Rules of evidence for policy? Andrew Leigh releases his top five

Andrew Leigh is the kind of elected representative who would legitimately make any entrenched pollster or rusted-on factional operator shudder when it comes to an operational conversation.

He knows numbers, demands evidence that’s been tested, publicly eschews dogma and genuinely enjoys surprises. And now he’s got a clutch of rather nerdy junior ministries that threaten to clarify opaque and gluggy policy areas that have traditionally (and intentionally) been bereft of meaningful evidence.

As assistant minister for competition, charities and Treasury and assistant minister for employment, Leigh has spent the past two years chewing the ear off almost anyone with even basic respect for statistical theory and application, undoing the selective twisting of numbers and data to bend and panel-beat evidence into the shape that policymakers and bureaucrats want to hear, rather than what is happening.