The Hon Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
ABC AFTERNOON BRIEFING WITH PATRICIA KARVELAS
MONDAY, 27 OCTOBER 2025
SUBJECTS: Coalition dysfunction, CFMEU, AI, federal environmental law reforms, critical minerals
PATRICIA KARVELAS: The return of Parliament today hasn't brought resolution to Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce's political identity. Barnaby Joyce chose not to sit in the Nationals party room today despite remaining a Nationals MP. Now, the party leader David Littleproud says the offer for Barnaby to return to the party room remains.
[Excerpt plays]
DAVID LITTLEPROUD: This isn't unusual. In fact, since I've been here there's probably been two or three that have sat outside the room that felt aggrieved with some of the policy positions and the National Party more broadly. But ultimately, the offer is always there to come back and to be part of the room. They are elected as the National Party Members. That offer remains. I have no personal vendetta and encourage Barnaby to come back and make a contribution.
[Excerpt ends]
PATRICIA KARVELAS: Now I was meant to bring in my political panel for today, but that political panel is a singular interview now with Andrew Leigh, who is the Assistant Minister of Productivity, Competition and Charities. Matt Canavan was meant to join us, but now he can't. So, I was going to grill him on that, but I'm just going to have to grill you alone. Can you manage that?
ANDREW LEIGH: I'm happy to channel Matt Canavan if you like PK. I can be the…
PATRICIA KARVELAS: Oh no, I think people should represent themselves.
ANDREW LEIGH: …I can be the many faces of the Liberal Party if you need it, but frankly as a member of the Government I'd rather focus on the Australian people rather than on my own political party.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: Well, well said. I think generally speaking, on behalf of the Australian people that is the right thing to do. I want to start, if I can, because of your sort of economic head just to talk about, the Coalition is really pursuing the Government and the integrity of the clean-up of the CFMEU and looking at issues of conflicts of interest. It seems that the architecture that you've set up to try and deal with the CFMEU is now under serious question. Isn't it wise to look at all of that and put sunlight on all of this? Because if you don't have a parliament that is certain that you're doing the right thing. You can't really clean up this union, can you?
ANDREW LEIGH: Well, that's what the administrator has done. And putting in Mark Irving KC as administrator has ensured that we're getting far more exposure of some of these problematic issues. You know, these are not issues that came to light under the Coalition's ABCC model. They're issues that have come to light since we put an administrator in place. We make no apology for taking a firm stance on criminality. There is no place for criminality in the building sector by employers, unions or anyone else.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: Yeah, but the Opposition’s industrial relations spokesman, Tim Wilson has been pursuing this on the back of, as you can see, stories in the Nine papers and he says that the administrator, Mark Irving as you say, has perversely become an enabler of misconduct. That is a big charge. How can his position be tenable if one half of politics, so to speak, doesn't believe that he can be independent and believes he's become an enabler?
ANDREW LEIGH: Look, Tim Wilson's made a career out of throwing mud, and I wasn't surprised to see him doing it in Parliament today.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: But it's based on stories that have been published in the Nine papers about conflicts of interest and CFMEU official in Victoria continuing his role, also on the ALP executive. Is that something that you're comfortable with?
ANDREW LEIGH: Well, these are issues that have emerged as a result of the scrutiny of the administrator which was a decision of our government. We acted very quickly when these allegations came to light in putting the administrator in place. And yes, there are challenges to be dealt with, which the administrator is focused on right now.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: So, no changes to the way that you're conducting this overhaul?
ANDREW LEIGH: Look, I think the administrator is working well and is in regular contact with the Minister as she briefed the Parliament in Question Time today. There is a lot of work to be done, and under the existing structures we're doing that.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: Okay. This issue though I don't think is going anywhere. There is a lack of trust in the system, wouldn't you agree?
ANDREW LEIGH: No, I think there's a lack of trust in those officials who have done the wrong thing and in some cases, businesses who've enabled it. We need to get to the bottom of the misconduct and through the appropriate authorities, not through mudslinging at the administrator who is working extraordinarily hard to clean up the challenges we're seeing.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: But do you concede that productivity is one of the big issues here? Productivity has been impeded by the strong stranglehold of the CFMEU?
ANDREW LEIGH: Well, if you look at construction sector productivity, you can't do better than the report the Productivity Commission brought down earlier this year, which focused mainly on the small scale of the construction sector, on challenges around regulation, which Clare O'Neil is dealing with. It's an excellent report. It does point to a drop in productivity of 12 per cent, quality adjusted, since the mid-1990s, but it doesn't point towards unions as being a principal driver of that drop.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: Now, the Government is committed to forcing big tech companies to pay when they use copyrighted material. That's what I was just talking to Holly about just a moment ago. Clearly creatives are really concerned about this idea. Were you concerned when the Productivity Commission recommended that, you know, these companies could just data mine this stuff?
ANDREW LEIGH: From the outset we said we wouldn't water down copyright laws in a way that hurt creators. And we've made very clear today, as the Minister has announced the creation of a Copyright and AI Reference Group, that we were closing the door to a text and mining data exception once and for all. It is really important that we do the best by great Aussie creators. We have wonderful creators creating books, movies, telling Australian stories, and we need to have their back. We recognise that AI has a huge role in the future economy and the Minister is looking at approaches such as striking licencing deals so that those creatives can benefit from AI.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: Just finally, if I can just talk to you about these environment laws? We've already discussed them on the show, but it's obviously a really huge issue over the next couple of weeks. Would you prefer that the Government does a deal with the Coalition to see these laws pass?
ANDREW LEIGH: Look, I'm relaxed at the path that the Minister ultimately ends up finding a way through. I think it's in the interest of both the Coalition and the Greens to vote for reforms which will be good for business and good for the environment.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: How about the concerns though, that the BCA has raised? They do don't think the bill should be split. They do want a consensus on this. They're broadly supportive of overhauling the laws, but they do think that you've gone too far on some elements. Are you prepared to wind that back?
ANDREW LEIGH: Look, none of the stakeholders think the current system is working and the report that Graeme Samuel prepared for the then Environment Minister Sussan Ley made clear that the system was broken and that we needed faster approvals or faster rejections. One of the things that most frustrates business, Patricia, and is a real drain on productivity, is where proposals sit there waiting for an answer for years and years languishing, with capital tied up. So, this is about getting better environmental scrutiny, better environmental outcomes and more productivity at the same time.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: On critical minerals, it can take just the most ridiculously long amount of time from idea to actually execution. What sort of outcome would you do you think is a sort of fair time frame to try and do these sorts of things in?
ANDREW LEIGH: Look, each project is going to differ and sometimes the proponent will be the one that's taking time to produce documents. But we need to turn these things around faster. That's in the interests of the nation, and the role of critical minerals was really highlighted in Prime Minister Albanese's successful meeting with President Trump. Critical minerals are vital to the economy of the future and Australia has a huge role to play there.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: Andrew Leigh, I've got to let you go. And you had promised to come on a panel, so you've done a pretty good job of just dealing with me alone. Thank you so much.
ANDREW LEIGH: Thanks so much PK.
ENDS