Andrew Leigh

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
MONDAY, 21 JULY 2025

SUBJECTS: ACT Roundtable, Peter Ryan condolences, Labor’s productivity agenda

ROSS SOLLY: Some time ago you would have heard the news that the federal government is going to convene a roundtable to look at our economic future and how to increase productivity et cetera, et cetera. They’re bringing together some of the greatest minds from a lot of different fields across the nation. Well now we’ve learned that ahead of that the ACT Government - in collaboration with our federal MPs, are going to bring together a similar roundtable involving ACT businesses, unions, industry groups et cetera, et cetera. So what sort of things will be on the table? What sort of questions are going to be asked? Andrew Leigh is the Member for Fenner and joins us on the show this morning. Andrew Leigh, good morning to you.

ANDREW LEIGH: Good morning Ross. Great to be with you.

ROSS SOLLY: And with you. Can I just, Andrew Leigh, totally off topic here, but the sad news this morning – and I know you would have dealt quite a lot with Peter Ryan in your role in various finance portfolios. But the news this morning that Peter Ryan has sadly passed away just weeks after leaving the ABC. I know you’ve dealt with Peter Ryan in the past, but what sort of experiences did you have with him?

ANDREW LEIGH: He was certainly somebody who was a giant of the business reporting arm of the ABC. And you know, the ABC is a national treasure, as was Peter Ryan. He had that stint working in Washington DC, and a really respected voice, somebody who brought a lot to a national conversation. I think we do business reporting really well here in Australia, and a lot of that is part of great journalists like Peter. Of course, a Walkley Award winner, a real lion of the Australian journalism pantheon.

ROSS SOLLY: And can I just say this about Peter Ryan. My own experience with him - no matter how stupid the questions, he was always willing to give time to give a sensible answer. And I threw my fair share of stupid questions to Peter over the years, and he was always very, very kind. Adrian in Moncrieff says, “It’s so sad to hear about Peter Ryan’s passing. While I’ve never met him, listening to him during every AM, the World Today and PM as the business correspondent, to give the great advice explaining it for everyone to understand and keeping us up-to-date with the latest happenings during these turbulent years in the markets. It hit me to hear about his passing today. Hope all ABC staff look after yourselves today and know how much you become part of many random people’s lives.” Thank you, Adrian. That’s a lovely message. And yes, he did touch a lot of people here at the ABC. Andrew Leigh, so you’re now going to bring together an ACT form of this federal roundtable. Who’s going to be invited, and what sort of things are you looking for?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well, it will be a broad cross-section of the Canberra business community, unions and the public sector. What we’ll be aiming to do is to get together a lot of those ACT ideas about productivity. Of course, we’ve got a national challenge in productivity. The decade up to 2020 was the worst productivity decade in the post-war era. And when we came to office we had the worst quarterly fall in productivity in 45 years. So this isn’t going to be turned around quickly. That’s why we need to bring together as many good ideas and perspectives as we can. Canberra’s business structure is a bit different from other states and territories, a bit less manufacturing and mining, a little bit more services and some of those services that are serving the international community. So I think we have a lot to bring to the productivity conversation.

ROSS SOLLY: Yeah I mean, we do have some fairly unique situations – circumstances here compared to other jurisdictions. Does that lessen our relevance in terms of the overall approach to what we could be doing federally?

ANDREW LEIGH: Not in the least. Indeed, the work we’re doing trying to make sure that we have a more productive public sector is work where Canberra can bring particular insights. Katy Gallagher of course, has been working a lot around – in her role as the minister responsible for the public service in ensuring not only that we have the new values of stewardship but also that the public service is making effective use of new technology, such as artificial intelligence, to deliver better for Australians. One of the issues we had in the last election was this discussion over the proposal to slash the public sector from the Coalition. And I think the way in which that was resoundingly rejected at the ballot box does reflect the strong support that Australians have for effective public services and the public servants that deliver them.

ROSS SOLLY: Yeah. You will probably get though, if you get members of the business community – we’re going to get a response later on from the business community to what sort of things they might bring to the table. There’s a bit of a feeling here in the ACT that, you know, that we’re overtaxed and underserviced just to put it bluntly. And that maybe given the amount of taxes that are paid that we should be getting better services and that businesses should be getting more support. Do you think that’s justified and, Andrew Leigh, a lot of that is out of your control because it’s up to the ACT Government to work the levers on that one. But can you influence ACT Government policy if enough people are telling you of their dissatisfaction with the level of service and the approach of the government?

