Andrew Leigh

TRANSCRIPT – BREAKING POLITICS WITH TIM LESTER
Andrew Leigh MP
Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister
Member for Fraser
17 June 2013

TOPICS                               Neilson poll, Labor leadership, Victoria and the National Plan for School Improvement, refugees, hung parliaments



Tim Lester:                          Kelly O’Dwyer and Andrew Leigh, thank you for coming back into Breaking Politics today.

Kelly O’Dwyer:                  Great to be with you

Andrew Leigh: Pleasure

Tim Lester:                          Andrew, you first, for five months now the Gillard Government has been completely lifeless in the polls. You still are this morning, except for those numbers on Kevin Rudd were he to come back as leader and the chance that he apparently would give Labor to win. Can you look us straight in the face and honestly say that Labor MPs won’t be chewing over a leadership change in the next two weeks?

Andrew Leigh: Tim, I think it’s pretty clear that Labor is the underdog going into this election. You can tell that from a variety of indicators; not least the fact that the Coalition are clearly measuring up curtains in the Lodge. They’re bullying bureaucrats - telling Treasury officials that if they don’t get the numbers they want that heads would roll under an Abbott Government. We’re the underdog, but…

Tim Lester:                          Underdog or dead dog? Seriously, I mean, at what point do you say, and I don’t mean to be condescending…

Andrew Leigh: It’s pretty arrogant to the Australian people to suggest that the election has been decided before polling day, Tim. I’ve got a lot of respect for my voters.

Tim Lester:                          Of course, but there’s a point at which you have to look at those numbers and say no, this is just the way it’s going isn’t it? Where it’s a denial of the obvious to say, oh no, we’re a reasonable chance to win under Julia Gillard.

Andrew Leigh: Look Tim, I’ve been clear that we’re the underdog and our strategy over the next few months is going to be talking about policy, talking about the national broadband network, the choice people have between getting fibre to the home or having to pay $5000 to get the fibre connected under Tony Abbott’s scheme. The choice between low income earners paying no tax on their super contributions or having tax raised under Mr Abbott. The choice between better schools – every government school in Victoria getting more money under the Gonski plan, or having that money ripped away under Mr Abbott.

Tim Lester:                          And that shot of adrenaline that Rudd would give in terms of leadership - don’t know whether he would win it for you – but the shot of adrenaline he would give will not be discussed by Labor MPs you don’t think this fortnight.

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

Tim Lester:                          Ok, Kelly O’Dwyer there is so much capacity here for a Coalition to get cocky, isn’t there? There is just so much, so much reason to believe you are going to win the next election. That’s almost dangerous, isn’t it?

Kelly O’Dwyer:                  Tim, I would certainly not say that there is any arrogance or hubris at all on the side of the Coalition. I mean, I find that exchange very interesting because of course, you know, I hate to say this Andrew, but I mean, you were making things up when you were saying that there was bullying going on with Treasury officials, I mean, you have no evidence to substantiate that statement, and I think it doesn’t do you justice to have made a statement like that. Certainly we know that every day we have to go out and explain to the Australian people why we will be a better government than the current government. Now, it is fair to say that the Australian people have made a decision on the current Prime Minister; they don’t think she’s doing a good job, they don’t think has been a particularly good government and that’s revealed time and time again when you talk to people on the streets, which is what I do. But it is not true to say that there is any arrogance on our side of politics. You know, we will have the judgement of the Australian people on polling day, whenever that might be.

Tim Lester:                          Parties love to go to elections as the underdog, you know, champion the underdog, there’s a thing about that in Australian politics. You are not the underdog for this election, are you? Nowhere near!

Kelly O’Dwyer:                  Well, I mean I, all I can say to you, Tim, is that every day I do what all of my colleagues do and that is make sure that I’m out there talking about policies that are of interest to the Australian people. I’ll tell you one thing that isn’t of interest to them and that is this ‘leadership lotto’ that seems to happen every day, this very insular, inward focus about who is going to be Labor leader today, whether it’s Julia Gillard or Kevin Rudd. I think Australians are really sick of that this Government is focussed inwardly on itself and not on the concerns that people have.

Tim Lester:                          Ok, one of those concerns and one of those policy positions that the Coalition is taking is that it would deport refugees, it says, who commit crimes that would carry gaol terms of more than twelve months, even if the refugee concerned wasn’t convicted or sentenced to a twelve month term. Why the need to go that hard on refugees? To force deportation in those cases?

Kelly O’Dwyer:                  In cases where people have committed crimes?

Tim Lester:                          Yes

Kelly O’Dwyer:                  Well, I think we’re already…

Tim Lester:                          We’re talking about deportation. That is, on a boat and out of here.

