Andrew Leigh

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, 24 MARCH 2026

SUBJECTS: Fuel supply; ACCC

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Alright. Time to talk about all of these issues with the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury and the Member for Fenner, Dr Andrew Leigh. Andrew, good morning.

ANDREW LEIGH: Good morning Stephen, great to be with you.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: What is the answer here, because it wasn't that long ago the government was telling us there was no crisis? Well, it's pretty clear there is now, when the Minister was forced to admit in Parliament yesterday that at least 166 Australian service stations are without fuel?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well Stephen, I often think that fuel pressures can be a bit like bank runs in that they can be self‑fulfilling, and what we've got now is a spike in demand but no significant issues with supply. We've had a handful of tankers that haven’t been able to get through…

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: But hang on, hang on. The Minister also said. Yeah, that's the point. The Minister said yesterday there is an issue with supply because those tankers aren't getting through?

ANDREW LEIGH: We've had a handful – we've had six tankers that weren't able to get through. We've spoken to those fuel supply companies and they've secured supply from alternative sources. But what we're seeing now is much more akin to the panic buying of toilet paper during COVID than it is to a supply crisis. We have fuel supply flowing through, we have the national fuel stockpile, and we've released a fifth of that from the minimum stockholding obligation. But the challenges that we're seeing with a small proportion of fuel outlets running out of fuel is driven by spikes in demand and I don't think it's helpful, frankly, to be over‑blowing this issue.

We have strong supply links. The Prime Minister spoke yesterday with the head of the International Energy Agency and the Prime Minister of Singapore about securing that supply…

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, 23 MARCH 2026

SUBJECTS: One Nation; gas; budget; Middle East conflict; fuel supply; Reserve Bank Governor

PATRICIA KARVELAS: I want to bring in my political panel for today. Zali Steggall is the Independent MP for Warringah. Andrew Leigh is the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury. Welcome to both of you. Now, you know, I'm going to let people in on a little secret. Zali Steggall was basically heckling while Barnaby Joyce was speaking right there.

ZALI STEGGALL: I was not!

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Why were you heckling?

ZALI STEGGALL: Oh look, I think it's an interesting – I think there is definitely a pushback against the major parties. People are doing a protest vote. But there's a real question of when you look at that result, there isn't a growth of the conservative vote. There's a realignment of conservative voters going from the Coalition and Liberals to One Nation. But ultimately the beneficiary is Labor. Labor now has a whopping majority and there really is no effective opposition in yet another state. So, I think we have to be really careful about understanding the analysis. It's that right side of politics realigning in a more, I think, extreme way – not a growth overall from the community.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Okay. I understand that point broadly. But Andrew Leigh, it is sending some messages about no doubt, some economic grievance. People are feeling under the pump, we know that. But also, according to your own political leaders like Peter Malinauskas, perhaps some cultural issues, patriotism, the way people view these issues. Do you agree with that?

ANDREW LEIGH: Absolutely Patricia. I think One Nation is out there trying to make people angry and people need to be asking, ‘What does One Nation stand for?’ This is a party that wants to take us back in terms of winding back abortion protections. That wants to increase tariffs that would make Australian goods more expensive. That wants to move to much more expensive ways of producing energy by opening three coal fired power stations at a time when we've just passed 50 per cent renewables in the grid. So that grievance, as Peter Malinauskas pointed out, is very real and it needs to be addressed by looking at policies which are going to see Australians earn more and keep more of what they earn.

Five books that offer a disquieting window into our possible futures

Andrew Leigh

Published in The Sydney Morning Herald

March 19 2026

Contemporary fiction chronicles the things around us. Science fiction imagines a futuristic world. But speculative fiction sits in between – envisaging a world that is not ours, but is nonetheless close enough to touch. Like the Netflix series Black Mirror, speculative fiction offers a disquieting window into our possible futures.

The Dream Hotel
Laila Lalami
Bloomsbury, $29.00

Hoping to improve her sleep, Sara Hussein installs an innovative prosthetic device in her brain. Unfortunately, Sara doesn’t read the fine print – who does? – and she fails to realise that the company is also sharing her dreams with the authorities. One night, Sara dreams of killing her husband. A few days later, landing at Los Angeles International Airport, she is detained by officials who inform her that her risk score has gone beyond the acceptable level. For the safety of her husband and the community, Sara must be detained in a retention centre for 21 days.

