Andrew Leigh

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

Historic First Tax Treaty Between Australia And Croatia Signed

24 November 2025

The Albanese Government has signed a landmark tax treaty with Croatia – the first ever between our two nations – marking a major step forward in our growing bilateral relationship.

Once in force, the agreement will make it easier for Australian and Croatian businesses to trade, invest and innovate together. It creates a more predictable and transparent tax environment, paving the way for deeper economic cooperation.

The treaty lowers certain withholding tax rates, cutting costs for Australians investing in Croatia and opening up new avenues to access Croatian capital and technology. It will also simplify compliance and give businesses and investors greater certainty about their tax obligations.

Two-way trade between Australia and Croatia reached around $328 million in 2024, with investment totalling about $67 million, particularly in retail and tourism. The new treaty is expected to strengthen those ties and unlock further opportunities across both economies.

It also supports the Albanese Government’s commitment to ensure multinationals pay their fair share of tax by strengthening cooperation between our tax authorities and aligning with OECD and G20 best practices to curb profit shifting.

The treaty will enter into force once both countries complete their domestic implementation processes.

A summary of its main features is available on the Treasury website.

Ends

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

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP PRESS CONFERENCE
MURAL HALL, PARLIAMENT HOUSE
SUNDAY, 23 NOVEMBER 2025

SUBJECTS: Albanese Government’s commitment to ban unfair trading practices

ASSISTANT MINISTER LEIGH: Thanks for coming out today. My name is Andrew Leigh, the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury.

Today, the Albanese Government is announcing that, with the support of the States and Territories, we're moving to ban unfair trading practices. Specifically, we're going to be getting rid of two practices that have been a scourge for Aussie consumers; subscription traps and drip pricing.

Subscription traps are a problem for three out of four Australians who have subscriptions. Many people have reported problems in cancelling a gym membership or in getting out of an online subscription.

We've heard reports of all kinds of dodgy practices. Some subscriptions can be signed up for online, but to cancel you've got to pick up the phone. In other cases, we've heard about subscriptions that can be started immediately online, but then if you want to cancel, it takes 28 days.

Many Australians are stuck with subscriptions that they want to cancel, but where they've just given up through the process of not being able to cancel an unwanted subscription. One estimate for the Consumer Policy Research Centre is that subscription traps are costing Australians $46 million a year. That's almost five bucks for every Australian household.

Subscription traps will be gone under the Labor Government’s reforms to get rid of unfair trading practices. This will be good for consumers and good for honest businesses. Of course, there's a place for subscriptions in a modern economy, but they should be as easy to get out of as they were to get into. A simple rule for businesses: if you can't cancel a subscription through the same process that you started the subscription, then perhaps there's a subscription trap going on. The Albanese Labor Government doesn't want Australians stuck in a Hotel California situation when it comes to their subscriptions.

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

Stopping Unfair Trading: Subscription Traps And Hidden Fees Targeted

23 November 2025             

The Albanese Labor Government is delivering on our commitment to take on dodgy business tactics head-on, banning unfair trading practices that cost Australians time and money.

Following agreement by the States and Territories, the Albanese Labor Government can move ahead with banning unfair trading practices, like subscription traps that make it almost impossible to cancel, and strengthen protections against hidden fees that only appear at the checkout. Australians have had enough of signing up for a free trial only to be hit with surprise charges, or finding out the real cost of a purchase at the very last click.

Under these reforms, businesses will have to play fair. They’ll be required to disclose key information before signing customers up for a subscription, notify customers before a free trial ends, and remove unreasonable barriers to cancellation. We’re also strengthening protections on drip pricing by forcing businesses to show mandatory transaction fees prominently and upfront, so Australians know the real price before they buy.

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

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO BRISBANE, DRIVE WITH ELLEN FANNING
THURSDAY, 20 NOVEMBER 2025

SUBJECTS: Productivity, Australia’s mining sector, renewables, net zero, critical minerals

ELLEN FANNING: If you're asked about the financial health of your family, how would you respond? You’re likely feeling in a bit of a defensive crouch. Inflation chewing up your buying power, no prospects of further rate relief this year. Getting your family into the economic fast lane - out of those doldrums involves pulling a lever called productivity; no, no, no, it doesn't mean working harder, just the opposite. The problem is from the mines, to home builders, to those working in an office this afternoon, our productivity has dropped off a cliff. Andrew Leigh is the Assistant Minister for Productivity and Treasury. Thanks for joining us Dr Leigh. You spoke at the Energy Minerals Tax Conference in Brisbane last week - productivity was the issue. Part of what you were saying was that mining productivity has dropped between 2019 and this year by 23 per cent. They were supposed to be a productive sector. What's going wrong?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well, thanks Ellen for having me on the program, and I love the way you framed up productivity at the start because I think it's gotten a bit of a bad rap. People conceive of it as working harder, but in fact it's working smarter. Mining's still got the highest productivity of any sector in the economy. In other words, total output per labour hour worked is much higher than anything else. But it does go through these big ebbs and flows as you say.

