Andrew Leigh

The Hon Julie Collins MP
Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry

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

Suppliers Asked For Views On Working Relationships With Supermarkets

16 October 2025

Suppliers to Australia’s large grocery businesses – Coles, Woolworths, Aldi and wholesaler Metcash – are encouraged to share their experience as part of the Food and Grocery Code Supervisor’s annual survey.

The survey monitors relationships between suppliers and the large grocery businesses to identify emerging issues and assess compliance with the code.

It is important that suppliers take part as the survey helps shape future policy and regulation for the sector. It’s a key part of the Government's commitment to ensuring farmers and suppliers get a fair go in dealing with large grocery businesses.

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

The Force of Truth: Gandhi’s Impact on Australia

Australia India Relations and Gandhi Birthday Celebrations

Parliament House, Canberra

Wednesday, 15 October 2025

Introduction

I acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we meet, and pay my respects to Elders past and present. It feels fitting, as we gather to honour Mahatma Gandhi, born 156 years ago this month, to begin with a tribute to another ancient civilisation that has always prized truth, respect and community.

When the Australian statesman Richard Casey was Governor of Bengal, he often corresponded with Gandhi. Every letter from Gandhi began courteously: ‘Dear Friend.’

But Casey later confessed that Gandhi’s handwriting sometimes betrayed him. ‘When he was in a hurry,’ Casey said, ‘‘Dear Friend’ looked perilously close to ‘Dear Fiend’.’

It was an innocent slip of the pen, yet it captures something about our long, sometimes testing friendship with Gandhi’s legacy. Both Australia and India have occasionally misread one another’s handwriting. Yet our intentions have always been friendly, our affection real, and our respect enduring.

This evening, I want to take you on a short journey through that friendship. I’ll begin with how Gandhi saw Australia, and how Australians first saw him. I’ll then trace the way his ideas have echoed through Australian life, from Indigenous rights to environmental protest. Finally, I’ll reflect on why his message still matters in a century that often rewards speed more than patience, and volume more than truth.

Let’s start where Gandhi did: with his first impression of our continent.

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

Refinements To Exemptions Proposed For New Merger Regime 

15 October 2025

Ahead of the new mandatory merger control regime commencing on 1 January 2026, the Government will refine the initial notification requirements to ensure the merger reforms are appropriately targeted and risk-based.

These changes are informed by the ACCC’s experiences during the transitional, voluntary phase of the regime, which began on 1 July 2025, and early stakeholder feedback. They are designed to reduce regulatory burden for low-risk transactions while maintaining the key objectives of a faster, more transparent and risk-based regime that promotes competition in the interests of consumers.

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

Improving transparency of the true owners of companies

15 October 2025

The Albanese Government is streamlining implementation of an open register of beneficial ownership.

The reforms will ensure, for the first time, that accurate and up‑to‑date information on a company’s real owners is available to the public.

Currently, under the Corporations Act 2001, companies must maintain registers of their members. However, beneficial owners – individuals who ultimately control, or benefit from, a company – are not always the legal owners of a company, and so may not be included in the company’s register of members.

The Government will now proceed directly to a public, Commonwealth-operated register of beneficial ownership information for unlisted companies.

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, 14 OCTOBER 2025

SUBJECTS: Return of hostages in the Middle East, superannuation policy changes, Defence Honours and Awards

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Time to talk federal politics now with the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury and the Member for Fenner, Andrew Leigh. Andrew, good morning.

ANDREW LEIGH: Good morning Stephen.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: A momentous day yesterday, absolute jubilant scenes out of Israel early evening our time - I'd think mid‑morning Israeli time. 20 living hostages. Now, we've got still got 28 sadly, that have been murdered by Hamas. We need their remains returned so that their families can get closure, but I tell you what for all his faults and failings, Donald Trump pulled off something that nobody else could.

ANDREW LEIGH: I think only a US President could have got this over of line and it really was joyous to see those hostages being brought home to their families. There's a lovely story about two hostages who huddled together in a tunnel, deciding if they ever got out they'd go on a surfing holiday together, and now they're making those plans. There's so many parents and that have longed to see their children back. So yes, on a human level you just had to feel a sense of hope for peace and calm in the Middle East, and for the killing to stop.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Yeah, it's going to be ‑ look, obviously a lot of water left to go under the bridge, and President Trump after visiting Israel, moving on to Egypt to sign these peace deals. I guess the real telling point here is that so many Arab nations have signed up for this. Obviously, they've had enough of the Iranian‑backed terror regimes that have been attacking Israel, and once upon a time they would have liked to have seen Israel wiped off the map, but they've grown a modern spine so to speak.

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

Opinion Piece

How universities fit into the age of intelligent machines

Published in Campus Review

13 October 2025

When Geoffrey Hinton, the so-called ‘godfather of AI’, declared in 2016 that ‘we should stop training radiologists now,’ his warning caused a stir. If any job was ripe for automation, surely it was reading medical scans: precise, repetitive, digital work that machines could perform in milliseconds and humans took years to master. Algorithms soon began matching and even outperforming doctors. Venture capital poured into start-ups promising to replace human diagnosticians. The end of the radiologist looked near.

