Andrew Leigh

I spoke in parliament tonight about the death of Mr Yunupingu.

Mr Yunupingu, 4 June 2013

It is my pleasure to follow the eloquent words of the member for Fremantle. In 2008, 17 years after he first sang of 'hearing about it on the radio and seeing it on the television', Mr Yunupingu reflected on the Hawke government's promise for a treaty for Indigenous Australians. 'I am still waiting for that treaty to come along for my grandsons,' he said. 'Even if it is not there in the days that I am living, it might come in the days that I am not living.'

Mr Yunupingu's optimism rings with particular poignancy in light of his passing this weekend. At only 56, his days on this earth were too few. Pushing Indigenous Australian issues to the forefront of the national psyche in a fashion that blended the political with pop culture was a momentous achievement. His influence extended internationally. He drew global attention to the ongoing mistreatment and inequality within Australia, while always encouraging a positive and inclusive attitude. Few of us could forget Yothu Yindi's performance at the 2000 Sydney Olympics closing ceremony, bracketing, as it did, the role that Cathy Freeman played in the opening ceremony and with her victory in the 400 metres. During a period in Australian history where the government was reluctant to say sorry, thousands of voices sang along to Treaty, showing the world that non-Indigenous Australians wanted a better future with our Indigenous brothers and sisters.

Mr Yunupingu's story is one of extraordinary passion, with the importance of identity and of hope for the future. As a member of the Gumatj clan, his ancestral totem was the saltwater crocodile and his family name, Yunupingu, translates to the 'rock that will stand will against anything'.

In his youth he was known simply by a short, anglicised first name, but he chose to shrug off this anglicisation and in his adulthood adopted his Yolngu first name. This act was an embrace of cultural tradition and served as a gentle reminder that no-one should have to adjust their identity for the convenience of others, least of all for the convenience of non-Indigenous Australians, whose tongues struggle with the unfamiliarity of this country's oldest language—as I confess mine does.

Mr Yunupingu began teaching at the Yirrkala school in his early 20s, and in 1987 he became the first Indigenous Australian from Arnhem Land to gain a university degree with his Bachelor of Education. He then broke another barrier by becoming the first Indigenous Australian appointed as a school principal. The curriculum he developed blended both Western and Aboriginal traditions, and this approach was also one he embraced in his music in the band he was fronting in his personal time. Yothu Yindi translates from Yolngu as 'child and mother', and theirs was a musical project that fused traditional Indigenous music with modern rock and pop.

In 1991 Mr Yunupingu stopped teaching to pursue his musical endeavours with the band. Along with the band's other members, Stuart Kellaway, Cal Williams, Witiyana Marika, Milkayngu Mununggurr and Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, the song Treaty was released in 1991. It spent 22 weeks at No. 1 on the Australian singles chart, and gained global recognition in 1992. Yothu Yindi toured the US with the Hon. member for Kingsford Smith's band, Midnight Oil, famously performing at the launch of the United Nations International Year of the World's Indigenous People.

Those who knew him personally say that Mr Yunupingu often spoke of his 'both ways' philosophy, and the need for Aboriginal Australians and non-Aboriginal Australians to speak to one another, not just about one another. This notion of balance and harmony was described by his close friend and fellow musician Paul Kelly, who described Yothu Yindi:

'They are not so much a band as a physical philosophy. All great art contains contradictions. And their art has always rested on holding opposites together. The modern and the tribal, the parent and the child, balanda and yolngu, freshwater and saltwater, seriousness and celebration.'

Mr Yunupingu was named Australian of the Year in 1992 for his contribution to building bridges of understanding between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. Political activism was something of a tradition with the family. His brother, Galarrwuy, had won the award in 1978. Mr Yunupingu was also committed to an extensive array of philanthropic work. He established the Yothu Yindi Foundation as a means to develop Yolngu cultural life, and he built the Yirrnga Music Development Centre, a recording studio for Indigenous artists.

The uniting power of Mr Yunupingu can best be summarised by again drawing on Paul Kelly's words. He paid tribute to Mr Yunupingu by saying:

'You showed me your country, brought me into your family, called me brother. You called the whole country brother.'

Australia has lost a powerful uniting voice. As an educator, a songwriter, a musician and a tireless campaigner, the contribution that Mr Yunupingu made to bridging the cultural and communicatory divide between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians cannot be overstated.

I spoke today on the Matter of Public Importance debate, moved by Malcolm Turnbull.

Matter of Public Importance - National Broadband Network, 4 June 2013

I appreciate the member for Wentworth providing us with a chance to set the record straight on what has been a disgraceful fear campaign by the coalition.

As with any major national project there are important conversations that policymakers need to have about what we want to achieve and how best to set about achieving it. So I want to speak first about why Australia needs the National Broadband Network—a fibre-to-the-home network—and then discuss the issues of asbestos that the honourable member has raised and how the government is responding to those.

The simple fact is that in a 21st century developed country, access to the internet is a form of basic infrastructure. It is to our generation as the water and electricity networks were to generations before. The member for Wentworth knows this; he has great knowledge of the information technology industry—certainly unlike his leader, who has confessed 'I'm no tech-head'.

