Andrew Leigh 2022

JOE HILDEBRAND, HOST:

Dr Andrew Leigh is the Assistant Minister for Treasury, but more importantly he is the minister in charge of the Census. Minister, welcome to Afternoons.

ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR COMPETITION, CHARITIES AND TREASURY ANDREW LEIGH:

G’day, Joe. Great to be with you.

HILDEBRAND:

Good morning to you all and thank you Wally for the warm Welcome to Country. I too wish to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land we are meeting on, the Ngunnawal people. I acknowledge and respect their continuing culture and the contribution they make to the region, and I pay my respects to their elders, past and present.

In the early years after European settlement, it wasn’t called a ‘Census’, it was called a ‘muster’. At a particular point in time, all the settlers in a community were gathered together in the same location to be counted. Over the years, the process became more formalised, and in 1881, the first simultaneous Census of all Australian colonies was conducted.

The world’s first census took place in 3800 BCE. The Babylonians counted the number of people, animals, and stocks of valuable foodstuffs, such as butter, honey and wool.

ADRIENNE FRANCIS, HOST:

Andrew Leigh is Assistant Minister for Charities, and also Member for the Federal ACT seat of Fenner, and he joins us on ABC Radio Canberra. Yuma. Good evening, Andrew Leigh. Thanks for being with us.

ANDREW LEIGH, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR COMPETITION, CHARITIES AND TREASURY:

As a stats nerd, this is a pretty exciting job to have.

It's an honour to be in the room with so many friends, activists, people who I greatly admire. The Australian Progress conference is Davos for altruists.