Kelly O’Dwyer:                  … Well, if you’re not an Australian citizen and you’ve committed a crime, it’s entirely appropriate that you would be deported. I don’t see the controversy in that.

Tim Lester:                          The bar is pretty low though, isn’t it? I mean, it strikes me that this is an easy signal to make on a highly sensitive issue.

Kelly O’Dwyer:                  Well I think most Australians would be very concerned if there were people committing crimes here and, you know, wanting to stay in this country. I mean, I don’t see the controversy in deporting people who have committed crimes. We do that quite routinely already, where people who have committed crimes here who are citizens of another country get deported back to that country.

Tim Lester:                          Andrew Leigh, your view?

Andrew Leigh: Certainly, Tim, in extreme cases where people have committed serious crimes they can currently be deported. That’s happened in 97 cases over the past year. That’s actually happened on a higher number of cases than has happened in the last year of the Howard Government. So, I think what’s striking about this issue is the Coalition is calling for a policy which exists in a better thought through form already. I mean, the Coalition’s policy has this odd thing where they say you have to stay out for twenty years and then you can come back. That sounds a pretty strange way of structuring a policy. This policy exists already and Mr Abbott is just really trying to drum up fear and, I think, undermine the good standing of asylum seekers in the community. 0.2 per cent of asylum seekers have committed crimes – a lower rate than in the broader public. By and large, asylum seekers have contributed great things to public life. Whether that’s Frank Lowy, Majak Daw, Anh Do, we ought to be celebrating these stories of refugees rather than trying to drum up fear.

Tim Lester:                          Another policy issue that’s been raised that clearly divides you to some extent is on the comments from the Victorian Premier with regards to Gonski and the fact that he says, Mr  Napthine says, that some Victorian schools will be worse off under the Government’s plan. Is he right?

Andrew Leigh: Well Mr Napthine’s methodology is at odds with the numbers the Government has put out and here’s the reason for that: the Government has put out figures based on indexation rates as we expect them to be. The indexation rate that Mr Napthine assumes is 4.7%. But this year alone it’s 3.9%, and is projected to fall to 3% largely because indexation falls when conservative governments cut school funding, as they’ve been doing. So, when you use the right indexation rate you find the right result which is that all government schools in Victoria are better off under the National Plan for School Improvement. Rather than calling for the scrapping of penalty rates as Mr Napthine has been doing today, he ought to be supporting more money for every government school kid in his state.

Kelly O’Dwyer:                  Can I just pick Andrew up on that point? Because I think it’s actually an important point. Firstly, the Premier has actually put out a list of hundreds of schools that will be worse of according to, as you appropriately say, the figures that have been put together by the Victorian Government.  The reason why the Government’s figures, the Federal Government’s figures, are wrong is because they are using an indexation rate that is completely at odds with the historical average indexation that has occurred over the last ten years which has been around about 6 per cent indexation…

Andrew Leigh: When Labor state governments were investing

Kelly O’Dwyer:                  No, no, no, just let me finish, because it’s a very, very important point. The Government is trying to dodgy up the figures to try and support their argument. The Government is in fact cutting funding to schools. They’re cutting funding to schools right across the nation. In fact, they’re cutting it by around about $300 million. All the promised ‘new funding’ that they say will be delivered will be in two elections time. Now, we can’t rely on the Government’s figures to last for more than six months, I mean, you know, you would have to be critical of Treasurer Wayne Swan and his ability to stick to the forecasts and the figures. I don’t think we can rely on the Government’s figures more than five years out.

Tim Lester:                          Andrew Leigh?

Andrew Leigh: Well the National Plan for School Improvement sees $16 billion more in funding going to schools around Australia. It replaces a system which I think people have largely agreed is broken. The simple answer to Kelly’s question is that the federal indexation is currently based …

[Kelly O’Dwyer:                Well, they clearly haven’t agreed]

Andrew Leigh: …on the average of spending and so Kelly’s comparing a period in which you largely had Labor state and territory governments doing appropriate investment in education. Now we’ve got conservative state governments cutting back, the Federal Government formula mechanically cuts back funding to the schools. That’s just daft. So this plan sees a better way of allocating funding based on socioeconomic status…

[Kelly O’Dwyer:                How much new funding is the Commonwealth providing to schools?]

Andrew Leigh: …based on Indigeneity, based on regionality and to answer Kelly’s question, it’s $16 billion of new funding under the National Plan for School Improvement.

[Kelly O’Dwyer:                In the next four years. No, in the next four years]

Kelly O’Dwyer:                  Well that’s simply not correct. The Commonwealth is not providing new funding over the next four years. They’re relying on the states to increase levels of funding. They say they’re going to provide $7 billion new funding in year five can’t be believed. You absolutely cannot believe or rely in a promise made by this Government.