And so the dream becomes a waking nightmare. Echoing the worst patterns of custodial institutions, the retention centre is operated by Safe-X, a commercial firm that profits from keeping costs low and penalising even trivial breaches. Each infraction extends Sara’s stay. Complaints must be made to automated systems, which reply with non sequiturs. Legal help is slow to arrive. Friends desert her, fearful that visiting will lower their own risk scores.

Franz Kafka’s 1925 novel The Trial begins: “Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested.” A century on, Lalami’s novel updates the story for a technological age, except that this time a corporation is in charge. Sara’s attempt to leave the retention facility to see her husband and two children collide with the company’s goals of squeezing as much profit as possible out of its retainees. She isn’t in a prison, she is told, and she hasn’t been convicted of a crime. But she can’t leave until her risk score makes her safe.

If The Dream Hotel lacks the pace of Minority Report, that’s partly the point. Incarceration shrinks the world of those inside. Sara comes to recognise the smell of her roommate’s skin cream, to loathe the “greyish liquid” ladled onto her plate at mealtimes, and to worry endlessly about what she might have done differently to avoid being incarcerated. In a world where brain-computer interfaces and predictive analytics are rapidly improving, Lalami helps us imagine how we would feel if the machines got it wrong, and she reminds us of the dangers of surveillance capitalism run amok.

The Hon Andrew Leigh MP 
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury  

Opinion Piece

The “lone genius” founder myth is dead; innovation works like elite sport

Published in SmartCompany

23 March 2026

The stereotypical story of innovation features a solitary genius, a garage and a lightning-bolt idea that changes everything. The narrative is neat and cinematic. Unfortunately, it also obscures how technological progress usually happens.

In reality, modern innovation looks more like elite sport. Success depends on a coordinated effort involving talent, coaching, facilities and fair rules. Countries that understand this tend to build deeper and more resilient technology sectors. Those that do not risk watching the global competition pull away.

Talent remains the starting point. In the digital economy, that talent takes the form of entrepreneurs, software engineers, designers and data specialists who transform concepts into products. Australia has produced firms that have shown what is possible. Atlassian and Canva illustrate that companies founded here can reach international scale. Their rise reflects technical skill, creative design and an appetite for tackling large markets.

The pool of digital expertise has grown markedly. Employment in occupations linked to ICT, software and database management has increased by more than 40 per cent over the past decade. Demand for AI-related skills has expanded rapidly as well. References to these capabilities in job advertisements have more than tripled in ten years.

Marketing professionals now use generative tools to refine campaigns. Engineers draw on machine learning to improve systems. Analysts routinely work with datasets of a scale that would once have seemed implausible. The digital economy rewards people who can connect technical understanding with practical judgement.

The Hon Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO CANBERRA, BREAKFAST WITH ROSS SOLLY
FRIDAY, 20 MARCH 2026

SUBJECTS: Canberra Stadium; Commonwealth infrastructure investment in the ACT, fuel supply; ACCC; budget; APS Data Awards; Celebrate Gungahlin Festival

ROSS SOLLY: Well, let's go to Andrew Leigh because we want to talk to him about the fuel situation et cetera. But a couple of people earlier on said, is there anything the Commonwealth can do to help us fast-track a better stadium? And I know Andrew Leigh loves his sport. Andrew Leigh, good morning to you.

ANDREW LEIGH: Good morning Ross, great to be with you.

ROSS SOLLY: And you as well. I know we want to talk about fuel and budgets and stuff like that, but just on the stadium – you've been there a few times. It bubbled over again last night. The opposing coach broke his hand – broke his hand, cut his hand on a window. There are leaky change rooms. The tunnels are leaking everywhere. It is a bit of an embarrassment, isn't it?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well, the infrastructure spend from the Commonwealth Government to the ACT is at record levels Ross. We have projects right across the ACT – a lot of cranes in the sky. You think about the National Security Precinct, the work going on with the War Memorial, the work going on with light rail. There are significant infrastructure projects and we're always guided by the ACT Government in terms of those priorities. So we’ll work with the ACT Government.

ROSS SOLLY: And has the stadium been put forward as a priority or not?

