it and so many others with her as well. I’ve mentioned before, of course, Jenny. I’ve mentioned also, of course, Tanya, joined by three new women ministers as well. This will be a great contribution to the cause of women as well as the cause of good government in Australia as well. ]

Kieran Gilbert:                   Senator Fifield, there you heard it, a record number of women on the front bench. You’d welcome that, wouldn’t you? That’s a good development?

Mitch Fifield:                      The way that this Prime Minister and the previous Prime Minister have approached appointments to the Ministry is basically, ultimately, everyone gets a go. About two thirds of the Caucus have served as ministers at some point. So basically, everyone takes a number and eventually get a turn. That’s not how a Cabinet Ministry should be appointed; it should always be appointed on the basis of merit and you know, we’ve got this situation of ‘turn up and eventually you’ll have a go!’ It’s not good enough.

Kieran Gilbert:                   Just going through some of the details of this Ministry as well, it looks like the Canberrans have done something to Mr Rudd because Kate Lundy’s been dropped as Sports Minister as well to make way for Don Farrell.



Andrew Leigh:                  Well certainly, Kevin Rudd will make his decisions according to what he thinks is the best team around him. I know that Kate’s a strong and passionate campaigner for Labor causes, and that’s really what’s at stake here, Kieran. There are two competing party visions. We can get caught up on the personalities, or we can remember that fundamentally what’s at stake here in this election is whether or not we engage in conflict with Indonesia, the Opposition’s wacky ‘turn back the boats’ policy, whether the economy is driven into recession through their savage austerity, and whether the National Broadband Network gets built or not, I mean –

Kieran Gilbert:                   Well Anthony Albanese for our viewers that haven’t caught up about that, Anthony Albanese will take Communications and the National Broadband Network responsibilities, so he will be prosecuting that case up against Malcolm Turnbull. I said Kate Lundy has been moved out of sport. She’s still a Minister though going through the details, Minister for Mulitcultural Affairs as well as Minister Assisting for Industry and Innovation. Don Farrell is the new Minister for Sport and continues to assist the Minister for Tourism. Now, another announcement this morning; another resignation. Simon Crean’s going to quit politics. This is Mr Rudd responding to that:

[CLIP:                                    I would also like to acknowledge here publically as Prime Minister of Australia, how much I value his work over the years. He has been an extraordinary leader in our movement for a long period of time. He’s worked in previous Labor Governments. He worked prior to that as head of the Australian Trade Union movement. He played an extraordinary role in fashioning the accord and bringing our industrial relations system kicking and screaming into the 21^st century. I acknowledge his contributions. The period that I was Prime Minister also, a fantastic Minister for Trade, and certainly under Prime Minister Gillard he has performed well in regional Australia where in the regions, they love him. They really do.]

Kieran Gilbert:                   So, Simon Crean, another experienced person who is calling it a day. There’s been quite a loss of intellectual capital, hasn’t there, with all these resignations, and political experience?

Andrew Leigh:                  Simon Crean is a great loss to the Parliament I agree, Kieran. He’s had 20 years in Parliament but more like 40 years in public life when you take into account his time in the trade union movement. I’m sure I’m not the only one in the caucus who has greatly valued his wise counsel.

Kieran Gilbert:                   Doesn’t it reflect badly on the Government, though? That you’re losing all this talent? Combet, Crean and the likes of Smith retiring as well at the election.



Andrew Leigh:                  I think what’s so strong about this Kieran, is when you look at the talent that’s able to come up. People like Ed Husic who is ready to roll on issues of broadband who I suspect will be out there saying that the only promise you can believe about Tony Abbott is that broadband speeds will always be slower under a Coalition government.

Kieran Gilbert:                   Alright. Senator Fifield, and quickly over to you, and finally before we wrap up our discussion, Alexander Downer joining me in just a moment from Adelaide, but Senator Fifield, this poll bounce that we’ve seen for Kevin Rudd; he’s got a fourteen point lead over Mr Abbott now as preferred Prime Minister. I know you always said that you thought it wasn’t going to be as easy but this has made it very competitive again, do you see that?

