Andrew Leigh

The Hon Andrew Leigh MP 
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury 

Responsible Business in a World in Transition

Australian Treasury,
Canberra

Thursday, 11 June 2026

I acknowledge the Ngunnawal people, on whose lands we meet today, and all First Nations people present.

Thank you, Michael, for your leadership as Chair of the Board overseeing the Australian National Contact Point. The AusNCP is Australia’s National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises: the Treasury-based body that promotes responsible business conduct and helps handle complaints when concerns are raised about multinational enterprises.

My thanks also to Shiv Martin, who will guide the panel discussion shortly, and to my fellow panellists. Each of you brings serious expertise to the question of responsible business conduct, which is another way of saying that if I say anything foolish in the next ten minutes, it will have a very short shelf life.

Thank you also to the members of the Governance and Advisory Board, who provide crucial oversight and impartial advice drawing on their expertise, organisations and networks across the community, to the AusNCP team in Treasury, and to everyone who has helped mark this 50th anniversary of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.

Anniversaries are funny things. At 50, a person might buy reading glasses and start developing suspiciously strong opinions about lumbar support. But for an international instrument, 50 is something different. It means endurance. It means adaptation. It means having survived governments, recessions, technological upheavals, and at least a few acronyms that have tested the patience of innocent bystanders.

The Hon Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
NATIONAL PRESS CLUB Q&A
CANBERRA
WEDNESDAY, 10 JUNE 2026

SUBJECTS: Fertility; early childhood education; social media; tax reform; Rebuilding Trust: The Future of Australia’s Charities and Community Life; stamp duty; tax deductibility of donations to independent schools; Australian National University; deductible gift recipient regime; community foundations; One Nation

TOM CONNELL, NATIONAL PRESS CLUB PRESIDENT: Thank you Assistant Minister. You detailed the decline of participation in groups and organisations in groups themselves. There’s also been a decline in the fertility rate. Now, speaking from personal experience, once you have kids you get very conscious of the community – is the playground up to scratch, are the footpaths safe, how’s the local school going? Do you think there’s a link between the two and if so, is there anything the government can do about that or not?

ANDREW LEIGH: It’s a great question Tom. I’m delighted by it because it was not the question I expected you to start off with. Normally – for those who don’t often attend Press Club talks – basically we give a speech and then the questions are about what’s on the front page of the papers. And so, Tom I know you’re doing your bit for the country. Congratulations on your upcoming third child. But you’re right, the fertility rate is falling.

My read of the evidence is that the best thing that a country can do if it wants to raise its fertility rate is to invest in early childhood services. It became one of the priorities for the Prime Minister. He set it out in his early budget replies, making clear that we wanted to move away from a situation in which some professional women found themselves working the second or the third day for free.

So, significant investment in the early childhood system. Taking away the financial burden of return to work is good for productivity but my read is it’s also really good for fertility. Unlike a Baby Bonus, it’s an investment which flows through the education of young Australians - a service that isn’t just babysitting but is a core part of the education system. And as we look to raise wages in that sector and improve professionalisation, we’ve not only seen a greater uptake but also an improvement in the quality of the early childhood sector.

TOM CONNELL: Yeah, I’m not sure if the groups on Auckland Island were studied as to who were parents and who were not – there’s my working theory though. The other thing that’s increased a lot in this century is everything being online. So much so that you now say something is ‘IRL’ if it’s actually in real life, which is kind of bizarre we’ve got a term for that if you think about it. Do you see a link to that as well? Because there are lots of online groups but that aspect of physically meeting up and starting the small talk and finding you’ve got something in common with someone who you didn’t think can often lead to so much more. Is that another change? Again, is there anything the government can do about that, or not really?

The Hon Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury

Tax Reform

House of Representatives,
Parliament House 

4 June 2026

The essential story of Australian policy reform is of moments in which Labor Governments make the hard choices, followed by fallow periods of Coalition Governments. Of those moments, in which Labor Governments have made tough policy choices, we've often been opposed by those opposite. They fought us on Medicare in every election from 1969 to 1993. They opposed the introduction of capital gains tax, they opposed the creation of universal super, and they opposed Labor's measures to put in place a clean energy future, so it's no surprise to see the forces of conservatism in Australia today opposing Labor's sensible changes to rein in the excesses of negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount in order to put 75,000 more Australians into a home of their own.

This bill before the House will deliver a tax cut to all working Australians through the new working Australians tax offset. This is an important measure which rewards income from work. I did my PhD thesis on the US Earned Income Tax Credit and can attest to the benefits of a tax credit that is directed at income from labour. It boosts labour supply and creates stronger incentives for participation. This important tax cut for all working Australians is also backed up by the instant tax deduction, which ensures that Australians with modest tax affairs without big deductions don't need to go through the paperwork burden of maintaining receipts but get that automatic tax deduction every year.