The Hon Josh Wilson MP
Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy
Assistant Minister for Emergency Management
Member for Fremantle

The Hon Yvette Berry MLA
Deputy Chief Minister
Minister for Homes and New Suburbs
Minister for Education and Early Childhood
Minister for Sport and Recreation
Member for Ginninderra

The Hon Suzanne Orr MLA
Minister for Climate Change, Environment, Energy and Water
Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs
Minister for Disability, Carers and Community Services
Minister for Seniors and Veterans
Member for Yerrabi

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

Energy efficiency upgrades cutting energy bills for 3,000 ACT households

Monday, 21 July 2025

Three thousand Canberran households are saving on their energy bills and enjoying more comfortable homes following energy performance upgrades delivered to social housing properties by the Albanese and ACT Government’s Social Housing Energy Performance Initiative (SHEPI) partnership.

The $35.2 million investment funds the ACT Home Energy Support Public and Community Housing Upgrades Program that will improve up to 5,000 public and community housing properties.

The upgrades include work like installing ceiling insulation and swapping out existing gas appliances for efficient electric alternatives.

The program has so far installed more than 250,000 square metres of insulation, more than 700 reverse cycle air conditioners and 1,000 hot water heat pumps to ensure homes are fitted out to stay cool in summer and warm through the cold Canberra winters.

Along with energy upgrades to their home, residents are provided with information and guidance on how to best operate their home as efficiently as possible with the new features.

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

Unlocking Gen P

ONLINE ADDRESS TO 'GENERATION P: UNLOCKING PRODUCTIVIY FOR AUSTRALIA’S FUTURE'
HOSTED BY FUTURE FORWARD AUSTRALIA

THURSDAY, 3 JULY 2025

It’s great to be speaking to Gen P. A generation with enough optimism to believe we can boost productivity and fix housing and decarbonise the economy – all before lunch. I like your ambition.

Let’s talk about productivity. Not in the abstract, economic-model kind of way – but as the thing that quietly shapes your lives, your wages, your choices, your future.

Productivity growth is how we produce more value with the same effort. It’s what allows wages to rise, governments to invest in public services, and societies to lift living standards without just working harder or longer.

But right now, Australia has a productivity challenge.

When the Albanese Government came to office, we inherited the sharpest quarterly fall in productivity in 45 years. In the June quarter of 2022, labour productivity dropped by 2.4 per cent – the worst result since 1979. But this wasn’t just a blip. Over the decade to 2020, labour productivity growth averaged just 1.1 per cent a year – the slowest in more than half a century, and well below the long-run average.

That matters, because productivity growth is what gives us the breathing space to be generous. It’s how we fund Medicare, pay teachers well, and build a more sustainable economy. If we let it stall, we’re left fighting over a pie that isn’t growing – and no one wants to be the Treasurer at a cake sale with no cake.

So how do we respond?

Senator The Hon Katy Gallagher
Minister for Finance
Minister for Women
Minister for the Public Service
Minister for Government Services
Senator for the ACT

The Hon Chris Bowen MP
Minister for Climate Change and Energy
Member for McMahon

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

Alicia Payne MP
Member for Canberra

David Smith MP
Member for Bean

Labor's Cheaper Home Batteries Program Begins

Wednesday, 2 July 2025

The Albanese Labor Government is helping households, small businesses and community groups bring down their energy bills with the roll out of the Cheaper Home Batteries program.

Labor’s Cheaper Home Batteries program will help bring down the cost of a typical battery discounted by around 30 per cent. This will save households with existing rooftop solar up to $1,100 off their power bill every year, and those installing a new solar and battery system could save up to $2,300 a year – up to 90 per cent of a typical family electricity bill.

One in three Australian households have rooftop solar – but only one in 40 have a battery.

The Albanese Labor Government is fixing that, by giving all Australians a proper leg up towards the cost of a battery - 30 per cent, or around $4,000 - off the cost of a typical home battery.