The member for Wentworth might cast his mind back to 1923, when construction began on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Back then, Sydney was home to fewer than 40,000 cars—not enough to cause a single traffic jam. But when construction on that bridge began the policymakers of the era built a bridge capable of carrying six lanes of traffic flanked by an extra two lanes for trains. It might have seemed a bold move but, as the member for Wentworth well knows, and as his constituents would well know, the Sydney Harbour Bridge is now an indispensable artery of the city's transport system. Over 160,000 cars cross the bridge daily, four times the entire number of cars that existed in the city of Sydney when construction of the bridge first began.

The point here is that the Sydney Harbour Bridge was not designed for the Sydney of the 1920s; it was designed for, and it continues to serve, a Sydney of the future. And it is that same spirit with which Labor first proposed a national broadband network. We do not know precisely how our technological use will change in the future. But one way of thinking about this is to think about how our own IT usage has changed just in the past 10 years, and then imagine it changing just as dramatically again.

That is why we need the National Broadband Network. Under the NBN, every home and every business will have access to superfast internet via optic fibre, fixed wireless and satellite technologies. For 93 per cent of homes and businesses this will be a national fibre network. The point here is that unlike copper, which transmits electrical current, fibre uses pulses of light to transmit information. Over recent years, engineers have steadily been achieving more rapid fibre transmission speeds: up from 100 megabits a second a few years ago to 1,000 megabits a second today. That is the difference between being able to download a CD full of information every five seconds rather than every 50 seconds. And the boffins do not think that they have found the limit on fibre just yet. Some tests suggest that it could be up to 1,000 times faster again. Unlike copper, fibre-to-the-premises is an information superhighway without a speed limit.

People in my own electorate of Fraser are already seeing the benefits the NBN has to offer. Gungahlin Library is part of the Gungahlin Digital Hub, where residents are able to learn more about how to access the NBN. They are running free training sessions, covering a range of computer basics, every day online activities, online safety and security and connection options. I would encourage those opposite, whether they call themselves tech heads, or especially if they do not, to visit the Gungahlin Library to learn about how the NBN is delivering.

I have welcomed the release of detailed maps by NBN Co. which show where the construction of the National Broadband Network will start. The maps show that NBN fibre has been rolling out across Civic, Acton and parts of Braddon, as well as in Gungahlin. It is worth making the point that for all its conniptions about Labor's National Broadband Network, the coalition has now adopted a policy which has a multibillion dollar price tag and which has the same accounting treatment as Labor's NBN, but which ultimately will deliver far slower speeds than the NBN. So the need for the National Broadband Network is clear.

I want to turn now, though, to the issue that the member for Wentworth has raised over managing asbestos risk during the rollout. As has been made clear during question time, the health and safety of Australian workers and Australian communities is our number one priority. As the opposition would be well aware, Telstra has accepted full responsibility for the issue. The government is expecting Telstra and its contractors to follow Australia's strict laws on the handling and removal of asbestos in preparing its pits and ducts for the rollout of the NBN. Those pits and ducts are owned by Telstra and used by NBN Co.

We have announced that the first National Asbestos Exposure Register will be created and maintained by the new National Asbestos Safety and Eradication Authority. This continues the strong tradition in the Australian Labor movement, leading the national charge on identifying and eradicating the scourge of asbestos and asbestos-related disease.

It was the labour movement that got asbestos banned: blue in 1967, brown in the mid-1980s, white in 2003. That happened thanks to pressure from the labour movement. There cannot be any shortcuts in asbestos safety. We understand that and we have acted.

There have been a number of incidents in recent times through the remediation of Telstra's pits and ducts, and that includes in Penrith. There has been at least one as a result of work being done by contractors to NBN Co. When you are working in the telecommunications industry and doing this type of work, you will deal with asbestos. That is well known. But the most important issue, and the one the government has continued to focus on, is to ensure that the strict laws in place for the handling and removal of asbestos are followed at all times. It does not matter if you are Telstra, if you are NBN Co., if you are a builder doing renovations: asbestos has to be dealt with in a safe and appropriate way.

The coalition cannot pretend that this issue would not arise under their policy. If you are advancing fibre-to-the-node technology, as the opposition does—and they have accepted that it is a slower technology that will deliver slower broadband speeds—it will involve working in areas with asbestos risk. To suggest otherwise is to suggest that perhaps we are intending to leave the copper in the ground forever, that Australia will forever have a copper network. Copper to the home is not something that anyone believes Australia will have in a century's time.

NBN Co. is continuing to assess the situation but it does not expect it to impede the overall rollout. The construction process already takes into account a period of several months in each area for Telstra to remediate its infrastructure. The remediation of Telstra's infrastructure is carried out by Telstra and it is paid for by Telstra. Telstra has known for 30 years about the presence of asbestos in its pits, and this is a process which will be managed by Telstra.

Since 2007, Labor has done more than any previous government to combat the problem of asbestos. We have established the National Asbestos Agency, the National Asbestos Plan and the National Asbestos Exposure Register. Under the Gillard government we established the asbestos management review in 2010. Before that there was no coordinated or consistent approach to managing asbestos beyond workplaces. That is why earlier this year we also introduced legislation to parliament to establish the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency. In the 2013-14 budget we provided that agency with $10½ million in funding over the next four years to help protect Australians from asbestos related diseases. The agency will pave a new way for a national approach to asbestos eradication. It will handle asbestos awareness and education. It will administer a national strategic plan.

