Andrew Leigh

My op-ed in today's Daily Telegraph talks about why it's vital that the Coalition start to release policies, so we can have a real debate over ideas and values.

The real cost to voters of Abbott in the Lodge, Daily Telegraph, 24 June 2013

Former New York governor Mario Cuomo once said that politicians campaign in poetry, but govern in prose. A corollary is that while politicians campaign in ‘and,’ we govern in ‘or.’ Each decision to invest in one area makes it harder to devote resources in another area.

In this sense, the federal budget is more than a set of numbers, it is a statement of a government’s values. A government can never invest as much, or cut taxes by as much, as it would like to. Governments must decide between worthy causes. In these choices they reveal their values.

Labor’s choices are fully outlined in the budget papers. We are making long-term, smart investments in schools and infrastructure. We are delivering once-in-a-generation reforms to improve care for people with a permanent and severe disability. And we’re paying for these critical policies with $43 billion of responsible savings. The budget papers show that these savings fund our priorities not just over the forward estimates, but well into the future.

Yet in the Opposition Leader’s budget reply speech – and subsequent statements from his economic team, we’ve seen plenty of sloganeering, and precious little policy.

The Coalition has promised to repeal the carbon price but copy Labor’s assistance to households. But he offered no costings – a tactic reminiscent of Mitt Romney’s bogus claim in the last US election that he would pay for tax cuts to the rich by closing unspecified ‘loopholes’.

In fact, Mr Abbott has refused to endorse the government initiatives to close down actual tax loopholes being exploited by multinational companies, instead preferring to attack the superannuation savings of 8.4 million workers and reduce funding for schools.

Recognising the need to choose between competing priorities – making appropriate ‘trade-offs’ – is the starting point of responsible economic management.

If Mr Abbott had nothing to hide, he could have his policies costed by the independent Parliamentary Budget Office and release them to the community. And indeed, if his policies were as good for Australians as he has claimed, that’s what he would do.

It’s worth remembering the origins of an independent budget office. At the last election, the Coalition claimed that Treasury had become ‘politicised’. They thumbed their noses at the Charter of Budget Honesty (which had been legislated by the Howard Government), and had their costings done by a private accounting firm.

These costings were later found to contain an $11 billion black hole. The firm was fined by the Institute of Chartered Accountants for breaching professional standards.

Despite the creation of the independent Parliamentary Budget Office, little seems to have changed.

The Opposition’s Finance spokesperson, Andrew Robb, has claimed to already have Coalition costings in his drawer. No one knows who has performed these ‘costings’. No one knows why they remain unreleased.

Simple maths dictates that the Opposition cannot raise spending, cut taxes, and pay down debt faster. To circumvent this, Mr Abbott is currently promising that his post-election cuts will be determined through a mysterious ‘Commission of Audit’. This is the same trick Queensland premier Campbell Newman used to justify 14,000 job losses, including savage cuts to health and education.

A costings hole of $70 billion equates to around $3000 for every man, woman and child in Australia. It is reasonable to conclude that if Mr Robb won’t open his desk drawer, it probably contains a secret plan to raise taxes or dramatically cut services.

The belief that the government should radically cut back on services has been advocated by two leading right-wing thinktanks: the Centre for Independent Studies and the Institute of Public Affairs.

I disagree vehemently with such brutal cuts, but it is a legitimate viewpoint to take to an election. Indeed, democracy is at its best when it is a vigorous contest of ideas. Yet such a contest can only occur if the community is fully informed about the competing visions. As long as Mr Abbott refuses to release his costings, democracy is the poorer for it.

Andrew Leigh is the federal member for Fraser, and Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister. His website is www.andrewleigh.com.

MEDIA RELEASE

Andrew Leigh
Member for Fraser
Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister

THURSDAY 20^TH JUNE 2013

ANDREW LEIGH INVITES CANBERRANS TO JOIN HIM AT WALK TOGETHER

Dr Andrew Leigh, Member for Fraser has invited all Canberrans to "Walk Together" on Saturday 22 June 2013 to celebrate diversity and call for an end to the politics of fear, division and prejudice.

The Member for Fraser, Dr Andrew Leigh MP, said that it was important to ensure that the language around the refugee issue is always respectful and that we recognise the vast contribution refugees and migrants have made to this country

“There’s a local story that still brings a lump to my throat about an art competition run as part of Refugee Week, where the first prize went to a Karen Burmese woman who had woven a traditional crimson tunic,” said Dr Leigh,

“She was missing her homeland so much that she made a loom by taking the mattress of the wooden bed base and using the slats as a loom to weave a traditional Karen tunic.

“That story for me sums up the extraordinary courage and ability of Australia’s refugees,” he said.

From 1pm at Reconciliation Place on Saturday, 1000 people are expected to walk down to the lake, across Commonwealth Avenue Bridge and finish at a celebratory concert at Stage 88 in Commonwealth Park from 2pm.

Walk Together events are taking place in 16 cities and regional centres around Australia this weekend.

Walk Together, hosted by multicultural organisation Welcome to Australia and Amnesty International, closes out Refugee Week with tens of thousands of people expected to come together nation-wide.

The celebratory concert will be kicked of 104.7’s Maz Hakim as MC, and include Welcome to Australia Ambassadors Ms Mariam Veiszadeh and Dr Andrew Leigh, as well as Minister Kate Lundy, Mr Simon Sheikh and local multicultural affairs leader, Mr Sam Wong AM.

In addition to speakers, there will be performances by Blue Yvie, the ACT Chinese Australian Association, Wiradjuri Echoes and Dente Musica Viva.