Tim Lester:                          Ok, I think moving beyond Gonski, as a closing question I’d like to ask you both as we’re running out of time, sittings of the 43^rd Parliament will end Thursday week, it’s all over. What has this parliament taught us, Kelly O’Dwyer, about minority governments and whether they can work?

Kelly O’Dwyer:                  I think it’s taught us that minority governments are not very good, particularly governments that rest on the Greens, a Government where we have got a Labor-Greens alliance with a number of Labor independents. It’s not achieved good outcomes for Australians more broadly. I think it has ignored the real concerns that people have. Unfortunately I think this is going to go down as a pretty sort of sad part of our history in Australian democracy. I think that civility in the parliament has not been at its highest and I think that that is quite shameful.

Tim Lester:                          Andrew Leigh, minority governments: do we now know they work or don’t work?

Andrew Leigh: Well I certainly agree with Kelly’s point about the decline in civility in the parliament and I think one of the challenges there is that Mr Abbott has been the most negative Opposition Leader in history.

[Kelly O’Dwyer:                Take some responsibility]

Andrew Leigh: The reason that has happened is that minority government involves a lot of negotiation in public with independents about policy questions. But we’ve seen a range of policy reforms go through: the price on carbon pollution, the profits-based mining tax, the increases in superannuation from 9% to 12%, DisabilityCare- which will be a fundamental pillar of our social safety net, the National Broadband Network, and that’s just a tiny sample of the more than 500 bills that have passed the House of Representatives.

Tim Lester:                          Did better than forecast?

Andrew: So we’ve certainly gotten an awful lot done. But one of the challenges I think this has illustrated in minority government is the one that Kelly points to of maintaining civility, and frankly, that’s a challenge for all of us in parliament.

Tim Lester:                          Andrew Leigh, Kelly O’Dwyer, thanks for coming in today.

Andrew Leigh: Thanks Tim. Thanks Kelly.



Kelly O’Dwyer:                  Thanks Tim.

http://media.smh.com.au/news/national-times/enough-of-the-leadership-lotto-4496142.html

I spoke in parliament today about the passing of distinguished Australian economist Helen Hughes.

Helen Hughes, 17 June 2013

Economists have a tradition of paying tribute to colleagues of a different ideological view. Friedrich Hayek said of John Maynard Keynes, 'He was the one really great man I ever knew, and for whom I had unbounded admiration. The world will be a very much poorer place without him.'

Larry Summers said of Milton Friedman, 'He and I probably never voted the same way in any election. .... Nonetheless, like many others I feel that I have lost a hero, a man whose success demonstrates that great ideas convincingly advanced can change the lives of people around the world.'

I am far from that league, but it is in that same spirit that I rise to acknowledge the free-market economist Helen Hughes, who died on Saturday aged 85. Born in Prague, Professor Hughes emigrated to Australia in 1939. Educated in Melbourne, she did her PhD at the London School of Economics and then worked at the World Bank in Washington DC.

Returning to the ANU to work as a development economist, she was appointed in 1983 by Bill Hayden to be the deputy chair of the Jackson Committee on foreign aid. In 1985 she gave the ABC's Boyer Lecture and was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in the same year. She wrote, edited or co-authored an astonishing 18 books.

In recent years, Professor Hughes worked as an Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University and as a senior fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies. In 2004, she received the Economics Society of Australia's Distinguished Fellow Award.

In my ANU economics blog, I took issue in 2006 with her views that foreign aid did not boost growth in poor countries, and in 2009 with some of her arguments around the test score gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children. She fired back both times, engaging on the detail with fierce enthusiasm that belied her octogenarian status. I disagreed with Professor Hughes' conclusions, but I was delighted she was working on such vital issues. Too few Australian economists devote their attention to Indigenous disadvantage and global poverty.

Professor Hughes not only wrote about these issues, she immersed herself in them. According to an obituary in today's Australian, as recently as two years ago, she was making four wheel drive trips to remote outstations in north-east Arnhem Land. Professor Hughes' approach to her life and work was a wonderfully no-nonsense one. Yesterday, I told her son Mark Hughes that I intended to say a few words about her in parliament. He responded:

‘What you do is your decision. I can tell you exactly what Helen would have said. She would have said, ‘Parliament's job is to pass good legislation. Only if that is complete should parliament waste time on trivialities.”

‘Regards, Mark’

It is for others to decide whether this speech is trivial, but the topics on which Professor Hughes worked clearly were not. Her provocative writings enriched Australian politics and economics, and Australia is poorer for her passing.