Conversely, what can we say about the record of the coalition on asbestos management? I am sure some of the speakers who will follow me will say something about the Leader of the Opposition's track record in this regard. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition was a lawyer who fought to deny compensation to thousands of victims of CSR's asbestos mine in Wittenoom. Back in 2004 it was Labor who shamed the coalition into returning donations given to them by James Hardie. In 2007, as health minister, the Leader of the Opposition refused to list on the PBS a drug known as Alimta, which would ease the suffering of asbestosis patients.

Mr Turnbull: Mr Deputy Speaker, on a point of order: the remarks that the honourable member has made about the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Opposition are not relevant to this MPI. He is just having a free kick.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Murphy): The member for Wentworth will resume his seat. The parliamentary secretary will speak to the motion.

Dr LEIGH: Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I understand why those opposite are concerned about the track record of the two major parties when it comes to asbestos. As Fairfax media has reported, in 2001 Telstra wanted to create an independent body to fast-track compensation payments to employees exposed to asbestos and sought approval from the then department of workplace relations. The then minister for workplace relations was the now opposition leader, so the fact is that the opposition leader knew as far back as 2001 that Telstra was aware of asbestos in its infrastructure and sat on his hands. It is time for the opposition leader to explain what he knew, what correspondence he had with Telstra about asbestos in 2001 when he was workplace relations minister and why he chose to ignore it.

In 2005 a question on notice was asked of then Minister McGauran, representing the then communications minister, Senator Coonan, about Telstra's use of asbestos. The minister provided an answer in February 2006—not exactly a speedy answer, but an answer nonetheless—that explained Telstra's use of asbestos in pits, ducts and exchanges and the possibility of exposure. So those opposite cannot argue that the Howard government was ignorant of this issue. The Howard government was in fact well aware of the issues with asbestos and Telstra's infrastructure. Those opposite have a track record of this standing up for James Hardie, while those on this side of the House have a track record of standing up for those who have been affected by asbestos, of standing up for workers, of standing up for people like Bernie Banton.

We know the National Broadband Network is a necessity. We are working to mitigate the risks that are generated by building the NBN, but only someone who argues that they will never open a single pit again can promise that this asbestos will not be disturbed. The coalition's policy is a policy which builds fibre to suburban nodes. It is the kind of 'get your water at the village well' approach. If you want to build fibre from the node to the home you will have to pay for it yourself, at $5,000 a pop. That is not only inequitable but it will mean that for many Australian households their connections are 25 megabits a second at best. That is around one-40th the speed that the NBN can provide. I am sure slow upload and download speeds trouble the member for Wentworth, but they do not trouble the Leader of the Opposition. He has made the brash statement that he is 'confident 25 megs is enough for the average household'. I have talked about what that kind of thinking in the 1920s would have meant for the Sydney Harbour Bridge: the Leader of the Opposition would have built a single-lane bridge because that was enough for the then 40,000 cars in Sydney.

But we do not have to use infrastructure analogies; we can use IT analogies. When I bought my first computer in 1984 it had 3½ kilobytes of memory. I do not think that we send emails that small these days. But in fact in that period the then computer editor of The Sydney Morning Herald, Gareth Powell, wrote that he thought no program would ever need more than 16 kilobytes. Statements like that are a warning to anyone who forgets that the things we can do with technology far outpace our imagination. The sorts of statements by the Leader of the Opposition suggesting that 25 megabits a second is enough ought to embarrass the member for Wentworth, and I know they trouble many prominent Australians. Dr Karl Kruszelnicki recently told me that he regularly talks to school classes using Skype. With the Australian classes the copper connection is unreliable and has to be reset a couple of times an hour. But if he talks to Korean or Japanese students, he can expect an uninterrupted high-resolution videoconference. That is what the National Broadband Network will deliver to Australians.

[caption id="attachment_4320" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Chris Manchester, Wendy Tuckerman, Michael Pilbrow, Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Rowena Abbey, Geoff Kettle & John Shaw"][/caption]

I spoke in parliament yesterday about the need to make the Barton Highway safer, ahead of a meeting the PM had with mayors and Labor candidate for Hume Michael Pilbrow.

Barton Highway, 3 June 2013

Last week there was a head-on crash on the Barton Highway, between Yass and Murrumbateman. The drivers of both cars were hospitalised with critical injuries, and the single-carriageway highway was closed in both directions for several hours.

Thankfully, this incident did not claim any lives; unlike a similar head-on collision in February this year in which one of the motorists, an ACT resident, was tragically killed.

The Barton Highway is a part of the national highway system and a key link between Canberra and the national grid, and it is unacceptable that it remains so dangerous. The risks are only going to increase as traffic volumes build, because the Yass valley area is one of the fastest growing regions in New South Wales. For example, Murrumbateman has grown from having a population of around 350 in 1984 to some 3,000 today.

Thanks to pressure from my predecessor, Bob McMullan; Labor's 2007 candidate for Hume, David Grant; and locals, including Murrumbateman resident John Gelling, Labor devoted $36 million to roadworks to address a notorious danger spot, the Gounyan curves. This 4.5 kilometre section of improvements removed seven bends. It was my pleasure to officially open the improved section in November 2011.

Many locals still believe the Barton Highway should be duplicated. The Commonwealth would be prepared to consider a proposal for this, but at present New South Wales has not even listed it as a priority, which is disappointing, given that the National Party's member for Burrinjuck serves in Barry O'Farrell's cabinet—yet she is unable to get the road onto the New South Wales state government short-list for urgent action.