Speech to the CHASS National Forum

'Civility in Australia'

20 June 2013

Check Against Delivery

Thank you Steven [Schwartz] for that most civil of introductions. Can I, like Aunty Agnes Shea, acknowledge we’re meeting today on the traditional lands of the Ngunnawal people and pay my respects to their elders, past and present.

I want to thank CHASS for inviting me back to this very vibrant forum. It’s something I look forward to a great deal and this particular talk is one that has been rattling around my head ever since I was invited to deliver it, which I think reflects on the importance of the topic.

So since we’re talking about ‘civility’, I reached into my bookshelves and I pulled out what I think must be the essential tome that one begins such a discussion with; it is Paul Keating’s Book of Insults.

I shall now proceed by reading you a few of them.

On John Hewson, “his performance is like being flogged with a warm lettuce”.

On Andrew Peacock, “I suppose that the honourable gentleman’s hair, like his intellect, will recede into the darkness”.

On John Howard, “he is the greatest job and investment destroyer since the bubonic plague” (this is 1984).

And on Nick Greiner, “Look at Greiner, he’s only two years old, but already he’s terminal”.

And I start with Keating to illustrate the basic point that defining civility is tricky.

We know the extremes; absolute rudeness and genteel politeness, as Steven has just demonstrated in his most genteel of introductions.

But in the middle there’s a grey area where one person’s incivitlity is another person’s witticism.

I could spend ten minutes on that alone so I’m simply going to use the elephant definition: that most of us know incivility when we see it.

And so I want to ask two questions today. The first is, is politics becoming less civil? And the second is, what can we do to improve it?

And note that these two questions don’t depend on one another. Even if politics isn’t becoming less civil, one might well want it to become more civil.

So the starting point is that Australian voters have never had a particularly high view of their politicians.

This is a quote on federal parliament, “the standard of debate and discussion is appallingly low. The intelligence and purpose fullness of those taking part: less than evident. No country deserves politicians as bad as these.”

That’s Craig McGregor writing in 1966.

And since the 1960s we have empirical evidence on the point.

Australian election studies in successive years have asked the question of respondents, “In general do you feel the people in Government are too often interested in looking after themselves or do you feel they can be trusted to do the right thing nearly all the time?”

In the late 1960s about half of Australian respondents said that politicians could be trusted to do the right thing nearly all the time, and by the 2000s that figure was down to around forty per cent; a slight drop but not off a particularly high base.

Only around half of Australians for the last forty years have thought that politicians could be trusted.

Roy Morgan is another source of data. Their Image of Professions survey asks Australians to rate professions for ethics and honesty.

The profession that I used to be in and which most of you are in, that of university lecturers, about sixty per cent of Australians rate university lecturers ‘high’ or ‘very high’ for ethics or honesty.

By contrast, my current profession of federal politics, about ten to twenty per cent of Australians rate federal politicians ‘high’ or ‘very high’ for ethics or honesty.

In most recent survey, it was 14 per cent, which means we are down around the level of journalists. That’s how serious the problem is.

Looking across countries we also have evidence that Australians hold their politicians in fairly low regard.

A survey in the 1990s asked people in 16 countries whether they had confidence in their national parliament.

Forty three per cent of respondents in a typical country said they had confidence in their national parliament.

Thirty one per cent of Australian respondents had confidence in their national parliament.

And the problem is so bad that when I, in 2002, co-edited a book with David Burchell titled The Prince’s New Clothes: Why Do Australians Dislike Their Politicians?. The problem was regarded as so bad by my editor that they placed as a cover image a picture of one dog sniffing another dog’s backside.

An unfortunate effect of this was that the parliamentary bookshop decided that it couldn’t stock it. (At least somebody in this building has a sense of decorum.)

Another way of looking at how things have changed over time is to look at parliamentary behaviour.

To test this, I went back through Hansard and in every year counted the number of times that two measures of incivility are mentioned: first, the number of times the words ‘liar’ or ‘liars’ are used, and second the number of times the word ‘unparliamentary’, a typical response when people are behaving in an uncivilised way.

And I’ve normalised that by the number of words spoken in parliament over the year. What I saw surprised me.

The periods of greatest incivility are the early 1950s, the late 1970s and the early 1990s. On this fairly narrow measure of incivility, incivility is down in the federal parliament.

But on other measures I think there are issues with civility.

I had two of my interns, Ellen and Eleanor, this week walk around all of the federal parliamentary offices.

I asked them to look at a simple thing; I asked them to look at the posters in each window.

For parliamentarians who had a political poster up, I asked them to write down whether that was a positive poster (spruiking the good things member’s or senator’s party was doing) or a negative poster (attacking the other party).

Of the 99 offices in Parliament House that depict a political poster in the window, 42 of them are negative posters.

So, forty two per cent of the federal parliament on this measure self-define to their colleagues through a negative lens rather than a positive lens.

In other areas too, I think we’ve seen a greater rise in nastiness.

One driver of that, I believe, is anonymity.

In my 2010 book, Disconnected, I talked about some of the evidence on how anonymous technologies can make interactions nastier.

I quoted an experiment run at the University of Texas Austin, of which students were placed in separate booths and asked to communicate with one another only by email.

And the experimenters were surprised to see how quickly the conversations turned lewd or rude.

As the researchers noted at the end of their article:

‘[T]he male experimenter who conducted the sessions debriefed the participants immediately after the interactions without reading the actual transcripts. He noted that the students were always low-keyed, unassuming, and moderately interested in the study. No participants appeared embarrassed, shocked, or in the slightest way, upset or angry. At the conclusion of the project, when he was given the opportunity to read the transcripts, he was astounded—even overwhelmed—to learn what these polite students had been saying to one another.’