In closing, I acknowledge the bipartisan spirit with which Helen Hughes' goals were shared. She wrote in Lands of Shame that only when we have attained equality between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians ‘will Australia be able to hold up its head because a fair go will have become reality’.

Rest in peace, Helen Hughes.

MEDIA RELEASE

ACT Residents now able to enrol to vote online

People who move to the ACT for work or study are now able to update their electoral details online.

Member for Fraser, Dr Andrew Leigh today joined Attorney General Mark Dreyfus at a live demonstration of the Australian Electoral Commission’s new application for PCs and tablets.

“The development of this application will mean that Canberrans will no longer have to rely on printers, paper and stamps to update their details,” said Dr Leigh.

“Citizens can enrol online in less than five minutes using a computer, smart phone or tablet device

“This development will promote democracy by allowing for greater participation. This is vital in Canberra, a city with many unenrolled young people,” said Dr Leigh.

“In last year’s ACT elections, enrolment rates were around 60% among eligible 18-year-olds, 50% among eligible 19-year-olds, and 80% among eligible 20-24 year-olds.

“Too many young Canberrans are missing a chance to have their say.

“With many young people relocating to Canberra for work and study, this application will make updating their details fast and convenient,” said Dr Leigh.



[caption id="attachment_4382" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Andrew Leigh, Attorney General Mark Dreyfus are taken through a live demonstration but two young Canberrans"][/caption]

Andrew Leigh, Attorney General Mark Dreyfus are taken through a live demonstration but two young Canberrans

TRANSCRIPT – DOORS
Andrew Leigh MP
Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister
Member for Fraser
17 June 2013

TOPICS:                                Victorian schools, Coalition threats to industrial relations, Nielson poll, Labor leadership, refugees



Andrew Leigh: Apologies for the quality of my voice this morning. I was at the Raiders game on the weekend collecting for the charity Menslink and I think I slightly overstretched myself. I just wanted to start off by saying a couple of words on Premier Napthine over recent days. The Victorian Premier has said very clearly that at this stage he’s not interested in signing up to a deal which would see more money going to every Victorian school. By contrast, his top priority now is to urge Tony Abbott to move harder and faster on industrial relations reform. We know when Conservatives talk about flexibility in the labour market, they’re not talking about the flexibility of a mum to go and pick up a sick kid; they’re talking about the flexibility of bosses not to be able to pay penalty rates. So, Premier Napthine isn’t interested in more money for every government school child, but he is interested in stripping away penalty rates from low paid workers. Happy to take questions on that policy or any other policy questions you’ve got around; NBN, DisabilityCare, lots of good policy issues we’ve got this week.

Journalist:                           Isn’t it true, though, that policy issues are being swamped by leadership speculation?

Andrew Leigh: Certainly not in my electorate. I represent the capital of the country. Right here people are talking to me about issues like jobs, health and education. I was doorknocking Nicholls on the weekend. People there wanted to talk about the National Broadband Network. Not, should we have it or not, but how do we get it faster?

Journalist:                           Has the gender card backfired on Julia Gillard? Playing the gender card?

Andrew Leigh: The ‘gender card’ is a phrase that I think is unfortunate. When the Prime Minister speaks about the importance of ensuring equality in public life, about the deeply damaging sexism which has been directed towards her and which I think every parent of young girls worries about, then that’s not ‘playing a gender card’, that’s talking about fundamental equality. But I think the Prime Minister has very clearly spoken about some of the big policy differences between the Parties. For example, the Coalition want to bring the tax-free threshold back down; that would disproportionality hurt women. They want to raise superannuation taxes on low income earners; that would disproportionately hit women. And they don’t want to see better pay for social and community sector workers. Again, a female dominated industry. So, on clear policy questions there are big differences between the Parties.

Journalist:                           Why do you think male voters are abandoning her though?

Andrew Leigh: Well I think you’re directing me towards a poll today and my answer on that is the same as the answer I normally give you: I don’t believe…

Journalist:                           Andrew, will the PM’s leadership survive the fortnight?



Andrew Leigh: Well, let me finish that one. I don’t believe that polls have predictive power. The answer to your other question is yes.

Journalist:                           In terms of the polls not having predictive power, they certainly have an influence on how MPs feel. Do you think they’ll be panicked today seeing a ‘2’ in front of the primary vote figure?

Andrew Leigh: I think it’s very clear that Labor is the underdog in this election. You can see that in the polls or you can see it from looking at the arrogance that Mr Abbott now has. He’s clearly measuring up the curtains in the Lodge. Mr Abbott, Mr Hockey, and Mr Robb are going about bullying public servants in Treasury and Finance pretty clearly saying that if they don’t get the Budget numbers they want, then heads will roll if an Abbott Government was to win office. That sort of behaviour, I think, is arrogant and it reflects the sort of sense of over-confidence that you hear within the Coalition at the moment.