A strong campaigner for duplication of the Barton highway is Labor candidate for Hume, Michael Pilbrow. Like many people in Hume, Michael regularly travels the Barton Highway to attend meetings in Canberra. He sometimes travels the road with his children and he knows the risk it brings.

There is no more passionate champion of duplicating the Barton than Michael Pilbrow. Tomorrow, he will be meeting with Prime Minister Gillard along with Rowena Abbey, the Mayor of Yass; Geoff Ketle, the Mayor of Goulburn; Wendy Tuckerman, the Mayor of Booroowa; Chris Manchester, the Mayor of Harden; and John Shaw the Mayor of Upper Lachlan. The meeting will further push for the Barton Highway duplication, and a petition calling for duplication, initiated by the Mayor of Yass, will be presented to the Prime Minister.

Every day over 6,000 people commute from the Hume electorate to the ACT. As a Canberran, I applaud Michael Pilbrow's activism. He is a candidate who lives in the electorate, who is raising his family there and who is working hard to address local issues such as the Barton Highway duplication. He is a candidate who would serve the people of Hume well in this parliament. I wish him and the local mayors the best in their efforts for improving the safety of the Barton Highway, and I wish Michael Pilbrow my personal best in fighting this election.

My op-ed in today's AFR looks at the prospects for jumpstarting Japan's ailing economy.

Three Arrows on Their Way, Australian Financial Review, 4 June 2013

In the mid-1930s, John Maynard Keynes coined the phrase ‘animal spirits’ to sum up the impact of a country’s mood on its economic environment. When nations get stuck in a funk, it’s hard to escape. Conversely, when growth gets going, exuberance builds on exuberance (sometimes to the point of creating a bubble). Either way, the sentiments of consumers and businesses can build on one another.

For Japan, the post-war decades are a story of astonishing transformation, as the country transformed itself from a developing to a developed country. By the 1980s, airport bookshelves were filled with tomes about the virtues of the Japanese economic model, with titles like Trading Places: How we are Giving Our Future to Japan and How to Reclaim It and Blindside: Why Japan Is Still on Track to Overtake the U.S. by the Year 2000.

But the past twenty years have been a story of malaise. Hard as it is to believe, the Japanese economy – in nominal terms – is almost exactly the same size as it was twenty years ago. The deflation trap has proved devilishly hard to escape, and net government debt is now more than 140 percent of GDP, the highest in the OECD (Australia’s debt share is one of the lowest).

Yet all this may be about to change, thanks to a policy dubbed ‘Abenomics’ after the country’s new Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe. In a series of recent meetings with senior economic policymakers, I was struck by the positive impact that these policies appear to be having on the national mood.

Prime Minister Abe has identified three strategies to promote growth, which he refers to as his ’three arrows’. The reference is to a Japanese legend in which a father shows his three sons that a single arrow can be snapped easily, but three together cannot be broken.

The first arrow is monetary policy. In an effort to break out of deflation, the new central bank governor Haruhiko Kuroda has committed to a 2 per cent inflation target, to be achieved via a massive bond-buying program. The second arrow is fiscal policy, focused particularly on reconstruction efforts after the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.

While monetary and fiscal policy can jump-start an economy, productivity growth is what keeps the engine humming along. So Japan’s third arrow – structural reform – is the one that matters most for enduring economic growth. While previous Japanese governments have typically shied away from major trade liberalisation, Prime Minister Abe has stated that a hallmark of his administration will be pursuit of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free trading zone in the Asia Pacific. In Australia’s case, a study by the Productivity Commission’s Dean Parham estimated that half of our productivity growth in the 1990s was due to our trade liberalisation. Japan could reap a similar reward.

Other reforms that people spoke about with me included encouraging more start-up firms, expanding the availability of child care in order to boost female labour force participation, and improving the efficiency of the service sector.

For Australia, the payoff from a growing Japanese economy is considerable. As the government’s Australia in the Asian Century White Paper noted, Japan is our second-largest trading partner and our third-largest source of foreign direct investment. We provide them with minerals, agriculture and energy; they provide us with manufactured products and foreign investment. The Australian and Japanese economies are remarkably complementary. At senior levels, there is a keen awareness that Prime Minister Gillard was the first foreign leader to visit Japan after the 2011 earthquake. Following the Labor Government’s Asian Century White Paper, all Australian high school children will soon have the opportunity to learn Japanese.

Japan’s nascent recovery could still go awry, as the recent downtick in the Nikkei has reminded us. The consumption tax has been legislated to rise from 5 percent to 10 percent by 2015. Demographics remain a serious concern, with the population due to shrink from the current 128 million to 95 million by 2050.

And yet for now, it is pleasantly surprising to see the general enthusiasm with which Abenomics has been embraced. Keynes’ animal spirits are alive and well in Tokyo, and for now, the three arrows seem to be flying towards their mark.

Andrew Leigh is the federal member for Fraser, and Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister. He recently represented the Australian Government at the Nikkei International Conference on "The Future of Asia" in Tokyo. His website is www.andrewleigh.com.

I spoke in parliament today about Coalition costings, and the importance of parliament expressing its confidence in Treasury officials.

Confidence in Treasury, 3 June 2013

Too often the crucial work of our nation's public servants goes unnoticed and goes unthanked. As the member for Fraser I am pleased to say that many of these hardworking public servants are my constituents. I myself have been seconded to Treasury and have seen firsthand the hard work of those public servants. We on this side of the House believe in a frank and fearless Public Service in the great Westminster tradition. Those opposite would prefer to have a flaccid and fearful Public Service. That is their ideal of public service.

