Andrew Leigh

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

Gas, Climate Change and Multinational Taxation

Matters of Public Importance 

House of Representatives

Tuesday, 31 March 2026

At the outset, I'd like to thank the Member for Mackellar for bringing this important debate in the matter of public importance. Gas constitutes about a quarter of Australia's energy needs, according to the Future Gas Strategy, and it has an important role as a bridging fuel in the carbon transition. It's heavily used in manufacturing; cement, bricks, glass products, fertiliser and EV batteries all depend on a reliable and affordable supply of gas. Australia exports around three quarters of our gas, which plays a role in the energy transition and in countries to our north.

As the Future Gas Strategy notes, Australia can't reach our 2050 net zero targets without reducing and decarbonising our consumption of natural gas. The Future Gas Strategy notes that that will occur through increased electrification of processes that currently use natural gas, replacing natural gas with low-emissions gases and converting remaining emissions from natural gas to be fully offset.

But the Future Gas Strategy also notes the role that gas plays in supporting our economy through the transition to net zero. Gas operates as a backstop for renewables, it's fast ramping and dispatchable, and it can complement variable renewable sources of power. California and Germany are just two examples of economies which have seen coal exiting, renewables expanding and gas supporting that transition. Gas does emit CO2, but 40 to 60 per cent less per unit of electricity than coal. Gas also supports hard-to-abate industries, like steel, cement, chemicals, and ammonia and hydrogen production. It can help households and firms as we make that clean energy transition. While batteries and pumped hydro, the so-called wet batteries, are increasing, they are still costlier, and gas has a bridging role to play.

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

Bulk-Billing

Constituency Statements 

Federation Chamber

Tuesday, 31 March 2026

Bulk-billing is at the very heart of Medicare. Labor created Medicare, and Labor stands by the principle that when you go to the doctor, you should only need your Medicare card, not your credit card. And that is why, after seeing bulk-billing rates in freefall under the former government, with Peter Dutton as health minister, we have made a record investment in Medicare. Labor has increased the bulk-billing rebates for individuals and the bulk-billing rebates for practices. We have made a historic investment in bulk-billing, with the target of seeing nine out of 10 doctor's visits bulk-billed by 2030.

In the ACT, which, historically, has had a lower rate of bulk-billing than every state and territory, we have put in place additional incentives. I was really pleased to join my ACT colleagues, Senator Katy Gallagher and the Members for Bean and Canberra, Dave Smith and Alicia Payne, in Tuggeranong last week for the announcement of the opening of a new clinic, Next Practice Deakin, putting in place a purely bulk-billing practice. This is part of three new bulk-billing clinics which the federal government is funding with $10.5 million in bulk-billing GP attraction initiatives.

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

Banning Unfair Trading Practices - Second Reading Speech

Competition and Consumer Amendment (Unfair Trading Practices) Bill 2026

House of Representatives

Wednesday, 1 April 2026

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The Competition and Consumer Amendment (Unfair Trading Practices) Bill 2026 amends the Australian Consumer Law and implements the government's commitment to protect consumers from unfair trading practices, subscription traps and drip pricing.

Australians know exactly what this bill is about because they have lived it. Trying to decide on an online purchase, they suddenly find themselves pressured with a countdown timer or a warning that there are 'only two left in stock', despite the fact that the retailer has plenty available. They subscribe to a gym and manage the payment online, but, when they try to unsubscribe, they are told they have to make a phone call. They spot a bargain online, but when they get to the check-out they discover a compulsory 'service fee' added to their basket. This isn't vigorous competition. It is friction by design.

The way Australians buy and subscribe has changed profoundly. Today, people make decisions about goods and services in many different ways: by strolling the aisles of their local stores, by searching online for the best price or by entering subscription arrangements that renew automatically. Some transactions take place entirely in person, while others occur entirely online, but the experience of choosing and managing services now spans a wide range of channels.

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

Honouring former Chief Justice Anthony Mason

Statements on Significant Matters

House of Representatives

Wednesday, 1 April 2026

It is a pleasure to rise to pay tribute to Sir Anthony Mason, one of the most distinguished jurists Australia has ever produced. As an associate on the High Court of Australia to Justice Michael Kirby, I had the privilege of coming to know Sir Anthony Mason somewhat. He turned up as a surprise guest to a book launch we did in 2004 and was as gracious then as he was throughout his career.

Sir Anthony Mason served as an aircraftman in World War II, and his career began in the black-letter realm of the Sydney bar. Many at that stage would not have expected him to be the innovative jurist that he became later in his career. He served on the Supreme Court until 1972, when he was appointed to the bench of the High Court of Australia and was one of the last Australians to receive a knighthood. He served for 15 years as a puisne judge and then in 1987 was appointed Chief Justice. He retired in 1995 after reaching the constitutionally mandatory retirement age of 70.