Journalist:                           Wouldn’t Labor have a better shot of winning the election if it returned to Kevin Rudd, though?

Andrew Leigh: The Party is going to go to the next election with Julia Gillard as leader and I think the key questions for people in my electorate are questions of policy, not questions of polls.

Journalist:                           What did you make of the reception Mr Rudd [inaudible]?

Andrew Leigh: I think Australians give a strong reception to leaders and former leaders. I mean, you’ve seen this right through from Hawke and Keating and Howard, Prime Minister Rudd and Prime Minister Gillard. This is a response that leaders get when they visit schools. I’ve certainly been at schools in my electorate where Prime Minister Gillard was mobbed by students and it’s a great thing to see, particularly when you see those young girls coming up to the Prime Minister talking about the opportunities for female leadership.

Journalist:                           Former Labor Immigration Minister has said that Australia should rethink its support for the Refugee Convention. What are your thoughts on that?

Andrew Leigh: I think that the Government has gotten the balance right there. The challenge is that we have an Opposition which is determined not to vote for good policy, which is not supporting the recommendations of the Houston Panel and, which is determined to play politics with the lives of asylum seekers. This is, I think, the real problem in the asylum seeker debate today; that the Opposition is simply not willing to sign on to the full set of recommendations from the Houston Panel; a Panel of independent experts that span the political spectrum.

Journalist:                           You say Labor’s got the balance right but new figures show that Australia’s 11^th out of all the OECD countries in terms of taking asylum seekers but 3^rd in terms of taking workers. That doesn’t seem like the balance is very well thought out.



Andrew Leigh: Well there’s certainly a range of ways you can rank countries’ generosity. Australia does extremely well in terms of the number of UN settled refugees that we take. We, I think, are a country that’s able to take more refugees and we’ve seen that increase under this Government; 13,750 going up to 20,000 with an aspiration to go higher. Mr Abbott in one of his cruellest policies would cut back the number of refugees that Australia takes. That would send a message to the world that Australia is not a generous, open-hearted country but is a mean spirited country that can’t even afford the additional 6,250 refugees which this Government has agreed that it would take.

Journalist:                           Does it annoy you that people are focused on leadership as opposed to policy at the moment?

Andrew Leigh: Of course it does. I mean, I got into parliament in order to make a difference, in order to work on issues like poverty, disadvantage – I’ve got a book on inequality coming out next month – those are the issues that get me out of bed in the morning. But I’m of course always happy to come out here and take your questions on any issue.

Journalist:                           But, I mean, it’s your colleagues as well, though that are calling for leadership change [inaudible] last week publically calling for Julia Gillard to stand down.

Andrew Leigh: The things that I’m passionate about are policy issues. I will do my darndest to make my case, to talk through the importance of reforms like DisabilityCare, like the National Broadband Network, and like these vital schools reforms which would be of such benefit to Victorian students if they were to sign up to them. Thanks folks.

Opening Remarks at the Australia Day National Conference

Old Parliament House

13 June 2013

Thank you very much Andrew [Gill], for that wonderful welcome to this historic building. This really is a place where you think, ‘if only the walls could talk’.

I’d like to of course acknowledge we’re meeting on the traditional lands of the Ngunnawal people and pay my respects to their elders past and present. I want to acknowledge Aunty Agnes Shea and Tom Calma who are here today.

I want to also acknowledge Adam Gilchrist. I don’t know if Ita Buttrose is here but I certainly did see Ian Frazer before.

Welcome, everyone, to Canberra. I have the privilege of representing the north half of Canberra in Federal parliament and I really reckon this is the best city in Australia.

I love the place. It’s got a great sense of history about it. Australia’s history is embodied in the names of our local streets.

And it’s got a great sense of community about it too. My family hold a street party every year and that community spirit is something that burns strong in Canberra.

You all though, come from different parts of Australia; we’ve got people here from everywhere from Tennant Creek to Boorowa, from Margaret River to Melbourne.

We’ve got a great variety of people here representing councils across Australia. And you will all have that pride in your part of Australia that I feel in my part of Australia.

I’ve enjoyed chatting this morning with some of you about Australia Day events that you’ve got planned and I guess the thing that everyone in the room has in common is you’re not planning to take January off.

You’re going to be working hard getting those events together and working out what it is that’s going to be unique about your events.

And on Australia Day, you’re going to be putting on events which, if this year was anything to go by, will attract around 5 million Australians.

There’s huge participation in Australia Day events, organised by 780 local Australia Day committees, the 8 state and territory organisations and the national body.

So that sense of local pride and national spirit that engendered by the Australia Day celebrations is, I think, enormously important.