It is clear why those opposite have spent three years waging a smear campaign against Treasury. It is because they have an ever-widening costings black hole. They are therefore desperate to avoid scrutiny of their costings, and they see the boffins and the bean counters as an obstacle to that. At the 2010 election, the member for North Sydney concocted bogus allegations of Treasury politicisation to avoid submitting coalition policies to Treasury and Finance. Instead, the opposition had their policies costed by a private accounting firm, who overlooked that they had an $11 billion black hole. That private accounting firm was subsequently fined by the Institute of Chartered Accountants for breaching professional standards. Despite that, the member for Goldstein has in this chamber claimed that those faux costings were 'as good as you can get anywhere in the country, including in Treasury'.

On 19 September, I was witness in this chamber to a savage attack by the member for Goldstein against the institution of Treasury and against then Treasury Secretary Ken Henry, who, as honourable members know, was appointed by Treasurer Costello to that position.

The member for Goldstein claimed the $11 billion black hole was:

‘… something fabricated with the use of Treasury officials to give government a political advantage.’

The member for Mackellar—who in 1992 shot to prominence after attacking public servant Trevor Boucher—joined in, saying:

‘… this Parliamentary Budget Office is something that is simply linked to the coattails of Treasury.’

She went on:

‘I made the point that Treasury and the head of Treasury had been rewarded for things that they had done to assist the government … it is politicised and that is why we cannot trust them.’

The member for Mackellar has even said of former Treasury Secretary Ken Henry:

‘He served the government very well in the latter stages of his appointment, particularly when it came to assessing the budget savings that were put forward by the opposition prior to the last election.’

This is like a rich kid who gets a maths question wrong and, instead of accepting the right answer, goes to the principal asking for the teacher to be sacked.

The opposition in the last election were badly out in their costings, and their pretext now is that budget forecasts cannot be relied on. The member for North Sydney has said:

‘The numbers are just not believable. It is fundamentally a dishonest budget.  … I don't believe they are Treasury numbers. They are Wayne Swan's numbers.’

Treasury Secretary Martin Parkinson has directly rejected these allegations. He said on 21 May:

‘I can say on behalf of David Tune, the secretary of the Department of Finance and myself—and get this right—were PEFO to have been released on the 14th of May, it would have contained the numbers that were in the budget.’

PEFO is produced independently by Treasury and Finance in caretaker period without political oversight. Dr Parkinson has told us in crystal clear terms that the numbers in the budget represent the best professional estimates of Treasury and Finance. They have not been tampered with by the Deputy Prime Minister as those opposite would have you believe. They are the best estimates of honest and hardworking public servants.

The member for North Sydney continued his extraordinary slur, saying:

‘I would have expected Martin Parkinson to say nothing different yesterday because he is, quite appropriately, a servant of the government.’

This is continuing in the same vein as the members for Goldstein and Mackellar. He should withdraw that claim. Attacking Treasury is not only unfounded; it is also weak. In public debate, public servants do not have the opportunity to defend themselves as we in this place do. It is wrong to treat them like a political football.

On the other side of politics, Senator Sinodinos, my opposition counterpoint as Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition, has worked hard in the Department of Treasury and knows as I do the important work that they do.

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

TOPICS: Asbestos in Telstra pits, DisabilityCare’s location in Geelong, Labor pre-selection for Batman, 457 visas

Kieran Gilbert:                   This is AM Agenda, thanks for your company. With me now Liberal frontbencher, Senator Mitchell Fifield and Labor frontbencher, Andrew Leigh. Gentlemen, on the asbestos issue, obviously very serious. Andrew Leigh, we’ve got this crisis meeting today. The Coalition are saying the buck should stop with the Government, do you accept that?

Andrew Leigh: Well Kieran, it’s important to understand how this process operates. The pits are leased by NBN Co from Telstra, and Telstra’s required to have done the appropriate remediation work beforehand. Clearly in certain of these instances that hasn’t happened and that’s why Ministers Shorten and Conroy are holding talks today in Canberra with representatives from Telstra and NBN Co. I understand Telstra is going to be putting on additional people to do the remediation, NBN Co will be putting on additional people to do the checks, and Telstra will also do a better job of keeping local residents informed about remediation because people are understandably concerned when they see signs talking about asbestos in their street. Telstra has got a hotline too, which I’m sure you’re able to put up for your viewers for anyone who’s concerned [1800 067 225].

Kieran Gilbert:                   Senator Fifield, do you accept that this could have happened under the Coalition alternative as well?

Mitch Fifield:                      Well, no! I mean, this Government, we’ve got to be fair, does have the Midas touch in reverse; everything they touch goes wrong. But everything to do with the NBN has been half-arsed from the outset. There was no business plan, there was no attempt to look at alternatives, there was no cost-benefit analysis. The NBN has been a disaster from beginning to end. The virtue of the Coalition’s alternative plan is that we would use what is colloquially called the existing legacy infrastructure. And that would mean that we would be disturbing far less of the pits than is the case under this Government. But look, when you have a flawed process from the outset, you do have, down the track, unforeseen negative outcomes and this looks like being one of them.

