Andrew Leigh

17 September 2024 - Royal Australian Mint, Deakin

I acknowledge the Ngunnawal people, and extend my thanks to Cheyne Halloran and Joel Bulger for their Welcome to Country and Smoking Ceremony.

Welcome to Her Excellency The Honourable Sam Mostyn, Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia.

A big thank you to the Royal Australian Mint and Leigh Gordon for hosting this wonderful event, and to all of you – coin collectors, Canberrans and curious visitors alike – for being here today.

In the 1960s, Harold Holt, as Commonwealth Treasurer, pushed for Canberra’s Mint to "occupy a place of pride in ... that exclusive territory in the national capital reserved for its more noteworthy buildings". However, despite Treasurer Holt’s vision, his Cabinet colleagues opposed this plan; refusing to have a 'factory' in the prestigious Parliamentary Triangle.

Instead it was sent to the “outback”, by which they meant Deakin.

SUBJECTS: Social media age limits, Food and Grocery Code of Conduct review, Supermarket Competition, National Competition Policy

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO (Host): All right, time to talk federal politics with the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury and Member for Fenner, Andrew Leigh. Good morning, Andrew

ANDREW LEIGH: Good morning, Stephen.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: I want to talk ‑ a question without notice, the social media ban that's being promoted by the Government, and from what I understand the Coalition is on the same page here, you're one of the more intelligent people in Parliament so I want to talk to you about this. You've all got it wrong. You're not listening to the right people and not listening to the experts who actually can fix the problem now without legislation and protect kids right across the country, like they're doing right across the world. And there are Australian companies that are world leaders in this, and for some reason our politicians don't want to talk to them.

ANDREW LEIGH: Well, Stephen, I'm not sure what solution you'd put in place that would not involve the social media companies. Everything I've seen ‑‑

MEDIA RELEASE

APPOINTMENTS TO THE AUSTRALIAN COMPETITION TRIBUNAL

The Albanese Government has appointed Professor David Byrne, Associate Professor Katharine Kemp and Professor Flavio Menezes as part-time members of the Australian Competition Tribunal (the Tribunal) for a five-year period.

Professor Byrne is a Professor of Economics at the University of Melbourne. He undertakes empirical research in industrial organisation and behavioural economics, focusing on energy and resource markets. He was awarded the Young Economist Award by the Economic Society of Australia in 2023.

Associate Professor Kemp is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law and Justice at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney and leads the UNSW Public Interest Law and Tech Initiative. Her research focuses on competition, data privacy and consumer protection regulation. She has also practised as a commercial lawyer at Allens and as a barrister in Melbourne.

COMPETITION REFORM WILL ENSURE FLOURISHING FUTURE

Imagine a future where Australian shoppers buy their products at fair prices, businesses thrive on healthy competition, and our economy stands resilient against global challenges.

Recently, the federal and NSW treasurers and I took the first step toward this by releasing a consultation paper on revitalising National Competition Policy.

There is consensus that this is something worth doing and we're aiming for agreement by the end of the year.

AUSTRALIA SIGNS TAX TREATY WITH SLOVENIA

The Government has signed a new tax treaty with Slovenia, representing the first tax treaty between the two nations and a significant milestone in the bilateral relationship.

Once in force, the treaty will enhance trade and investment opportunities between Australia and Slovenia by creating a more favourable regulatory environment and producing new opportunities to enhance economic cooperation.

The treaty will give Australian businesses new opportunities to access Slovenian capital through reduced withholding tax rates.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC CANBERRA BREAKFAST WITH ADAM SHIRLEY
MONDAY, 9 SEPTEMBER 2024

SUBJECTS: Census 2026.

ADAM SHIRLEY (HOST): Well, as you might have heard, the Federal Government has determined to include at least a couple of questions about gender and sex identity in the forthcoming Census. This has come after weeks of argument, of 180 degree turns and then recommitments. The Federal Government, as part of its election platform at the last election, said it would commit to including these questions. Then, as you know, reportedly Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, he wanted to remove said questions to avoid, apparently, another culture war. And the ensuing cry from those in the community saying, we just want to be counted, we just want to be represented, has meant now the government has said, yes, we'll go ahead and do it.

Doctor Andrew Leigh is an Assistant Minister in the Albanese Government and has responsibility for the Census. I caught up with him minutes ago to ask him about this process.

So, a lot of people watching the way this played out quite publicly might have scratched their head and wondered, why did the Government seem to make this so difficult for itself? How straightforward, in the end, is it to include questions of gender and sexuality in the Census?

NEW TOPIC IN THE 2026 CENSUS

The Albanese Government is setting a new topic of ‘sexual orientation and gender’ for inclusion in the 2026 Census.

This will allow the Australian Bureau of Statistics to ask questions on sexual orientation and gender for the first time, in keeping with their recommendation to government.

These questions will only be asked of people aged 16 and over, and the ABS has told the Government that people will have the option not to answer.

When I took on the competition portfolio for Labor, a friend issued me a challenge: how many Australian industries can you name that are not dominated by a few big firms?

It’s a tough ask, and the problem has only gotten worse. The last couple of decades has seen a rise in market concentrated. There’s been an increase in price markups – the gap between firms’ costs and what they charge consumers. The lousy productivity growth of the 2010s is likely a key reason why real wage growth was so sluggish under the former federal government.

So what can we do about it? One of the key pillars of competition policy is merger law. It acts as the ‘preventive medicine’ of competition, analysing whether mergers will help or harm the economy.

HOUSING AFFORDABILITY

Matter of Public Importance
Tuesday, 20 August 2024

My grandfather Roly Stebbins was born in a tent in 1922. At age 14, in the middle of the Great Depression, he left school to provide for his family. He worked as a boilermaker. Then, after World War II, he and my grandmother Jean Stebbins, a teacher, set about building their first home. They got a cheap block of land in Seaholme near Williamstown and fired the bricks by hand. Roly would get help from his mates, building the house bit by bit when they could.

My grandfather's story was the story of Australia in those postwar decades. Through the interwar period, the homeownership rate in Australia was about half. By 1966, it had risen to nearly three-quarters. This was a huge surge in the homeownership rate spurred initially by the Curtin and Chifley governments and, to their credit, continued by the Menzies government. But it's a very different situation today. Under the former Coalition government, the homeownership rate hit a 60-year low and their policies only made the problems worse. We had the HomeBuilder program, which blew out to five times the expected budget and which, according to the former Governor of the Reserve Bank, Philip Lowe, increased construction prices. We had the former government's policy of raiding your superannuation to pay for a home, which Malcolm Turnbull referred to as the 'craziest idea I've ever heard'. We had the government walk away from social housing and from investing in tackling the problem.