For me, Australia Day is a chance to spend a little bit of time thinking about who we are and recognising that being Australian isn’t about conforming to a stereotype.

Sure, you can be an Aussie if you eat vegemite, drive a Holden, play cricket and enjoy a VB.

But to be Australian isn’t to be part of a stereotype; it’s to believe in a set of values.

And for every generation Australia Day, I think, should be about, I think, updating those values for a new generation.

And for me, these three key values that sum up what it is to be Australian. The first is egalitarianism.

This is the notion, as Russell Ward said in the Australian Legend, “that Jack isn’t just as good as his master, but probably better.”

The notion that we as Australians are a country where people sit in the front seat of the taxi, where we don’t stand up when the Prime Minister enters the room.

A country that believes in fundamental equality of Australians and which has put that into place through policies which helped ensure that the neediest Australians are looked after.

The second value is mateship.

Now, mateship goes back, I think, for many of us to legends of Simpson, and to Weary Dunlop making sure that Aussies in prisoner of war camps shared what they had with their mates so that they could survive.

But there’s a sense in which mateship needs to be renewed and replenished by each generation.

It was renewed by Vincent Lingiari in 1975 when Gough Whitlam poured the red dirt into his hands and Lingiari said, “We’re all mates now”.

But it’s important that modern day mateship also recognises that we’re a more multicultural Australia than we’ve been in the past, that mateship includes all Australians.

And the third notion that I think sums up Australian identity is the ‘fair go’.

The ‘fair go’; a notion that we ought to give everyone a fair shot regardless of their race, their colour, their gender.

The ‘fair go’ needs to recognise too that there was nothing fair about some of the episodes in Australian history. There was nothing fair about the Stolen Generations.

And so if we were to update the ‘fair go’, it needs to be a ‘fair go’ that recognises that half of all Australians were either born overseas or have a parent who was born overseas.

It needs to be a ‘fair go’ that recognises that the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is now the world’s biggest Mardi Gras.

It needs to be a ‘fair go’ that covers us all.

These things, these notions of the spirit are difficult to talk about but I think they’re important.

It was said that in the 1980s when Bob Hawke began to talk about national identity, Neville Wran shook his head and said, “mate, if the greedy bastards wanted spiritualism, they’d join the Hare Krishnas!”

But I think Wran’s wrong.

I think Australians do have a yen for talking about these issues of identity, about their spirit, about who we are.

I think it’s incumbent on us, on today’s generations of Australians, to update and replenish those values of egalitarianism, of mateship and the ‘fair go’, so that they fit a modern Australia.

Best of luck to all of you for the next couple of days. You’ll learn a great deal.

I’ve certainly learned a lot from you. For example, after to talking to some of your NT colleagues, I’ll be seeing what we can do to incorporate a saltwater crocodile into Canberra’s Australia Day celebrations.

Thank you all for being here today and have a great conference.

TRANSCRIPT – THE DRUM
Andrew Leigh MP
Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister
Member for Fraser
11 June 2013

TOPICS                                 Accuracy of political punditry and prediction, Who will be PM at the next election



Julia Baird:                           Alright, well let’s move on now because it’s an election year as you might have figured, and Australian television is brimming with political pundits and their wisdom.  Flick from channel to channel and you’ll find plenty of journalists, ex-politicians and former ministerial staffers who are more than happy to voice their opinions. We even have a few on the Drum tonight and on a lot of nights. But just how accurate are these pundits when it comes to predicting political outcomes? A new study, which analysed comments made on Insiders and Meet the Press for a three month period before the 2007 and 2010 election hopes to answer that question. We’re joined now by the co-author of that report, economist and Labor MP, Andrew Leigh. Andrew Leigh, welcome to the Drum.

Andrew Leigh: G’day Julia

Julia Baird:                           Not wearing a blue tie, but a pink one.

Andrew Leigh: Indeed.

Julia Baird:                           Andrew, can you tell us about this study. Do we have reason to be proud? Because I understand that you’ve concluded that Americans have as much chance of being right, the American pundits, as if you toss a coin. Whereas Australian commentators have a sixty five per cent chance of being right.

Andrew Leigh: That’s right Julia, but the other thing Phillip Metaxas (my co-author) and I found, was that Australian pundits are remarkably reluctant to make forecasts that could turn out to be wrong. We watched over thirty hours of Insiders and Meet the Press and out of that we come up with twenty falsifiable predictions, twenty across thirty hours, so they’re making about a prediction every hour and a half. Yes, they do a smidgen better, but you don’t see a great hit rate among these pundits. It does look to us as though certainly many of the ones that are right are predictions that probably were odds on in any case. All credit to Fran Kelly, but suggesting that Tony Crook would support the Coalition for example was a prediction of hers we rated as correct but we also put in the fairly easy category.

