The Hon Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
NATIONAL PRESS CLUB Q&A
CANBERRA
WEDNESDAY, 10 JUNE 2026
SUBJECTS: Fertility; early childhood education; social media; tax reform; Rebuilding Trust: The Future of Australia’s Charities and Community Life; stamp duty; tax deductibility of donations to independent schools; Australian National University; deductible gift recipient regime; community foundations; One Nation
TOM CONNELL, NATIONAL PRESS CLUB PRESIDENT: Thank you Assistant Minister. You detailed the decline of participation in groups and organisations in groups themselves. There’s also been a decline in the fertility rate. Now, speaking from personal experience, once you have kids you get very conscious of the community – is the playground up to scratch, are the footpaths safe, how’s the local school going? Do you think there’s a link between the two and if so, is there anything the government can do about that or not?
ANDREW LEIGH: It’s a great question Tom. I’m delighted by it because it was not the question I expected you to start off with. Normally – for those who don’t often attend Press Club talks – basically we give a speech and then the questions are about what’s on the front page of the papers. And so, Tom I know you’re doing your bit for the country. Congratulations on your upcoming third child. But you’re right, the fertility rate is falling.
My read of the evidence is that the best thing that a country can do if it wants to raise its fertility rate is to invest in early childhood services. It became one of the priorities for the Prime Minister. He set it out in his early budget replies, making clear that we wanted to move away from a situation in which some professional women found themselves working the second or the third day for free.
So, significant investment in the early childhood system. Taking away the financial burden of return to work is good for productivity but my read is it’s also really good for fertility. Unlike a Baby Bonus, it’s an investment which flows through the education of young Australians - a service that isn’t just babysitting but is a core part of the education system. And as we look to raise wages in that sector and improve professionalisation, we’ve not only seen a greater uptake but also an improvement in the quality of the early childhood sector.
TOM CONNELL: Yeah, I’m not sure if the groups on Auckland Island were studied as to who were parents and who were not – there’s my working theory though. The other thing that’s increased a lot in this century is everything being online. So much so that you now say something is ‘IRL’ if it’s actually in real life, which is kind of bizarre we’ve got a term for that if you think about it. Do you see a link to that as well? Because there are lots of online groups but that aspect of physically meeting up and starting the small talk and finding you’ve got something in common with someone who you didn’t think can often lead to so much more. Is that another change? Again, is there anything the government can do about that, or not really?
ANDREW LEIGH: Yeah, I think that’s huge Tom. I was looking at a study for the US the other day. I don’t think we’ve got these data for Australia yet – and it was looking at the amount of time that is spent alone by age. And traditionally that line has sloped up. People spend the least amount of time alone as they’re younger and then as they get older and older they spend an increasing share of their time alone. But in the US, this now looks like a U-shape. Young people, particularly young men, are spending more time alone than are retirees. So we’re seeing this shift towards engaging in person – from engaging in person towards engaging online. And partly that’s because socialising is a habit – the more you do, the easier it gets.
When I first became a politician, it felt very weird to walk into a room and walk up to a group of strangers, interrupt their conversation and have a chat with them. Now it feels completely natural. But if you stop doing it for a few weeks, suddenly it feels unusual again. And young people are falling out of the habit of socialising. We’re seeing a decline in the share of young people who have a driving licence, who go on dates, who socialise with others. The social media minimum age has helped with that. I notice with our own children setting a minimum age of 15 to get a mobile phone helps them engage with others. But I think there’s a lot more that we can do as a community to move towards the Australia that I think we all want.
Remember at the start I talked about those magical experiences in life – the experiences that you look back on, that you really feel shaped you. So few of those are going to be scrolling a bottomless feed; so many are going to be engaging with others. It’s the work of governments in part, but also the tech companies and parents and all of us to remind one another that the best things in life don’t happen on a screen.
TOM CONNELL: I like the idea of the 15-year-old ban on the phone. I might have a word later on how to enforce it. Matthew Cranston from The Australian.
MATTHEW CRANSTON: Dr Leigh, I’d like to ask you about the impact of tax changes on donations to charities. Under your new tax rules – under your new tax changes, trusts will have to pay 30 per cent on distribution income, and that’s before the trust or the beneficiaries can make a donation to charities. So some estimates have been that that will reduce donations made to charities by about $3 billion over 5 years beginning July 2028.