Mitch Fifield:                      Look, Australian federal elections are always competitive, they’re never one sided races, and we’re going to have to work hard to earn the trust of the Australian people. But I think it’s very important for the voting public to recognise that with the departure of Simon Crean, the last adult has left the government, it’s a case of would the last grown up who leaves the building switch the lights out as they go. There isn’t depth, there isn’t experience, this is a government without a plan and we didn’t hear from the Prime Minister today that he has a plan for the nation, a plan to repay the debt, a plan to stop the boats.

Kieran Gilbert:                   Senator Fifield, it would be remiss of me as well if I didn’t ask you today – being July 1 – and the rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the trials begin today, it will be 6 years in the making before it’s fully rolled out but there’s 26 000 people who are going to be effected with these trial sites. This is a big day, isn’t it? For policy, not just for this government, it is bipartisan, I know.

Mitch Fifield:                      Look it’s a big day and the NDIS represents the way the parliament should work. I was in Geelong yesterday with a lot of people with disabilities, there’s a great deal of excitement. They’ve had to wait a long time for the better deal that they deserve. There’s still a lot of work to do, but today is a good start.

Kieran Gilbert:                   Ok thanks very much Senator Fifield, Andrew Leigh.

TRANSCRIPT – ABC RADIO NATIONAL BREAKFAST WITH FRAN KELLY
Andrew Leigh MP
Member for Fraser
1 July 2013

Topic:                          ‘Battlers and Billionaires: The Story of Inequality in Australia’

Fran Kelly:                           Quarter past eight on breakfast. The gap between rich and poor has focused the minds of economists, politicians and others for centuries. While perfect financial equality for everyone is unrealistic – and probably undesirable – when the gap between the haves and the have nots gets too great, it can fray or even tear the social fabric. And if we need proof of that, we just look around us. Look at what happened in Britain in recent years.

So, where and how to live in the vast space in between? They’re the questions that Andrew Leigh tries to answer. He’s a former ANU economics professor, and at the last election he was voted in as the Labor member for the Canberra electorate of Fraser. His new book is Battlers and Billionaires: The Story of Inequality in Australia. Andrew Leigh, good morning.

Andrew Leigh:                  Good morning Fran.



Fran Kelly:                           Andrew there have been rich and poor since the beginning of time, and presumably for all time to come. Why is this getting a picture of the wealth equality, or inequality rather, important to policy making?

Andrew Leigh:                  Well Fran, I think the distribution on income matters, as well as the increase in averages. And that’s because if you ask people whether they’d rather live in a society where the wealth was concentrated among a very small group of people, or in a place where the wealth was more evenly shared, the overwhelming majority of us want to live in a more equal society. It’s more interesting, and I think we also regard it as being fairer. Given that while the amount of resources we have is partly a reflection of effort, it’s also a reflection of luck, of being born with certain traits. And so we shouldn’t think of the market distribution of income as something that has to be left untouched.



Fran Kelly:                           And you make this point in effect, there’s a questionnaire that I think you recount in the book, where that question is always answered ‘yes, we’d like to be fairer’. And you talk about the foundation myth in Australia, we’re the great classless egalitarian society, a fair go for all is our mantra. And yet Australia at this moment, according to your research, the gap between the rich and the poor is wider than it’s been for a long time.

Andrew Leigh:                  That’s right. So you see over the last couple of hundred years you see Australia start from a very equal point in the late 18^th century to go to become very unequal around World War I, become much more equal again and then since the 1970s again the gaps widen between rich and poor. For example, over the last 30 years the top 1 per cent share has doubled, the top 0.1 per cent share has tripled, and CEO salaries in the top 100 firms have gone from an average of $1 million to an average of $3 million. So we’re seeing this increasing, increasing gap between the rich and the rest.



Fran Kelly:                           And does it matter in real terms? Because although there’s an increasing gap, you also note that the bottom half of earners, if you like, in Australia, the bottom half are also financially much better off on average than they were 30 years ago. So does the gap matter more than the reality of people’s standard of living?

Andrew Leigh:                  It does matter, and let me use a sporting analogy to explain why. Let’s compare the AFL and the English Premier League. So over the last 20 years the English Premier League has seen one team, Manchester United, win in 12 out of 20 seasons. In the AFL, no team has won more than 3 out of the 20 seasons. And there’re structural reasons why that’s true. In English Premier League, each team gets to keep the TV revenues, in AFL it’s shared. In English Premier League, you can spend what you like on salaries, in AFL there are salary caps. And so those institutions, including the draft in the AFL, have made for a more interesting game in the AFL. And when I’m saying interesting I’m also saying it’s a more egalitarian game than English Premier League.