The changes that we're making to rein in the excesses of negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount are dealing with a problem that goes back decades. Negative gearing was put in place in 1936 and the capital gains tax discount in 1999. Together they acted to increase the incentives for investors to get into the market and caused at so many auctions investors to beat out first home buyers. Shortly after the changes were put in place by the Howard-Costello Government, we saw taxable rental income turn negative. Landlords on net were claiming more back from the taxpayer than the tax that they were paying. We saw at auction after auction first home buyers find that prices were just pushed out of reach and that they were beaten by investors at a chance to get a home of their own. Our homeownership rate steadily fell, particularly for younger Australians, and many experts called on parliamentarians to do the right thing and deal with the problem that had arisen.

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

Competition and Consumer Amendment (Responding to Exceptional Circumstances) Bill 2026
House of Representatives, Parliament House 

Monday, 25 May 2026

I present the revised explanatory memorandum to this bill and move that this bill be now read a second time.

Since the conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran began on 28 February, our government has been responding to the biggest oil shock in history with a comprehensive plan to secure more fuel, strengthen supply chains, build resilience and take the sting out of prices. The government's Strengthening Australia's Fuel Resilience package will deliver more fuel for drivers and industry, more fertiliser for farmers and more fuel security for the economy, with its centrepiece being immediate fuel supplies and a permanent Australian fuel security reserve to ensure we have the fuels and fertiliser we need.

Our government is helping businesses and manufacturers bolster supply chains through interest free loans via the National Reconstruction Fund. Along with incentives to shift more freight onto trains and ships, targeted support for electric vehicles, more charging stations and heavy vehicle reform, this will strengthen our long-term fuel resilience, while the Cleaner Fuels Program and reforms to the low-carbon liquid fuels market will help Australia produce more fuel at home and support future demand. We're reserving 20 per cent of gas exports for Australian users to increase domestic supply and lower prices, and we're advancing the Future Made in Australia agenda through the Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve and investments in domestic smelting and manufacturing.

We understand this crisis is adding to cost-of-living pressures, which is why we're more than halving the fuel excise, reducing the heavy vehicle road user charge to zero, putting petrol companies on notice by doubling the consumer watchdog's maximum penalties and ramping up enforcement and monitoring, giving businesses more leeway at tax time if they face fuel supply problems and continuing to make it easier and quicker for small businesses to access credit when they need. It. This bill supports that action by creating new powers for the Treasurer and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to permit coordinated action during a crisis by increasing the maximum penalties that can be imposed for breaches of the Oil Code of Conduct.

The Hon Andrew Leigh MP 
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury

The Economics of Human Extinction

Giblin Lecture,
University of Tasmania

Thursday, 21 May 2026

1. The Last Externality

I acknowledge the muwinina people, the traditional and original owners of the land on which we gather tonight, and pay my respects to Tasmanian Aboriginal people and to First Nations people present. My thanks to Mark Bowles, the University of Tasmania and the Tasmanian branch of the Economic Society of Australia for organising this event.

As a longtime admirer of Lyndhurst Giblin, it is an honour to be delivering the 2026 Giblin lecture. Giblin was born in 1872, exactly 100 years before me. He was both a Labor member of parliament and a professor of economics (Cain 1981). He loved Tasmania’s high country, and I like to think that in the modern era, his passion for exercise and mountains would have made him a keen ultramarathoner.

At this point, I can almost imagine we belong in the same paragraph. But not when you note that Giblin also played Rugby Union for England, prospected for gold in Canada and taught ju-jitsu in London. In the First World War, Giblin fought at the Somme and Passchendaele, was wounded three times, and received the Distinguished Service Order.

As an economist, Giblin focused on large, practical questions. How to manage an economy in crisis? How to design institutions that would endure? He did early work on what became known as the Keynesian multiplier, shaped the approach of the Commonwealth Grants Commission and helped form the Economic Society of Australia.

Giblin did not confine himself to tidy questions. He worked on problems that mattered, even when they were messy or uncertain. He belonged to a generation of economists who did not wait for perfect data before offering advice, perhaps because the problems they faced did not wait either.

That makes him an apt namesake for a lecture on a topic that economists have largely neglected: the risk that the system does not merely falter, but ends.

The Hon Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury

Banning Life Insurers from Discriminating Based on Genetic Testing

Treasury Laws Amendment (Genetic Testing Protections in Life Insurance and Other Measures) Bill 2025 - Second Reading

House of Representatives

Monday, 23 March 2026

Ian has familial hypercholesterolaemia, a condition which leads to high cholesterol levels and the risk of heart attack at an early age. He's on cholesterol-lowering medication which controls his cholesterol levels, and when he applied for life insurance, those cholesterol levels were similar to or lower than the general population. But because he had a genetic result, he had a loading placed on his premium. 'Ian' is a pseudonym, but the story is very real and it's a story that's being repeated across a host of different contexts.

A 2021 survey by the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia found that around 10 per cent of individuals who disclosed a genetic test result had insurance cover offered on less favourable terms or had cover declined. Other countries have long banned insurers from discriminating based on genetic information. The UK has had a ban in place since 2001, but in Australia many people are deterred from getting genetic testing because of the fear that it might drive up the cost of getting life insurance. They're having to choose between looking after their health and looking after their financial security.