Kieran Gilbert:                   We’ve got the, as I said, those crisis talks, a bit later in the day we’ll take you to any developments when they happen a bit later with the Shorten – Conroy meeting today with the Telstra executives. Live as we speak on multi-view if you want to watch it is the announcement that Geelong is going to be the headquarters for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. We’ve got live coverage on multi-view, we’ll take you there live when the Prime Minister speaks but at the moment you can watch it, if you want to, via your multi-view service. Andrew Leigh, Tony Abbott says the Government is catching up here, because the Coalition has already indicated that they were going to do this.

Andrew Leigh: You’re talking about the DisabilityCare announcement?

Kieran Gilbert:                   DisabilityCare, and the headquarters in Geelong.

Andrew Leigh: Well, certainly having DisabilityCare up and running is something that would only ever going to happen under a Labor government. I’m very pleased that the Coalition has supported it, and that’s due in no small part to the advocacy of Mitch Fifield who’s a strong advocate for people with disabilities.

Kieran Gilbert:                   And the headquarters in Geelong?

Andrew Leigh: Well I don’t think anyone in the disability community really believes that we would have DisabilityCare today were a Coalition government to have been in office, it just wouldn’t have come on the radar. So, this is a great reform, it’s great to see that the headquarters up and running, supporting people with disabilities and their families. I’m always a supporter of public service jobs in Canberra, but I’m pleased to see DisabilityCare up and running now.

Kieran Gilbert:                   Senator Fifield, the local member, Richard Marles, says that this is a good development making, you know, moving headquarters for a significant government agency to a regional centre, so I want to get your thoughts on that, and also on Andrew Leigh’s suggestion that this would have never have happened under a Coalition government. I guess you might disagree with that.

Mitch Fifield:                      Well, look the credit for the NDIS has to go Australians with disability, their carers and the organisations that support them; they’re really the ones who put this on the map. But when it comes to the Geelong headquarters, the Government has been playing catch up, but Sarah Henderson, our candidate for Corangamite, and Peter Reid, our candidate for Corio, have been calling for the headquarters in Geelong for quite some time. And we can’t forget that the Victorian government have had $25 million on the table for the best part of the year, to support and encourage the establishment of the NDIS headquarters in Geelong. So, this really is, I think, a Liberal win. The Victorian government were pushing for this hard, and we’ve said all along that the NDIS headquarters shouldn’t be in Canberra. Today is a good day.

Kieran Gilbert:                   Alright, let’s move on. The Batman pre-selection; I’m interested to get your thoughts on that. We heard from Mary-Anne Thomas earlier, the, I think, front runner when it comes to the female candidates at least. But David Feeney, is the front runner overall, the Labor party powerbroker, played a crucial role when having the Prime Minister assume the role and dumping Kevin Rudd. Tanya Plibersek , Penny Wong, Jenny Macklin all endorsing Mary-Anne Thomas, an executive with Plan International, that children’s development agency, but not the Prime Minister. What’s going on?

Andrew Leigh: Ah, look Kieran, my view is that people from different jurisdictions shouldn’t be diving into pre-selections elsewhere. Certainly, as I recall, Mitch Fifield didn’t dive in the pre-selection where Zed Seselja got rid of the incumbent Senator Gary Humphries here in the ACT, and I think he was probably right to do that.

Kieran Gilbert:                   But on the principle of having more women in parliament?

Andrew Leigh: Well I’m a strong supporter of affirmative action, in the ACT Labor has more women than men, Labor has more women than men in the federal parliament; and I think that’s a great thing. Overall you can see our affirmative action program has delivered far more women in parliament, far more women in cabinet then you’ve seen before. Certainly Labor significantly leads the Coalition in terms of women in parliament across Australia, affirmative action is a key part of that, and it’s important that we maintain that.

Kieran Gilbert:                   Including the first female Prime Minister?

Andrew Leigh: Absol –

Kieran Gilbert:                   That’s a decent record. Senator Fifield?

Mitch Fifield:                      Well look, we don’t need affirmative action or quotas in the Liberal party to get talented people, like Julie Bishop, Sophie Mirabella, Susanne Ley, Kelly O’Dwyer into comfortable, um, what you might call safe, conservative seats. So…

Kieran Gilbert:                   So the reason you don’t choose women is because you have few people of talent?

Mitch Fifield:                      No, what I’m saying is, we don’t need quotas or affirmative action to get good women into safe seats in the parliament. The Labor Party does, we pursue a merit approach, but I have to say in relation to Batman, I’ve actually got a bit of a vested interest here; I live in Batman, and I don’t particularly want David Feeney as my local member and I’m very much on the Martin Ferguson it’s-time-to-reconsider-your-decision-and-stay-Federal-Parliament camp. Martin’s a good guy, I think it’s to the discredit of the Australian Labor party that he doesn’t feel that he can remain in this parliament or serve in this Government any longer, so Martin Ferguson, please reconsider, what have the people of Batman done to deserve David Feeney?

Kieran Gilbert:                   Well I don’t think there’s much chance of that. But…

Andrew Leigh: Does he get your vote if he stays, Mitch?

Mitch Fifield:                      Well look, he gets…

Andrew Leigh: But if you want him that much, surely you should be offering to vote for him.

Mitch Fifield:                      Look, Martin has always got my second preference.

Andrew Leigh: [Laughter] oh, come on!

Kieran Gilbert:                   I don’t think your vote counts much. Labor holds it by 25%, don’t they?

Mitch Fifield:                      Well, I’ve spoken to Martin, he does appreciate my second preference.

Kieran Gilbert:                   I’m sure he would.