In the ACT, there have been nearly 60,000 rooftop solar installations, which have the capacity to produce close to 350 megawatts of cheap solar power. Now with Cheaper Home Batteries, more local households can store that cheap solar from the middle of the day for when they need it.

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

Making Car Repairs More Affordable For Australians

30 June 2025

The Albanese Government is making it easier and cheaper to keep cars on the road by backing Australia’s right to repair laws and ensuring mechanics have the information they need to do the job.

One of our first decisions after winning office in 2022 was to begin the Motor Vehicle Service and Repair Information Sharing Scheme on 1 July 2022. The Scheme is the first right to repair law of its kind in Australia, and has been in operation for three years. It requires car manufacturers to make service and repair information available for purchase by all Australian repairers and registered training organisations at a fair market price.

Today, the Government has reappointed the Australian Automotive Service and Repair Authority Limited to a key statutory role, while also releasing a discussion paper to examine how the Scheme is working.

The Australian Automotive Service and Repair Authority Limited has been reappointed as Scheme Adviser for a further two-year term beginning on 1 July 2025. This will ensure the automotive sector continues to support the Scheme’s operation. The organisation assists Australian repairers in accessing information from vehicle manufacturers—including what is offered and on what terms—and helps mediate any disputes.

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

OPINION PIECE

Fair Go, Fair Markets: Why Consumer Trust Matters More Than Ever

Published in The Canberra Times

Monday, 30 June 2025

In a fast-changing economy, consumer trust isn’t just a virtue – it’s a necessity. Whether you're buying a fridge, downloading an app, or applying for a mortgage, you're taking a leap of faith that the product will do what it claims, the terms will be fair, and someone will listen if things go wrong.

Trust is the invisible infrastructure of the modern marketplace. Strip it away, and what remains is a minefield of confusion, caution and exploitation. When people stop believing the system works for them, they disengage. And when bad actors go unchallenged, good businesses suffer too.

Australia has made real strides in building trust through strong consumer protection. The Australian Consumer Law, introduced in 2011, brought together a tangle of federal, state and territory rules into a single national framework. Since then, protections have expanded – unfair contract terms are now banned, consumer guarantees are better enforced, and regulators have more tools to hold businesses to account.

But markets don’t stand still. And nor can our laws.

Today, technology has transformed the way we live and shop. Global platforms dominate online commerce. Artificial intelligence increasingly determines what ads we see, what prices we’re offered, even which products we’re shown in the first place. With these advances come opportunities – but also new risks.

AI, for all its potential, raises serious questions for consumer protection. What happens when a chatbot gives dangerously wrong advice? When a recommendation algorithm steers vulnerable users toward harmful content? Or when a company uses machine learning to nudge people into purchases they later regret?

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

Fair Go, Fair Markets: Consumer Trust in a Fast-Changing Australia

ADDRESS TO THE 2025 NATIONAL CONSUMER CONGRESS
MELBOURNE

FRIDAY, 27 JUNE 2025

I acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which we meet – the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people of the Kulin Nation – and pay my respects to their Elders past and present.

Consumer protection matters everywhere, but its importance is especially clear in First Nations communities. A recent case reminded us of the serious harm that can occur when companies exploit Indigenous customers – and of the regulator’s willingness to act when that trust is breached.

I thank each of you for being here – consumer advocates, regulators, researchers, and business leaders. It’s great to be speaking to a room full of people who actually read the digital services agreements the rest of us scroll past on the way to ‘Accept All’.

The theme of this year’s National Consumer Congress – Who can we trust? – goes to the heart of what it means to have a functioning economy. Trust is not an optional extra. It is not a marketing gimmick or a nice-to-have. It’s the foundation on which every transaction rests.

These days, trust is harder to earn than an Uber five-star rating – and once lost, just as hard to claw back.

If you buy a carton of eggs, you trust that it won’t make your family sick. If you purchase a fridge, you trust that the energy rating is accurate. If you take out a home loan, you trust that the terms have been fairly disclosed. And if you complain, you trust that someone will listen – and act.

When that trust is absent, we all pay the price. Markets become less efficient. Consumers become more cautious. The playing field tilts towards those who can afford to game the system.