So my question is will you consider some sort of exemption on that? So for example, you might allow donations to be made to charities before the trust pays the tax? Or might you carve out say for example, self-assessing entities in that? And if you give me that classic politician answer of, ‘We’re just consulting on that, you know, we’ll sort it out, Matthew’, then can I ask what are some of the non-negotiables in that consultation and did Treasury or your government estimate the impact from these tax changes on donations to charities?
ANDREW LEIGH: Matt, thanks very much for the question. The first thing I’d say is that most donations that come through bequests are much simpler than that. Someone writes a will, the money flows out of the estate and it goes to the charity. It’s also the case that charitable trusts are carved out of our reforms. But there have been issues raised with us around discretionary trusts and distributions to non-profit entities.
Again, we’re not talking about entities which have deductible gift recipient status, we’re talking about non-tax deductible entities. We’ve engaged with the sector. We’ve had a range of constructive conversations around that. But what’s not negotiable is we can’t keep the tax system with the unfairness that it currently has baked into it. The changes to trusts, to negative gearing, to capital gains are put in place because of the need to tackle this huge challenge of housing affordability, which is decreasing the trust that many young Australians feel about politics.
I had a young couple come up to me at a street stall in Gungahlin – a teacher and a firefighter. And they said, ‘We feel in the current environment as though we have to choose between buying a house and having a family, because we’re not sure how we can pay the mortgage if one of us was to take a significant chunk of time out of the labour market’. And that invariably starts to drive people away not only from government but from a sense that society has their back. So the tax changes are driven at making the system fairer, making the place a little kinder towards those who felt as though they’re being left on the margins of Australian society as the home ownership rate continues to decline.
MATTHEW CRANSTON: And so, was there any estimate from the Treasury or the government on the impact of the tax changes on donations to charities?
ANDREW LEIGH: Yeah look, we modelled a whole range of things as we brought the changes into place. We’re engaging really constructively with the group of people who’ve raised this issue with us. It’s an issue we’re aware of, as with some of the other issues such as capital gains tax and start-ups, and we're working through those issues really constructively…
MATTHEW CRANSTON: Was there a number on that by the way, or?
ANDREW LEIGH: Look, there’s a whole range of modelling that has been done. I’m not at liberty to release modelling at the Press Club today.
MATTHEW CRANSTON: Thanks.
TOM CONNELL: But this is on the list of possibly it would be changed rather than, ‘No, we’re not changing it’?
ANDREW LEIGH: We’re definitely engaging with the sector. We have a goal to double philanthropy by 2030. We’re on track towards that goal and we’ve made a whole host of changes, many of which I detailed in the speech, to try and boost giving. The charity sector has a strong friend in the Albanese Government, so we’re very keen to continue to engage with the sector.
TOM CONNELL: Amalee Saunders from the Nine Network.
AMALEE SAUNDERS: Thank you Dr Leigh for your speech. Just back on the participation rates in terms of social clubs, groups and charities. We spoke about young people but you mentioned the couple that you met in Canberra as well. There are more people who are doing it tough financially who maybe pick up a second job or work longer hours just so they can try and make ends meet. How do you convince those people that joining a group or volunteering is also in their interests to spend their time when they’re already trying to work more and try and keep more of their money too?
ANDREW LEIGH: One of the greatest rewards of this is what they call the helper’s high. That sense that you get when you assist a cause that’s bigger than yourself – the warm inner glow if you like. If you’ve raised money for a good cause, if you’ve helped to teach a migrant English, if you’ve volunteered on a Saturday morning Parkrun, one of our great community success stories, you get a sense as to what it is to give back to the community. You can talk to Andrew Dempster afterwards who’s founded one of our Parkruns here in the ACT, not only about what he feels he’s given but what he feels he’s got.
But as Australians fall out of the habit of joining and volunteering and giving, we miss that experience of the helper’s high and it can be too easy to fall into a more individualised society. One of the reasons I mentioned the decline in religious participation is that often attending a religious service is the place where someone is asked to volunteer. My late grandparents Roly and Jean Stebbins were very actively involved in their local church in Victoria and they used to, by dint of that, be involved in everything from blood drives to having refugees stay in their home. Religious organisations have been a pathway to community engagement, and so as they’ve declined, so some of the other organisations that meshed in with them have also had more challenges.
TOM CONNELL: Next question, Lucinda Garbutt-Young from AAP.