Yet the opposite happened. Radiology salaries have risen, and Australia’s college of radiologists lists dozens of unfilled positions. Far from being replaced, radiologists have become more productive and more valued. Artificial intelligence now handles the drudgery, sorting images and flagging anomalies, while doctors focus on complex cases and patient care. More scans mean more work. Technology did not kill the profession; it made it better.

That story captures what productivity should mean in a modern economy: not working longer hours, but using ideas to make every hour more valuable. Innovation does not just raise output; it can make jobs more interesting and rewarding.

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

Strong Communities, Strong Nation: What the Regions Teach Us

Regional Australia Institute National Summit

Parliament House, Canberra

Wednesday, 8 October 2025

Opening

It is a real pleasure to be with you on Ngunnawal Country at this year’s National Summit. Thank you to Liz Ritchie and the team from the Regional Australia Institute for inviting me to join you.

As Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury, community is central to my work. In each of my portfolios, the lesson is the same: when communities are strong, the nation prospers. Community makes us more productive. A well-connected workforce is an efficient one, where people find jobs through networks and businesses succeed through trust. Community strengthens the budget bottom line, because healthy, resilient communities mean lower costs for government services. Community enables charities, which are some of the most trusted institutions in our nation, helping us tackle problems that governments alone cannot solve. And when there are more local organisations, including new business forms such as cooperatives, there is greater competition, which means more dynamism, better services and lower prices.

A few years ago, Nick Terrell and I wrote a book called Reconnected, which explored why community life had weakened in some parts of Australia and what we might do to revive it. The core message was simple: when people join together, we are all better off.

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

Degrees of Growth: How Universities Help Drive Productivity

Keynote Address to the Go8 Dialogue: Leveraging Research and Innovation to Turbocharge Productivity

Parliament House, Canberra

Wednesday, 8 October 2025

When Technology Makes Work Better

In 2016, Geoffrey Hinton, the ‘godfather of AI’, made a stark prediction. ‘We should stop training radiologists now’, he said, suggesting that artificial intelligence would soon take over the job of reading scans.

It sounded plausible. Radiology looked like the perfect test case for automation: digital images, repeatable tasks, clear benchmarks. Algorithms such as CheXNet began outperforming panels of expert radiologists in spotting pneumonia. Companies launched hundreds of products to prioritise urgent scans, draft reports and detect disease. If any profession was about to be wiped out by machines, surely radiology was it.

And yet, the opposite happened. As researcher Deena Moussa notes, in the United States, radiology residencies are oversubscribed and salaries have soared. In Australia, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists currently lists more than fifty unfilled positions, while Glassdoor reports that the average radiologist earns multiples of the national average wage. Far from being displaced, radiologists are more productive and more valued than ever.

Why? Because AI tools do not remove the need for radiologists, they change the way radiologists work. Machines speed up routine tasks, so radiologists can focus on complex diagnoses and on conversations with clinicians and patients. Faster, cheaper scans mean doctors order more of them, which in turn creates more work for radiologists. Far from hollowing out the profession, AI has deepened its importance.

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

Opinion Piece

The biggest barrier to nation's challenges

Published in The Canberra Times

4 October 2025

‘It's not a question of enough, pal. It's a zero-sum game. Somebody wins and somebody loses.’ Gordon Gekko’s line in Wall Street captured the ethos of 1980s greed. Yet the mindset he embodies, that every gain must come at someone else’s expense, still lingers in public debate.

Australians sometimes hear arguments framed as if the nation is a fixed pie. Immigration is cast as ‘migrants versus jobs’. Gender equality becomes ‘women versus men’. Climate action is ‘jobs versus environment’. These frames don’t reflect the whole of politics – but they do shape how issues are discussed, and they risk narrowing our sense of what is possible.

The alternative is abundance: the belief that cooperation can expand opportunity, that prosperity can grow, and that fairness does not require someone else’s loss. Abundance is not extravagance. It is capability. It is about building systems that deliver more homes, more clean energy, more opportunity, and more shared growth.

Psychologists call the opposite tendency the ‘belief in a zero-sum game’: the idea that if one person gains, another must inevitably lose. People who hold this view tend to distrust institutions, volunteer less and feel more pessimistic about society. Economists call it the ‘fixed pie’ bias.

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

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
2CC RADIO CANBERRA, WITH LEON DELANEY
FRIDAY, 3 OCTOBER 2025

SUBJECTS: QantasLink base closure, Review of Artificial Intelligence and the Australian Consumer Law, Robodebt

LEON DELANEY: Earlier this week, Qantas announced it will close down its crew base at Canberra Airport, along with similar bases at Hobart and Mildura in April next year. Since then, the CEO of Qantas has reportedly provided an assurance that services to Canberra will actually be increased. Joining me now the federal Member for Fenner and Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury, Dr Andrew Leigh – good afternoon.

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

LEON DELANEY: Well, thanks for joining us today. You have urged Qantas to reconsider its decision to close their base here in Canberra. What do you feel will be the adverse impact if they go ahead with the closure?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well, the risk is that more pilots end up leaving the airline. 68 per cent of pilots who were surveyed by the three pilots unions said they'd look for alternative employment if the proposal went ahead. One in five of those pilots has already experienced a base closure and had to relocate. So, I don't feel like Qantas is treating its pilots with the decency that you'd expect from a company that's just made a $2.39 billion profit.