Stephen Cenatiempo:
Alright. Time to catch up as we do on a fortnightly basis with the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury and the Member for Fenner, Dr Andrew Leigh. Andrew, I’m sure I forgot one of your portfolio responsibilities there?
Andrew Leigh:
I think you did all 4 of them there, Stephen!
Cenatiempo:
Did I? Okay. No, Competition, Charities and Treasury, what’s missing?
Leigh:
Productivity.
Cenatiempo:
Productivity, that’s it. The important one.
Leigh:
A big priority for the government.
Cenatiempo:
Indeed. I want to talk about a couple of posts. One – a post that you put up on your social media, ‘One Nation: scandal, incompetence and disunity. Three decades of chaos unmatched in Australian politics’. I don’t know that’s necessarily true. But initially, the rise of One Nation was seen as a Coalition problem but clearly, the government is running scared at the moment, too?
Leigh:
Well, I think it’s important to be clear with people that One Nation is a pretty old political party. It’s been around for 3 decades now. So, it’s got a track record that we can look back on. There’s not many political parties that have gone to the United States and solicited foreign funds from the National Rifle Association to water down Australian gun laws.
There’s no other party that’s pre‑selected so many candidates linked to anti‑gay slurs, conspiracy theories, antisemitic and homophobic posts and even allegations of domestic abuse. And there’s no other political party that has had more than two‑thirds of its elected members quit before the end of their first term.
Cenatiempo:
Yeah. The last point I’ll agree with, but I think all the other previous ones – maybe not the direct link to the NRA – but I think all political parties are probably guilty of all of those things you talked about?
Leigh:
I don’t know any other political party that’s solicited foreign cash. And I certainly don’t know any other political party that would be willing to water down those lifesaving gun laws put in place after the Port Arthur massacre. You know, One Nation really has an unusual way of doing politics. It was just 8 days ago that they were flying donors over Sydney in a private jet as part of a fundraiser. Pretty strange way of showing your support for regular Australians in a fuel crisis.
Cenatiempo:
Well, I mean, look, all political parties secure donations from the rich to fund their election campaigns because they’ve got the money that the rest of us don’t have?
Leigh:
Taking to the skies during a fuel crisis. Having a dinner in which you’re circling over Sydney. That was a bizarre thing for Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce to be doing Monday of last week.
Cenatiempo:
Well in fairness, the Prime Minister did expend jet fuel in the middle of a crisis to make 2 flights to the same part of South East Asia?
Leigh:
If the Prime Minister is going to secure support for Australia’s fuel supply, I think that’s very different than wining and dining donors in the skies above Sydney and coming back to the spot where you took off.
Cenatiempo:
Yeah.
Leigh:
The fact is that One Nation is an odd outfit, and I think many Australians who’ve come on‑board recently wanting to cast a protest vote need to be aware of the history of this party that they’re jumping on with now.
Cenatiempo:
Well, I don’t know that demonising them is doing anybody any good with 24 per cent of people thinking it’s a good way. And look, I agree with you that it’s a protest. I don’t think they’re looking for answers from One Nation. I think they’re just looking – acknowledging that neither you or the Coalition have answers?
Leigh:
Well, their business model is to make people angry rather than to come up with solutions. Their idea is if you get people cross enough and eventually, they’ll just cast a protest vote for an orange shirt. But the fact is that you need solutions in politics. That’s what we’ve been doing in cutting the fuel excise and supporting bulk‑billing and a whole lot of the tax cuts that the government has put in place, and the work we’ve been doing to secure fuel supply. governments are about providing answers rather than riling people up.
Cenatiempo:
All right. Well let’s talk about that. Because I would say that your opinion piece in the Australian Financial Review is that a similar – trying to whip up anger suggesting that Angus Taylor and Matt Canavan are closing the door on an open economy. I think it’s – you know, you’re playing into a false narrative here, particularly when it comes to immigration, that suggesting an orderly immigration system is somehow anti‑immigrant?
Leigh:
We’ve cut migration by 40 per cent, but we haven’t done so in a way that’s demonised migrants or jeopardised the bipartisan support for Australia’s migration system…
Cenatiempo:
And nor has anybody else!