Fran Kelly:                           I agree. I don’t think it was rocket science, but I’ll take it!

Julia Baird:                           Take that Fran, yeah, she was right. So, but Andrew, are you saying our commentators are more cautious than those in other countries? And why is that?

Andrew Leigh: They’re extraordinarily timid I think, Julia, and I think one of the things that’s going on is a sense of couching forecasts. So, saying well this will happen if this doesn’t happen. That’s sort of what I think of as faux forecasting; and attempt to look authoritative without willing to put yourself on the line. It’s a bit like saying, “Collingwood will beat the Swans on the weekend unless the Swans play better.” So…

Julia Baird:                           Is that a cultural thing? What is that about?

Fran Kelly:                           I think that is a good thing!

Andrew Leigh: Well I’m just not sure it’s terribly informative. I think that’s the concern that Phillip and I have and so…

Julia Baird:                           But how can it be, but aren’t you talking about guess work? You’re asking pundits to make more guesses and if in American that only means tossing a coin, perhaps it’s better to be more conservative sometimes?

Andrew Leigh: Well, here’s what we’d like to see…

Julia Baird:                           Yes

Andrew Leigh: We’d either like to see a ban on forecasting or if you’re going to engage in punditry, then engaging in punditry where we can judge your track record. As football forecasters do on a Friday, tell us what you really think – don’t couch your forecasts. I’m a little reluctant to give advice to you - but hey, you guys give a lot of advice to us, so here goes: I think at The Drum you ought to try and nail down your pundits to forecasts that could turn out to be wrong under some state of the world. I think that would give you a better ranking of pundits and it might then decide who to invite back and who could be passed over for the next program.

Julia Baird:                           Oh! Now that’s a tough one. A lot of people would be unemployed, particularly in the US if we use that standard. But let me just ask you quickly, the terms that you use are those employed by the philosopher Isaiah Berlin, ‘hedgehogs’ and the ‘foxes’. Can you explain to us the difference between the two and why it is that ‘hedgehogs’ are seen to make better TV?

Andrew Leigh: So it comes from an old philosophical essay which has the notion that the ‘hedgehog’ knows one big thing and the ‘fox’ knows many things. I think of myself as being a ‘fox’, someone who classically thinks about things in very small boxes, but a ‘hedgehog’ makes much better television. A ‘hedgehog’ is somebody who approaches politics or economics or foreign affairs with a single grand idea. Turns out their track record of prognostication is actually worse. But the problem for shows such as yours is that someone with a big compelling narrative about the world is often the most attractive kind of guest to have on even although they turn out to be wrong more often.

Fran Kelly:                           Yes but Andrew, but I mean are you advocating that we just get more and more into the entertainment business as that’s why we’re here? Or, when people are invited on for these sort of discussions are we there, you know, for analysis rather than being tipsters? I mean, I would think you could give analysis that informs issues without necessarily having to predict and if you want to take the Footy Show analysis well yeah, Collingwood will beat the Swans but the Swans will win if Adam Goodes turns on a blinder. Ok, that’s great. You look for Adam Goodes and then you see who’s going to win. I think that’s a sensible and honourable approach to it.

Andrew Leigh: I think the analysis is fine. It’s the pretend prognostication that troubles Phillip and I. The attempt at looking as though you’ve got a crystal ball but when we go back and have a look at your words we realise that in fact you haven’t really got any skin in the game. You haven’t really put down anything that could leave you embarrassed on Monday morning. Either do it well or don’t do it at all.

Julia Baird:                           Now, Peter Reith we’ve been hearing you chuckling down the line. I don’t know if you consider yourself a ‘hedgehog’ or a ‘fox’, would you like to weigh in?

Peter Reith:                        Well, to be honest with you I thought it must have been April Fools’ Day. I mean, fancy actually suggesting that there should be a ban on punditry which Andrew just… I mean, I thought he must have been laughing, but actually I find out that he’s serious! And then he says, oh, and then if you don’t do that then you know, you should have a regulator, basically, to check, you know, to see who got their punditry, you know, more right than others. I mean, seriously, I mean, what planet are you on, Andrew? I mean, I’m a pundit but, you know, I think, you know, Fran’s point is a bit closer to it. There’s nothing wrong with people saying, “oh I think this is going to happen”, I mean, you know, what’s interesting is what their thoughts are leading to that proposition, but seriously, if the voters and the readers and the listeners can’t work out that pundits have no better idea of the future than anybody else, well, bad luck for them!

[Julia Baird:                         Quick response Andrew?]