And if you’ve ever said anything nastier over email than you’d say person, you know how it can happen.

In The Australian Moment, George Megalogenis discusses the text messages that in part prompted the Cronulla Riots, and some of the nastiness in certain corners of the blogosphere. He argues, ‘The commonsense filters that were used to keep the letters-to-the-editor page civil, and to prevent the cranks from getting on air, don’t apply in cyberspace because the medium rewards those who generate the most outrage.’

I find this too as a federal member of parliament; people will occasionally say quite harsh things to your face.

But on any given day my inbox and my Twitter feed include nastier comments than anything that anyone will say to my face over a matter of months.

Here’s an example. I apologise for the purple prose but we’re discussing civility and so its flip side, incivility is, I think, worth mentioning.

[Email on slide] ‘I am prepared to spend my last dollar and effort of energy to avoid having you purporting to represent my views in parliament. And that is quite apart from the fact that you are a crap statistician. … You are a fucking disgrace – the more so because your electorate has a higher standard than you – and I will not lose a moment saying so, in any audience, in any place, and to everyone who asks my opinion.’

The email came from a senior journalist.

I turn to the question, what is to be done?

The challenges that I’ve spoken about pose a particular challenge to progressives.

If we look around the world I don’t think it’s an accident that social democratic governments are a little thin on the ground at exactly the time when the media landscape is fragmenting.

Technological changes like 24 hour news, blogs, twitter and email aren’t ideological neutral. They are particularly beneficial for populists and libertarians, and confronting for long-game reformers.

But for those of us who believe in progressive reform, it’s vital that we continue to talk about big ideas.

Critical reforms like Medicare and universal superannuation, expanding university places and dropping the tariff barriers didn’t happen by themselves.

They were the product of passionate and painstaking advocacy.

Progressives also need to get better at linking the reforms of today with the events of the past.

Too much reliance on talking points and ‘lines’ can win the battle, but lose the war.

Humans are fundamentally storytelling creatures, and stories are a powerful way of persuading people about the importance of change.

Reform isn’t about uprooting our history – it’s about allowing our values to endure in a changing world. It is about identifying the golden threads that run through our history.

But for politicians of all stripes, there are good reasons to improve civility.

First, we know from the medical literature that there’s a strong link between hostility and coronary heart disease.

Is that nasty jibe really worth going to an early grave for?

Second, politeness is simply more interesting. I have a semi-regular chance to discuss politics and economics on ABC Radio National with Senator Arthur Sinodinos.

We have a healthy respect for one another, and frequently go out of our way to praise one another.

We’re both passionate about our own parties, but I’m told by the producer that ABC listeners enjoy the segment because there’s a clear demarcation between our policy differences and our personal respect.

As a viewer, I certainly find that I much prefer viewing political debates of this kind.

So maybe civility is good politics too.

Thank you.

MEDIA RELEASE

Young people on Canberr'a northside urged to apply to help them be creative young stars

Andrew Leigh, Member for Fraser, today urged students and young people in Fraser to apply to share in $23,500 to help them develop their talents and chase their dreams by taking part in creative, cultural, academic and community activities.

Dr Leigh previously announced applications under the Australian Government’s $8 million Creative Young Stars program which is a feature of Creative Australia, the Australian Government national cultural policy.

The program will invest $23,500 per financial year in Fraser, and the first funding round will open on 1 June and close this Friday, 21 June 2013. The program will deliver grants of $500 for individuals and $3000 for groups of six or more in Fraser. The program will provide funding for successful applicants aged 25 and under.

“Canberra’s northside is full of young people who have many great talents and who will use those to make a fantastic contribution to our community once they get the chance to develop those talents further,” Dr Leigh

“But in some cases their families find it difficult to meet the extra costs associated with participating in activities, events and training.

“The Australian Government is determined to help young Australians reach their potential in all walks of life, be that at school, be that at finding a job, or be that in areas such as the arts, community service and leadership, or academia,” Dr Leigh said.

“That’s why we are complementing our record investments and improvements in areas such as school education with a $23,500 investment each financial year to help young people on the northside develop their potential in areas that go beyond the classroom.

“These grants will help young people further develop their creative talents by helping them take part in competitions, eisteddfods, public speaking tournaments and other cultural, artistic or academic events.

“I am proud that the Australian Government is able to make this practical investment to ensure that more young people in Canberra’s north get the chance to reach their potential and make an even greater contribution to our community in the creative fields.

“I strongly encourage students and young people, their parents and carers on the northside to apply for a Creative Young Stars grant to help them chase their dreams,” Dr Leigh said.

In Round 1, the program will deliver grants to 12 individuals and two groups in each of the 150 Federal Electorates across Australia.

For more information on the Creative Young Stars program visit www.youth.gov.au/sites/youth/news/pages/creative-young-stars

On 18 June, I appeared on Sky PM agenda with host David Speers and Liberal Senator Arthur Sinodinos. We discussed assistance to manufacturing, carbon pricing and leadership.

TRANSCRIPT – SKY PM AGENDA WITH DAVID SPEERS
Andrew Leigh MP
Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister
Member for Fraser
18 June 2013

TOPICS:                                Holden, local government referendum, carbon pricing, leadership

David Speers:                    Now we’re going to move on and bring in our political panel this hour. We’re joined by Parliamentary Secretary Andrew Leigh, and Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Arthur Sinodinos. Thank you both very much for joining us. Now look, I just want to pick up on that quickly if we can; Holden are now in talks on how to cut production costs. It’s likely to mean lower wages and fewer conditions if the workforce agree to it. But Mike Devereux saying there, they’re making it pretty clear there that they want the level of industry support to continue. Arthur Sinodinas, is the Coalition sticking by its plan to cut this $500 million?

