Andrew Leigh

SENATOR THE HON KATY GALLAGHER
Minister for Finance
Senator for The Australian Capital Territory

THE HONE MICHELLE ROWLAND MP
Minister for Communications

THE HON ANDREW LEIGH MP
Member for Fenner

ALICIA PAYNE MP
Member for Canberra

DAVID SMITH MP
Member for Bean

MEDIA RELEASE

LABOR IS DELIVERING FASTER AND MORE RELIABLE NBN SPEEDS FOR 100,000 MORE CANBERRANS

Canberrans will benefit from a major upgrade to the National Broadband Network (NBN), with almost 100,000 premises across the ACT set to get access to faster, more reliable full-fibre internet connections.

The significant investment from the Albanese Labor Government will mean even more ACT homes and businesses will have access to full-fibre connections, upgrading from the current copper based fibre-to-the node (FTTN) networks.  

In the ACT, this will deliver improved speeds and less interruptions to an additional 97,000 homes and businesses and by December 2030, 94% of premises in the ACT will reach gigabit capability, doubling the number of premises that are currently gigabit capable.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
2CC WITH LEON DELANEY

Topic: Inflation; Retail Sales; Interest Rates; Why Labor are Better Economic Managers than the Coalition

9 JANUARY 2025

Leon Delaney, Host: Canberra, seven minutes past four. And yesterday we saw the latest inflation figures which came in. Well, it was a bit of a mixed bag really. We saw the headline inflation go up, but the underlying inflation go down. It is a little bit more complicated than that, but at best you'd have to say the Reserve Bank is currently receiving mixed messages from the economic data. Joining me now, the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury, Assistant Minister for Employment, professional economist, and our local member here in the Federal seat of Fenner, Dr. Andrew Leigh. Good afternoon.

Andrew Leigh: Good afternoon, Leon. Happy 2025. Did you know that 2025 is 45 squared?

Delaney: I did not know that.

Leigh: As a mathematics nerd, I thought you and your listeners would enjoy that fun fact. Hopefully you managed to get a good break.

Delaney: I know that now, 2025 is 45 squared. See, mathematics was never my strong subject. I managed to struggle through and achieve a pass mark. But I would never say I particularly enjoyed mathematics and I'm not that good at it. But these are interesting little novelty facts to know.

Leigh: Probably the only square year we will ever experience in our lifetimes.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO MELBOURNE MORNINGS WITH JUSTIN SMITH

Topic: Inflation; Cost of Living Relief; Reserve Bank Independence; Supermarket Prices and Competition Reform

9 JANUARY 2025

Justin Smith, Host: 9 from 10. So, as we said yesterday, we saw the inflation figures come through and it had a lovely 2 in front of it. It was a 2.3. The Treasurer Jim Chalmers sounded thrilled to bits at that point. But what is that going to mean for interest rate cuts possibly for next month? What is that going to mean? Andrew Leigh is the Assistant Minister for Treasury. He's good enough to join us on the phone. Mr. Leigh, thank you very much for your time.

Andrew Leigh: Pleasure Justin. Great to be with you.

Smith: In very real terms, when people hear that figure of 2.3 and as we said before, your boss seemed to be thrilled by this number, what does it mean for people? How does that translate to their lives?

Leigh: We do know we need to get on top of the inflation problem, and it shows that inflation is substantially down from the numbers that we inherited from the Liberals when they left office. When they left office inflation was 6 point something and rising. Now it's 2 point something and falling. So, we've got inflation down to almost a third of what it was we saw in some of the latest numbers. Automotive fuel coming down 10% over the course of the year, electricity coming down 21% over the course of the year. But that doesn't take away from the fact that people are under cost-of-living pressure, which is why we're doing all we can to put in place those energy bill rebates, the increases to Commonwealth Rent Assistance, the back-to-back surpluses that we delivered. All of that is helping take pressure off inflation.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO THE COUNTRY HOUR – VIC - WITH WARWICK LONG

Topic: Labor’s Mandatory Food and Grocery Code of Conduct; Coalition’s Failure to Support Farmers

7 JANUARY 2025

Emma D'Agostino, Reporter: The Assistant Minister for Competition, Andrew Leigh, defended the government.

Andrew Leigh: When Labor came to office, we had this problem that the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct was a voluntary code. It was essentially toothless, without penalties. So, we set about getting it reviewed by Craig Emerson, the former competition Minister, and turning it into a mandatory code. The coalition under David Littleproud as Agriculture Minister, had decided to keep it voluntary. And indeed, when we brought our legislation for a mandatory Food and Grocery Code with multimillion dollar penalties to the Parliament, it ended up that the coalition voted against that.