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

Encouraging Round-Up for Charity

Treasury Laws Amendment (Delivering an Efficient and Trusted Tax System) Bill 2026 - Second Reading

House of Representatives

Wednesday, 1 April 2026

I'm speaking today in my capacity as Assistant Minister for Charities about schedule 1 of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Delivering an Efficient and Trusted Tax System) Bill 2026. It is a measure which removes the $2 threshold for deductions of gifts or contributions. This threshold has a long and strange history. It goes back to 1915, when a minimum income tax deduction for giving was introduced. It was at that time relatively high - £5 for donations to the war effort and £20 for other charitable donations. In 2022 dollars, those figures are $578 and $2,313, respectively. In 1927, the threshold was reduced to £1, which is $100 in today's money, and it hasn't changed in nominal terms since then. In 1966, of course, £1 became $2, and the $2 deduction threshold remained. But even in 1966 it was worth $30 in today's money, and today, of course, it has been eroded.

Entities with deductible gift recipient status are not required to provide receipts for donations, which means that there is a challenge for people who are claiming small-threshold donations. The Future foundations for giving report from the Productivity Commission notes that there have been past recommendations. The 2010 Henry tax review thought the threshold should be taken up from $2 to $25, and the 2013 Not-for-profit Sector Tax Concession Working Group recommended removing it for simplicity, as did the Industry Commission report in 1995. Consultations by the Productivity Commission produced varied responses, with many supporting the removal of the $2 donation threshold.

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

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO CANBERRA, DRIVE WITH JAMES FINDLAY
WEDNESDAY, 1 APRIL 2026

SUBJECTS: Albanese Government banning unfair trading practices; banning card surcharges; electoral matters review; Prime Minister’s address to the nation; Middle East conflict

JAMES FINDLAY: Well, if you’ve been stuck paying for a subscription you can’t cancel or cancel easy, those days will soon be over. Look, it’s been talked up for months really, and finally the subscription trap laws have been introduced into Parliament today. Dr Andrew Leigh is the Member for Fenner and Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury and has been involved quite intrinsically with this process. A very good afternoon to you Andrew Leigh.

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

JAMES FINDLAY: Yeah thank you. How will this make things easier for consumers?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well this will ensure that if consumers want to cancel a subscription, it's as easy to cancel as it was to begin. Subscriptions are a part of our everyday lives – whether that's subscriptions for gyms or meal kits or newspapers or online services. They can be very useful, but what Australians don't need are subscriptions that are hard to cancel, where there's tricks and traps that keep you paying for things you don't want. Three quarters of Australians say they've had trouble trying to cancel a subscription and I've heard stories James, of people who have cancelled their bank accounts or credit cards because it's easier than trying to fight the subscriptions that are coming out.

JAMES FINDLAY: Oh, absolutely.

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

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP PRESS CONFERENCE
MURAL HALL, PARLIAMENT HOUSE
WEDNESDAY, 1 APRIL 2026

SUBJECTS: Albanese Government banning unfair trading practices; ACCC; AI; fuel supply

ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR COMPETITION, ANDREW LEIGH: Good morning, my name is Andrew Leigh – the Assistant Minister for Competition. I'm very pleased to be joined this morning by two of Australia's leading consumer advocates, Stephanie Tonkin and Erin Turner, and by a number of my Labor colleagues who have been campaigning hard for this reform. Carol Berry, Libby Coker, Michelle Ananda-Rajah, Tania Lawrence, Louise Miller-Frost, Gabriel Ng, Madonna Jarrett and Renee Coffey. So just a delight to have all of these colleagues here who have been working really hard on this issue of banning unfair trading practices.

Today is April 1, and it should be a day for whoopee cushions and tall tales, not for subscription traps and hidden fees. Yet for too long, Australians have had to put up with the frustration of subscriptions that are easy to get into but hard to get out of. Frankly, there's some subscriptions in Australia that are tougher to get out of than an escape room. We have a situation where Australians are signing up to subscriptions for gyms and newspapers, online services. All terrific services in their own right, but in some cases finding them so hard to cancel that they're choosing instead to cancel the underlying credit card because they can't cancel the subscription itself. That ends with these laws. These laws will ban subscription traps and make it clear to companies offer offering subscriptions that they need to make it as easy to cancel a subscription as it was to get into it in the first place. Subscriptions will continue. Subscription traps will be a thing of the past.

The legislation will also get rid of drip pricing. Drip pricing is that practice where you see a cheap headline price and then additional fees get added on like rabbits in a veggie patch. Eventually you find yourself paying a cost that was higher than you thought you'd be paying at the beginning. If Australians see a headline price, they should know that it includes all mandatory per-transaction fees, and that's exactly what the bill that I'm introducing to Parliament today will do. It will ensure that Australians don't suffer the indignity of seeing additional fees added through the transaction that are unavoidable.

