Stephen Cenatiempo:
Time to talk federal politics with the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury and the Member for Fenner, Dr Andrew Leigh. Andrew, good morning.
Andrew Leigh:
Good morning Stephen, great to be with you.
Cenatiempo:
Now, there’s a lot to talk about this morning but I just want to touch on something. You’ve written a follow‑up to your book, The Shortest History of Economics – The Shortest History of Innovation this time?
Leigh:
Yes. I’m fascinated by innovation Stephen, by those new gadgets but also by the people that make it happen. The argument of The Shortest History of Innovation is that innovation is rarely just a lone person with a breakthrough. Much more often it’s a team of people tinkering away and trading in ideas. So good teamwork and open societies really are at the heart of driving innovation.
Cenatiempo:
I’ve heard an interview early in the early hours of this morning talking specifically about your book, and the fact that Australia has made a lot of innovative breakthroughs over the years and there’s a lot of technologies that we now take for granted that were developed here. But the argument from this academic was that the chances of those breakthroughs are limited these days and it’s more just about tinkering around the edges. What did you find in the process of writing this book?
Leigh:
Well, Australians of course can take credit for things like Wi‑Fi, the Hills Hoist and the black box flight recorder but we’ve also managed to extend a whole lot of innovation. So we didn’t invent the plough, but we invented the stump‑jump plough, which was revolutionary for the circumstances in which Australian farmers found ourselves.
We do still produce a lot of that basic R&D – our university sectors are doing very strongly, but building the linkages through to business is an area where we don’t do as well as many other advanced countries.
Cenatiempo:
Yeah, it’s interesting. On the other thing too that you missed is RaceCam. That was an Australian development that was developed for super cars – or not super cars. Back then it was called touring cars, but I…
Leigh:
And then just transforms the game for the spectators.
Cenatiempo:
Absolutely.
Leigh:
Racing becomes so much more exciting once you can view the inside of the car, much as StumpCam has helped us enjoy cricket more.
Cenatiempo:
Yeah, no doubt about that. Now let’s talk about more substantial issues. Australia’s fuel security is at breaking point at the moment. We are not meeting our international obligations of 90 days supply, we’re closer to 30 days at the moment and with the current situation in the Middle East, we are in a really dire position?
Leigh:
Well Australia’s fuel reserves are better than they’ve been any time in the last 15 years. When we came to office a lot of that fuel reserve was being held in Texas and Louisiana, now it’s being held in places like Brisbane and Geelong. We’ve got 3 billion litres of diesel, 1.5 billion litres of petrol on hand, and those stocks haven’t shifted since this crisis began.
Cenatiempo:
Yeah, but that’s not all onshore?
Leigh:
Well, it is either onshore or in our exclusive economic zone. So we don’t count, you know, stocks over in Texas and Louisiana as the former government did. We only count what’s onshore or what’s within our exclusive economic zone.
But what we’re seeing right now Stephen, is really a change in demand rather than change in supply. There’s not a single boat carrying fuel to Australia that hasn’t got through as the Energy Minister confirmed this morning, but we are seeing a degree of panic buying, and that’s driving shortages in some areas.
Cenatiempo:
But surely that’s driven by – and I don’t want to get into the politics of this because both sides of politics are responsible for the fact that our fuel supplies are not where they should be, and it’s not good enough to say they’re the best they’ve been in 15 years. They’re still 60 – two‑thirds lower than they should be. It’s understandable that people are panicking?
Leigh:
People don’t need to panic, there is ample fuel available and those fuel supplies remain consistent. Now it’s true that the changes in the Strait of Hormuz are driving up international oil prices, and we’ve seen that flow through to the bowser. Typically it takes a couple of weeks for it to flow through, which is why we’ve tasked the ACCC to ensure that there’s no price gouging that goes on, that fuel companies aren’t trying to make a profit based on buying petrol more cheaply than they’re selling it to Australians.
But we’ve done a lot in terms of getting that fuel security in place, and we’re also taking some of the pressure off by extending the share of the fleet that’s electric vehicles, which means that the number of fuel buyers in Australia is less than it would be if hadn’t increased EV sales from 2 per cent to 14 per cent.
Cenatiempo:
I want to talk about the Iranian female soccer team. Now despite protestations from the government, we know that there has been support given to these so‑called ISIS brides to be repatriated. Why are we taking so long to deal with these Iranian players?
Leigh:
Well, it’s not true that we provided support to those returning from the so‑called ISIS bride cohort – we haven’t done that and we’ve had that conversation before Stephen. In terms of the Iranian soccer players, it’s been a very delicate situation. We reached out to the players to make clear that there was an opportunity to seek asylum. Some of them have done it, some of them have chosen not to, in large part because of the situations for their families back home, and the media has been very good I’ve got to say, through that very delicate situation, prior to the announcement we made this morning of the 5 players who’ve been granted asylum.
Cenatiempo:
So how does that work? Are we granting asylum to 5 players because they’ve requested it? Or have we determined that those 5 players are at a greater risk? How does the process work?
Leigh:
We have granted asylum based on ministerial intervention by Minister Burke to those 5 players. We made clear to the other players that they are able to seek asylum if they wish to do so.
Cenatiempo:
Okay. So what happens now? Because obviously this creates – well, I mean I guess it doesn’t create diplomatic issues in the current environment because we don’t have diplomatic relations with Iran at the moment anyway, but is asylum automatic? I mean, can Tony Burke just say, ‘Okay well, you’ve got asylum’? Then what happens? How do we now assist them to I guess integrate into Australia?
Leigh:
We have one of the best refugee integration programs throughout the world Stephen. You know, there’s a lot of conflict over who comes and how they get here, but once we settle people in Australia, we provide housing, we provide English language support, employment support and work very intensively to get people integrated in their community – to the extent of picking people up from the airport, introducing them to their neighbours and taking them along to job interviews. There’s a huge amount of work that our teams do, often with non‑government organisations in order to get people quickly integrated in the community.
Cenatiempo:
Do we make an easy transition for them in the Matildas side?
Leigh:
Well, I think that ought to be a pathway!
Cenatiempo:
Well because I’m talking about the important stuff here, right?
Leigh:
Exactly, exactly. Well you know, the pathway to the Matildas may need to wait beyond day one.
Cenatiempo:
All right, okay. Andrew, good to talk to you. We’ll catch up in a couple of weeks.
Leigh:
Likewise, thanks Stephen.
Cenatiempo:
And that’s Andrew Leigh, the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities, Treasury and the Member for Fenner.