LUCINDA GARBUTT-YOUNG: Thank you so much Dr Leigh. I’m going to play into the aforementioned Press Club trope of listening to a great speech and asking you about something entirely different. As an economist there’s a lot of your colleagues who feel that stamp duty is a fairly inefficient tax and would like to see it removed in favour of broad-based land tax. The ACT has today announced as part of their Budget that they’ll scrap it for all first home buyers.
Dom Perrottet in New South Wales tried to go a step further in 2022 and remove it entirely, but he conceded that he couldn’t do that without Commonwealth help. Given that, should the Commonwealth help states and territories to remove stamp duty entirely, and are there certain things that you would like to see to perhaps free up more money for people to be able to give?
ANDREW LEIGH: Lucinda, thanks for the question. When I was an economist at the Australian National University, I wrote a paper with Ian Davidoff on the effect of stamp duty on mobility. And we indeed showed what you might expect – that higher rates of stamp duty do reduce mobility. Stamp duty can not only act as a barrier towards moving closer to your job but can also mean that people end up in the wrong size houses. It can discourage upsizing and downsizing.
So I really commend the work that the ACT Government has done, starting from when Katy Gallagher was Chief Minister, continuing now through the Barr Government and the announcement today of taking stamp duty off all purchases by first home buyers I think is really significant. The ACT has done that off its own bat. It hasn’t received Commonwealth funding in order to do it, which I think demonstrates to other jurisdictions that this is possible as well. It’s a reform that economists are enthusiastic about.
Our focus though, in terms of the reforms we pay for through national competition policy, has been on reforms in the competition space. We’re working with states on planning and zoning reforms and occupational licensing. So it’s been those pro-competition reforms that have been at the heart of the $900 million productivity fund the Treasurer has set up.
LUCINDA GARBUTT-YOUNG: Would you as an economist though, like to see the scrapping of these taxes go further than just first home buyers?
ANDREW LEIGH: Look, I think it makes sense to reduce the taxes that have the largest burden. We know that insurance taxes and stamp duties have what economists call a high excess burden, meaning that we reduce much more economic value for every dollar that we raise through those taxes.
TOM CONNELL: It won’t happen amongst the states, though? They won’t scrap it totally unless the Commonwealth is not necessarily just writing a cheque, but driving it, making it work through the tax mix in some way. That’s the reality, isn’t it? Doesn’t the federal government have to step up if they want to see this happen?
ANDREW LEIGH: Tom, I wouldn’t infantilise the state Treasurers. I think there’s a lot of great reform coming from the Commonwealth level, but I think we also have some pretty terrific state and territory Treasurers who are engaged in the reform game and looking at how to get the biggest impact. States and territories have not only the most inefficient taxes but also the most efficient taxes. So the ability for them to do a tax mix switch and boost efficiency is greater than it is for the Commonwealth.
TOM CONNELL: You’ll forgive me for not reading your paper – you write a lot of books and a lot of papers – but did it recommend scrapping stamp duty altogether, and how would it do that?
ANDREW LEIGH: It was an academic analysis which was looking at the effects. So I can walk you through the instrumental variables we used, but we didn’t go into policy ramifications.
TOM CONNELL: Not sure – yeah, we might lose a few viewers on instrumental variables. No offence. Let’s go to Julie Hare instead, who’s scribbling some notes but about ready.
JULIE HARE: Thank you very much. If you will indulge me, I have two questions.
ANDREW LEIGH: Yes.
JULIE HARE: Large, wealthy private schools have charity status. So while they have hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue they receive perks such as income tax exemptions, GST concessions and deductible gift status. Some say the charity concession is propping up a two-class education system. So what this means is that people from incredibly wealthy families can donate to private schools who then use that money to build multi-million dollar architect-designed wellness centres, buildings, olympic pools, glamorous grounds – the list goes on. And they get a tax deduction for that donation. Is this right or fair?
ANDREW LEIGH: Julie, we’ve long had a system which allows people to donate to independent schools, so long as that donation isn’t tied to their fees. And I think in some cases that has generated assets which are not only used by the schools but also available to the community. And I’d certainly encourage independent schools to do that where they can. The theatre that Canberra Grammar has put in place, for example, is an asset that is used by the community as well as by the school. And I think that’s a useful step in the social licence of a school alongside First Nations scholarships, for example, which is something that that school does well. So yes, the government has no plans to change the tax deductibility of donations to independent schools.