Andrew Leigh: Look, Martin’s was a great career. There’s no taking anything away from that. The career through the union movement, the career in politics, and those testimonies to him in the House of Reps were pretty impressive.

Kieran Gilbert:                   What does it say about the Labor party today if he doesn’t feel he can continue? He obviously feels that you’ll walk into a brick wall at the election, and wants to get out.

Andrew Leigh: This isn’t a bloke that walked into Parliament yesterday, Kieran. Martin is somebody who has had a significant career in federal politics, longer than most people serve in the federal parliament. He’s chosen to choose to exit at a time of his choosing and I think that that’s a great thing.

Kieran Gilbert:                   Let’s move on, and talk about the 457 visa issue, Simon Crean, another former ACTU boss, long serving minister says that the unions have gone about this the wrong way in calling for a crackdown. He wants to see the evidence of rorts happening if you’re going to announce greater fines and so on.

Andrew Leigh: Sure.

Kieran Gilbert:                   So what’s going on here? Is the Government beating this up to be a distraction to try and play xenophobic card?

Andrew Leigh: No, let me give you the evidence. We’ve done a survey recently of employers who employed 457 workers and that found that 15% said that they could’ve sourced that labour locally. Now that’s against the program. The program is meant to be one which says you can bring in temporary migrants from overseas if you’re unable to find a local to do the job. But 15% of employers say in these surveys that actually there was a local that could’ve done the job. That’s a concern because when you have people breaking the rules…

Kieran Gilbert:                   Simon Crean’s asking, why would employers do this? Why would they be seeking to not go to Australian workers first, it defies common sense.

Andrew Leigh: You have a range of reasons why people might look at overseas workforces. Certainly that one of the things I’ve heard speaking to local unions in areas where they’ve got 457 workers is that employers will sometimes go for overseas workers because they want a workforce that is more compliant, that less likely to band together for better pay and conditions because they’ve only got a temporary stake in the job. Whereas when you’ve got workers who are there for long careers, they’re willing to stand up for occupational health and safety, for good pay and conditions. And they’re principles that I think are important.

Kieran Gilbert:                   If that’s the figure, according to the data that Andrew Leigh has referred to there, 15%. That’s certainly not a small number, that’s something that warrants investigation, isn’t it?

Mitch Fifield:                      Well look, we don’t want to see anyone abusing the system, but the Minister has been spectacularly unsuccessful in actually demonstrating where the rorts are. A couple of weeks ago he just randomly plucked a figure out of the air, I think it was ten thousand cases of rorting, and then when asked to back it up, he couldn’t produce a single example. Now, sure, in any system like this, there will be people who aren’t doing the right thing. But…

Kieran Gilbert:                   Under the Coalition, if the Coalition wins in September as all expectations and polls suggest, will you, would we see an expansion of 457 visas?

Mitch Fifield:                      Well, there’s been a significant expansion of 457 visas under the current Government. Now, 457 visas will reflect the shortages that are there. There’s no target or magic figure for the appropriate number of 457 visas; they’re driven by need. That’s how the system should work. Look, what this Government has been doing is seeking to use 457 visas as a mechanism to raise xenophobia in the Australian community. Now, the Australian public aren’t racist, they’re not xenophobic. I don’t think that this Government’s campaign will work, if the Government proposed some common sense changes then sure, we’ll look at those, but I think that it’s been pretty unedifying; the Government’s approach to 457 visas over the past few months.

Andrew Leigh: For the Party that’s talked about a ‘peaceful invasion’, who talks about ‘illegal arrivals’, to now be suggesting that we are raising xenophobia, is a bit rich.

Kieran Gilbert:                   I’ve got to interrupt gents, in fact we’re out of time for the program, but good timing, Julia Gillard just got to the stage to the lectern there at the launch of the NDIS headquarters in Geelong. Let’s cross there live…

MEDIA RELEASE

Joe Hockey's Golden Rule

Shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey, this morning used Channel 7’s Sunrise program to gloat about the fact that Liberal governments drive down house prices in the ACT.

“Joe Hockey: There is a golden rule for real estate in Canberra. You buy Liberal and you sell Labor. Think about it.” Sunrise, 31 May 2013



Joe Hockey has said that he would cut 20,000 public servants from Canberra, 12,000 in the first two years alone.

These promises are eerily similar to what happened when the Liberals were last in government.

Despite promising only modest cuts to public service job numbers before the election, the Howard government slashed tens of thousands of public service jobs in 1996 and 1997.

The flow-on effects of these cuts to Canberra’s economy were devastating. Research shows that they resulted in $25,000 being cut from the price of the average Canberra house.

Today, Joe Hockey proudly jokes about how the same thing will occur should the Liberals win in September.

The Liberals' contempt for Canberra is breathtaking. It’s not enough that the Liberals are planning devastating cuts to Canberra’s economy that will have crippling effects on households, they’re laughing about it too.

MEDIA RELEASE

What cuts will be made to fund Tony Abbott's Direct Action Policy?

Spokesperson for Coalition Costings, Andrew Leigh has today called on Tony Abbott to release the full costings for his Direct Action plan to lower carbon emissions.

Tony Abbott claims his subsidies for polluters policy will cut Australia’s emissions by 85 million tonnes in 2020 by simply by storing carbon in the soil; Mr Abbott’s ‘Soil Magic’.

