Labor’s Andrew Leigh has proved his worth as an Assistant Minister. Is a promotion in the offing? Photo: Ian Bushnell.
Public Sector Editor Chris Johnson talks with the Member for Fenner, Andrew Leigh, at the midway point of the federal election campaign.
Andrew Leigh holds the federal seat of Fenner for Labor with a comfortable margin of 15 per cent and he has been in Federal Parliament for 15 years.
So the chances are – in this town – that he will be easily re-elected come the 3rd of May.
The bigger questions are whether Labor will be re-elected nationally and whether the federal election will return a hung parliament.
If the next term of parliament is a Labor government (minority or otherwise), the burning question this writer has is whether Dr Leigh will be named a minister by a returned Anthony Albanese PM.
It must be stated at the outset that Dr Leigh himself is not asking that question, at least not publicly or to any extent that he would like to reveal.
He no doubt entertains the idea (a lot), but simply brushes aside the question with the usual “that’s entirely up to the Prime Minister”.
Pressed a little further, and the response is “we would all like to serve” and “I feel incredibly lucky just to be in parliament and to have the role that I do”.
That role, beyond being the Member of Fenner, is Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury.
So he’s almost there.
When it comes to issues like competition policy and the biggest overhaul of Australia’s merger laws in 50 years, a supermarket code of conduct, and banning non-compete clauses so employees can get a better job without financial penalties, Dr Leigh is very much in the thick of it and a driving force behind much of the policy development.
In fact, he delights in describing himself as a policy wonk.
Campaigning is not his natural forte, though. So, how’s the campaigning going this time round?
“It’s great fun,” he says, before qualifying that it’s not really his comfort zone.
“Certainly, for somebody who is a bit of a policy wonk, I’m more naturally drawn to the research and development part of politics than to the marketing side.
“But I really enjoy the chance to get out and chat to Canberrans even more than usual.
“When parliament’s not sitting, there are these opportunities to have good, long, wonderful conversations.”
Those conversations, he says, are very much focused in his electorate around the prospect of the public service being depleted under a Coalition government and the threat from Peter Dutton to slash 41,000 jobs.
But Labor can’t have it both ways.
In the ACT, the ALP is saying to take Dutton at his word that all those jobs will be slashed in Canberra.
Outside the ACT, Labor is telling voters elsewhere that many of those public service jobs will be taken from their communities.
“The fact is we don’t know what Peter Dutton is doing, so those options are all on the table,” Dr Leigh says.
“I’ve never known a government anywhere in the world to try and get rid of two-thirds of the policy capacity of the government upon taking office.”
The Opposition Leader has stopped talking about 41,000 public service job losses of late, and when asked, he now says the target will be met through natural attrition.
Dr Leigh says that scenario presents its own unique set of problematic circumstances.
“If you look at natural attrition, then you’ll essentially have public servants working longer and doing the work of departing colleagues,” he says.
“Imagine what your local cafe would be like if they had a policy of not replacing any baristas who left for the next five years.”
On the Liberals and their relationship to the ACT generally, Dr Leigh thinks they should try harder to win back the Senate seat they lost to independent David Pocock at the last federal election.
“I think it really is a problem for Canberra that the Liberal Party seem to have decided that they’re not going to make a serious concerted effort to win back that Senate seat,” he says.
“Instead, they just turn Canberra into a whipping boy for all of their critiques on the public exercise.
“I think Canberra is best served by a Liberal Party that is contesting for votes in the ACT.
“There’s a real danger for us from some of the nasty attacks we’ve seen and the meanness of spirit in how they’re talking about Canberra.”
Back to the potential for Dr Leigh to be promoted to a minister, and there’s one roadblock – he is unaligned within the ALP.
Mr Albanese used that against him when he first took over as Labor leader in Opposition, removing Dr Leigh from the outer shadow ministry.
Upon becoming Prime Minister, however, Mr Albanese made Dr Leigh an Assistant Minister, proving that the Member for Fenner can remain apart from the factions but still navigate the ladder with his natural talent.
He is a brilliant thinker, has a PhD in public policy from Harvard, and is fiercely loyal to the Labor Party.
“Factions? It certainly plays a role – people on the left, people on the right, and people who aren’t aligned are all getting along well,” Dr Leigh says (with a smile).