But when trust is present – when people believe the system works for them, not just for the powerful – they engage more confidently, spend more freely, and contribute to stronger and fairer markets.

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

‘The Progressive Productivity Agenda’

The McKell Institute 
Sydney 

Wednesday, 25 June 2025

I acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, their elders past and present, and all First Nations people here today. My thanks to Ed Cavanough and the McKell Institute team for the invitation. The McKell Institute is a power player in the world of progressive ideas, and Australia is better for your contributions – incisive, practical, and unafraid of a bold argument. If progressive policy ideas were a competitive sport, McKell would already have a Brownlow – and perhaps a tribunal hearing or two.

Introduction

In 1930, just as the global economy was plunging into depression, John Maynard Keynes published a remarkably upbeat essay: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren (Keynes 1930). The aim, he said, was to ‘disembarrass myself of short views’ – to look beyond the Depression and imagine what life might be like a century hence.

Keynes and his wife Lydia Lopokova never had children, but I’m in the generation that would have been his great-grandchildren. Which means I’m also part of the generation he was writing about – the ones who, by 2030, would inherit a world shaped by rising productivity and the promise of abundance.

Keynes made two bold predictions.

First, he forecast that the standard of life in ‘progressive countries’ would rise four to eightfold. In Australia, that prediction has come true. Real GDP per capita is now more than five times higher than it was in 1930 (Hutchinson et al 2025). Our homes are warmer, our diets richer, our healthcare and education vastly more advanced. In almost every material sense, we now live in the world he foresaw.

His second prediction was that people would work no more than fifteen hours a week. Freed from the struggle for subsistence, Keynes believed, we could turn our attention to ‘the art of life itself’ – to leisure, to creativity, to community.

That future hasn’t arrived. But the reason isn’t that productivity failed to grow. It’s that we made a different choice.

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

Supermarket smarts: Helping shoppers find the best deals

25 June 2025             

The fifth Albanese Government funded CHOICE quarterly report into supermarket prices released today gives consumers the latest pricing information on household products, including popular ingredients for winter meals.

Kicking off the second year of reports for supermarket shoppers, CHOICE priced groceries at 104 supermarkets in 27 locations across Australia in March.

Overall, Aldi was once again the cheapest supermarket for a basket of 14 goods (without specials), followed by Woolworths, Coles, then IGA.

Including specials, CHOICE found that Aldi was still the cheapest, followed by Coles, Woolworths, then IGA. However, the gap between Aldi and Coles and Woolworths was smaller than in previous reports. This is due to the shopping basket in this year’s quarterly report comparing more fresh fruit and vegetables.

‘Winter warmer’ items like vegetable stock, sour cream, drinking chocolate, butternut pumpkins, quick oat sachets, garlic, and brown onions are in the spotlight for this quarter’s report.

Comfort food and confident customers are a good recipe, with the government backing consumers to get the best deals in the supermarket aisle.

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

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
ABC AFTERNOON BRIEFING WITH PATRICIA KARVELAS

TUESDAY, 24 JUNE 2025

SUBJECTS: Oil prices, petrol price monitoring by the ACCC, Israel-Iran ceasefire, Coalition’s regulation hypocrisy, Labor’s abundance agenda, Reform Roundtable

PATRICIA KARVELAS: My guest this afternoon is the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury, Andrew Leigh -welcome to the program.

ANDREW LEIGH: Thanks, Patricia. Great to be with you.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: I want to start on the conflict, and then we'll move, of course, on to these domestic economic issues which are huge. We're yet to hear from Israel in relation to this ceasefire. It's been several hours now since the President declared a ceasefire. Are you worried that sends perhaps a message that this cease fire may not hold?

ANDREW LEIGH: I'm certainly hopeful that it does Patricia. We need sustained peace in the Middle East, and the prospect of an ongoing Middle East war - a conflagration that's even worse than we're seeing now - would be desperately dangerous for so many people in the region, including thousands of Australians who are there right now. It's important that we keep Iran within the non-proliferation treaty that allows that IAEA monitoring of its nuclear capability, which has been important. And long-term, we want Iran to be joining that prosperity agenda which has been pursued by other countries in the Middle East, which is of course in the interests of Iran and its people.