JULIE HARE: I guess the question is, is it right or fair?
ANDREW LEIGH: We believe it’s appropriate so long as those donations are not tied to the benefits of a particular child. So, the tax office in the past has looked at some instances in which parents had their arm twisted to make a donation, where it looked like it was in lieu of fees. That’s clearly inappropriate and that shouldn’t be allowed a tax deduction.
JULIE HARE: Okay. If you will indulge me, I’ve just got another question. As you mentioned, you used to be an economist at the Australian National University. You said at the beginning of your speech that it was a speech about rebuilding trust. That institution has been gutted by an ill-informed and poorly managed – that’s an understatement – $250 million cost-cutting program. Interim Vice-Chancellor Rebekah Brown told Senate Estimates last week that the cost of reputational damage to the university has been estimated at about $100 million, including loss of philanthropic funds. As a local MP, what did you make of what went on and is the resignation of the Vice Chancellor, Chancellor, and five members of the Council sufficient to right the ship?
ANDREW LEIGH: Julie, no-one’s written more about this than you, so I answer your question with some trepidation. But yes, like anyone else in the Canberra community, I’ve been troubled by what we’ve seen at the Australian National University. It remains a great institution. There are many terrific faculty there and I would encourage any parents watching with a kid in year 12 who are thinking about where that child should go, to consider the Australian National University.
It has a range of first-class scholars, clearly the best philosophy department in Australia, great strengths in areas such as physics and, you know, even some good economists. But it has clearly, as you say, taken some blows over the course of the last year. I would leave it to the independent regulator, TEQSA in terms of the specific interventions that are in place. But I know that Alicia Payne, as the local member representing the ANU, David Smith, Katy Gallagher and I strongly support the ANU and want to see it regain its status as being one of Australia’s great institutions.
JULIE HARE: Okay, thank you.
ANDREW LEIGH: Thanks.
TOM CONNELL: We’re going to go to the sector now. David Crosbie from Community Council for Australia.
ANDREW LEIGH: Great.
DAVID CROSBIE, CEO OF THE COMMUNITY COUNCIL FOR AUSTRALIA: Good afternoon Assistant Minister, and thanks for the speech and for all you do for the sector. And thanks to Maurice and the National Press Club for prioritising this sector. We don’t often get on the national stage, even though I think we have a very important contribution to make. My question goes to some of the charities you used in your example, have DGR and some don’t. So some I give to, and I get a refund for giving to, and some I don’t. The Productivity Commission recommended opening up DGR. Can you tell us where you’re up to with implementing that recommendation?
ANDREW LEIGH: Thanks David, And thanks for all you do for the sector through the Community Council for Australia and your role on the Australian Charities and Not‑for‑Profits Commission Advisory Board. It’s greatly valued by all of us in the room. The recommendations of the Productivity Commission in 2024 were for an opening up of the deductible gift recipient regime. It’s not the way you would design it if you were starting from scratch today. Some 50 categories and charities have to fit themselves into one of those categories, not being able to cross the streams.
The Productivity Commission recommended a more principles-based approach, which would bring in organisations such as public media and animal welfare charities. Our challenge is that that comes with a significant fiscal tag attached. And at a time with the Budget in deficit, it’s incumbent upon us to work out how we manage to identify appropriate saves which would fund that important reform.
DAVID CROSBIE: Maybe through trusts?
TOM CONNELL: Maybe through trusts? Was that the question? Did you want to answer that Assistant Minister?
ANDREW LEIGH: So we’ve certainly announced changes in trusts, but the changes in negative gearing, capital gains and trusts that the Treasurer announced are very much to fund the significant tax cuts. The $1,000 instant tax deduction, the $250 Working Australian tax offset For business, the instant asset write-off being made permanent and loss carry back. So that package of tax reforms you should think of as being broadly revenue neutral in the last budget.
TOM CONNELL: Genevieve Jacobs from Hands Across Canberra.
GENEVIEVE JACOBS, CEO HANDS ACROSS CANBERRA: I’m a recovering journalist Assistant Minister, so we’ll go right back to the topic of your speech. Thank you very much for the shoutout for community foundations. Part of what you’re suggesting is really cultural change in Australia – away from transactional casual giving towards more of a whole of community approach. I think we need to find the levers and the resources to make that happen, however.