Arthur Sinodinos:             What we’re talking about there, David, is cutting some of the extra assistance that was provided by Labor since it’s been in office. We’re also committed to a review by the Productivity Commission about the whole assistance arrangements around the automotive sector and I think that’s our rigorous way to go and get some evidence-based policy-making around this. The challenge the automotive sector have today is even as Labor has put more money in in order to preserve or even expand jobs, the sector’s actually been shedding jobs. And so this is creating that sort of question in the minds of the public: well ok, are we really in a sense throwing good money after bad, if you like, and what are we getting in return? That’s not an argument for closing the sector down, that’s an important sector and we’re committed to the sector, but we want a rigorous approach as part of considering assistance for the sector going forward, and we were always committed from when we were in government to having a Productivity Commission review before any further assistance was provided.

David Speers:                    Andrew Leigh, as an economist, can you really say that this level of industry support is in the best interests of the economy as a whole?

Andrew Leigh: Well David, the reason we’re providing industry assistance to the car industry is because of the spill-overs to other sectors, because of the benefits that you get to the rest of manufacturing, and the benefits to research and development. I certainly appreciate Arthur’s commitment to evidence-based policy-making, it’s a commitment that I share as well. But the challenge is, as Mike Devereux highlighted, that when there’s uncertainty, it makes it very difficult for his firm to plan for the future. And so the Coalition’s policy has an admirable level of scrutiny, but the practical effect of that is to cause real difficulties for someone like Mike Devereux, making investment decisions into the future, not knowing whether there’s $500 million stripped out or maybe even more as a result of the review the Coalition is committed to.

David Speers:                    Mike Devereux is not a politician, but I tell you what, he’s pretty clever on the diplomacy here because he was careful not to tread on Coalition toes too much. And Similarly on the carbon tax as well. But I think he’s making it pretty clear that it’s one factor at least that does add to the cost of production in Australia. It hard to deny that, isn’t it?

Andrew Leigh: We’ve always been clear, David, that a carbon price would add to CPI. It adds about 0.7 per cent to CPI, about a third of the impact of introducing the GST. But the reason you have a carbon price, and the reason that the Howard Government wanted a carbon price before the 2007 election is it’s just the most efficient way of dealing with carbon pollution. That’s why today you’ve seen Shenzen, a province of China with ten million people setting up its own emissions trading scheme.

David Speers:                    But not the sort of carbon price, it’s about to go up over the next couple of weeks to over $24/tonne here in Australia. It’s one of the reasons car makers like Holden are doing it tough.

Andrew Leigh: The net effect of the carbon price, David, on total costs in the economy has actually ended up being less than we had projected beforehand. We’ve provided considerable household assistance, which for most households has more than offset the price effect. Were you to strip it away now, effectively you would be putting Australia in a much worse position because the alternative to a carbon price is the sort of command-and-control approach which Mr Abbott has pioneered: much more expensive, much less efficient.

David Speers:                    Alright, I know Arthur Sinodinos will want to jump in on that but we do need to take a quick break. Stick with us though and there’s a few other issues I want to cover as well. For New Zealand viewers New Zealand news next for you but stay with us as this continues on PM Agenda

[Commercial Break]

David Speers:                    Let’s back to our panel. We’re talking to Labor’s Andrew Leigh and the Coalition’s Arthur Sinodinos. Now, I do want to move on and we’ll get to the ongoing, never ending, leadership issues that are dogging the Labor Party all week it seems. But initially the Coalition Party room today, Arthur Sinodinas, on the referendum that’s coming up at this election as well on whether to recognise local government in the Constitution. Just firstly, are you in favour of this?

Arthur Sinodinos:             In terms of recognising local government in the Constitution?

David Speers:                    Yeah

Arthur Sinodinos:             I think we’ve got to fix up the anomaly that the High Court has identified. The problem we’ve had, and this is more the front bench, because we discussed this as a shadow ministry some time back, was the concern that this has been rushed a bit and that maybe with a bit more time it would be possible to build more of a consensus around this. I think if we’re coming up to what’s going to be a pretty frenetic election, I don’t think the referendum necessarily gets the attention it deserves. Now, it may be there are some Labor strategists who think it’s a bit of a distraction but our view in the shadow ministry was if they want to as a government put this up, ok, there should be equal funding, and that was, I think, the understanding on which…

David Speers:                    And this is the thing, there’s not. It’s ten and a half million for the ‘Yes’ case and half a million for the ‘No’ case.

Arthur Sinodinos:             And us poor senators don’t get counted, this was done on the basis that there were only two in the House who voted for the ‘No’ case.

David Speers:                    Yeah so given all of that and the disparity in the funding, do you still support the ‘Yes’ case?

Arthur Sinodinos:             Look, we will support it being put forward but I think you’ll find within the Liberal Party there are some very strong views, both for and against, there are for example people who argue that, you know, if you entrench local government in the Constitution, what impact does that have on the states and the powers of the states? So, if you’re a West Australian Liberal, for example, now you’d be quite concerned about the impact on state rights. A lot of this comes down to the view about, you know, what is the appropriate sort of balance within the Constitution on these issues. But where I think Abbott in particular has been coming from was a concern that unlike, say, the agreement that was stuck on the indigenous referendum which is essentially, let’s do it in a way that maximises the chances of it getting up, this has been a bit rushed and a bit sort of bowdlerised on the way  through.