ANDREW LEIGH: Look, I think there's been a number of discussions over different models for the stadium. That's an ongoing conversation. But in terms of the commitment from the federal government to ACT infrastructure, it is at record levels. Certainly very different from that Liberal period in which we were getting a fifth of our fair share of infrastructure spending. There is a lot of infrastructure spending going into the ACT. And we'll work with the ACT Government on all that full range of priorities.

The Hon Clare O’Neil MP
Minister for Housing, Homelessness & Cities

The Hon Dr Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury

Albanese Labor Government delivering more homes for Canberrans

16 March 2026

Work is underway on 315 new social and affordable homes in the ACT, back by the Albanese Labor Government’s Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF).

This mixed‑tenure project will deliver 420 homes, including 211 affordable homes and 104 social homes near the heart of Belconnen, close to shops, public transport, schools and parks.

This project is a clear example of the HAFF delivering more homes for low and moderate income Australians while boosting overall housing supply and attracting more long‑term investment into the housing system.

The project has been supported by Housing Australia through Round 1 of the HAFF and is being developed by Assemble on behalf of its capital partner, AustralianSuper.

Once complete, the social homes will be managed by Housing Choices Australia who will also jointly manage the affordable housing component along with Assemble.

The Hon Andrew Leigh MP 
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury 

The Best Charts Ever Drawn

2026 APS Data Awards,
Canberra

Wednesday, 18 March 2026

1. Seeing Clearly

I acknowledge the Ngunnawal people, the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we meet tonight, and pay my respects to their Elders past and present; I also thank the Data Awards team for bringing us together, and Chief Statistician David Gruen, head of the Data Profession.

It’s a pleasure to be among people who know that data is where opinions go to face consequences.

These awards celebrate excellence across the full data enterprise – building systems, linking information, analysing patterns, and strengthening capability.

Each step matters.

Because data, on its own, doesn’t change anything.

Data lives in spreadsheets, dashboards, and occasionally in PowerPoint decks dense enough to qualify as insulation.

What changes things is understanding.

Most humans find spreadsheets confronting. They look like the Matrix – except without Keanu Reeves to explain what’s going on.

The brain evolved to spot patterns.

A good visualisation speaks that language. It reveals structure. It makes the complex graspable.

It allows people to see clearly.

And once you see something clearly, you can’t unsee it.

Tonight, I want to show you some visualisations that do exactly that.

And the first may be the most famous statistical graphic ever drawn.

The Hon Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury 

Rethinking Economic Foundations in an AI World

Ted Evans Lecture,
Brisbane

17 March 2026

The Ted Evans Legacy

It is an honour to deliver the Ted Evans Lecture this evening. Ted Evans belonged to a generation of economic policymakers who understood that ideas matter most when they are tested against reality. He combined analytical discipline with institutional seriousness, and he approached economic reform as a practical responsibility to improve the functioning of the nation. Those are demanding standards. They are also standards that continue to shape how many of us think about the craft of economics.

Ted’s life reminds us that intellectual authority does not always begin in predictable places. He grew up in modest circumstances – his father was a fitter and turner – and attended Ipswich High School before leaving at fifteen to work as a linesman in the Postmaster-General’s Department. The trajectory from teenage linesman to Secretary of the Treasury illustrates a quality that economists sometimes underweight: the capacity of institutions to recognise talent that does not arrive with conventional signals.

One of the pivotal moments in his early career reportedly occurred over a drink with the late great Max Corden. Evans had been considering a PhD in New Zealand. Corden persuaded him instead to join Treasury and learn economics from inside government. In retrospect, that advice shaped the intellectual architecture of Australian economic policy for decades. It is a reminder that careers, like economies, are path dependent.

Evans served as Treasury Secretary from 1993 to 2001, working with treasurers John Dawkins, Ralph Willis and Peter Costello, during a period in which the reform momentum of the Hawke–Keating era continued to reverberate through the policy system. The reforms associated with that period transformed Australia from what Paul Keating memorably described as a ‘sclerotic command and control economy’ into one that was more competitive and flexible. Large reductions in marginal tax rates, the introduction of capital gains and fringe benefits taxation, dividend imputation, and changes to the taxation of superannuation were structural shifts that altered incentives across the economy.