So, we saw a surge in mining productivity from about 2011 to about 2017 and then we saw a bit of a drop from about 2019 onwards. Some of that's to do with what they're mining, some of it's to do with global supply chains and input costs, but I think there's something that we can learn from mining as well about how they're using technology and also how they're adapting to the renewables world.

ELLEN FANNING: Dr Andrew Leigh with you. What about the fact that the Queensland Resources Council complains that it can take up to 16 years to get out of the ground due to duplication and excessive regulation. They say in the approvals process 16 years from go to whoa to get a mine going. Again not productive, you'd think.

ANDREW LEIGH: Well, the slow no’s, even the slow yeses are one of the big complaints we hear from the resource sector. People don't necessarily want to reduce the scrutiny that's being applied but what they do want to do is improve the time to approval, and part of the reason for that is that our environmental laws aren't fit‑for‑purpose.

Graeme Samuel identified that five years ago when he did a report for Sussan Ley when she was Environment Minister and that's what Murray Watt is getting on with the job of putting in place; better environmental laws. And so we have proper scrutiny but also we're able to get to a quick decision because slow decisions don't help anyone.

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

Opinion Piece

Room to fall, room to rise: insolvency and economic dynamism

Published in The Australian

21 November 2025

A strong insolvency system gives people the confidence to start businesses, seek credit and take measured risks. It provides an orderly way to resolve debts when things go wrong, ensures creditors are treated fairly and allows individuals and small firms to re-enter economic life. When this framework works well, it supports the flow of capital and ideas that keeps the economy moving.

When it works poorly, hesitation sets in. Transactions slow, lenders grow cautious and unnecessary costs accumulate.

Insolvency is not a peripheral legal process; it is part of the structure that allows enterprise, investment and innovation to occur with confidence.

Australia has good reason to pay attention to this foundation. Young firms create most new jobs, and the fastest growing among them play a significant role in lifting productivity. Their success depends not only on ingenuity but also on a system that makes it possible to try, fail and try again.

A clear and trusted insolvency framework encourages renewal. A system that is opaque, punitive or open to exploitation discourages it.

Recent cases illustrate the stakes. In one, a personal insolvency agreement proposed returning just 0.15c in the dollar on debts running into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

That figure was far outside normal expectations, prompting regulatory intervention to ensure creditors had accurate information and could vote on a realistic proposal.

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

Ministers Gather in Canberra to Advance New Consumer Safeguards

20 November 2025

Consumer Affairs ministers and officials from the Commonwealth, States, Territories and New Zealand will meet in Canberra on Friday, 21 November 2025. Alongside ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb, ASIC Commissioner Alan Kirkland, and representatives from consumer groups they will meet to set the next wave of national consumer reforms and an ambitious agenda for 2026.

Ministers will discuss progress on reforms to protect consumers from unfair trading practices, strengthening the consumer guarantees and supplier indemnification framework and introducing civil pecuniary penalties and expanded enforcement powers for breaches.

This national meeting follows a landmark year, with governments working on key consumer protection priorities including:

• Reviewing Australia’s first Right to Repair law, the Motor Vehicle Information Sharing Scheme, laying the groundwork for broader Right to Repair reforms
• Making it easier for Australia to recognise overseas standards and keeping product safety standards up-to-date – ensuring products are safe, high quality and affordable.

This builds on the Albanese Government’s commitment to strong consumer protections for Australians, which includes:

• Consulting on options to strengthen the Unit Pricing Code, including adding penalties and tackling shrinkflation
• Reviewing Artificial Intelligence and the Australian Consumer Law, demonstrating that consumer protections are well placed to safeguard Australians when using these products

Quote attributable to Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury, the Hon Andrew Leigh MP:

“This meeting is about making sure the rules keep pace with the risks. Consumers deserve confidence that the products they buy and the services they use are safe, fair and transparent.”

Ends

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

Ten Years of Asking Nicely for Good Causes

Public Fundraising Regulatory Association
Online Address

Thursday, 20 November 2025

Congratulations on the ten-year anniversary of the Public Fundraising Regulatory Association. It’s a pleasure to recognise PFRA’s contribution, and to reflect on the value of charitable fundraising itself.

Fundraising is one of the quiet engines of Australian civic life. A short conversation on a street corner might help fund crisis response work after a natural disaster. A few minutes outside a shopping centre might turn into support for protecting endangered wildlife, or services for children and families doing it tough. An unexpected chat on a morning walk might become a contribution to medical research. These moments are small on their own, but collectively they power the work of many charities that rely on steady, reliable public support.

That is why the way charities fundraise matters. Trust is the bedrock. Donors need to feel confident that the person approaching them is acting respectfully, that their privacy will be protected, and that their contribution will be used well. Charities need confidence that they can invest in fundraising without surprises or inconsistencies. And the public need to know that when they are asked to give, the interaction will be clear, honest and manageable.

This is the spirit behind the National Fundraising Principles recently endorsed across jurisdictions two years ago. They boil the whole system down to a set of sensible expectations: treat donors with respect, explain the purpose of the appeal, be upfront about costs, protect personal information and make opting out simple. These principles replace a confusing maze of state and territory rules with something charities can navigate easily and donors can understand instantly. For donors, they provide clarity. For charities, consistency. And for policymakers, the rare joy of a reform that required less regulation rather than more.

