The Hon Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury
Joining the Dots: Towards a Seamless Australian Economy
CEDA
Edith Cowan University City Campus,
Perth
Wednesday, 23 September 2026
I acknowledge the Whadjuk Noongar people as the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we meet, and pay my respects to Elders past and present. I extend that respect to all First Nations people here today.
Thank you to CEDA and Edith Cowan University for bringing us together, and to my former colleague, the talented economist Professor Colm Harmon, for leading the conversation to follow.
By my count, this is the seventh time I have spoken at a CEDA event. Past talks have covered multinational tax, productivity, job security, gender equality, program evaluation and merger reform. It is good to be back.
CEDA has been part of Australia’s economic conversation since 1960, when it was founded by Sir Douglas Copland. Copland held senior academic posts at the universities of Tasmania and Melbourne. He later became the Australian National University’s first Vice-Chancellor. He was a remarkable institution builder.
For 66 years, CEDA has brought together business, government, academia and the community around a distinctly Australian goal: sustainable long-term prosperity. CEDA forums give governments a place to test policy against business experience and academic evidence. With researchers like chief economist Cassandra Winzar and under the leadership of CEO Melinda Cilento, CEDA is in good hands.
My talk today is about competition policy. But you need not fear that it will get too abstract. We will start with bicycle helmets, move to prefabricated bathrooms, and finish with electric trucks.
I’ve chosen these examples because they each have something to say about making the national economy work better. With Western Australians voting to join the federation in July 1900, our nation sprang into being in January 1901. The economic benefits of federation have been immense, yet 125 years on, the job still isn’t quite done.
Businesses and workers often tell us that they encounter eight regulatory economies. Sometimes the differences are small, but added together, these differences consume time and deter entry. They constrain scale and slow the spread of better technology. The bill arrives through higher prices and weaker productivity.
The Albanese Government’s revitalised National Competition Policy is all about making it easier for workers and firms to operate across Australia.
One Federation, One Economy
Federation has great strengths. States and territories can innovate and learn from one another. They can also tailor policy to local conditions. Western Australia’s geography differs from Tasmania’s. A rule that works for the Pilbara may not be quite right for inner city Melbourne.
Variation can be valuable when it reflects a real difference or allows governments to test a better approach. It becomes costly when eight systems pursue the same objective through incompatible forms and repeated approvals.
With a more mobile workforce, and more national companies, there is room for more consistency.
Good regulation protects the public and gives businesses confidence. A seamless economy preserves those protections while clearing away differences that have lost their policy purpose.
A useful reform test asks a sequence of questions. Which public interest does the rule serve? Is the rule proportionate to that goal? Could another jurisdiction’s approval or qualification be recognised? Has the rule kept pace with technology?
Those questions animated the Hilmer Review more than three decades ago.
Delivered in 1993, the review began from the proposition that competition encourages productivity and higher living standards. The Hilmer Review also recognised that firms could contribute more to national prosperity when they operated across an integrated Australian market.
National Competition Policy followed in 1995. Governments reviewed around 1,800 laws and regulations that restricted competition, reforming them where the public benefit supported change. The program helped create the National Electricity Market and brought greater consistency to transport regulation. It also reshaped retail trading rules and agricultural marketing arrangements.
In 2005, the Productivity Commission estimated that observed productivity and price changes in key infrastructure sectors associated with these reforms had lifted Australia’s gross domestic product by 2.5 per cent – equivalent to several thousand dollars per Australian household. Average labour productivity in the electricity sector more than doubled between 1993 and 2002.
Those reforms also demonstrated a feature of federalism. National economic reform can succeed when incentives are aligned and gains are shared, based on independent assessment of the gains.
The 1990s were a terrific decade for productivity, which is why we’re revitalising National Competition Policy. But the reform challenges today are different. A mere copy of 1990s National Competition Policy would be as successful as attempting to put together a 2026 concert with Ammonia, Silverchair and Powderfinger. We need to focus on the new opportunities for competition reform.
In November 2024, Australia’s governments signed a ten-year National Competition Policy agreement. The Commonwealth backed it with a $900 million National Productivity Fund, sharing part of the fiscal dividend with the jurisdictions that deliver reform.
States and territories set out their commitments in jurisdiction-specific reform plans. Seven jurisdictions have now published plans, and agreement on Victoria’s plan is imminent. The National Competition Council assesses delivery and advises the Treasurer on incentive payments.
