Andrew Leigh

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

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS AFTERNOON AGENDA, WITH JULIA BRADLEY
MONDAY, 16 FEBRUARY 2026

SUBJECTS: ACCC case against Coles; Albanese Government helping Australians get a fairer deal at the checkout; national competition policy; productivity; Labor’s ban on Unfair Trading Practices, including subscription traps and drip pricing

JULIA BRADLEY: Well Coles’ famous slogan, ‘Down, down, prices are down’, is facing its biggest test yet as a ten day hearing begins in the Federal Court. The ACCC launching the case over soaring grocery prices –accusing major supermarkets of exploiting their market power during the inflation surge. The watchdog alleges the supermarket misled customers over discounted product promotions. Coles denies any wrongdoing and the case comes ahead of new regulations to ban excessive supermarket pricing; supermarket pricing coming into effect from July 1. Joining me live now is Andrew Leigh, Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury. Thank you so much for your company. What do you make of this court case which is now beginning? What could be the outcome of this? What are you expecting?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well these are extremely serious allegations being levelled against one of the nation's biggest retailers. We know our supermarket sector is very concentrated. The big two have two-thirds of the market. And that's why since we came to office, the Albanese Government has set about cracking down on supermarkets, so families and farmers get a fairer deal. We've raised the maximum penalties for anti-competitive conduct and we've given an additional $30 million to the competition watchdog to run cases such as these. As you mentioned Julia, we're banning price gouging starting from the 1st of July. And we're also investigating strengthening the unit pricing code to deal with shrinkflation –that problem that happens when the size of the pack shrinks but the price stays the same.

JULIA BRADLEY: I've certainly noticed shrinkflation in supermarkets that's for sure. When you buy your favourite product and gosh, there's not much in the pack is there? So in terms of this court case involving the ACCC, does the current economic climate with rising inflation play into the favor of the ACCC against the supermarkets? What are you expecting the context to say about this?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well I should be careful not to comment on an active court case, given the separation of powers but I do know that many Australian families are under pressure, and that's why the Albanese Government has been so focused on ensuring that we get our supermarket reforms right. We've got a consultation closing tomorrow which is looking at whether or not the supermarkets should be required to post all their prices in-store and the big supermarkets required to post them online in a way that can be used by price comparison tools, as well as considering whether loyalty programs need to provide a little bit more transparency so that customers know what they're really getting. We understand the importance to customers of getting a fair deal at the checkout, and we recognise that the supermarket sector is a big part of the cost-of-living pressures that Australians are under.

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, 16 FEBRUARY 2026

SUBJECTS: ACCC case against Coles; Angus Taylor’s economic record; immigration

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Supermarket giant Coles has been accused by the ACCC of a planned campaign to mislead customers over price discounts on the first day of a bombshell Federal Court case. Andrew Leigh is the Assistant Minister responsible for competition policy and he’s my guest. Andrew Leigh, welcome.

ANDREW LEIGH: Good afternoon Patricia, great to be with you.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: This is a very big case and quite consequential – Coles and the ACCC. Now the former ACCC boss, Allan Fels says that this is the case of the century because its implications are huge. Just describe to me what you think the implications are?

ANDREW LEIGH: Look this is a big case with significant implications, with an allegation that so-called discounts actually weren’t. Many Australians will shop at one of these two big retailers, which between them, control two-thirds of the supermarket sector. And so the implications of this case are substantial.

Upon coming to government Patricia, we increased the penalties for anti-competitive conduct and we gave additional funding to the ACCC – some additional $30 million so they could pursue cases of this kind. We’ve also commissioned the first big supermarket competition review in 16 years and set about a whole suite of reforms, both in order to ensure that families get a fairer deal but also that farmers are better treated in their dealings with the supermarket giants.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: You say that this, you know, has big implications and that’s, I think – there’s a consensus that that’s the case. Is this the sort of court case that the government watches closely to see if there’s also perhaps a need for even more law reform?

ANDREW LEIGH: Yes, we’ve got a pretty substantial law reform agenda in terms of making sure Australians get a fair deal at the checkout. We’re banning supermarket price gouging, we’re reviewing the unit pricing code to tackle shrinkflation and we’ve got CHOICE out there doing quarterly grocery price monitoring so Australians get a sense as to where they can get the best deal on their weekly shop. And that’s on top of what we’ve done with farmers with turning the old toothless code of conduct that existed under the former Coalition Government into a mandatory code with multi-million-dollar penalties for supermarkets who do the wrong thing in their dealings with farmers.

