Andrew Leigh

UNCHAIN MY JOB

Bianca, a young hairdressing apprentice, didn’t feel she was receiving enough training. So she looked at switching jobs. But it turned out that Bianca’s employment agreement barred her for working for any competitor within 10 kilometres for a year.

There’s also Betty, who was terminated from her job as a store manager. Even although she had been fired, she was still bound by a clause in her employment agreement that prevented her from working anywhere in the Northern Territory. If she wanted to work as a store manager anytime in the next twelve months, Betty would have to move interstate.

And then there’s Madison, who worked at a consulting firm. After experiencing sexual harassment and discrimination, she negotiated a resignation. But the firm still did its best to uphold a clause in her employment agreement that prevented Madison from taking a job with any client of her former employer.

PEDALS OF POSSIBILITY: UNLEASHING THE POWER OF TWO WHEELS

In 1816, Europe found itself grappling with the aftermath of a catastrophic volcanic eruption half a world away. The eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia precipitated what came to be known as the ‘Year Without a Summer,’ casting a shadow of agricultural despair across continents. Crops failed, livestock perished, and the very fabric of nineteenth century society, so heavily reliant on equine power, frayed under the scarcity of food and the loss of horses. It was within this crucible of necessity and ingenuity that Baron Karl von Drais, a German civil servant with a keen mind for invention, introduced a creation that would eventually revolutionize human mobility: the ‘Draisine’, or as it is more romantically known, the ‘Laufmaschine’ (which translates as running machine.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC CANBERRA DRIVE WITH ROSS SOLLY
THURSDAY, 13 JUNE 2024

SUBJECTS: Reducing poker machines in ACT clubs, more than half a million full-time jobs created under the Albanese Labor Government, political donation reforms, inflation, cost-of-living help, PwC scandal

ROSS SOLLY, HOST: Andrew Leigh is the Member for Fenner and joins us on the program. We were going to talk ‑ we are going to talk about unemployment figures. Good afternoon to you, Dr Leigh.

ASSISTANT MINISTER ANDREW LEIGH: Good afternoon, Ross, great to be with you.

SOLLY: And you as well. Can I just ask you, though, what your view is on the role of clubs and poker machines in a community like the ACT?  You've lived in this community for a long, long time. Do they play a valuable role, the clubs, and do you share their concerns that if you remove all the pokies that the clubs will no longer exist as we know it?

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
2CC BREAKFAST WITH STEPHEN CENATIEMPO
TUESDAY, 11 JUNE 2024

SUBJECTS: Prevalence of AI jobs in Australian economy, Coalition advocating austerity measures, Peter Dutton abandoning climate change targets, reform of the NDIS, impact of renewables on ACT power prices.

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. Andrew, good morning.

ASSISTANT MINISTER ANDREW LEIGH: Good morning, Stephen.

CENATIEMPO: Quite a number of things to talk about this morning. Artificial intelligence at work, changing demand for AI skills in job advertisements. Talk to us about this.

HOW MONOPOLIES HURT THE ECONOMY

When my three boys were younger, there was one sure way to start a family fight: play Monopoly. The board game would start calmly enough, with some teasing over who got to be the battleship, the boot and the thimble. But within the hour, lucky dice rolls would create a clear divide between the moguls and the marginalised. Sure, Monopoly might be the only place where rich and poor have an equal chance of going to jail. But like life, the game entrenches privilege. When you’re rich, you buy houses and hotels, which bring in rent from the other players. As the monopolist brother started taunting their soon-to-be-bankrupt siblings, yelling was sure to follow.

Monopolists aren’t evil – they’re just acting in line with their incentives. Writing in 1776, Adam Smith observed: “The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers.”

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
AFTERNOON BRIEFING WITH GREG JENNETT
THURSDAY, 6 JUNE 2024

SUBJECTS: Government’s productivity agenda, reform on non-compete clauses, release of 10^th Australian Charities Report.

LORNA DUNKLEY (ABC NEWS): Assistant Minister for Treasury, Andrew Leigh, says Australia needs to put greater emphasis on productivity to curb slowing GDP growth. The economy grew just 0.1 per cent the first quarter of this year.