The Productivity Commission modelled 26 possible reforms in 2024. Under its assumptions, the full package could lift long-run gross domestic product by between 1 and 1.7 per cent, equivalent to $26 billion to $45 billion in 2023–24 dollars. At the upper end, that is the equivalent of over $4,000 per year for the typical Australian household.
The Productivity Commission also estimated that, over the long run, the reforms could deliver consumer prices that are between 0.7 and 1.5 per cent lower than they would otherwise have been.
Those are modelled estimates rather than promises. The results depend on design and implementation, but they give a sense of the magnitude of what we’re talking about.
So, what needs changing? Let’s start with bike helmets.
The Helmet That Changes Status at the Border
Australia imports around 1.2 million bicycle helmets each year. Bicycle Industries Australia estimates an average retail price of $55, implying annual spending of about $66 million.
Very few bicycle helmets are made in Australia. Producers manufacture for international markets, while importers and retailers distribute their products across Australia.
The national product safety standard now gives suppliers six routes to compliance. Two Australian standards are recognised. So are the European standard and the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission standard. An ASTM standard and the Snell B-95 standard complete the list.
But just because you can legally buy it, doesn’t mean you can legally wear it. State and territory road authorities decide which helmets cyclists may wear on public roads.
The Productivity Commission traced the history. The national product standard was expanded in 2024. New South Wales updated its road rules first, in June 2024. Other jurisdictions followed. By the time Canberra cyclist Brendan Johnston rode almost 4,000 kilometres from Perth to Sydney in January 2026, he could have worn a helmet meeting any of the six recognised standards throughout his journey. Tasmania completed the national picture a few months later, in July 2026. Bicycle helmets show what practical national cooperation can achieve.
Fragmentation creates costs for importers and retailers. It also narrows the effective market facing a new supplier. Consumers may reasonably expect a helmet sold for cycling to be approved for cycling on Australian roads. By making bicycle helmets more affordable, we also improve safety, since people are more likely to buy a helmet that’s sold at a reasonable price.
Alignment can preserve safety while expanding choice. It can also speed the path to market and spread compliance costs across a national customer base. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission estimated that recognising the European and United States helmet standards could save businesses $14 million a year in testing and administration costs.
Under National Competition Policy, governments are working towards a consistent approach to mandatory standards. The broader package covers household electrical products, agricultural and veterinary chemicals, and waste regulation. It also seeks better pathways for the use of trusted international standards.
Under the Productivity Commission’s modelling assumptions, closer alignment with appropriate overseas standards could add between $1.1 billion and $3 billion to the economy each year. At the midpoint, we’re talking about something like $200 for the average Australian household.
Standards are critical to a modern economy. They allow components to work together and give consumers confidence in product safety. A fragmented standard can act like a barrier. A consistent standard can operate like a bridge.
The Home That Begins in a Factory
The second story starts with Adam Smith’s pin factory.
Writing 250 years ago, Smith opened The Wealth of Nations by describing how specialisation transformed production. A worker making pins alone, he estimated, might struggle to make even one pin a day, and certainly no more than 20. But in a small factory where ten workers divided pin-making into around 18 specialised operations, from drawing and cutting the wire to sharpening the point and attaching the head, they could produce more than 48,000 pins a day, or about 4,800 per worker.
Modern manufacturing still rests on that insight. Repetition supports specialised tools and learning by doing. Yet when it comes to building houses, things look different. Much of construction remains organised around a building site where materials and workers arrive in sequence, exposed to weather and repeated setup costs.
The Productivity Commission found that the number of dwellings completed per hour worked in housing construction fell by 53 per cent over the past 30 years. Its quality-adjusted measure of gross value added per hour fell by 12 per cent.
Modern methods of construction offer a different production model. Components or whole rooms can be made in controlled factory conditions, then assembled on site. CEDA’s 2026 report found that these methods can cut construction times by 20 to 50 per cent. At scale, they can reduce construction costs by around 20 per cent.
The opportunity extends beyond housing. In infrastructure construction, greater standardisation of components, requirements and procurement approaches can support the uptake of modern construction methods.
Factory production can reduce weather delays and improve quality. Faster construction cuts financing costs and gets families into homes sooner.
Our regulatory systems were largely written for conventional building.
Consider a prefabricated bathroom. Its plumbing may be assembled and inspected in a factory. By the time the module reaches the building site, some of the pipework sits behind a finished wall. A system built around on-site inspection can require taking things apart to do the required checks.