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, 16 FEBRUARY 2026

SUBJECTS: Liberal Party Leadership; Immigration Policy; ACCC case against Coles; Albanese Government helping Australians get a fairer deal at the checkout

ROSS SOLLY: Here's a couple of thoughts on what makes Australian values on the text line. ‘Mateship, not taking ourselves too seriously, respect for individual differences, inclusivity, having a crack and kicking against the pricks.’ Oh yep – no that's fair. David Torrens; ‘The politicians and others that seek and call for immigrants to accept Australian values are just dog whistling their racist ideas, and in some cases policy. It's such a sad and tragic pronouncement to hear in our multicultural communities’. Well let's go to Andrew Leigh. Andrew Leigh is the Member for Fenner and Assistant Minister for Competition and we're going to talk about the ACCC versus Coles court case. But Andrew Leigh, good morning to you. Do you feel that we're losing our way in regard to Australian values and what it means to be Australian?

ANDREW LEIGH: I've always thought there's three big values that define Australia, Ross. Egalitarianism, mateship - updated for a modern era - and the fair go. They encapsulate a lot of what has traditionally been recognised as what made Australia different, even going back to convict times. And also I think appropriate for a present in which so many of us are either migrants or the children of migrants.

ROSS SOLLY: So when Angus Taylor said on Friday, and he said it again over the weekend that one of the things he wants to see is a return to Australian values and people that are stopping him on the street and saying, ‘Oh, I don't think that, you know, we're recognising any more or promoting what it takes to be Australian’. Do you think he's right?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well, putting Angus Taylor's comments to one side, I think people who rail against immigration are in some sense campaigning against a fundamental Australian value. Given that Australia has been such a successful multicultural democracy. That is very much a part of modern Australia and if you can't accept that, then you're missing much of what makes modern Australia strong. That ability to welcome successive waves of migrants into an egalitarian multicultural democracy, who's enjoyed growth and living standards which are the envy of many countries around the world.

ROSS SOLLY: Let's talk about this court case. Allan Fels today is describing it as the court case of the century. That might be a bit of an overstatement, Andrew Leigh. But as the Assistant Minister for Competition, the ACCC taking on Coles this week in the courts, there's a lot riding on this. It is an important case, isn't it?

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

FutureReady Belconnen: Opening Doors, Building Futures
Opening of the MTC FutureReady Skills for Education and Employment Training Centre

Belconnen, ACT

13 February 2026

We gather today on Ngunnawal Country, and I pay my respects to Elders past and present.

It is a real pleasure to be here for the opening of the MTC FutureReady Skills for Education and Employment training centre in Belconnen.

At its heart, this centre is about something simple and powerful: giving people the tools to move forward. When someone strengthens their English, builds their digital skills, sharpens their numeracy, or returns to learning after time away, doors open.

The Australian Government’s SEE program rests on a clear idea: when people gain strong foundational skills, everyone benefits. Employers gain capable workers. Communities grow stronger. Individuals discover abilities that carry them further than they imagined.

Across the ACT, thousands have already stepped forward through Free TAFE and related programs. Yet numbers only tell part of the story, so let me share two that bring the impact to life.

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

Opinion Piece

Stop the checkout trickery

Published in The Daily Telegraph

12 February 2026

You know the moment. You click ‘buy’, feeling quietly pleased with yourself for finding a decent deal. Then, at the final screen, the price jumps. A service fee appears from nowhere. A processing charge sneaks in. Suddenly that cheap deal looks less like a bargain.

Or perhaps it is the subscription that seemed harmless at first. Signing up took seconds. Cancelling feels closer to an endurance sport – buried menus, unanswered emails, ‘are you really sure?’ prompts designed to wear you down.

These practices are spreading across the economy, and they are quietly draining household budgets.

That is why the government is launching a nationwide crackdown on hidden transaction fees and subscription traps, with draft legislation released earlier this month to ban unfair trading practices.

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

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO PERTH, DRIVE WITH WITH OLIVER PETERSON
TUESDAY, 10 FEBRUARY 2026

SUBJECTS: Albanese Government’s ban on Unfair Trading Practices

OLIVER PETERSON: It’s eight past three. You know that free trial that you signed up for but maybe you forgot to cancel? Do you realise how much you are actually paying? And I'm talking about streaming services, apps, airline bookings, gyms, antivirus software – the list goes on and on. Now you might not even realise the few dollars that you are missing. Well, the federal government wants to do something about it and crack down on these hidden fees and charges. The Assistant Minister responsible is Andrew Leigh, who is drafting some new laws and he joins you and me live on Drive. Good afternoon!

