Source: Australian Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry
Stephen Cenatiempo:
The Member for Fenner, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury, Dr Andrew Leigh. Good morning Andrew.
Andrew Leigh:
Good morning Stephen, good to be with you.
Cenatiempo:
The factional situation in the Labor Party is a lot more formalised and a lot more disciplined, but you fall outside of that. How do you negotiate that?
Leigh:
Well, the ACT has always had a tradition of having non‑factional members, going back to people like Bob McMullan. Alicia Payne and I are outside the factional system, and it just means you need to have more friends, hang out with more people and get to know a broad cross section of the party. Now, I’ve got a lot of respect for many people within the left and the right, but the pre‑selectors that chose me wanted someone who’s non‑aligned, and that’s the way I chose.
Cenatiempo:
From the perspective of Cabinet – because there’s reports around this morning suggesting that the left faction have now got more members in the Caucus than they previously had, so that will entitle them to more seats at the Cabinet table, and I understand that system but if you’re non‑factional how do you get to the Cabinet table?
Leigh:
Well, it’s a matter of engaging with a range of different colleagues. But you know, I’m really very happy doing what I’m doing working as part of the economics team. I’m pretty proud of the competition reforms last time around that Jim Chalmers was able to get through parliament. Being a part of reform really matters. I would always rather be an assistant minister in government than a shadow cabinet member.
Cenatiempo:
That’s right. It’s certainly a lot easier, that’s for sure. So what are your priorities for this next term?
Leigh:
We talked a lot about bulk‑billing during the campaign. I think getting those bulk‑billing rates up is going to be very important to Canberra. The next piece of the energy transition, that’ll now continue apace. I think there’s a lot of work to be done around productivity. The Treasurer spoke on Sunday about how in the first term it was inflation first, and then a focus on productivity. Now it’ll be around focusing on productivity, but also keeping an eye on inflation. So that means a lot to do around evidence‑based policy, competition reform. We’ve got the non‑compete reforms going through the parliament hopefully. All of that is aiming to see a more dynamic and competitive economy.
Cenatiempo:
I want to talk about the bulk‑billing thing, because the promise of 9 out of 10 GP visits being bulk‑billed, it’s just simply not possible – certainly not the ACT anyway. So how do you manage the expectation, given that that was one of the tent poles of the election campaign?
Leigh:
Well, I’m not as pessimistic as you Stephen, but I acknowledge it’s a hard task. One of the things we’re doing is making bulk‑billing stack up for the pure bulk‑billing practices. Our calculations were that previously, a pure bulk‑billing practice would have doctors earning around $260,000. Now with our reforms, doctors in those practices will be able to earn $400,000. So that makes it significantly more financially attractive to be part of a bulk‑billing practice, and it means critically, that you’re not relying in setting up your bulk‑billing practice on the altruism of doctors. In those bulk‑billing practices doctors can now earn what their counterparts earn in other parts of the sector.
Cenatiempo:
The difficulty you’ve got here in Canberra though, is the cost of doing business. Because every GP clinic is a small business, and we know that small businesses here in Canberra struggle, and that’s really out of the hands of the federal government.
Leigh:
Certainly, some of the ACT government settings make a difference and we need to be looking at those as well. But there’s a lot we’ve done at the federal level. The fact that Katy Gallagher has come from the ACT to the federal level, that she’s got that experience as ACT Health Minister which means that she’s acutely aware of those issues, as of course Dave, Alicia and I are.
Cenatiempo:
But communication with the ACT government, and you know, in the lead up to the last ACT election as well, you know, we can deal with a Labor government better than we can with a Coalition government. But the results haven’t gone out that way because of a level of belligerence here locally that the federal government doesn’t seem to be able to break through regardless of what Labor it is.
Leigh:
Well look, I wouldn’t use that term Stephen. Certainly, we engage frequently with the ACT government. We recognise they’ve got different pressures and different opportunities. Having that constructive working relationship is important, and certainly the ACT government recognises as much as the federal level, the need to get bulk‑billing rates up in Canberra. They’re well below any other jurisdiction, and that makes it hard for middle income Canberrans to go and see a doctor.
Cenatiempo:
Yeah. The elephant in the room. Yourself and Alicia both increased your margins which, you know, I don’t think anybody is surprised by. But David Smith seems to be in the fight for his life for his seat. What’s different about the southern part of Canberra?
Leigh:
Well, the southern part of Canberra is the part of Canberra that once elected a Liberal member in Brendan Smyth in 1995. So it has been swingier than the rest of the city. We’ll find out how much money went into the independent campaign down there, but I would have a guess that it was more than David Smith spent.
Cenatiempo:
I think that’s a lay down misère, yeah.
Leigh:
Yeah, I also wouldn’t take for granted the results up in the north. We do see now, the ACT Liberal Party moving quite out of step from Canberrans. Far be it from me to be giving advice to my opponents, but I think the ACT Liberal party would benefit from coming back to that kind of Kate Carnell or Gary Humphries philosophy. You know, something epitomised by your 2CC predecessor, Mark Parton.
Cenatiempo:
Yeah look, I don’t know if that’s necessarily true. My argument has always been in my 5 years here is that local politics shouldn’t be about ideology at all. We focus too much on ideology here in Canberra rather than service delivery which I think is the biggest problem, but that’s not an issue for federal politics although we could probably have a conversation about this over a beer one day. But personally, what do you see as your priorities in Fenner?
Leigh:
I’m really keen to continue engaging with the electorate. I think we need to constantly be innovating around democratic engagements, whether that’s telephone town halls, whether it’s looking at more opportunities to do things online. Democratic disengagement is a real risk to the political system and we now have a mandate in order to do a lot of things, but that’s also a mandate in order to engage very deeply with the community. Then in terms of the economic reforms, there’s an awful lot that needs to be done around evidence‑based policy, competition policy, productivity – you know, that’s my sweet spot as a former economics professor. So I’m really looking forward to working on the productivity challenge that Australia faces.
Cenatiempo:
Let’s talk about it broader level at the moment. In the Lower House you’ve got an absolute majority, so it’s not going to be a problem getting legislation passed through the House. But in the Senate it appears – I know counting is still going, but it appears you’re not going to have that. Given that the Prime Minister was adamant there would be no deals with the Greens, it looks like you’re going to need Greens support to get things through the Senate. Do you bypass them all together and go to the rest of the crossbench and I guess, hold up that promise so to speak?
Leigh:
Well, there will be a number of configurations for any bit of legislation, and you would have seen at the end of last year that there were a whole suite of bills that went through with different configurations. So, for example the merger reforms went through with broad support across the parliament. The campaign finance reform – putting ACT style expenditure caps in place – went through with the support of the Coalition. Other bits of legislation went through with support of the crossbench, so that’ll be case by case. We’ll be making our argument to everyone, and of course every bit of legislation we bring to the parliament will be a bit of legislation we reckon everyone should vote for.
Cenatiempo:
Well, yeah it stands to reason you would think. Look, let’s hope that you know. I mean John Howard’s Opposition leading up to the 1996 election – his policy was ‘well look if it’s sensible policy that we can all agree on let’s just pass it through and not be obstructionist’. Let’s hope that the Opposition makes that decision moving forward. Andrew, good to talk to you. We’ll catch up in a couple of weeks’ time.
Leigh:
Look forward to it Stephen, thank you.
Cenatiempo:
Andrew Leigh, the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury and the re‑elected member for Fenner.