The Hon Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
2CC RADIO CANBERRA, BREAKFAST WITH STEPHEN CENATIEMPO
TUESDAY, 8 SEPTEMBER 2026
SUBJECTS: Albanese Government banning unfair non-compete clauses, wage-fixing cartels and no-poach clauses
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Time to talk federal politics with the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury and Member for Fenner, Andrew Leigh. Andrew, good morning.
ANDREW LEIGH: Good morning Stephen, great to be with you.
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Sometimes governments make the right decisions, they just take a long way around to getting it. But you’ve still got to celebrate the right decision, don't you?
ANDREW LEIGH: I think that's absolutely important. I think your editorial is a good reminder that all of us in politics need to be recognising when the other side does it right.
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Now, something you've been talking about for quite some time is banning unfair non-competes. Now, this is something that you and I have kind of clashed on to a certain extent and at the lower end of the market, for lack of a better way of putting it, I think you're on the right money here. I mean, if somebody, you know, is preventing a hairdresser from going and working in another salon then that's fair enough. But in an industry like mine, for instance, where there's intellectual property involved, there's a fine line. How do you get this right?
ANDREW LEIGH: Well, you still have the limitations around taking intellectual property. You can't steal the computer when you leave, and so too you can't steal confidential information. And so those restrictions will still apply. But if your business is at risk of having one employee walk out the door, then it's not going to be protected by a 6 month non-compete clause. The fact is, non-competes are a very blunt tool for dealing with this issue. All they end up doing is slowing down worker mobility, which lowers wages and reduces productivity. Makes it harder to start up a new business because when you're starting a new business, typically what you're doing is hiring people from established firms. So, we don't get the dynamism the economy needs when it's stifled by non-competes.
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: But if you get, you know, and I use an example here of, you know, let's say a plumber who's worked for a business for 10 years and then decides to go somewhere else – fine. But what if it's an apprentice who the business has invested a hell of a lot of money in to get up to speed, then jump ship and go somewhere else. How does the first business get compensated for that?
ANDREW LEIGH: Well, I think if you want to hold onto your apprentices, you might need to make sure you're offering them good conditions and good pay. That's the basic rule of thumb for any employer. If employers aren't offering the best options to employees, then they will look around for other options. Frankly, we know that over the course of a career, people's biggest wage gains come not from getting wage gains from your current employer, but from shifting to a different employer. So, you get those big personal wage gains, but you also get big productivity gains when people move to a company that's a better fit. We've had non-competes being used, Stephen, by employers where in context where women are being harassed in the workplace and then being told that if they shift, the non-compete will be used against them.
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: But surely there's existing laws preventing that from happening?
ANDREW LEIGH: There's certainly laws around harassment; the question is whether you can enforce them. And what we're seeing with non-competes is a proliferation right across the economy. One in five workers have a non-compete now. We're getting rid of those for everyone earning under $190,100 – reforms that will kick in next year. We'll also ban wage fixing, which is a cartel in which a group of employers get together to suppress wages, which is currently legal.
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: But isn't that a – well, I would have thought anybody on the award was that. So, how do you arrive at that $190,100 figure?
ANDREW LEIGH: It's an existing threshold in the Fair Work Act. It's called the high-income threshold. It's used in a range of other contexts, and it's indexed every year. So, it's a straightforward threshold to be using. About nine in ten workers sit below that threshold, so we're essentially banning non-competes for 90 per cent of workers.
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: So, part of this is also co-worker non-solicitation clauses and no-poach clauses. How do they work?
ANDREW LEIGH: At the moment, certain employees are not allowed to move and to take co-workers with them. Those clauses won't be enforceable. You will be able to still have client non-solicitation clauses. So that prevents you taking away the client list - but if you and a mate want to move to start up a new firm, you'll be able to do that.
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Okay. Alright look, in general I think this probably moves in the right direction. The devil's going to be in the detail, and how it rolls out in practice will always be the big issue here, but I guess time will tell. Andrew, good to talk to you this morning.
ANDREW LEIGH: Likewise, thanks Stephen.
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Andrew Leigh, the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury and the Member for Fenner.
ENDS