Fran Kelly:                           So it makes for a more interesting game, how does that translate to society? A more interesting society, a better functioning society, a society with a stronger base and a stronger economy? Tell us how it translates.

Andrew Leigh:                  Certainly a fairer society, also I think a society with more social mobility, where the circumstances of your birth don’t determine your destiny. Also potentially a society that doesn’t have the high involvement or heavy investment of the interests in politics. So for example you look at the US system recently, where you’ve seen incredibly affluent people getting extraordinarily large campaign donations, and for me that’s a bit of a concern as well. So I think they’re the main reasons we should be worried about inequality: effectively they’re what I would think of as the intrinsic reasons that we are creatures who are made to enjoy fairly equal distributions, not to give everything to one person.



Fran Kelly:                           Sure, but to stay with this notion of what kinds of creatures we are, I mean I think if you asked a poorer person ‘would you like to stay poor with only a small gap between you and the richest people, or would you like to be better off but with a bigger gap between you and the top’, people would probably say they’d prefer the latter. And as we saw when Wayne Swan, for instance, took aim at some of the rich billionaires in our society, a lot of people came to the defence of someone like Twiggy Forrest, arguing, you know, he’s made his wealth, good on him.

Andrew Leigh:                  Well on average relativities certainly matter. You can think about this again in a sporting sense, it’s great if you’re the only person standing up at the footy, but once everyone else stands up suddenly you don’t get a better view after all, and you need to get a box to stand on. And that holds also if you ask people about their ideal distributions of incomes. One US survey for example said ‘would you rather have $100 000 with everyone else having $200 000, or would you rather have $50 000 with everyone else having $25 000?’ And more people preferred to have a little less income, but be on the top of the heap.



Fran Kelly:                           You’re listening the RN Breakfast, our guest this morning is Labor MP Andrew Leigh. He’s a former ANU economics professor, and he’s written a book called Battlers and Billionaires: the story of inequality in Australia. And you do go into the history, and just to talk about that foundation myth that we talked about before, a fair go being a principle we live by in Australia. You give us an example of how that was on display in a Japanese POW camp. Tell us about that.

Andrew Leigh:                  So in the Japanese POW camps there were two ways of organising your society.  The Japanese gave a little more money to officers than they did to enlisted men, and there were only a certain amount of tents to go around. And the British decided that the best way of dealing with that was to have everyone keep what they were given. The Australians, under Weary Dunlop, took a different approach. They took the notion that the resources should be shared and that the sickest should take the tents and have a little bit more food. And as Tom Uren said in his first speech to parliament, only a creek separated the two camps, but on one side there was the law of the jungle and on the other side egalitarianism. And that affected survival rates as well: cholera ripped through the British camps, the Australians largely survived.



Fran Kelly:                           And in Australia we do have some very rich, and the mining boom has created some very very rich, there’s no doubt about that. But we also have quite a high degree of social mobility now, don’t we? We’ve seen changes, the western suburbs of Sydney for instance, we hear people talk about the McMansions and the wealth on display there. Much of that, is it fair to say, is the result of changes to government policy?

Andrew Leigh:                  I think it’s important that government policy improves social mobility. We see big impacts on early childhood development, for example. So by the age of 3 a child from an advantaged household has heard 30 million more words than a child from a disadvantaged household. And we know that there’s a range of other impacts through the family, as well as through resources, that affect social mobility. Australia’s not top of the pack in terms of how mobile a society we are, but we’re not as static a society as the United States, where it’s extremely hard to move from rags to riches over the course of a lifetime.



Fran Kelly:                           The point you make there though is that it’s not just about the dollars. The dollars have an impact on every other level of opportunity, including as you say the number of words spoken, the kind of education, the kind of parenting. Now you can’t make just widespread characterisations of people based on how much money they earn, but you do go to some of that in this book.