Andrew Leigh: Would that that were the case, Peter. It turns out that people place great faith in the prognostication of pundits and I think we can do something to improve the quality of punditry or maybe to replace it with deeper analysis that doesn’t pretend to have a crystal ball but discusses the issues of the day.

Julia Baird:                           Andrew I’m so sorry – we’re going to have to go in just one moment. But before we leave, can you make a political prediction for us then, who’s going to lead your party into the next election?

Andrew Leigh: That will be Prime Minister, Julia Gillard

Julia Baird:                           Anyone else? Let’s see how our panel of pundits goes!

Bruce Haigh:                       Yeah it will be Gillard. I wouldn’t call it ‘lead’ though

Julia Baird:                           Gillard, quickly, Fran?

Fran Kelly:                           I like to hedge my bets but ok, I think it will be Julia Gillard.

Julia Baird:                           And Peter Reith?

Peter Reith:                        Gillard, but when she loses it will be Shorten versus Rudd and Shorten will win because of the unions’ support.

Julia Baird:                           Ok, we’re going to have to leave it there. We’re going to come back and check on those pronouncements. Andrew Leigh, thanks for joining us on the Drum and thanks also to our panel, Bruce Haig, Fran Kelly and Peter Reith. You can check out the Drum online at abc.net.au/thedrum. Join us again the same time tomorrow night, we’ll see you then.

On ABC666 yesterday, I spoke with Ross Solly about politics and policy, rumours and reforms. Here's a podcast.

My new book - Battlers and Billionaires: The Story of Inequality in Australia - will be launched in early-July in Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney. Details below.

* Monday 1 July: Canberra launch by Professor Bob Gregory, 6pm at ANU (click here to RSVP)
* Tuesday 2 July: Melbourne launch by Father Bob Maguire, 6pm at 456 Lonsdale St, Melbourne (click here for details and to RSVP)
* Wednesday 3 July: Sydney launch by Annabel Crabb, 5.30pm at 44 Market St, Sydney (click here for details and to RSVP)

I hope you can attend one of the launch events.

You can pre-order your copy now, at the ‘battlers price’ of $16 (hard copy) or $10 (Kindle edition).

My SMH op-ed today is on the importance of increasing the share of honours given to women.

Why we need more female nominees, Sydney Morning Herald, 10 June 2013

One of the great privileges of being a parliamentarian is that you get to meet so many remarkable people. In the past fortnight, I’ve chatted with an Indigenous elder who’s passionate about early childhood education, and a community leader who’s working to boost volunteering rates. I’ve talked with a young entrepreneur building her start-up, and a painter who is creating stunningly beautiful work. In a job like this, it’s impossible not to be an optimist about Australia’s future.

This is why the biannual Order of Australia awards – granted on Australia Day and on the Queen’s Birthday – provides a welcomed opportunity to officially recognise some of the achievements and services we see from extraordinary Australians. The awards are overseen by the Governor-General, and, as part of a nineteen member Council for the Order of Australia, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister represents the Australian Government in the recommendation process.

It was Gough Whitlam who established the Order of Australia in 1975, replacing the imperial honours system. Since then, over 28,000 people have received the awards that, as Governor-General Quentin Bryce said, aim to ‘elevate the concept of giving to others. They heighten our respect for one another, and they encourage Australians to think about the responsibilities of citizenship in our democracy’.

This year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours List sees 584 recipients receive awards in the general division of the Order of Australia, in recognition of a diverse range of contributions and services to people in Australia and internationally. Another 199 persons have received awards for their meritorious or military service.

Their achievements are inspiring, and it is heartening to see the Australian tradition of generosity and high achievement continue.

In the latest batch of awards, around 40 percent have been awarded to women, up from an average of 30 percent in the period since 1975.

It is particularly pleasing that author, educator and business leader Jill Ker Conway has been recognised for her 44 years of outstanding achievement and community contribution by appointment as a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC), our greatest civic honour. Professor Conway has taken on key leadership roles in the United States in fields as diverse as education, science, business and the arts.

In this latest round, female nominees had a slightly higher chance of receiving an award than male nominees. That suggests that the task for all of us in the future is to make sure we nominate as many talented women as men. As a community, we sometimes overlook work in traditionally feminised fields (such as volunteering and the arts) in favour of traditionally male fields (such as leading large organisations).

So here’s my challenge: if you know people who are doing great work in your community, why not nominate them for an award? And if you’re thinking of nominating a talented woman, you can do so in the knowledge that on the current figures, she’s a better-than-average chance of success.

Andrew Leigh is the federal member for Fraser and Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister. To nominate someone for an Australian honour, go to http://www.itsanhonour.gov.au/

On the same theme, this February 2013 piece by Anne Summers AO is well worth reading.