Leigh:
Well, Angus Taylor very clearly said that he was stepping away from the non‑discriminatory migration system. He said…
Cenatiempo:
Well, no he didn’t. He didn’t say that at all. That’s you putting words in his mouth. What he said is that we need to discriminate on the issue – on Australian values. Like, surely you agree that people that come into the country should share our values?
Leigh:
There are very strong character checks in place already. You’ve seen a range of people either being refused visas or else being deported under this government. What you haven’t seen is a demonisation of people’s parents who perhaps don’t speak perfect English and somehow suggesting that they’re not equal citizens to the rest of us.
Cenatiempo:
And we haven’t seen that from the Coalition either?
Leigh:
You have. You certainly saw a criticism of people who didn’t speak English. And you know, I think that’s coming off a week after Matt Canavan…
Cenatiempo:
Well Andrew, as something that I can speak to with some actual authority here that you can’t, is my father was a migrant who came here and didn’t speak English and learnt the English language. I think there should be an expectation that people do that?
Leigh:
And most do, indeed. You know, I’m married to a migrant. We have migrants in the houses on both sides of us. I think Canberra is greatly enriched by its migrant population. And we need to make sure that we keep that strong support, recognising that migrants aren’t just mouths to feed but muscles to build and minds to inspire. You go on a building site – 28 per cent of people in building and plumbing trades are born overseas.
So we’re using migrants in order to build homes. You go into the health system – half the doctors and 40 per cent of the nurses are born overseas. Migrants have played an important part in our health system, aged care system, building homes. Recognising that legacy, I think, is something that had been bipartisan up until Angus Taylor became Opposition Leader.
Cenatiempo:
Okay. Well I’ll agree – we’ll have to agree to disagree, because I’ll stick to the facts on that rather than the political narrative. But I also want to talk about Matt Canavan here. There’s somehow a suggestion that wanting to build sovereign capability is somehow protectionist?
Leigh:
Well Matt Canavan is strongly supportive of tariffs. That’s very unusual. We haven’t had any leader of a major political party saying that they’re a fan of tariffs in the last couple of decades. The cutting of Australia’s tariffs in the 1980s and 1990s which helped boost productivity was a bipartisan effort. And to step away from that is to adopt a policy which is effectively just a tax on workers. That’s all a tariff is. It raises prices on workers. It’s not a serious strategy for boosting productivity. Now, if you want to look at the Future Made In Australia strategy, you’ll see the way in which we’re investing in local industries and growing those. But we’re not doing…
Cenatiempo:
Well, we haven’t seen the evidence of that yet though, Andrew?
Leigh:
Well you certainly see a lot of strength in Australia in advanced food manufacturing, in health care. We have strong export industries and ensuring that we’re backing those with green energy which isn’t dependent on the vagaries of international supply chains is important, too.
Cenatiempo:
Well, and I think that’s the point he’s getting at is the vagaries of international supply chains that are – we’re seeing the problems with that right at the moment?
Leigh:
It’s a huge challenge what’s going on in the Middle East, and certainly we’re doing all we can to deal with those disruptions with the international engagements, but it’s the biggest threat to the economy right now.
Cenatiempo:
Well, I want to know what the – I want you to clear up the mixed messaging for us. We’ve got the Prime Minister travelling overseas trying to secure more fossil fuel imports into Australia and the Energy Minister saying there’s nobody in the world that wants more fossil fuels except us, apparently?
Leigh:
Well, the Energy Minister has made very clear that it’s important to continue to work with decarbonisation. The uptake of electric vehicles means there’s fewer people queueing for fuel at the bowser. The move towards industrial decarbonisation means that there’s fewer firms that need that fuel supply.
But our fuel supply chains are strong with the amount of fuel stations which are out of petrol is now down to I think 2 per cent last time I saw it. I think there were 1 or 2 Canberra stations which didn’t have both diesel and unleaded. Those supply chains are important, and they’ve been backed by the work that the Prime Minister has been doing engaging in Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei.
Cenatiempo:
Alright. Your comments on the Energy Minister, I think – look I admire you sticking up for your own team, because I know privately many of your colleagues don’t think he’s doing a particularly good job. But Andrew, I always enjoy talking to you. Thanks for your time this morning.
Leigh:
Thank you Stephen, great to chat.
Cenatiempo:
Dr Andrew Leigh, the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury and the Member for Fenner.