Review of Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All

Andrew Leigh

Published in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age

22 November 2025

Last year, OpenAI ran a test to see how powerful its new artificial intelligence model was in carrying out a nasty hacking operation. Before releasing the model publicly, they set it a computer security exercise known as a ‘capture the flag’ challenge. The AI’s goal was to break into a computer system and retrieve a secret code inside a file.

But the programmers had made a mistake. The target system was offline, so it was impossible for the AI to hack into it. You might have expected that at this point, the AI would give up.

Except it didn’t. The AI reasoned that there was another copy of the secret code – the one being held by the computer hosting the test. So it began testing the systems, and found an open port. Once inside, it copied the secret code. No-one built a cheater, but the system decided that cheating was the best way to achieve success.

Part of Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares’s book is devoted to teaching us about the strangeness of these new systems. Microsoft’s Bing chatbot (powered by GPT-4) threatened to blackmail philosopher Seth Lazar. The same chatbot tried to persuade journalist Kevin Roose to leave his wife and be with it instead. Other AI agents learned to temporarily ‘play dead’ to avoid being detected by a safety test designed to catch faster-replicating variants. In one experiment, an AI system that couldn’t solve a CAPTCHA used TaskRabbit to hire a human, falsely telling the worker it had a vision impairment.

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

Room to Fall, Room to Rise: Insolvency and Economic Dynamism

Australian Financial Security Authority Summit,
Sydney

Tuesday, 18 November 2025

Thank you for the invitation to join this year’s Australian Financial Security Authority Summit. I acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation on whose lands you are meeting, and the Ngunnawal people, on whose lands I am recording these remarks.

Every successful market economy rests on trust. People borrow, build, trade and invest because they have confidence that agreements will be honoured, that disputes will be resolved fairly, and that rules will be applied consistently. When that trust is strong, capital moves and innovation follows. When it erodes, activity slows and caution takes hold.

The personal insolvency system is one of the quiet foundations of that trust. It allows people to take risks, knowing that if things go wrong, there is a fair and lawful framework to resolve debts. It allows creditors to lend and supply, knowing they will be treated equitably. It allows those who have experienced hardship or business failure to re-enter the economy and contribute again. It keeps capital and talent circulating.

When the system functions well, its impact is almost invisible. When it falters, the effects are felt quickly: delayed transactions, rising costs of finance, damaged confidence and fewer new ventures. It is therefore not just a legal framework. It is part of how we support participation, opportunity and renewal.

With that in mind, let me outline the structure of my remarks today. I will begin by discussing the role that the personal insolvency system plays in supporting a dynamic economy. I will then examine professional culture and enforcement, including recent cases that have tested the system and the regulator’s response. After that, I will turn to the Personal Property Securities Register and how improvements can reduce friction in credit markets. I will then discuss reforms to achieve a more balanced and humane personal insolvency framework. Finally, I will reflect on opportunities for further improvement and the importance of continued collaboration across the sector.

The central theme is simple: a fair and trusted insolvency system is a foundation for confidence, renewal and economic participation.

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

When Evidence Meets Equality

Launch of the Gender Equality Evidence Hub,
Melbourne

Online Address 

Monday, 17 November 2025

I acknowledge the Ngunnawal people, on whose lands I am recording these remarks. Special congratulations to Dr Leonora Risse on bringing the Gender Equality Evidence Hub to life. Leonora, you’ve long been a leader in showing that gender economics isn’t about ideology, it’s about insight; about using data to light a path towards a fairer, smarter country. While I can’t be there in person, I’m genuinely delighted to be a virtual part of today’s launch, and to celebrate what you and your team have built.

If you ask ten people what Australia needs to achieve gender equality, you’ll get ten answers. More affordable childcare. More women in leadership. Zero tolerance for sexual harassment. All true. But there’s another answer that underpins them all: the need for an independent, open bridge between research and policy. We have no shortage of passion or opinion in this space. What we’ve lacked is infrastructure: a way of gathering what we know, checking what actually works, and sharing that knowledge widely. That’s the gap the Hub fills.

The evidence shows how stubborn the patterns can be. Even in 2025, you’re still more likely to find an ASX 200 company CEO named John than one who’s a woman. The gender pay gap may be at an all-time low, but it’s still too high. On screen, analysis from the Geena Davis Institute shows that women are a minority of lead roles. Daughters even receive less pocket money than sons. Much of this reflects systems that quietly tilt the playing field in the wrong direction, from unpaid care that still falls disproportionately on women, to workplaces that reward presenteeism over performance. The challenge is not to moralise about those patterns, but to understand them, and to use data and design to change them.

That’s what excites me about the Gender Equality Evidence Hub. It shares the same philosophy that led us to establish the Australian Centre for Evaluation. Both rest on the idea that better decisions come from better evidence. The Centre works across government to test policies rigorously and build a culture of learning. The Hub brings that same spirit to gender equality. Both are built on a simple faith: that fairness and effectiveness go hand in hand when we’re willing to look the evidence squarely in the eye.