The Hon Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury

Fuel Security

Matters of Public Importance

House of Representatives

Wednesday, 11 March 2026

At the beginning of 2022, after claiming that only the Coalition could be trusted to keep petrol prices low, the Morrison Government saw petrol prices hit 216c a litre in Sydney and 212c a litre in Melbourne. What did fuel companies face if they were engaged in a breach of the competition law? They faced not a serious penalty but a slap on the wrist - a $10 million penalty. That really wasn't a penalty; it was the entrance fee to the bad behaviour club. The fuel industry is one of our more concentrated industries. The big four have more than two-thirds of the market, compared to just a fifth for the big four fuel retailers in the United States. And so, when we came to office, we raised the penalties for anticompetitive conduct. We raised that maximum dollar figure from $10 million to $50 million - a five-fold increase because under Labor, penalties will not be a cost of doing business.

Today, the Treasurer, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy and I have announced that a Labor Government will double penalties for false or misleading conduct and cartel behaviour. Up to $100 million per offence, across the economy. This very clearly demonstrates that only Labor can be trusted when it comes to looking after consumers and ensuring we have a more competitive and dynamic economy.

Under the Coalition, we saw a rise in market concentration, an increase in mark-ups and a decrease in the small-business-creation rate, and we saw significant signs that the Australian economy wasn't as dynamic. Under Labor, we've set about putting in place a strong competition agenda. We've reformed Australia's merger laws - the biggest overhaul of our merger laws in 50 years - to ensure that the competition watchdog is able to properly scrutinise mergers and keep a lid on excessive market concentration in the economy. We've got national competition policy going again with a $900 million productivity fund, working with the states and territories to try and get those sorts of productivity-boosting competition reforms that turbocharged productivity and boosted household living standards to the tune of some $5,000 a household in the 1990s. Reflecting that 1990s experience, we've refreshed the National Competition Council, now chaired by Marcus Bezzi, and we're working collaboratively with states and territories on a robust competition agenda. Labor knows that if we are to get productivity going again after it languished for the nine years in which the coalition was in office, we need competition reforms that'll work for Australians.

Today the Treasurer, the Energy Minister and I announced that we will task the ACCC to ramp up fuel price monitoring, reporting weekly with a focus on unusual price spikes. We'll work with industry to increase fuel supply to service stations, including by helping the fuel sector secure ACCC authorisation to coordinate supply and unlock bottlenecks. This follows the Treasurer having written to the ACCC last week asking them to ensure that motorists aren't being taken for mugs. The ACCC has issued their own statement to retailers.

The Hon Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
2XX FM CANBERRA, BREAKFAST WITH NOAH SECOMB
WEDNESDAY, 11 MARCH 2026

SUBJECTS: Productivity; Middle East conflict; Australia’s fuel supply; supermarkets; travel insurance; volunteering passport

NOAH SECOMB: And now we're talking to the Assistant Minister for – here we go: Competition, Charities and Treasury. I've missed one. I've missed one in there. I think productivity is somewhere in that pile. So, here's to Andrew Leigh and first of all, thanks for coming on.

ANDREW LEIGH: My pleasure.

NOAH SECOMB: For those who perhaps aren't engaged in federal politics too much – talk us through what your portfolio means, what your job looks like and how that kind of fits in with representing a chunk of Canberra?

ANDREW LEIGH: So my job is the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury, which means I assist the Treasurer on a range of issues in his portfolio. Productivity is a big challenge for the government in this term. Productivity has languished over the course of the last 15 years and one of our big priorities is getting a strong growth agenda.

Part of that is through competition. We've done some competition reforms, national competition policy and mergers but we've got a lot more to do, including holding the supermarkets to account. I'm responsible for the government's regulation of charities, which I think of as kind of a community building portfolio. Rebuilding that sense of shared purpose that increasingly Australia has struggled with. And then Treasury is the sort of catch all for the work that I do on a range of issues, including the Mint, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and multinational taxation.

NOAH SECOMB: Yeah right. So, you've got plenty to do. That's always good.

ANDREW LEIGH: I'm very lucky. Yes. Lots of interesting things to work on with the Treasurer.

NOAH SECOMB: And so looking at some of the news of this last week, especially coming out of Iran and the conflict in the Middle East. A lot of concern has been going to the rising petrol prices and we've heard in recent days that the Treasurer has empowered the ACCC to really look into petrol price gouging. So what does that actually look like when we're talking about empowering the ACCC to do something like that?