ANDREW LEIGH: Good afternoon Ollie, great to be with you.

OLIVER PETERSON: Good to have you on the program there Assistant Minister. What are you trying to stop with these new laws?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well, subscriptions are super convenient. Many of us use them for magazines, meal delivery, streaming services, fitness memberships and software. But too many Australians are finding it hard to get out of their subscriptions Ollie. Three out of four Australians with subscriptions have been caught in subscription traps. And one estimate says it's costing the country $46 million a year. So we're putting in place reforms which will make it as easy to end a subscription as it was to start it and stop these ‘dark practices’ that make it too difficult for people to get out of a subscription when they've decided they've had enough.

OLIVER PETERSON: Why are you cracking down on this now?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well, we know it's been a big issue and we've done a couple of big consultations on this with consumers and industry groups last year and the year before. Based on that, we've now got these draft laws out there just for a short, sharp consultation for a couple of weeks. We've got agreement from states and territories to work on this, which is really important because it means that WA Fair Trading and the Australian Competition Consumer Commission will be enforcing these laws when they're in place.

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, 10 FEBRUARY 2026

SUBJECTS: Israeli President’s visit to Australia; Albanese Government’s ban on Unfair Trading Practices

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Dr Andrew Leigh is the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury and the Member for Fenner and joins us now. Andrew, good morning.

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

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: The visit of President Herzog. I mean, it stands to reason that the Jewish community has welcomed the comfort that the President of Israel has brought them by coming out to mourn with them in the wake of the Bondi Terror Attack in December. Extraordinary, the opposition to this.

ANDREW LEIGH: Well Stephen, you're right. The focus of this visit really is on President Herzog being out here in order to console the Jewish community. It was a request from the Jewish community that he be invited out to Australia and the principal focus is on him being with those friends, relatives, family, the extended Jewish community who are mourning after Australia's worst terrorist incident.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: He will meet with the Prime Minister. What are we expecting to come out of that meeting? Because the relationship between Israel and Australia has been strained in recent times. Will this go any way to fixing that?

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

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC AFTERNOON BRIEFING, WITH PATRICIA KARVELAS
MONDAY, 9 FEBRUARY 2026

SUBJECTS: Inflation; economy; productivity; Albanese Government’s competition reform; replacing the Capital Gains Tax discount with inflation indexation; National Anti‑Corruption Commission

PATRICIA KARVELAS: With all the Liberal Party turmoil, the building story around the economy and inflation has been a little drowned out but we think it's very important, so the Assistant Productivity Minister, Andrew Leigh joins me now. Welcome to the program.

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

PATRICIA KARVELAS: You'd have to agree that it might be fun for you to watch your opponents fall apart at the moment. But at the moment, Australians really just care that they're paying more in interest rates and on their mortgages, right?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well, it is with a sense of sorrow that I look at what's happened with a three-ring circus on the other side of the Parliament. I think Australia does benefit from a strong Opposition. I think it's a pity that the Liberals and Nationals are so focused on themselves rather than on their constituents.

In terms of the economy we've got very strong unemployment, we've had consistently unemployment sitting around 4 per cent. That is incredibly important for the opportunities for Australians. We do have a cost‑of‑living challenge, and that's why the government is so focused on getting inflation down and making the contribution that we can on that.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Question Time, you know this – you were there, was absolutely dominated by quoting Michele Bullock, who's the Reserve Bank Governor, and her confirmation that government spending is part of aggregate demand, which she said is contributing to inflationary pressures and that's why they've decided also to raise interest rates. That is not quite what the government was saying. Do you see that there is a distinction between the way that she raised it?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well, government spending is a little over a quarter of aggregate demand, and last year was growing more slowly than private demand. And so, the comments that the Reserve Bank Governor has made is that principally the challenges we're facing are around bottlenecks and things like housing supply; they're the principal drivers of why inflation has gone higher than the Reserve Bank Board anticipated last year, and why they've ended up having to change course.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: There's almost – you know, I've studied economics. I'm not comparing myself to you Dr Andrew Leigh, but I know something about the way it works.

ANDREW LEIGH: You know a lot Patricia.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Something, let's just go with something. And you can't have the demand that the taxpayer essentially funds not affect private demand. You'd agree with that right? You can't delink the two?

ANDREW LEIGH: But public demand was growing more slowly than private demand last year. We saw the withdrawal of the state and federal energy subsidies, in that sense that's making a contribution to what's bringing inflationary pressures down.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: But that money that's being expended by the Commonwealth in all sorts of ways. We're not going to go through all the line items but it has been growing, that is incontestable. That is fuelling private demand too, isn't it?