Andrew Leigh:                  That’s right, and for a progressive like me, it’s the hardest bit of the book to write. For example, one of the stats that shocked me was that among Northern Territory Indigenous babies, 1 in 3 now don’t have a father’s name listed on the birth certificate. Now I don’t think the solution to that is simple by any means, but I think that it’s certainly a factor that’s driving inequality and immobility in Australia and we need to look inside the black box of families and see the extent to which government policies can help ensure that every child has a great start in life.



Fran Kelly:                           The Gillard Government was working on that with the Close the Gap strategy, in terms of life opportunities and years lived, and education opportunities for Indigenous Australians. Bu the fact is the starkest gaps in wealth inequality in Australia do involve Indigenous Australians. Has that changed much over the years, indeed over the two centuries?

Andrew Leigh:                  It’s very hard to get good data on Indigenous Australians. Certainly what we know is that at the time of settlement, Indigenous Australia was an extremely equal community, and a simple way of understanding that is to imagine how equal Australia would be if each of us could only keep the possessions we could carry on our backs. Similarly, the early settlers were quite an egalitarian community. The early invitations to dinner at Government House from Arthur Phillip apparently carried the request ‘please bring your own bread’. And then we saw an increase in inequality across the population and we’ve probably seen an increase in inequality within the Indigenous population over this period as well.

Fran Kelly:                           And just finally, it probably is important for all of us to understand what the picture of wealth is in Australia because government policy tries to focus on it quite carefully. It looks at means testing, we’ve had all the discussions about middle class welfare, what is middle class? If we take a household for instance where one parent’s a teacher, one parent’s a policeman, they’re combined income is around $150 000, that sounds like a reasonably typical middle income household. No one would say they’re rich, but in fact, according to most of Australia, they are better off. What is the median average?

Andrew Leigh:                  So the median income in Australia is around $80 000 –



Fran Kelly:                           - for a household?

Andrew Leigh:                  That’s the typical household income.



Fran Kelly:                           $80 000. So how many Australian households would be on that level?

Andrew Leigh:                  So, I guess, I need to think about household size. Let’s say the household size is 2.2, that gives us 10 million households, so we’ve got 5 million households below $80 000 a year, and 5 million about $80 000 a year. So it’s useful I think to understand that broad distribution when you’re thinking about any question of public policy.



Fran Kelly:                           Ok Andrew thank you very much for joining us on Breakfast.

Andrew Leigh:                  Thank you Fran.

Matter of Public Importance, 26 June 2013

We really should not be surprised that the opposition is continuing this line of attack. For the past three years this has been their standard tactic to avoid engaging in any substantive policy debate. They hurl accusations at the government to whip up fear based on factual inaccuracies. In talking about the government's economic policies on confidence and the budget, the member for North Sydney appears to be completely oblivious to the economic reality in Australia. That is because the economic reality is an uncomfortable one for the opposition because it so clearly reflects the economic policy successes of the Labor government.

There is no clearer example of a successful economic policy than this government's carbon pricing scheme, and it is good to see the member for Wentworth at the table as I say that. Not only has the sky not fallen in since the scheme was introduced, but also we are now seeing early stages of its success. Every day it is becoming clearer that the carbon price has been the most sensible way to address climate change. Many of those opposite know in their heart of hearts, and indeed their own leader has said, that if you want to address climate change why not do it with a simple tax? Every day it is becoming clearer how effective this economic policy of pricing carbon is in addressing the challenge of climate change.

Since its introduction the carbon price has resulted in a 7.4 per cent drop in emissions in the national electricity market. That is almost 12 million tonnes less pollution from the electricity sector. Renewable energy generation is rising by almost 30 per cent. This is not a change in consumption, as those opposite would have you believe. We can contrast carbon intensity. So, in 2011-12 for every megawatt hour of electricity generated in the national electricity market, 0.92 tonnes of carbon pollution were released into the atmosphere. Since the price's introduction, the amount of pollution for every megawatt hour has gone down to 0.87 tonnes—a five per cent decline in emissions intensity in just a matter of months.

The carbon price has also had a lower impact on the cost of living than was expected. Those on this side of the House always said the impact of the carbon price on the cost of living would be moderate. It was projected at 0.7 per cent increase in the CPI, less than a third of the impact of the GST. But we now see new evidence that the impact of the carbon price on prices has been less than that.