I thought that was a real pity because it was an opportunity for bipartisanship on this important reform. Under Labor, the Food and Grocery Code now has multimillion dollar penalties. It has an anonymous complaints mechanism. It has the highest corporate penalties under any industry code and that'll reset the relationship between supermarkets and farmers. But I understand that many farmers still feel under pressure and that's certainly a legacy of the way in which this relationship was managed under the former coalition government.

D'Agostino: David Littleproud doesn't seem to think that these measures go far enough. Is that a fair comment?

Leigh: When we brought this to the Parliament last year, David Littleproud voted no. He had a chance to vote for farmers. Instead, he voted to keep the status quo. He voted for big supermarkets. What we have as part of this new code of conduct is penalties which are the greater of $10 million, three times the value of the benefit or 10% of turnover. And for multi-billion-dollar firms that means massive penalties. These penalties were not supported by the Liberals, and they were not supported by the Nationals when they came into Parliament.

The Hon Jim Chalmers MP

Treasurer

The Hon Andrew Leigh MP

Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury

Assistant Minister for Employment

MEDIA RELEASE

MONDAY, 23 DECEMBER 2024

IMPLEMENTING A MINIMUM TAX FOR MULTINATIONALS

The Albanese Government is continuing to take action so that multinationals pay their fair share of tax in Australia.

Today the Government has published subordinate legislation in the form of Ministerial Rules as part of Australia’s implementation of a 15 per cent global minimum tax and domestic minimum tax for large multinationals.

To pay for the things that matter most to Australians like Medicare, pensions and housing, it’s important that multinationals operating in Australia pay their fair share of tax and that’s what these Rules help achieve.

The Hon Amanda Rishworth MP
Minister for Social Services
Member for Kingston

The Hon Dr Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury
Assistant Minister for Employment
Member for Fenner

MEDIA RELEASE

THURSDAY 19 DECEMBER 2024

World-first data asset to improve outcomes for people with disability

Australia will now have a clearer research picture of people with disability aimed at improving their life outcomes, with the release of the first data from the National Disability Data Asset between Commonwealth, state and territory governments.

The NDDA is a world first, co-governed asset that has for the first time, linked de-identified data in a way that has people with disability as its core focus.

It is one of the major innovations of Australia’s Disability Strategy 2021-2031 and will play a key role in helping to measure how policies and programs are delivering better outcomes over time.

MEDIA RELEASE

17 December 2024

PUBLIC COUNTRY BY COUNTRY REPORTING JURISDICTIONS NOW SETTLED

Today, the Albanese Government’s determination of specified jurisdictions for Australia’s world leading Public Country by Country tax transparency regime has been published on the Federal Register of Legislation.

Primary legislation to put in place a Public Country by Country reporting register passed Parliament on 29 November. That legislation set out the annual tax data that affected entities will be required to report from 1 July 2024. The Taxation Administration (Country by Country Reporting Jurisdictions) Determination 2024, registered today, sets out the jurisdictions for which an entity must publish disaggregated (country-level) information.    

With this determination in place, the government has delivered on our election commitment to increase tax transparency and added momentum to global campaigns to increase corporate accountability for tax strategies.

Julie Collins MP

Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
Minister for Small Business

The Hon Andrew Leigh MP

Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities, and Treasury
Assistant Minister for Employment

MEDIA RELEASE

17 December 2024​ 

Mandatory Food and Grocery Code of Conduct established in law 

The Albanese Labor Government has made the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct mandatory, protecting farmers and everyday Australians at the supermarket checkout. 

The mandatory code has now been signed by the Governor General and published on the Federal Register of Legislation. The new mandatory code will come into force on 1 April 2025, replacing the voluntary code. 

This will protect suppliers and farmers and improve supermarket conduct with heavy penalties for breaches of the code. 

The Hon Bill Shorten MP

Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme

Minister for Government Services

The Hon Andrew Leigh MP

Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities, and Treasury

Assistant Minister for Employment

ACCC FEDERAL COURT ACTION AGAINST NDIS AND AGED CARE PROVIDER WELCOMED

14 December 2024

The Minister for the NDIS the Hon Bill Shorten MP and Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury, Dr Andrew Leigh MP today welcomed strong action by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to address allegations of false and misleading conduct by an Aged Care and National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) provider, Ausnew Home Care Service Pty Ltd. 

This action is proof of the success of the ongoing collaboration between the ACCC, the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission (NDIS Commission), and the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) to drive positive outcomes that safeguard NDIS participants in the Scheme and stamp out poor behaviour by providers.

Minister Shorten said the commencement of civil proceedings in the Federal Court against Ausnew Home Care Service sends a strong message to any provider who falsely claims their products are ‘NDIS approved’ or misleads NDIS participants about the price of products.