David Speers:                    I’m intrigued to, Andrew Leigh, see what position you take on this and what you expect Canberrans to do on this because, of course, we don’t have local government in the ACT.

Andrew Leigh: That’s right, David. So we’re one jurisdiction that isn’t affected by this - but certainly for most Australians what this would do is to regularise a system that’s already in place. So, if your local council is expecting Commonwealth funding - for a local organisation, or to fix the local bridge - then you ought to be supporting this referendum because it allows that Commonwealth funding to flow with a constitutional guarantee. If it doesn’t go through, the only way your local council is going to be able to fix that bridge is by raising rates.

David Speers:                    Now, let me move on, because we’ve only got a couple of minutes left, to the leadership issue. Where are you at on this, Andrew Leigh, what’s your view on what’s going on and what do you think should happen?

Andrew Leigh: My view, David, is I’m finding so many of these questions being raised, I’ve had lots of conversations about this all week - and they’ve all been with journalists. So this is a huge issue for the Parliamentary Press Gallery who are utterly engulfed on this topic. But I represent Canberra, what the Americans would call an ‘inside the beltway seat’, and I can tell you that when I was out doorknocking Nicholls on the weekend, no one was talking about this.

David Speers:                    So, just to be clear, are you saying, because we hear this every time, that it’s a media creation?

Andrew Leigh: I’m not saying it’s a media creation, I’m simply saying that it is not the main concern of my electors who are focused on DisabilityCare, the National Broadband Network, health and education. These, I think, are the most important issues for people in Australia’s capital city.

David Speers:                    Nobody is saying to you, you need to do something about the leadership?

Andrew Leigh: No. I mean, it’s not the feedback I get when I’m out doorknocking.

David Speers:                    Ok, but just to be clear though do you support a change or not?

Andrew Leigh: No. Prime Minister Gillard will lead us to the next election.

David Speers:                    And Arthur Sinodinos, you’ve seen some of this stuff before on the…

Arthur Sinodinos:             I’m not agitating for leadership change anywhere!

David Speers:                    I’ve seen you issuing press releases pointing out various Labor MPs that standing by Julia Gillard. You clearly think she’s lead in the saddlebags for Labor candidates.

Arthur Sinodinos:             I’d be less than honest if I didn’t admit that when we were out doorknocking, particularly in NSW places like Western Sydney, the Prime Minister is an issue in terms of her capacity to cut through.

David Speers:                    But do you really think Kevin Rudd would fix everything for Labor?

Arthur Sinodinos:             I don’t believe that. The reason I don’t believe that, even though the polls suggest he could do a little bit better, is at the end of the day it seems to be a debate over the personality as opposed to the policy issues and I think that’s, from the public’s point of view, that’s one of the reasons they see this as a bit of a soap opera now, that it’s too much about two camps as opposed to policy issues. I mean, for example, we don’t know what Kevin Rudd would do about the boat people situation, whether he would improve on that. On Gonski, I’m a bit sort of puzzled as to where he actually stands for example. So, what we’re being offered is the idea that he’s somehow a celebrity and cult figure who could attract people back. I think the Australian public have gotten to the stage where they just want the election, they just want a majority government, and they just want to get on with things.

Andrew Leigh: By contrast, the leadership issue within the Coalition is actually a very big policy difference.

David Speers:                    Well I don’t know that it’s quite the leadership issue that we’re seeing in Labor at the moment. But look, we will have to leave it there; we’re out of time. Andrew Leigh, Arthur Sinodinas, good to talk with you.

Andrew Leigh: Thanks David, thanks Arthur.

Arthur Sinodinos:             Thanks.

My op-ed in the Canberra Times points out that since Tony Abbott was Health Minister, the federal Health Department has grown more slowly than the Australian population. Yet he now claims not to know what it does, and is threatening savage cuts.

Liberals' unhealthy dose of purging threatens, Canberra Times, 19 June 2013

Recently, I was chatting to a public servant who works at the federal Department of Health and Ageing – working on ways of reducing smoking, encouraging better nutrition, and decreasing obesity rates.

The conversation turned to this year’s election, and what it meant for our jobs. As a politician, I know that every three years I’m up for a job interview with a 130,000 person panel. But it turned out that this person felt much the same. They’re concerned that their job turns on the election result.

Having done countless mobile offices and community forums, I know that many Canberra public servants feel just the same. They’ve heard Joe Hockey say “the public service here in Canberra has to be reduced by 12,000 over the first two years as a starting point”. When Chris Uhlmann on 7.30 asked Mr Hockey whether he in fact intends to cut 20,000 public servants, Mr Hockey confirmed “we’ve already said that.” Some of his colleagues are more contemptuous still, with Western Australian MP Don Randall describing public servants as those who ‘feed on others’.

But public servants who work for the Health Department have a special reason to be worried, because the Liberals have made the department a special target. In his budget reply speech this year, Tony Abbott said “The objective will be to reduce and end, as far as possible, the waste, duplication and second guessing between different levels of government that has resulted, for instance, in the Commonwealth employing 6,000 health bureaucrats even though it doesn’t run a single hospital.”

This statement is daft on so many levels. First, according to the December 2012 APS employment snapshot, the Health Department had 5040 employees. Second, the Department’s staffing numbers have barely increased since the Coalition was last in office. The same data source shows that the department had 4802 employees in June 2007. From June 2007 to December 2012, the Australian population grew by 9 percent, and the number of staff in the Health Department grew by 5 percent.

It gets worse. The Minister for Health from 2003 to 2007 was none other than Tony Abbott. When it suits him, Mr Abbott is happy to boast of the expertise that this period as minister gave him, calling it a “solid record of achievement.” Yet when it suits him, Mr Abbott is happy to feign complete ignorance of what the Health Department does.