These reforms are great for consumers, but they're also good for businesses. Right now, honest businesses are out there offering subscriptions that are easy to cancel and honest prices that include every fee you will pay. And yet they are being undercut by dodgy players who are using subscription traps and drip pricing. This reform will not just be good for consumers, it'll be good for competition. This law will be backed by some of the biggest penalties around. Maximum penalty of three times the benefit gained from the breach, 10 per cent of turnover, or $100 million thanks to Labor having increased those maximum penalties which were just $10 million dollars when we came to office.

The Hon Jim Chalmers MP
Treasurer 

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

Banning Unfair Trading Tricks and Traps

1 April 2026

At a time when cost‑of‑living pressures are biting, Australians should be able to trust that markets are fair, transparent and not stacked against them.

That is why today the Albanese Government will introduce the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Unfair Trading Practices) Bill 2026, a major reform to ban unfair trading practices that cost time, money and confidence.

The Bill will introduce a ban on unfair trading practices, crack down on drip pricing, and put an end to subscription traps. We’re putting a stop to business tactics that rely on confusion, design tricks, needless friction or sheer consumer exhaustion.

Our work on unfair trading practices does not stop here. We have already commenced targeted consultations on extending protection from unfair trading practices to small businesses and franchisees. We are also considering whether further steps are appropriate in the financial services sector, ensuring we do not overlook areas where consumers may be exposed to potential gaps.

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

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
2CC RADIO CANBERRA, LIVE WITH LEON DELANEY
TUESDAY, 31 MARCH 2026

SUBJECTS: Fuel supply; fuel excise; Middle East conflict; artificial intelligence

LEON DELANEY: Let's check in with our local federal government representative, the Member for Fenner and Assistant Minister for Competition, Productivity and Charities and Treasury, Dr Andrew Leigh, good afternoon.

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

LEON DELANEY: Is the Prime Minister poorly advised?

ANDREW LEIGH: Not in the least. He's made the decision today to halve the fuel excise on diesel and petrol for three months and also to cut the heavy vehicle road user charged to zero for three months. And that's on top the significant range of things that we've announced beforehand. The Fuel Supply Task Force Coordinator. Releasing a fifth of Australia's petrol reserves. Making sure the ACCC is on the job on fuel monitoring and issuing spot fines against any fuel supplier that does the wrong thing.

LEON DELANEY: Well, people have been calling for this reduction in the fuel excise now for more than a week. Why has it taken so long for the Prime Minister and the government to see common sense?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well, the Prime Minister met today with Premiers and Chief Ministers and this is a decision that flowed out of National Cabinet. This is substantial cost-of-living relief. So, if you've got a 65 litre tank, it takes down the cost by about $19. We take advice based on what comes to us. Engaging with experts, engaging with the community. And what we've been doing over the last few weeks is successively announcing decisions in order to keep that supply flowing. While Australia has more fuel in the country than we did before the crisis hit, the challenge we have is that there is a significant spike in demand. We don't have a supply problem. We have a challenge around, in certain cases, fuel stations running out of fuel. Because there's an increase in demand.

LEON DELANEY: Yeah, because some people have seen the need to stock up, fill as many jerrycans as they can, because they're concerned about the supply potentially being interrupted further down the track if the conflict in Iran continues beyond another three or four weeks. That's inevitable, isn't it?

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

In the age of AI, judgement may be Australia’s scarcest resource

Published in The New Daily

29 March 2026

Artificial intelligence is everywhere. It is drafting marketing plans, writing code, preparing legal briefs and advising small business owners on pricing strategy. The debate is often framed in terms of productivity, and rightly so. Yet focusing only on output risks missing another shift. AI is also changing what is scarce.

Economists have long built their thinking around signals. Degrees signal skill. Output signals effort. Expert advice signals judgement. These proxies have never been perfect, but they have generally been reliable enough to guide decisions by firms, investors and policymakers. Artificial intelligence is beginning to weaken some of these connections. That matters for how Australia positions itself in an increasingly volatile global economy.

One place where the change is especially visible is the labour market. For decades, the dominant story in advanced economies was skill-biased technological change. New technologies increased demand for highly educated workers, widening the earnings gap between graduates and non-graduates. The prescription was straightforward: expand access to education and productivity gains would follow.

AI throws a digital spanner in the works. Large language models can now draft extensive consulting reports and produce complex strategy documents. Tasks once seen as the preserve of professionals can be performed on demand. Early evidence suggests that these tools often lift the productivity of less experienced workers more than that of top performers. Instead of amplifying innate ability, they can compress differences in performance.