This is a particular problem given how great the improvements have been in genetic testing over recent decades. The cost of sequencing a full genome has gone from millions of dollars and many years down to hundreds of dollars and minutes. The ability of those genetic screens to detect conditions has significantly improved. The Royal College of Pathologists has found that 95 per cent of people carry at least one genetic variant that affects their response to commonly prescribed drugs, and the Australian Medical Association says that genetic testing has 'the capacity to rapidly transform health care in Australia'.

The ability of life insurers to distinguish between applicants based on genetic history can have implications for particular ethnic groups. For example, Jewish people are 10 times more likely than the general population to have a high-risk variant of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which significantly increase risk of breast, ovarian and prostate cancers. The ability of life insurers to discriminate based on genetic tests effectively places a larger burden on Jewish Australians. I commend the work that has been done by Jane Tiller and fellow researchers, and indeed some of the examples that I've quoted have been drawn from the A-GLIMMER Final Stakeholder Report, of 2023. As others in the debate have noted, this has been an issue of long standing. I commend the former Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones and the current Assistant Treasurer, Daniel Mulino, for their work in bringing these reforms to the Parliament.

Address to the UK Evaluation Task Force - London

In mid-1998, a year after the election of the Blair Government, I decided that I’d hop on a plane and see it up close. I’d just finished up an intense year as a judge’s associate, working for Justice Michael Kirby on the High Court of Australia, and wanted a break. In Australia, John Howard had just begun what would become the second-longest Prime Ministership in Australian history. Tony Blair’s election was pretty exciting for a young Labo(u)r supporter.

Before leaving Australia, I sent about fifty faxes off to different Labour MPs, asking if they had any work for someone whose enthusiasm greatly exceeded my knowledge of British political institutions. Half a dozen MPs politely agreed to have a cup of tea with me, and I picked up some part-time work with two: Fiona Mactaggart and Ross Cranston.

I attempted to fill in the gaps in my knowledge of British politics, reading the hard-bitten works of Philip Gould and Peter Mandelson, the political philosophy of Anthony Giddens and the tales of John O’Farrell, summed up in Things Can Only Get Better: Eighteen Miserable Years in the Life of a Labour Supporter. For much of the time, I lived in a share house in Kennington, and often walked to work, crossing the Thames at Westminster Bridge, photobombing a tourist photo in front of Oliver Cromwell’s statue, and arriving at work at the ironically named Palace of Westminster. I only spent four months here, but went home impressed.

Address to Oxford University, England

Thank you to each of you – randomistas and non-randomistas alike – for taking the time to join us today. I am grateful to my friend and co-author, the prodigiously productive Philip Clarke for making today’s talk happen, and to our four institutional hosts: Oxford Population Health’s REAL Supply and Demand Units, the Oxford Health Economics Research Centre, and the Oxford Centre for Health Economics.

This is the first talk I’ve given at Oxford since the passing of my extraordinary co-author Tony Atkinson on New Year’s Day 2017. Alongside many of you at Nuffield and the broader Oxford community, I was one of those whose work was shaped by Tony’s ideas and ideals. His smiling photo hangs on the wall behind my desk – a reminder that the best academics aren’t just brilliant and brave, but gentle and generous too.

Let’s start with a story.

ADDRESS TO THE AUSTRALIAN CONFERENCE ON SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS EDUCATION (ACSME) - UNIVERSITY OF CANBERRA

I acknowledge the Ngunnawal elders, on whose traditional lands we meet today, and pay respect to all First Nations people present.

In today’s data-driven world, understanding statistics is more crucial than ever. Statistics provide us with the tools to interpret and make sense of the vast amounts of information we encounter daily. Once you start seeing the world through a statistical lens, it’s hard to unsee. Like Neo’s red pill in The Matrix, a data-informed life allows you to see numbers everywhere and make better decisions.

From predicting market trends to making informed health decisions, statistical literacy equips individuals with the ability to analyse data, identify patterns, and draw meaningful conclusions.

EVIDENCE-BASED POLICING

Speech to ‘What Works in Policing for Community Safety and Our People’, the Global Evidence-Based Policing Conference 2024, Melbourne
Tuesday, 3 September

I acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, the traditional owners of these lands, and pay respects to all First Nations people present.

I am chuffed to speak to such a distinguished group of practitioners and scholars in policing, from Australia and around the world. Special thanks to those who have travelled internationally to be here. You are integral to creating, developing, and implementing evidence-based approaches to policing

My thanks to David Cowan for the invitation to speak, and for the work he has been doing here in Australia to spearhead evidence-based policing, as Superintendent in charge of the Organised Crime Division by day, and President of the Australia and New Zealand Society of Evidence Based Policing by night.

David Cowan – like so many of you in this room – is a randomista. Not only is he seeking to run experiments, but to build support for long-term evidence-based policing in Australia, and around the world.