At a personal level, I find this willingness to use public servants as political playthings pretty shocking. In the four years that Tony Abbott spent as their minister, Health Department officials worked late nights and weekends, spent time away from their families, and did their darndest to implement his policies. Yet when it suits his political purposes, Mr Abbott is happy to pretend that none of this ever happened.

Politics is a rough game, but public servants should not be pawns in it. In case the Liberals need reminding, federal public servants in the Health Department have achieved a lot over recent years. They have designed a Dental Reform Package that will make it as easy for 3.4 million young Australians to see a dentist as it is to see a GP. They have crafted a mental health package delivering additional services and a greater focus on prevention and early intervention. They have worked to close the life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. And they have written Australia’s world-first plain tobacco packaging rules, which will help reduce smoking rates.

The Liberals’ treatment of the Health Department is of a piece with a larger pattern of behaviour towards public servants. Still smarting from Treasury finding an $11 billion hole in their costings at the 2010 election, Shadow Finance Minister Andrew Robb has said of budget numbers: “My assumption is that Finance and Treasury will not engage in what are clearly the sorts of fiddles that we have seen take place in this budget to create the prospect of future surpluses.” This is a none-too-veiled threat: give us the numbers we want, or heads will roll if we win office.

The impact of public service job cuts on the Canberra economy would extend beyond the 1 in 4 workers who work for the federal public service. As the experience of 1997-98 shows, swingeing job cuts would drive up unemployment and bankruptcy rates, and drive down house prices. Acknowledging this, Mr Hockey recently quipped “There is a golden rule for real estate in Canberra – you buy Liberal and you sell Labor.” Is there any other context where a federal politician would be content to joke about how their job-shedding policies will bring down house prices?

Federal public servants have faithfully served both sides of federal politics. Going back to Menzies, there is a strong tradition in the Liberal Party of respecting the role of an apolitical public service, and encouraging critical advice. It’s a pity that Menzies’ heirs today seem to wish that the public service was flaccid and fearful rather than frank and fearless.

Andrew Leigh is the federal member for Fraser, and his website is www.andrewleigh.com.

MEDIA RELEASE

NBN Construction to begin in Belconnen

[caption id="attachment_4392" align="aligncenter" width="1024" caption="Construction of the NBN will soon commence in Belconnen, Aranda, Macquarie and Cook"][/caption]

Construction has commenced to bring the NBN to hundreds of households in the Belconnen area, Member for Fraser, Andrew Leigh said today.

Andrew Leigh today welcomed the release of detailed maps by NBN Co, showing where construction of the National Broadband Network (NBN) will start in Aranda, Belconnen and parts of Macquarie and Cook.

“The map shows that NBN fibre is being rolled out in Belconnen which will allow more residents access to faster, affordable and more reliable broadband.

“Under Labor, connection to the NBN is free because we believe everyone should have access to the NBN,” Dr Leigh said.

“Under the Liberals you will have to you pay up to $5,000 to connect NBN fibre to your home - or you’re left disconnected.

“The National Broadband Network is about preparing Australia for the future. It’s about ensuring that our local communities in places like Belconnen are not left behind as the world and our local economy changes,” Dr Leigh said.

The map is another sign that construction of the National Broadband Network is continuing to ramp up, with work now having commenced or been completed to nearly one million homes and businesses across Australia.

Canberra will be one of the first metropolitan centres to be fully connected to the NBN.

“The release of this map means that work is starting in this area and over the next few months, we’ll start to see NBN workers locally doing the detailed planning and inspection work, and then rolling out the fibre.

“What’s more, NBN retail services are available for similar prices to what people are paying now, but for a much superior service.

“From seeing your local doctor from home, to your kids being able to take a specialist class at another school – the NBN will change the way we live, work, and access services. It will lead to a new wave of innovation, and I’m delighted that people in Belconnen will be among the first to benefit.

“The Liberals to come clean with the people of Canberra and say whether they support Tony Abbott’s plan to charge up to $5,000 for families to connect to Labor’s NBN.

“I know many families in Belconnen who will simply not be able to afford a $5,000 hit to the family budget and will have to miss out on the superfast broadband that Labor’s NBN is delivering.

“Labor is building the NBN for all Australians. But the Liberals are planning a digital divide in every suburb and town across Australia, denying access to Labor’s fibre network for millions of people.”

For more information on when the NBN is coming to your area, you can go to www.nbnco.com.au/rollout and type in your address.

Construction of the NBN will soon commence in Belconnen, Aranda, Macquarie and Cook

Construction of the NBN will soon commence in Belconnen, Aranda, Cook and Macquarie

TRANSCRIPT – SKY AM AGENDA WITH KIERAN GILBERT
Andrew Leigh MP
Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister
Member for Fraser
17 June 2013

TOPICS:                                 Leadership, immigration, National Plan for School Improvement.

Kieran Gilbert:                   This is AM Agenda, thanks for your company. Joining me now is Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, Andrew Leigh, and the Shadow Minister for Families, Jamie Briggs. Good morning gents. Andrew Leigh, first to you. This polling – I know you’re famously opposed to looking at opinion polls – but these have been consistent, over many, many months. Kevin Rudd is much, much more popular than Julia Gillard, he’s twice as popular according to the latest Nielsen poll as well. When do you think that these haves some sort of quality that you need to look at? I know that as an academic you don’t think polls should be taken attention of, but surely 3 months out, this is significant.