Those opposite are well aware that Australia is the fourth-largest economy in the world—up from being 15th largest when this government came to power. We are the 15th largest polluter in the world. That is, if you look at more than 190 nations, Australia is the 15th largest polluter. Per capita, we are the largest polluter in the world. So, this gives us a great responsibility to act to tackle climate change. Climate change is not someone else's problem. It is Australia's. At no time is that better illustrated than in January this year. January 2013 was the hottest month on record in Australia since 1910. It should have left no doubt in the mind of any Australian, including the climate sceptics opposite, that climate change is real, is happening now and that we need to act. I love the fact that the tin hat corner goes off when I say that.

Opposition members interjecting—

Dr LEIGH:  The Bureau of Meteorology is to be believed. I know the member for Tangney has taken on the Bureau of Meteorology on Twitter but the climate records are very clear on this. We have experienced the hottest summer on record.

Mr Turnbull:  Madam Deputy Speaker, I have a point of order. The honourable member, for whom I have the greatest respect, has described that corner as a 'tin hat corner'. It is 'cockies' corner' and if they wear any hat it is an akubra.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Ms O'Neill):  Thank you for your contribution. The shadow minister will resume his seat. The parliamentary secretary has the call.

Dr LEIGH:  If those opposite had the same view on climate change as the member for Wentworth did, then my suggestions would be quite unjust. But when climate change is raised, it is from that corner of the House that we hear the greatest cries. We refer to 'dangerous climate change' and it is as though a set of crackers had gone of in the seats on that part of the House. We have a fixed price in our emissions trading scheme which will conclude in June 2015. From then the carbon permits can be auctioned and traded allowing the market to determine the carbon price. That will ensure that emissions are reduced in the cheapest and most effective way.

In July 2015 there will be an annual cap on the number of permits, which means there will be a cap on pollution. The current low market prices we are seeing in the European emissions trading system, to which we will link in 2015, does not detract from the environmental integrity of our pollution cap. Sound economic policy, sound social policy, sound environmental policy—that is this government's economic legacy.

The Leader of the Opposition has claimed that the carbon price would destroy thousands of jobs, that it would wipe Whyalla off the map. The reality is that since the price started employment has grown by more than 150,000 with the total number of jobs gained since Labor came to office now close to one million, at a time when unemployment has grown by 28 million worldwide. The latest consumer price index figures show the inflation rate was 2.5 per cent in the year to March—in the middle of the Reserve Bank's target zone for inflation. Westpac's economics team has estimated that the carbon price has increased the CPI by just 0.4 per centage points, less than Treasury's estimate of 0.7 per centage points.

The member for North Sydney, the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Wentworth know this, but it is a measure of the opportunism of the opposition that they choose to ignore it. The Australian Industry Group has '…long argued that an emissions trading scheme is the most flexible path to reducing greenhouse gas emissions at least cost'. Lord Stern, possibly the greatest world authority on the economics of tackling climate change, wrote a letter to the member for Lyne, which he has given me permission to quote in this place. That letter of 11 June 2012 recognises the benefits of Australia's carbon pricing scheme. Lord Nicholas Stern says:

‘The carbon price addresses a key market failure. Emissions of greenhouse gases represent an externality in that they cause great damage to the prospects of others. Australia is acting to address these crucial market failures.’

Nicholas Stern also sees our economic policy as good public policy:

‘A clear, credible and stable climate change policy regime represents a unique opportunity for Australia: it could drive a new energy-industrial revolution, similar to past waves of innovation and technical change, such as the continuing ICT revolution. There is great potential for new products, processes and technologies to be developed across the economy and society. This fits well with Australia's entrepreneurial culture. Indeed, it fits well with Australia's long tradition of innovation and culture of creativity. Institutions such as the CSIRO are already making strong progress.’

Nicholas Stern also notes Australia is also acting to address these other crucial market failures—for example, the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation could help to reduce long-term risk around financing for low carbon infrastructure.

The strength of Labor's economic policies is being recognised internationally, but not just in the UK. President Obama himself has recently said:

‘Nearly a dozen states have already implemented or are implementing their own market-based programs to reduce carbon pollution. More than 25 have set energy efficiency targets. More than 35 have set renewable energy targets. Over 1,000 mayors have signed agreements to cut carbon pollution.’

