The Hon Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO CANBERRA, DRIVE WITH GEORGIA STYNES
MONDAY, 7 SEPTEMBER 2026
SUBJECTS: Social media algorithms; Digital Duty of Care; Albanese Government banning unfair non-compete clauses, wage-fixing cartels and no-poach clauses
GEORGIA STYNES: Joining us right now is Andrew Leigh. He is the Labor MP for Farrer and joins us. Good afternoon.
ANDREW LEIGH: G'day Georgia, great to be with you.
GEORGIA STYNES: Yeah, nice to have you on. So, the idea around it could impinge on free speech – what's your view on that?
ANDREW LEIGH: Well, as a parent, I'm deeply concerned about algorithms which are funneling toxic filth to our kids and increasing behaviours such as sexual choking, that we're seeing rising across the community. 40 per cent of young Australians who are sexually active say they've been sexually choked. We're also seeing a lot of the misogynistic content coming into people's feeds much more often.
So, we need to take back control of this. We did that, in part through the social media minimum age, which has now seen more than 5 million accounts deactivated. And the digital duty of care is also about requiring digital services providers to adopt safety by design and protect young Australians from online harm.
GEORGIA STYNES: So, your understanding of how these laws will do that, though? Because there's been criticism that they won't necessarily be able to stamp out some of the things you've just mentioned. So, can you explain to the listeners how they would work?
ANDREW LEIGH: Look, none of our laws have 100 per cent compliance. We have murder laws and we still have murders happening in Australia. But I think what we're able to do as a government is to take stronger action, muscling up to the big tech firms and making clear that we're not going to tolerate some of the sort of behaviour which has been hurting our kids.
The digital duty of care will look at the systems that maximise engagement and basically put profit before user well-being. We've seen a significant drop in youth mental health over the last 15 years, and there's a lot of good evidence that that is tied to the rise of smartphones and social media. So, this is not about controlling what adults can see or do online, it's about giving Australians more choice about the content we see and control over the features we use.
GEORGIA STYNES: Isn't part of it though, about teaching them too, to be able to navigate it and the world instead of just like, locking it away?
ANDREW LEIGH: I think every parent would say that they're in the education game and they're trying to ensure that children are using these devices intentionally. But on the other side of that is billions of dollars being spent by big tech firms using the most addictive algorithms in order to funnel content that most grabs young kids.
What does that content look like? Well, often it's driving outrage and anger. Often it's driving misogyny and hate because they're the sorts of behaviours – that's the sort of content that that the algorithm sees gets shared most often. This is deeply corrosive for our society. We're seeing impacts on politics, we're seeing impacts on gender relations and we're seeing impacts on crime in society. So, we do need to take a stand against the big tech firms. We're willing to do that as we've done with the world leading social media minimum age.
GEORGIA STYNES: As an economist and someone who has spoken out too, when we talk about business. One of the arguments that some of the tech companies have used is that they're saying that removing algorithms might be bad for online businesses which basically rely on social media, particularly small businesses, to drive their sales. How do you make sure those businesses don't get caught up in this?
ANDREW LEIGH: Look, if you're producing a good product that people want to use then you will be able to advertise on that product. But if all your product is doing is addicting people and then selling ads off the back of that, then that's not a kind of business model that is good for society or good for our kids.
We have plenty of good enterprises in Australia which sell ads off the back of them. Free to air TV, newspapers, magazines – all of them manage to produce interesting engaging content without having the corrosive effects on society that social media platforms are doing. I used to feel I was talking to media companies when I chatted with them 10 years ago. Now, I really feel like it's more like having a conversation with tobacco companies.
GEORGIA STYNES: Andrew Leigh is our guest. Just onto another thing where I think it's quite close to your heart, is this is the government is releasing the draft legislation to ban non-competitive clauses. Can you explain that to us and what you hope the legislation will do?
ANDREW LEIGH: A non-compete clause is a clause in your employment agreement that says you can't move to a better job. It sounds bad and it is. One in five workers have a non-compete in their employment agreements and it might say something like, ‘If you leave your job then you can't work for another business in the same line in Canberra for the next six months’.
It's appearing in workplace agreements for people who are in the early childhood sector, security guards, yoga instructors – right across the workforce we're seeing the pernicious growth of non-compete clauses. They mean that people earn less and the economy is less productive because it's pretty hard to start a business in a full employment economy if you can't hire workers away from established firms.
GEORGIA STYNES: So, the idea being though – the reason they were in there, what was to stop people taking corporate knowledge with them and going to a competitor. Like, what? That's the counter argument, isn't it?
ANDREW LEIGH: Yeah. I mean, they began with high-powered executives, but then what happened is we had employment agreements being drafted by employer lawyers and they thought, ‘Well, why not throw in a non-compete? It can't be bad for the boss, it can only be advantageous’. Unfortunately, it hurts the worker and it hurts the whole economy because job mobility is one of the ways in which we get the sort of dynamism and productivity that allows us to produce lasting growth and living standards.
So, getting rid of non-competes means that those affected workers will, on average, earn $2,500 more. And it's a huge benefit to productivity in the economy because we'll get more start-ups and more high growth businesses able to grow, and of course, the freedom for workers being able to take their skills down the road and go to the firm that offers the best deal.
GEORGIA STYNES: Do you have the numbers to get it through, do you think?
ANDREW LEIGH: Look, I'm hoping every single Member of Parliament votes for this. I'm yet to hear anyone say, ‘Well, what we really need to do in Australia is shackle more people to jobs they don't like and make it harder to start up businesses in Australia’. This will apply to nine out of ten workers, those earning under $190,100 at the moment. And we're consulting on what to do above that threshold. And it'll also introduce a new ban on wage fixing. Right now, supermarkets can't get together to fix prices high, but they can get together to fix wages low. We are closing that loophole and making it an offence for cartels to get together to suppress wages.
GEORGIA STYNES: Andrew Leigh, thanks so much for your time.
ANDREW LEIGH: Thanks so much Georgia.
GEORGIA STYNES: Thank you. That’s Labor Member for Fenner, Andrew Leigh.
ENDS