Andrew Leigh:                  Well Kieran I think it’s clear that Labor is the underdog in this election. Certainly that’s apparent from a range of indicators, not least the Coalition measuring up the curtains in The Lodge and engaging in tactics on the floor of Parliament such as bullying Treasury officials, suggesting if they don’t get the Budget numbers they want, that heads would roll under an Abbott government. So, you know, the arrogance of the Coalition, that sense of hubris, of entitlement to power is coming through. We’re the underdog but we will keep talking about policy, about the importance of the National Plan for School Improvement, the value of DisabilityCare, why Australians are entitled to expect a government –

Kieran Gilbert:                   But don’t you have to listen to the Australian people when they say consistently, over a number of years, that they think you got it wrong in 2010 in dumping Kevin Rudd?



Andrew Leigh:                  Kieran, I do little else than listen to people. I was out doorknocking Nicholls on the weekend, I was handing out for the Canberra charity Menslink at the Canberra Raiders game on Saturday afternoon. I’ve had many, many conversations with electors over the weekend and let me tell you one thing – here in Canberra, inside the so called beltway, people aren’t interested in leadership issues. People are interested in policy.

Kieran Gilbert:                   I want to play our viewers a little of Graham Richardson, I spoke to him earlier. He thinks it’s increasingly inevitable that Labor will change leader.

Graham Richardson

(footage):                           …certainly more and more of them are talking about it, I’m even hearing some who now say they’re prepared to vote for Kevin Rudd. But you need leadership for that, and I think that means you need Bill Shorten to do it. Bill Shorten is nowhere near committed to any of this, he might be thinking about it, but he’s not said he’ll do it, certainly not to me, and I’m not aware of him saying it to too many others. So I don’t think you can say that this is ‘on’, but it’s more likely than not because more and more of them understand now how desperate their situation is.



Kieran Gilbert:                   And that’s Graham Richardson this morning. Jamie Briggs, it shows – this Nielsen poll – if Labor do return to Kevin Rudd, it’s competitive again. Do you believe those numbers?

Jamie Briggs:                      Well, look, it could be Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard or Bobo the clown leading Labor party, it’s the policies that are the problem. We’ve been focused on providing, and talking to the Australian people about our real solutions plan for months now. We’re not focused on our internal issues, on the chaos and dysfunction that the Labor party is going through. No matter where you go in Parliament House, someone wants to talk to you about Labor’s leadership and it’s usually a Labor MP. They are so internally focussed that they’ve forgotten that they’re here to serve the Australian people, they’ve forgotten what government is all about, which is creating opportunities – hope, reward and opportunity for the Australia people. Andrew talks about how there is some focus in the Opposition on measuring the curtains, well that couldn’t be any further from the truth, Oppositions always start underdogs. The problem that the Labor party’s got is they’re busy measuring up the curtains of the Opposition offices. So much so that for the first time in living memory, they’ve actually appointed an Opposition spokesperson Andrew Leigh. He’s been appointed Opposition spokesperson already. They’ve given up on governing, they’re focusing on themselves purely. They’re not focused on good policy for the Australian people, they want diversions and distractions every week, rather than good policy for the future of our country.

Kieran Gilbert:                   I want to play a little now of Laurie Ferguson, a Labor member from Western Sydney. He was asked about the prospect of a Rudd return and he’s obviously not excited about such a prospect. Let’s take a listen to some comments last night.

Journalist

(footage):                           Should the Prime Minister quit for the good of the Labor party?



Laurie Ferguson

(footage):                           Absolutely not.



Journalist

(footage):                           Why not?



Laurie Ferguson

(footage):                           Well, because I don’t see any alternative to her.



Journalist

(footage):                           Could the alternative be Kevin Rudd?



Laurie Ferguson

(footage):                           No, not really, no.



Journalist

(footage):                           Is it too late for that?



Laurie Ferguson

(footage):                           Look, quite frankly, I think that 5 minutes after he’s elected leader, the Opposition will be stressing the immigration changes that he engineered, and that’s western Sydney.



Kieran Gilbert:                   Laurie Ferguson says that, the Coalition, predicting what will happen if you do return to Rudd, and that is something that lingers, isn’t it? That he did change the border protection policies, and it does sort of reinforce that argument that both need to be accountable for the policy failures, doesn’t it?

Andrew Leigh:                  Well Kieran, we know that certainly the big challenge in the asylum seeker space is simply that the Opposition is not willing to support the findings of the independent Houston panel. If they were willing to do that, if they were willing to take the advice of Angus Houston and his fellow panellists and back all of those recommendations and work with the region, in a regional solution through the Bali process, then that for me is the way forward. But the Coalition chose to walk into Parliament, and chose to vote for more boats, by voting for legislation that would have backed in the Houston panel’s recommendations. That for me is the big issue.



Kieran Gilbert:                   On the asylum seeker issue, Jamie Briggs, are you comfortable with this policy to send those convicted of crime, to deport them? Are you comfortable with that, will you still see the Coalition honour its international commitments as Christopher Pyne asserted this morning?

Jamie Briggs:                      Yes, I am. But just on that point about, um, if nothing sums up the problem that the Labor party has in government better, it’s just Andrew’s last answer: it’s always someone else’s fault. It’s never their own fault. Not the fact that in 2008 they found a solution and created a problem by overturning the laws that had worked for years, they still haven’t admitted they did that by the way, you won’t hear Andrew Leigh say ‘yeah look I’m sorry about that, the reason we’ve had 40 odd thousand people arrive by boat was because we tampered with something we shouldn’t have touched. We haven’t heard him say sorry about that, we haven’t heard Kevin Rudd say sorry about that, we haven’t heard Julia Gillard say sorry about that.