And as the Prime Minister noted in question time, 'President Obama remains strongly of the view that an emissions trading scheme is the most efficient way of dealing with dangerous climate change.'

But the commitment to a market-based mechanism for dealing with dangerous climate change also extends to China. Nominally a communist country, it saw a pilot emissions trading scheme launched on 18 June in Shenzhen. Pilots in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Hubei and Guangdong are expected to be launched this year. There is a deep irony in that the Liberal and National parties, which are nominally parties of the free market, are standing against the use of a market-based mechanism to deal with climate change, while nominally communist China is supporting a market-based mechanism. They are doing so for a very simple reason: it is the most efficient way of dealing with dangerous climate change.

Labor's economic legacy is a strong one. The Australian economy has grown 14 per cent since 2007, a period when the United States has only grown a couple of per cent and Europe has actually shrunk.

25th Anniversary of Parliament House, 27 June 2013

Burley Griffin's original plan for Capital Hill provided for a 'capitol' on the current location of Parliament House, with residences for the Governor-General on one side and the Prime Minister on the other. Parliament House was to be on a lower level, at the head of the government triangle on a site known as Camp Hill, in direct line with the axis running from the capitol to the summit of Mount Ainslie. The capitol building, atop the inner city's highest hill, Kurrajong—now Capital Hill—was to have been a ceremonial building, a pantheon that would commemorate the achievements of the Australian people. Instead of what Burley Griffin called 'the inevitable dome', the building would be capped by a stepped pinnacle or ziggurat. For Walter Burley Griffin, this form expressed 'the last word of all the longest lived civilisations'. However, it was not to be. In 1954, the Senate appointed a select committee to inquire into and report on the development of Canberra. The report recommended:

'… the permanent Parliament House should not be constructed on Camp Hill where Griffin intended, but on Capital Hill on the site allotted to the "Capitol" …'

It noted that Griffin himself had considered such an alternative. I have to confess that I am still quite partial to Burley Griffin's original design—to the notion that the highest place, the capitol, should be taken by a building that acknowledged the greatest of Australians.

An honourable member:  With a ziggurat.

Dr LEIGH:  With a ziggurat. But some eggs cannot be unscrambled, and here we are today. In April 1979, the NCDC announced an architectural competition for the design of what was then known as New Parliament House. The National Capital Development Commission consulted with the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, and the Parliament House Construction Authority issued a brief and competition documents. Key aspects of the brief included that Parliament House must be more than a functional building and should be a major national symbol in the spirit of Westminster or Washington's Capitol dome. It was important that the building reflect the significance of the national parliament, the executive government and the nation's political and social context. The extent to which the building asserted that significance was to be related to questions of its scale and monumentality. The building and the site treatment were to respond to qualities of the environment that were uniquely Australian—the Australian climate, landscape, vegetation and quality of light.

The philosophy and its popular success, the brief said, would depend in part on the extent to which public access and involvement was encouraged by the design. Parliament House was not to appear remote or inaccessible. Access to the site and to the building was to be facilitated, and within the building connotations of a people's parliament and open government were best to be established if people could penetrate the building and observe its operation. Parliament has succeeded to the extent that one can walk over the top of the parliamentarians—a great design feature, I believe—though its structure is somewhat different from, say, the US Capitol where voters can walk to the offices of their elected representatives, going to see them directly without the security screening we have here.

On 26 June 1980, New York-based architectural company Mitchell, Giurgola & Thorp was announced as the winner of stage 2 of the Parliament House design competition. Interestingly, Romaldo Giurgola had initially been asked by Sir John Overall, the then head of the National Capital Development Commission, to be an assessor for the design competition for the new Parliament House. Giurgola wrote back stating:

‘I am honoured by such an offer, but I would rather enter the competition.’

Aren't we lucky that he did? The winning architectural team, Romaldo Giurgola, Richard Thorp, Harold Guida, Rollin La France, Pamille Berg, Tim Halden-Brown, Peter Rolland, Peter Britz and Mervyn Dorrough, was responsible for the design, conception, siting and architecture as well as the interior design, furniture design, landscape and coordination of the art and craft program for Parliament House. Construction began in 1981 and the building was opened on 22 August 1988.