So for example, many small regional communities are heavily impacted by enormous energy projects as part of the energy transition but there are a few guidelines that enforce long-lasting community benefits, perhaps through the levers of the community foundation. How do you think we can better embed corporate responsibility for long-term, sustainable benefits for communities right across Australia?
ANDREW LEIGH: Genevieve, thank you for the work you do through Hands Across Canberra. I certainly was looking at you when I was suggesting that anyone who wanted to give to a local Canberra community foundation should seek you out after the speech.
GENEVIEVE JACOBS: Yeah, I’m right here. So you know, donations welcome!
ANDREW LEIGH: And always a strong advocate for Canberra. As I was sketching out that notion of what an Australia with more community foundations looks like, I did have in mind some of the conversations we’ve had around renewable energy and the potential of community foundations to play a role in ensuring that those renewable energy projects have social licence. And also for a firm that’s setting up in a country town, engaging with a community foundation or growing a new community foundation can also help it to put roots down.
In a time when, as Tom mentioned before, we’re more atomised and to have often more time in formal work and less time engaging with our neighbours, then community foundations can be a bit of that bridge. And ultimately, I think they’ve got a great role to play in terms of building local trust in an era in which scratchy politics and grievance politics has been on the rise.
GENEVIEVE JACOBS: Thank you and thank you for your support.
ANDREW LEIGH: Thank you.
TOM CONNELL: On what you announced in terms of the awarding of charity status for community organisations. Would there still be a ministerial veto, you know, if there’s a situation where that’s awarded and you think it’s inappropriate? Would you still have the right to intervene in that scenario?
ANDREW LEIGH: No, through the reforms we’d be stepping back from that process.
TOM CONNELL: No veto at all?
ANDREW LEIGH: No. So simply go through and have the streamlining that is necessary in order to quickly get community foundations up and starting. One of the things we saw under the former government was a bit of cherry picking as to when organisations got their charity status. The best known of these cases was Grace Tame Foundation, which took over a year to get its charity status after its founder snubbed the Prime Minister at The Lodge.
It’s not appropriate that parliamentarians play those sort of political games in deciding which charities to support. The rules should be principles-based and where we can just get the Minister out of the way and make the system happen quicker, that’s good for charities and ultimately good for Australian community life.
TOM CONNELL: There’s a push from the Coalition and One Nation around making sure migrants learn English. Obviously, you might have a different way of doing it if you’d have the same view, but does it actually expand someone’s horizons when they come here, being able to participate better in the community the earlier they get a command of the English language?
ANDREW LEIGH: Look, I think it’s important to speak English and the Adult Migrant English Programs have a very longstanding tradition in Australia. They’re a terrific program which has taught many migrants to speak English. But the sort of dog whistling we’ve gotten both from the Coalition and from One Nation is somehow suggesting that someone who doesn’t speak perfect English; an Italian Nonna who has been here for decades and raised children in the community, is somehow a lesser Australian.
I think that sort of divisive rhetoric is deeply degrading to the Australian social fabric. I’m also the Assistant Minister for Competition, and I think if there’s any party that should get dinged for misleading and deceptive conduct, it’s One Nation which isn’t seeking to bring us together as ‘one nation’ but is seeking to tear us apart and to make political capital from doing so. And this is just another example of that.
TOM CONNELL: Speaking of One Nation, it does like to talk about patriotism. Is patriotism, harnessed the right way something that can lead to more involvement in the community? Being proud of your country, wanting to make it a better place?
ANDREW LEIGH: The values that I think of as being essential to Australian patriotism are things like egalitarianism, mateship and the fair go. They’re the things that I’m deeply proud of as an Australian and which I think really characterise our country. But I don’t see much pride in One Nation in that kind of country. They seem to be proud of an Australia that doesn’t exist – a monoculture that throws back to some bygone 19th century age.
They aren’t proud of the diversity of modern Australia, which is one of its great strengths. I’m a patriot because I love the way in which our nation doesn’t see anyone as better than someone else. I’m a patriot because I believe that our multicultural democracy is one of our great strengths. I’m a patriot because I don’t take fundraising flights on billionaires’ jets flying over Sydney but instead would prefer to be out chatting to constituents in Gungahlin. That for me is what patriotism is.
TOM CONNELL: Ladies and gentlemen, please thank the Assistant Minister, Andrew Leigh.
ENDS