Kieran Gilbert:                   On the Coalition policy though, because the polls suggest that you will win government as of September, it’s a significant policy to say that you will send back those convicted of crimes with sentences of more than a year, with removing appeal processes and so on, aren’t you then intervening inappropriately in the judicial system?

Jamie Briggs:                      No, we believe that you need to have a strong border security program to ensure that the humanitarian visas which our country issues each year, which are limited. Unless the Labor party is now saying that they want to open up and unlock and allow as many people who want to arrive, which is the Greens policy by the way, the Greens don’t have a number at which they will stop people arriving at, the Labor party seems to be going down that path as well. We say that there are a limited amount of spots, that we are able to, what is a very generous country, internationally compared. We don’t think it is appropriate, people who have been convicted of serious crimes to get access to –

Kieran Gilbert:                   Andrew Leigh, your response to that? Because Mr Pyne said a bit earlier that they would still honour their international commitments under the Refugee Convention under this policy.

Andrew Leigh:                  Kieran, this is just the Opposition playing pure politics. We already have a set of rules which allow people convicted of crime to be deported. 97 have been deported this year under those rules. But the Opposition’s policy would have ensured that Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Aung San Suu Kyi could never have come to Australia because of course all of them had served longer than 12 months in detention. So this is a policy that’s simply designed to spread fear and misinformation in the community about asylum seekers, 0.2 percent of whom have committed offences, well below the rate of the general population.

Kieran Gilbert:                   What do you say to that?

Jamie Briggs:                      Well this just shows that the Labor party has lost complete connection with this issue. People are sick of seeing new stories every day of another boat arriving, of people drowning at sea, because their policies have put the sugar on the table to encourage people smugglers back into business. That’s what they did, that’s why there’s been 40 odd thousand people arrive, more than 1000 people have died at sea because of it, women and children have drowned because there is a policy which encourages people to get onto boats. Now if they think that is a humanitarian policy, good luck to them. The Australian people doesn’t – don’t, and we don’t either, and we don’t think that’s a great way to run your national security policy. If Andrew Leigh wants to defend it, then good luck to him.

Andrew Leigh:                  I’ll defend the Houston panel reports.



Jamie Briggs:                      Say sorry for changing the laws. Why won’t you say sorry for changing the laws, you were part of the government who did it, you and Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard and –

Andrew Leigh:                  Jamie, shouting and bluster doesn’t change the simple facts.



Jamie Briggs:                      Apologise. Look at the camera and apologise.

Andrew Leigh:                  The simple fact of this issue is you need a regional solution, and Paris Aristotle –



Jamie Briggs:                      You changed the laws. You changed the laws. You changed the laws.

Andrew Leigh:                  - and Angus Houston and Michael L’Estrange have recommended that we have a regional solution, and that we look at Malaysia as an alternative.



Kieran Gilbert:                   Ok, you have made the point about the regional solution and we have discussed it many times before. I want to ask about the Gonski education reforms. Victoria still keeping open the option of signing on, but why would they at the moment when they don’t know who the Labor leader is going to be next year? Next week, I mean.

Andrew Leigh:                  They should sign on because every government school in Victoria is going to be better off. We’ve put out clear evidence on that, we’ve shown evidence school by school as to how much Victorian kids will receive. And unfortunately Premier Napthine is using these funny numbers at the moment where he’s assumed that the past level of indexation would continue – 4.7 percent indexation – but that’s a level of indexation which is based on strong education spend from largely Labor state and territory governments. Now we’ve got more and more conservative governments in power in states and territories, they’re cutting back on education, and this strange federal formula that we have then mechanically cuts back on federal spending. 3.9 percent this year, projected to be 3 percent next year. When you take that into account, it’s very clear that every government school in Victoria would be better off on the National Plan for School Improvement.



Kieran Gilbert:                   There is still the prospect that they will sign on, there is some, you know, disagreement on the numbers at the moment, but it looks a lot like they’re just angling for more money at this stage. Jamie Briggs, if Victoria does sign on, you’ve got New South Wales and Victoria, the two most populous Coalition states, where the Coalition are in power. It’s going to be really tough to unwind that, you must concede.

Jamie Briggs:                      Well no, I think it’s slated to begin in 2019, isn’t it? At the end of the day we’re talking about this government being elected again, again, and possibly again before you would see these so called changes come into place. Christopher Pyne outlined earlier our view in relation to education. The idea that somehow the Labor party has a mortgage on education is a farce, given that in recent times they’ve cut higher education, that’s why there’s TV ads run by Andrew’s former colleagues at the ANU saying how bad that policy is. How do you justify that to those former colleagues, cutting higher education?

Andrew Leigh:                  Higher education funding will continue to increase strongly under this government Jamie, as you well know. Higher education saw a big increase in funding since 2007 –



Jamie Briggs:                      No, no, so why are they running ads? Why are they running ads?

Kieran Gilbert:                   We’ve only got a few minutes left, I just want to get your thoughts quickly on Jamie’s point about this not coming into force until 2019, another six years.

Andrew Leigh:                  No, this plan will take effect from next year. Schools will start to get additional money, and that additional money will go where the experts tell us it’s needed. It’ll go to improving teacher quality, providing principals with more autonomy and power to do what they need to do, and making sure that we have resources that follow the child.



Kieran Gilbert:                   Do you think that there is any prospect that Kevin Rudd, if he returns, will water this down or scrap it?

Andrew Leigh:                  Prime Minister Julia Gillard will lead us to the next election.



Kieran Gilbert:                   Hundred percent?

Andrew Leigh:                  Absolutely.



Kieran Gilbert:                   Ok. Thank you Andrew, Jamie.