Romaldo Giurgola moved to Canberra to implement his design and lives here to this day. He brought a team of eight people from his New York office, and three others, as well as Romaldo Giurgola, stayed in Australia after the project's completion. It is a great contrast from the way in which the Sydney Opera House construction eventuated. It does make you think, if only Jorn Utzon had had Romaldo Giurgola's patience and his negotiating skills, how much more glorious the interiors of the Sydney Opera House would be today.

The assessors' report on the winning scheme noted its unpretentiousness and accessibility where, 'children will not only be able to climb on the building, but draw it easily too'. Speaking of children, I was pretty much a child when I first came here in 1988 to do work experience for the then member for Fraser, John Langmore. It was something of a coincidence to have done work experience for the member for Fraser given that at the time I was living in the electorate of the Father of the House, the member for Berowra. My father, who was a university academic, knew John Langmore and so it was with John that I spent two weeks in this building. I have never before, or since, gotten lost so many times inside a building. The key to this building, I believe, is to like the art. I did not like art in 1988, but I do today. A think art lovers have a far easier time navigating Parliament House than those who glide by ignoring the beautiful works on the walls.

To the successful architect, a matter of crucial importance was the relationship of the structure to individual Australians and whether people would feel comfortable approaching and entering the building. For the winning designers this was basic to their plan. As Romaldo Giurgola once said:

‘We felt if Australia’s new Parliament House was to speak honestly about its purpose, it could not be built on top of the hill as this would symbolise government imposed upon the people.’

And:

‘The magic relationship between geometry and land configurations of that plan, after that, often became the object that country often became the object of my architectural dreams. The brief for the design of the parliament compiled by the NCDC was possibly the best I had ever encountered in my professional career.’

Another great tribute to the extraordinary public servants who helped build Canberra. Giurgola spoke of how he came to understand Australia by saying:

‘I plunged into Australian literature rather than into guides and travelogues. Patrick White, Miles Franklin, Henry Lawson and Les Murray became my real instructors, while the sonorous voice and accent of Richard Thorp, the Australian in our office, produced the right atmosphere.’

I think it speaks well of Australia that we are in a city designed by a Chicagoan and in a building designed by a New Yorker, because Australia at its best engages with the rest of the world, taking the best ideas not just from within our continent, but around the globe. So it is with this extraordinary building—Parliament House. I wish it a happy 25th birthday and hope it will stand for longer than the 200 years for which it was originally built.

TRANSCRIPT – ABC 666 WITH ROSS SOLLY
Andrew Leigh MP
Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister
Member for Fraser
27 June 2013

Ross Solly:                  Let’s go to Andrew Leigh, now, who is the Member for Fraser. Andrew Leigh was with Adam Shirley yesterday afternoon saying that he would stick by Julia Gillard. Andrew Leigh, good morning to you.

Andrew Leigh: Good morning Ross, how are you?

Ross Solly:                   I’m ok, how are you feeling today?

Andrew Leigh: These decisions are always gut-wrenchingly difficult, Gai would have found exactly the same thing. I looked around the faces in the Caucus Room yesterday, and nobody was smiling. These are incredibly hard decisions for us all. People of good will made different decisions yesterday, and I certainly respect that.

Ross Solly:                   Were you tempted at any stage yesterday, Andrew Leigh, to switch allegiances?

Andrew Leigh: No, I’ve always been a strong supporter of Julia Gillard’s, but in everything that I’ve said, I’ve always said that the big differences in Australian politics are not between individuals, they’re between parties. Gai rightly pointed out the risks to Canberra if Tony Abbott is elected Prime Minister and the risks to the important reforms like the price on carbon, like the schools reforms, like, you know, even making the best of Australian international diplomacy with the UN Security Council seat. There’s very much that’s at risk at the next election.

Ross Solly:                   Andrew Leigh, you have spent a lot of your life studying political trends and the like, why in the end did a majority of your colleagues lose faith in Julia Gillard?

[Audio interruption - line drops]

Ross Solly:                   Let’s go back to Andrew Leigh. Hello Andrew Leigh.

Andrew Leigh: G’day Ross. Don’t know what happened there.

Ross Solly:                   I don’t know. I thought maybe a question was too pointy, but you’ve never run away from a question before so I didn’t think you were this time. No, I was just asking you, Andrew Leigh, why you think all of a sudden the majority of your colleagues turned against Julia Gillard?

