The Hon Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury
Speech to ACT Labor Conference
CANBERRA
SATURDAY, 26 JULY 2025
I begin by acknowledging the Ngunnawal people, traditional Custodians of the land we gather on.
To Chief Minister Andrew Barr and our mighty ACT MLAs, the trade union movement, and our Labor sub-branch members - thank you.
To the hardworking team of outgoing secretary Ash Van Dijk, new secretary Caitlin Cook, and party president Sue Ducker.
To the magnificent Alicia Payne and Dave Smith.
And to Katy Gallagher, who sends her apologies, missing her first ACT Labor Conference in 27 years. She’s not here in person, but she is here in spirit. And in at least three dozen Senate Estimates transcripts.
Delegates, 84 days ago, Labor won big.
We won 94 out of 150 seats in the House. More seats than any political party in Australian history.
As a share of the seats in the house, you have to go back to Curtin’s 1943 win to find a party with as big a majority.
How big was it?
So big, there isn’t enough space on the government benches to fit us all in.
Which is why five assistant ministers—including me—now sit on the opposition side.
We’re not rebels. We’re not the Cross Bench. We’re the Happy Bench. Think of us as Labor’s friendly occupying force.
Labor didn’t just hold every one of our seats. We picked up Menzies and Moore, Banks and Brisbane.
We unseated Peter Dutton and Adam Bandt. A two-for-one leadership special.
We didn’t manage to remove David Littleproud… but Barnaby Joyce is back in Canberra, and he’s working on that for us.
Now, Barnaby reminds me of the film Jaws, which turns 50 this year.
He’s like a giant animatronic shark—except it’s malfunctioning and eating its own crew.
So a message to the Nationals: keep Barnaby going. He has important work to do.
The election also showed that Australians support Labor’s housing agenda. Both the Liberal and Green housing spokesmen – Michael Sukkar and Max Chandler-Mather – lost their seats to terrific Labor candidates. For most of last term, they told us “no” to our housing reforms. At the election, their voters returned the favour.
We’re getting used to it now, but it’s worth remembering how we started this year. Last year, every incumbent government around the world that faced an election went backwards. At the beginning of this year, Labor was the underdog in the polls and the prediction markets. Pundits were asking whether we’d lose office, or just go into minority government.
Around that time, a friend texted me to ask how I thought we’d fare in the election. Not one for pessimism, I wrote back “Labor in a landslide”. He sent me back a laughing emoji. Not sure if he’s still laughing, but I know we are.
Anthony Albanese deserves every accolade for this campaign. He campaigned doggedly (sometimes literally, with Toto at his side), and kept the focus where we wanted it to be. He defended the public service, and showed that public service bashing isn’t just Canberra bashing. It’s bashing Brisbane. It’s bashing Launceston. It’s bashing Revesby.
Labor’s campaign was positive and optimistic. We ran on our record of same job, same pay. Of boosting wages for aged care workers and early childhood educators. Of delivering tax cuts for every taxpayer.
We didn’t fight fire with fire. Where our opponents tried to import angry, divisive populism from overseas, we focused on Australian values of kindness, mateship, multiculturalism and the fair go.
When they went low, we went high – and Australians backed us.
Here in Canberra, I knew things were pretty good on the afternoon of election day when I was taking lamingtons around to booth workers. Because Labor people believe in equality, I offered lamingtons to all the booth workers, whatever their party. In the middle of the afternoon, I offered a lamington to a Liberal Party volunteer at a small booth. “Thanks”, she said, “I just voted for you”. That’s when you know Labor is doing alright.
We won because of you. The union movement ran the best campaign I can remember. Party members doorknocked, phone called and stood on prepolls. From Young Labor volunteers on their first campaign to 93-year-old Trev who helped me on multiple street stalls, we painted the town red.
Because of you, we’re making a difference in parliament. This week we introduced legislation to defend penalty rates – protecting 2.6 million workers on minimum and award wages from having their penalty rates taken away if it makes workers worse off.
If you’re a low-wage worker and you’re working nights, if you’re working weekends, you deserve your penalty rates.
Because of you, Labor is getting rid of non-compete clauses workers for workers earning less than $180,000. Right now, one in five Australian workers are subject to a non‑compete clause in their employment agreement, impeding them from moving to a better job.
Workers who want to switch to a nearby employer can find themselves barred from moving unless they take months off work. Faced with the prospect of enforced unemployment, many never make the switch.
Let me give you a few horror stories:
- A migrant worker with limited English signs a 12-month non-compete clause — without a translation. When he wants to leave, he’s threatened with legal action.
- A teenager on minimum wage sued for switching to a competitor.
- A bullied worker stays in a toxic workplace, afraid a non-compete clause will block her from finding safer work.
This isn’t theory. This is real harm.
These clauses shackle workers and stunt productivity.
Banning them will boost wages, create opportunity, and free up talent.
A ban on non‑competes could lift the wages of affected workers by around $2,500 per year.
It’s a pro-worker, pro-growth, pro-fairness policy.
More than three million Australian workers are covered by these clauses, including childcare workers, construction workers, disability support workers and hairdressers.
Workers should not be handcuffed to their current job when there are better opportunities available for them.
They are part of Labor’s economic plan to help workers earn more and keep more of what they earn.
Delegates, the Labor movement is about people, and when I look out on the people in this room, I see people who have devoted their lives to helping others.
Union members who fight for safer workplaces, better pay and conditions, and a fair go.
Public servants who serve the public in agencies like Centrelink and Medicare.
Regular party members who joined our movement because you know that the story of Australia is the story of Labor – and if you want progressive change, you need to be part of a party of government, not a party of protest.
I’m proud too to tell you that our Labor caucus isn’t just bigger than ever, it’s more diverse than ever. 56 percent of caucus members are women.
Caucus includes people with disability, like the remarkable Ali France.
We have a powerful contingent of First Nations representatives.
And we have people like Ash Ambihaipahar, who said in her first speech “I'm a proud Tamil Sri Lankan, Papua New Guinean Australian woman... raised by a Sri Lankan, Maltese and Italian village... I am the walking, talking embodiment of modern Australia.”
Our caucus reflects modern Australia. Meanwhile, the Liberals think diversity having both IPA staffers and investment bankers.
Our opponents are still debating quotas, a policy we put in place three decades ago. Maybe they’ll end up committing to 30 percent women in the Liberal Party—by 2050. At that rate, they might even embrace the radical idea that Australia has more than one kind of family.
As for the Coalition itself—first it was off, then it was on. It’s like Ross and Rachel, but with fewer laughs and more Sky News interviews.
They’re against superannuation—unless you’ve got more than $3 million in your account. In that case, they’ll defend your tax break like it’s the last investment property on earth.
They say they’ve learned the lessons of the election—except the one where Australians voted for net zero. That one, they’re thinking of unlearning.
Meanwhile, delegates, Labor is getting on with the job.
We achieved a lot in our first term. Free TAFE. Cheaper childcare. Climate action. Canberra finally got a Prime Minister who’s happy to live here and proud to support our national institutions, who backs our public servants, and who collaborates with the great Barr Government.
But the extraordinary election result gives us the possibility to deliver more for Australians. To keep unemployment low and get wages moving again. To shape a future in which AI works for people, not the other way around. To strengthen the social safety net and create a nation that welcomes people regardless of their skin colour or their religion. To play our part in the world as a defender of human rights and a responsible global citizen.
As a Labor member, you are part of writing that story. Thank you for all that you have done for Australia’s oldest and greatest political party. It is an honour to work with each and every one of you.
ENDS