ANDREW LEIGH: But Patricia, growing at a slower rate than private demand. So private demand is the principal challenge that the economy faces, the principal challenge which has contributed towards inflation. We see pressures in all kinds of areas, such as travel and some of the inputs into housing that we talked about before. Getting rid of some of those skills shortages are important, so the work that we're doing in Free TAFE and construction apprenticeship bonuses are critical in terms of dealing with some of those supply bottlenecks in the economy, and of course, boosting productivity, which I know is something you flagged in your opening there.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: We are going to talk about productivity, because the Treasurer talks about inflation, productivity, all these issues as being essentially the issues to tackle in the Budget, including intergenerational fairness which we'll get to in a moment – my favourite pet topic. But let's talk just on that issue if we can. How do you intend to deal with productivity in the Budget? There was a big roundtable – things went rather silent post the roundtable, but there is kind of a manifesto of ideas; many are just sitting there?

ANDREW LEIGH: We've got a big, bold, ambitious agenda on productivity Patricia. We saw our competition reforms in the first term, the historic overhaul of the merger laws, the announcement of scrapping non‑compete clauses for nine out of ten workers to make it easier for people to move to a better job. We've revamped national competition policy, which really was an engine of productivity growth in the 1990s with a big productivity fund collaborating with the states on things like occupational licensing.

The work we're doing in order to create a more dynamic and competitive economy really stands in contrast to that couple of decades where we saw increased market concentration, increased mark‑ups, a slowing down in the small business creation rate, which worried many economists and caused a sort of sclerosis in the economy.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Do you believe in bold tax reform being part of the Budget?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well, of course we have a deliberate bold tax reform, we've revamped those Stage 3 tax cuts so they were fairer – delivered income tax cuts for Australians.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Sure.

ANDREW LEIGH: We've been very bold on multinational tax. I think our last term of multinational tax reform stacks up against any government around the world in terms of what we did around thin capitalisation and other measures. Our transparency measures are world-leading, the country‑by‑country reporting that will soon kick in. So yes, we're ambitious on tax reform and we're delivering.

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

Government Targets Hidden Fees And Subscription Traps In Crackdown On Unfair Trading Practices

9 February 2026

The Albanese Government is launching a nationwide crackdown on unfair trading practices including hidden transaction fees and subscription traps, releasing draft legislation today that would ban these practices across the economy.

Too many Australians have clicked “buy” only to discover extra charges at the final screen, or found themselves locked into subscriptions that are far easier to start than to stop. These practices chip away at household budgets and undermine trust in the marketplace. With cost-of-living pressures front of mind, the Government is acting to ensure the price consumers see is the price they pay.

The draft laws would outlaw harmful business conduct that unreasonably manipulates or distorts consumer decision-making, in addition to targeting subscription traps and hidden transaction fees.

Under the proposed reforms, businesses offering subscriptions in Australia would need to disclose key information before sign-up, notify customers at critical points during a subscription, and provide a clear, straightforward way to cancel. Transaction fees would also have to be prominently disclosed, so consumers are not ambushed by unexpected costs at checkout.

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

Australian and New Zealand Industrial and Applied Mathematics Conference 2026
Convergence in the Capital
Opening Speech

Canberra

9 February 2026

Hello everyone, and welcome to ANZIAM 2026.

I’m Andrew Leigh, Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities & Treasury. I would have loved to be with you in person, but Parliament is sitting this week – which is rather like an optimisation problem solved in real time. The constraints are real, the objective function evolves as new information arrives, and convergence takes patience.

Still, I’m delighted to welcome you to Canberra – a city that is sometimes described as discrete rather than continuous, highly structured, and with a surprising amount of empty space between nodes. In other words, a place many of you will feel instantly at home.

I’d like to begin by acknowledging the Ngunnawal people, the Traditional Custodians of the land on which you’re meeting, and to pay my respects to all First Nations attendees.

This is the 62nd ANZIAM conference, and Canberra has hosted you before – which suggests either that Canberra is a stable fixed point of the ANZIAM conference map, or that the basin of attraction is larger than it looks. Given the program this week, I’m confident someone here could tell us which.

Looking at the abstracts, what struck me is just how broad and unapologetically applied this conference is. In the next few days you’ll move from malaria modelling to distributed convex optimisation, from groundwater clogging to vegetation patterns in drylands, from high-dimensional networks to the fluid mechanics of your morning coffee. It’s a reminder that applied mathematics is the connective tissue of much of modern life.