Andrew Leigh: I think that the honest view of people in the caucus was that Kevin Rudd could do a better job in the next election, and I very much hope that that’s the right view.

Ross Solly:                   Are you convinced that’s the case?

Andrew Leigh: I made a different decision from Gai and from a majority of my caucus colleagues. When you sit in a Labor caucus surrounded by extraordinary people, you’ve got to have a respect for that team as well. That team has come to a different decision than mine, and there is a huge amount of accumulated wisdom, knowledge and understanding in that room, so I respect it, I’ll run with it, and I will be backing Kevin Rudd every day until polling day.

Ross Solly:                   Do you hope to hold on to your job as a Parliamentary Secretary?

Andrew Leigh: I’ve said to people around Kevin Rudd that if they would like me to step down, I’d be happy to do so. It’s really whatever’s most useful for Kevin and for the new leadership team.

Ross Solly:                   But if the opportunity is there, you’d prefer to hold onto it, you think you can still do good things even though you backed a different leader?

Andrew Leigh: I’ll do whatever the Prime Minister wants me to do. If he thinks that somebody else can better serve in my role, I’ll very happily step back. Because he has to have those opportunities, if he wants to use the position that I have the honour to occupy at the moment for somebody else, he should absolutely be able to do that.

Ross Solly:                   Kevin Rudd did say there would be no retribution so I suppose this is a chance to test it. Yourself and Kate Lundy, who both showed loyalty to your leader, an opportunity if you want to continue on, for Kevin Rudd to show that he’s a man of his word. Maybe the first test for him, Andrew Leigh?

Andrew Leigh: Look, I wouldn’t see it as retribution, Ross. I mean I do...

Ross Solly:                   That’s how politics works though, isn’t it, Andrew Leigh? Let’s be honest about it.

Andrew Leigh: Not at all, no. I genuinely think that there are many people of talent in the backbench, and I think if Kevin comes to the view that he wants to use one of those people in the role that I occupy, that he wants me on the backbench, and that he thinks he’s got a better chance of Labor winning the election, then I’m entirely happy to do that. I mean I’m a very low ranking member of the executive team, and so I...

Ross Solly:                   Oh, Andrew Leigh stop talking yourself down.

Andrew Leigh: But you’ve got to think of the team.

Ross Solly:                   Gai Brodtmann says that she thinks she’s seen a changed man in Kevin Rudd, a changed man from the man who caused so much divisiveness in the party when he was leader. Have you seen changes, do you believe that a leopard can change its spots?

Andrew Leigh: I’ve never criticised Kevin, Ross. I’ve always thought that he’s an extraordinary person, ever since I first…

Ross Solly:                   A good leader though? A good team-builder? A good team man?

Andrew Leigh: Look he’s somebody who I think achieved extraordinary things in his first period as Prime Minister, then as Foreign Minister. He’s somebody who’s incredibly articulate and thoughtful across policy areas ranging from foreign policy to health.

Ross Solly:                   But a good team man, Andrew Leigh? Is he a good team man, was he a good team man?

Andrew Leigh: I think he’s worked well with people in the past, clearly there’s been personal frictions around the place, but I’ve never experienced any of that. He’s always treated me with respect and decency. And again, we’re going to go into this election with a choice between parties, and that has always been the biggest choice. The policy differences that separate Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd were never large. The policy differences that separate Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott are massive, and as Gai has so articulately pointed out, are incredibly damaging for Canberra if a Liberal Party government were to be elected, and that’s why I’ll be fighting hard right up to polling day.

Ross Solly:                   And what were your thoughts when Bill Shorten went public last night just before the vote, to say that he was going to support Kevin Rudd, and saying he was doing so because he thought this was in the best interests of the Labor Party?

Andrew Leigh: I think that that’s the only right basis on which to make this decision. You can’t make these sort of decisions from self-interest or career advancement, you have to make them based on what’s best for the party. And I respect that there were a 102 people in the room yesterday and people came to different views. But I think the vast majority of people did so based on what they thought was best for the Party.

Ross Solly:                   Good to talk to you Andrew Leigh, thank you.

Andrew Leigh: Thank you Ross, have a good day.