Climate Change Departmental officials have now told Senate estimates soil carbon and vegetation measures combined can only reduce emissions by around 4 million tonnes in 2020 – less than one-twentieth of the amount Tony Abbott claims.

“If these measures will only cut emissions by one-twentieth of what he originally envisaged, will Mr Abbott abandon the bipartisan emissions reduction target, bust the budget, or propose further savage cuts to meet it?” said Dr Leigh.



The Coalition’s subsidies for polluters policy has been universally ridiculed by scientists, economists, business leaders and even Liberal Party members. It will cost households at least $1300/year and won’t meet Australia’s commitments to being part of the solution to dangerous climate change.

As former Liberal Leader Malcolm Turnbull has noted, “a direct action policy where industry is able to freely pollute and the government is just spending more and more taxpayers’ money to offset it, that would become a very expensive charge on the budget.” (ABC Lateline, 18 May 2011)

“Mr Abbott needs to come clean about how much households will have to pay, what new tax will be introduced, or what cuts will be made to pay for it,” said Dr Leigh

“With the School Kids Bonus, superannuation increases, and cuts to education already on the chopping block, what else will Mr Abbott look at cutting to meet the missing 19/20ths of his emissions target?” said Mr Leigh.

I spoke in parliament today about a bill that will ensure post-election audits, and hopefully encourage the Coalition to let their policies out of hiding.

Parliamentary Budget Office, 28 May 2013

Although this is a topic that I feel very strongly about, there is a large number of bills before the House so I will speak briefly today. The Parliamentary Budget Office was established on the recommendation of a joint select committee of parliament including support from all parties. The aim of the PBO is to ensure that elections are fought around values, so that there are two well-costed sets of policies which face the Australian people. The alternative to the Parliamentary Budget Office is what we saw in the 2010 election where the coalition avoided the Charter of Budget Honesty, a charter set up by Peter Costello, and then went to the election offering policies which instead had been so-called 'audited' by a private accounting firm. That accounting firm was later fined for professional misconduct because they had not conducted an audit. We had the farce of the member for North Sydney claiming that they had only conducted a small 'a' audit. Unfortunately, audit only has a small 'a'. The coalition were, needless to say, embarrassed by this, embarrassed by the $11 billion hole in their costings which Treasury exposed. We saw some deeply disappointing scenes in here when members of the opposition criticised former Treasury secretary Ken Henry for doing his job and simply scrutinising coalition costings.

But what the Parliamentary Service Amendment (Parliamentary Budget Officer) Bill 2013 will do is now place the role of a post-election audit in the hands of the Parliamentary Budget Office. So even if a party does what the coalition does at the last election and fails to put forward policies under the Charter of Budget Honesty, the Parliamentary Budget Office will still go ahead after the election and assess their costings. It will use its best professional judgement and it will draw on data provided by agencies including the Australian Taxation Office. That is an important reassurance to the Australian people, that if a party attempts to circumvent the Charter of Budget Honesty they will be caught in the noose of the Parliamentary Budget Office's post-election audit. It is a guarantee to the Australian people that they should have costed policies put in front of them. But the Australian people are not yet seeing that from the opposition. The opposition have, on their own admission, a $70 billion gap. That is not my number. That is a number which was first put forward by the member for North Sydney on the Sunrise program on 12 August 2011, when he said:

‘Therefore finding $50, 60 or 70 billion is about identifying waste and identifying areas where you do not need to proceed with programs.’

On Meet the Press the member for Goldstein said:

‘We came out with the figure, right?’

That was on 4 September 2011, and on ABC's AM, on 12 August 2011, the member for Goldstein said, 'It's a case of simple arithmetic.' They did regret it a little later, with the member for North Sydney saying on 8 February 2012, 'Okay, I shouldn't have said any figure because it was part of a debate and now it has been taken as a statement of fact.' But the cat at that stage was well and truly out of the bag.

We have that significant costings hole on the coalition side and the coalition now suggesting to the Australian people that they will do the mathematically impossible, that they will manage to cut taxes, raise spending and pay down debt faster than Labor. At the same time as promising the mathematically impossible, the coalition are repeatedly attempting to avoid scrutiny. They are saying to the Australian people that they will not produce their policies until PEFO, the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook. Unfortunately, Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson directly rejected the allegation of the opposition that budget numbers cannot be a basis for costings. Treasury secretary Parkinson said, on 21 May 2013:

‘I can say on behalf of David Tune, the secretary of the department of finance, and myself—and get this right—were PEFO to have been released on the 14th of May it would have contained the numbers that were in the budget.’

As Senator Wong has said, the numbers are the numbers. The figures in the budget are not figures which have a partisan hue to them. They are the figures that are the best estimates of Treasury as to the state of the nation's finances.

Based on those figures, the Australian people are entitled to hear what the opposition would do in order to close that $50 billion, $60 billion or $70 billion hole.

The member for North Sydney has said:

‘I would have expected Martin Parkinson to say nothing different yesterday because he is—quite appropriately—a servant of the Government.’

That is a slur on a professional public servant who upholds the best of frank and fearless advice, not the kind of flaccid and fearful public servants that the coalition would like to see but a frank and fearless tradition. The member for North Sydney should withdraw the slur on the Secretary to the Treasury, which is in essence arguing that the Treasury secretary is a liar and a law-breaker.

I commend the bill to the House. I commend the hard work of public servants, particularly Treasury officials, and their professionalism in discharging their duty.