Despite this, Mr Leigh told Afternoon Briefings', Greg Jennett, he's optimistic about the future of Australia's economy.

ASSISTANT MINISTER ANDREW LEIGH: The Coalition's productivity agenda tends to be about cutting; cutting wages, cutting regulation. Ours is about investing, investing in people, investing in infrastructure and investing in institutions like our National Competition Policy reforms.

That's how we're going to get the sustainable wage growth into the future. I'm really confident that we're going to harness the best the technology has to offer in order to increase living standards.

WORLD LEADING COUNTRY-BY-COUNTRY REPORTING INTRODUCED TO PARLIAMENT

The Government has introduced provisions to establish one of the world’s most comprehensive public country-by-country reporting regimes in a major step forward for tax transparency. This implements a key election commitment of the Government to make multinationals pay their fair share in tax.

Public country‑by‑country reporting will provide the community with a better understanding of how much tax multinationals pay relative to their activities. It puts the onus on large multinationals (with annual global income of A$1 billion or more) to be upfront about where they pay tax and how they plan their tax strategies.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
2CC CANBERRA DRIVE WITH LEON DELANEY
MONDAY, 3 JUNE 2024

SUBJECTS: Fair Work Commission Annual Wage Review, Government’s responsible cost-of-living support, impact of non-compete clauses, regional bank closures, Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights recommendations.

LEON DELANEY: Now, the big headline news today, of course, is the decision by the Fair Work Commission to award minimum wage earners an increase of 3.75%. Joining me now the, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities, Treasury and Employment, our local member for the federal seat of Fenner, Doctor Andrew Leigh. Good afternoon.

ASSISTANT MINISTER ANDREW LEIGH: Good afternoon, Leon. Great to be with you and your listeners.

DELANEY: Well, I'm sure you're very cheered by the news that the Fair Work Commission has decided to award this pay increase to Australia's lowest paid workers. Of course, I've already spoken to the CEO of the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia, Luke Achterstraat. His main concern? Well, he's got two of them. One is he says that the 3.75% is too high because it's outside the target range for inflation and therefore reduces the likelihood that the Reserve bank will see its way clear to reduce interest rates anytime sooner. And secondly, he says that you can't have sustainable wages growth without proper productivity growth. And he's right on that point, isn't he?

THE COMPETITIVE WEDGE

Twenty-one-year old “Tony”, a boilermaker, switched to work in-house for a former client. It was a rural town and customers were hard to find, so his previous employer wasn’t pleased about losing a customer. Tony was branded a troublemaker and was sent a letter saying he breached his post-employment obligations. The letter further applied the blowtorch by threatening court action seeking thousands of dollars in damages plus costs.

“Lauren”, a young mum, worked for a hairdressing business. She was a casual employee, who could be terminated with one day’s notice. After 14 weeks, Lauren quit and started her own business. When she posted about it on her Facebook page, her former employer sued her for $200,000 for breaching a two-year non-compete clause.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC CANBERRA DRIVE WITH EMMA BICKLEY
FRIDAY, 31 MAY 2024

SUBJECTS: Teen mental wellbeing and social media, Australian National University response to protests on campus.

EMMA BICKLEY: The Honourable Doctor Andrew Leigh, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury, Assistant Minister for Employment. Minister, welcome to the Drive program.

ASSISTANT MINISTER ANDREW LEIGH: Thanks, Emma, great to be with you.

BICKLEY: Look, there's been a recent push to lift this minimum age. As I said, it's 13 at the moment. New South Wales, Queensland and Victorian premiers have all supported these tighter restrictions, but our government a little bit slower to commit to this. Why is that the case?

LEIGH: Well, Emma, as the Communications Minister Michelle Rowland has said, there's no country around the world that's got this right. But it is the number one topic of conversation among the parents that I chat with. We all feel as though the childhoods that our children are experiencing don't involve as much outdoor activity and involve too much screen addiction. In some sense, as Jonathan Haidt argues in The Anxious Generation, we've become overprotective in the real world and underprotective in the virtual world. So, this is a really important conversation and the age assurance trial that the government has on train is going to inform that conversation.