Jurisdictional differences make things even worse. A producer serving several states may need to assemble different evidence for the same module. Production runs shrink and design changes multiply. The factory begins to inherit the inefficiencies it was designed to solve.
CEDA estimates that modular construction currently accounts for less than one in twenty new Australian homes. Given the potential for the technology to drive down costs and drive up quality, I reckon we can do better.
Through National Competition Policy, the Commonwealth is working with states and territories on a voluntary national certification scheme. Manufacturers will be able to use certification as evidence that a product complies with the National Construction Code across Australia.
The reform program also supports regulatory neutrality. Planning rules and consumer protections should judge a building by its performance, whether the work occurs on site or in a factory.
The $900 million National Productivity Fund makes $120 million available to jurisdictions that lower barriers to modern methods of construction, and an additional $240 million for commercial planning and zoning reform. Here in Western Australia, the Commonwealth will provide over $38 million if the state government implements agreed reforms covering modern construction and commercial planning.
Western Australia’s commercial planning and zoning reforms include consolidating some of its 800 land-use terms and 269 zones. It also creates faster pathways for higher-density development around selected train stations. Simplifying approvals means getting more buildings with homes and apartments can be built.
How big is the benefit? For modern methods of construction alone, the Productivity Commission modelled an increase of 1 to 2 per cent in residential and non-residential construction output. It estimated a corresponding lift in gross domestic product of $3 to $6 billion.
Regulation is one part of the story. Finance and industry scale also shape the uptake of factory construction. A national certification pathway would address one important barrier and give firms a larger market over which to spread their investment.
Modern methods of construction rest on the basic economic principle that when people do the same thing again and again, we get better at it. The classic example is the Empire State Building, where the focus on standardising materials and production techniques made it possible to construct a 102-storey building in less than 14 months. The builders got faster as they went. Near the end, they were putting up a floor every working day, roughly twice the pace achieved over the project’s first ten weeks.
Factories aren’t just for making pins – they can be for making houses too. Our reforms are about ensuring that regulation is focused on new homes meeting the code and protecting their occupants. That makes it easier to build quality homes, fast.
The Electric Truck Waiting for a Permit
As the father of three boys, I probably should have started with this third story, because it’s about trucks.
Heavy vehicles carry almost every product for at least part of its Australian journey. Food and building materials depend on trucks. So do medicines and exports. Small freight delays ripple through supply chains. Conversely, better road access lifts productivity across the economy.
Before travelling on particular roads or bridges, heavy vehicle operators may need to apply manually for permits. Network managers have sound reasons to control access. Bridges have load limits. Roads vary in their dimensions and condition. Trucks keep our economy humming, but heavy vehicles account for a disproportionate share of road damage.
The system is far from perfect. Operators can face different access arrangements as a vehicle crosses networks or borders. A decision may require information already held elsewhere. Equipment and drivers wait while paperwork moves.
And then there are electric trucks. You might have asked yourself: why are there so many electric vehicles on the roads these days, but relatively few electric trucks? The government is helping those first movers (where upfront costs are a barrier and we can learn lessons to help the broader market) through the Australian Renewable Energy Agency’s Driving the Nation Program, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and funding in this year’s budget for Australia Post to electrify their fleet.
Batteries add weight, creating a payload penalty under existing mass limits. The challenge for government is accommodating that extra weight while continuing to protect our roads. On top of that, charging infrastructure has to fit freight routes and operating patterns. Curfews can also treat a low-noise electric truck in the same way as an older diesel vehicle.
The result is that the new technology rolls out more slowly than in some other countries. At a time when governments seek cleaner vehicles and operators seek efficient fleets, legacy settings can make the new technology harder to deploy.
On 14 August 2026, the Commonwealth committed $400 million to states and territories for a Heavy Vehicle Reform Package. As of last week, every state and territory has signed on to this.
At its centre is a National Automated Access System. It will match a vehicle’s characteristics with pre-approved road and bridge networks. The agreed goal is to replace at least 90 per cent of current permit requests with automated decisions.
The system draws on Tasmania’s Heavy Vehicle Access Management System, which has operated for almost a decade. It’s a good example of a state innovation ending up as a national platform.
This means that a weak bridge keeps its load limit. The change is that automation speeds the decision where a road manager has already established safe access. We get quicker decisions, without compromising on safety.
The package also supports greater road access for zero-emissions trucks and reform of charging infrastructure rules. Curfews can be updated to reflect the lower noise profile of electric trucks. Driver competency reforms will strengthen safety across the industry.
The Productivity Commission estimated that automated access alone could lift long-run gross domestic product by between $600 million and $1.3 billion. Broader changes to mass limits could add between $900 million and $2.7 billion. The Productivity Commission estimates that the package as a whole could lift annual gross domestic product by up to $4.4 billion. Again, to put it in household terms, that’s over $400 for the average Australian household.
Electric heavy vehicles are an entirely different competition challenge from the issues faced by 1990s National Competition Policy. But the core principles are similar. National consistency, Encouraging uptake of new technology. Taking a system that works in one state and scaling it up across the country.
A Single Market for Workers and Investment
Helmets, bathrooms and trucks are just a few of the examples of where this approach is working. There are plenty of other areas where moving towards a single national market can make life better for workers and firms.
Occupational licensing still imposes costs on people who work across state borders. Automatic mutual recognition has improved labour mobility for many occupations, while coverage remains uneven. Queensland currently sits outside the scheme, and exemptions vary among the participating jurisdictions.
A new tripartite implementation group will bring government representatives together with industry participants including employer and union representatives. Its first meeting is scheduled for 2 October. Australian Treasurers, through the Council on Federal Financial Relations has tasked the implementation groups to develop a model for their consideration by the end of the year. For both electrical and engineering occupations, the employer and union groups are leading advocates for national licensing, putting the onus on jurisdictions to consider their proposed path forward that requires a single fee, maximises mobility and maintains standards.
Worker screening in the care economy is another priority. Checks protect children and people who rely on care services. Duplicated screening across sectors or borders consumes money and time. The Productivity Commission estimates that a single national approach could save workers about $88 million and 419,000 hours of paperwork each year. Women make up about three-quarters of the affected workforce.
Western Australia has committed to reforms in commercial planning and modern construction. It can also receive funding for implementing reforms covering heavy vehicles, health scope of practice and household electrical goods. The national funding schedule provides up to $97 million for Western Australia across the life of the agreement.
No Australian state trades as much as Western Australia. In an open economy, competition reform allows labour and capital to move towards more productive uses. That gives export industries room to expand. A seamless national market also gives Western Australian firms a larger home base from which to compete globally.
Reform With Purpose
Competition policy and consumer protection are fundamental to a strong economy. Effective regulation protects safety and the environment. The reform question is whether each rule achieves its purpose at proportionate cost, and whether a national pathway can deliver the same protection more efficiently.
The modernised National Competition Principles put consumers at the centre. They support competitive neutrality and efficient pricing. They also promote reasonable access to significant infrastructure and a more integrated national market.
When German sociologist Max Weber described politics as slow boring through hard boards, he could have been talking about National Competition Policy. It involves governments examining plumbing certificates and bridge access maps. It reaches licence categories and product standards. As Weber noted a century ago, it takes both passion and perspective. But the gains are worth it.
A generation ago, Fred Hilmer and Paul Keating’s National Competition Policy worked because governments collaborated across borders. 1990s National Competition Policy treated electricity and transport as parts of a single economic project. It paired national ambition with state delivery, then used independent assessment to measure progress.
We’re taking on the bottlenecks of the 2020s, making it easier to buy a safe product, build a great home, move to a better job, and put clean vehicles on our roads.
For cyclists, success means a safe helmet that can be used anywhere in Australia.
For home buyers, success means a prefab bathroom that is tested at the right place.
For truckies, success means a safe route that’s approved in seconds and the clean vehicles that are already moving freight in other advanced nations.
For workers, success means the ability to use their skills in another state or territory.
Lower compliance costs give businesses more room to invest, while larger markets support scale. Faster approvals help workers move towards better opportunities and allow capital to find more productive uses.
In a talk at the University of Western Australia last night, I spoke about Australia’s federation as a platform for learning. But the federation can also be a launch pad for enterprise. We can have plenty of local innovation, while ensuring that national pathways allow workers and firms to operate across Australia.
Particularly when you’re here in the west, it’s easy to think of Australia as a big country. And it’s true that by landmass, Australia is the world’s sixth-largest country. But when you measure us by population, we only rank 55th. With fewer than 30 million people, there’s a strong case for building a more connected national economy, while protecting the standards Australians expect. Together, we can join the dots.
Acknowledgement: My thanks to officials from the Australian Treasury for valuable assistance in preparing these remarks.
ENDS