Andrew Leigh

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

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RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO CANBERRA, BREAKFAST WITH ROSS SOLLY
WEDNESDAY, 9 SEPTEMBER 2026

SUBJECTS: 2025 PISA results; Middle East conflict; Social media algorithms; Digital Duty of Care; Delivery of election commitments

ROSS SOLLY: Andrew Leigh is not only a lexiophile, but he's also a prolific author. He's managed to somehow churn out several books while also acting as the Member for Fenner and Assistant Minister, etc. Andrew Leigh, good morning to you.

ANDREW LEIGH: Good morning Ross, great to be with you.

ROSS SOLLY: Good to have you as well. Do you have any thoughts on why – this national report which came out overnight, which has shown that here in Australia, Andrew Leigh, unfortunately we're not making any progress. In fact, we might be going backwards when it comes to our kids' reading and learning maths, etc. The OECD is saying there's too many distractions and that's the number one problem, and AI-generated chatbots and stuff like this is just making it too hard for kids to do the stuff that we might have done in our time?

ANDREW LEIGH: This decline is long-standing. Chris Ryan and I documented a drop from the 1960s through the 1990s, and then that's been picked up in the PISA drop now, which sees students one to two years behind where their counterparts were in the start of the millennium. Part of it is attracting and retaining great teachers. We need to do a better job of ensuring that teaching is an occupation that is attracting top-flight teachers. I think Teach for Australia does this brilliantly and I know the Education Minister has been really focused on trying to ensure that teaching has the standing it needs in the community.

ROSS SOLLY: Yeah. One of the things apparently Jason Clare is looking at, and maybe he's close to making an announcement, is to once again turn the whole thing on its head, and he says Australia should follow the UK's lead in mandating old school explicit instruction teaching methods, Andrew Leigh, and phonics-based reading to turn around Australia. I mean, for some reason we walked away from that. Is it time to revisit it?

ANDREW LEIGH: Yes, I think it is. And Jason Clare has been very clear that England mandated phonics in schools in 2006. They instituted a mandatory year one phonics check in 2012 and they're now seeing the gains from that. We're doing the same thing, but we're starting behind. The reading wars have had an impact on reading scores. We've also been working in the area of maths to implement some of the similar changes that the UK put in place when they changed their curriculum in 2014 - so, we've got a maths curriculum that is grounded in evidence.

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

The Himalayan Floods
House of Representatives, Parliament House

8 September 2026

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, 8 SEPTEMBER 2026

SUBJECTS: Albanese Government banning unfair non-compete clauses, wage-fixing cartels and no-poach clauses

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

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

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Sometimes governments make the right decisions, they just take a long way around to getting it. But you’ve still got to celebrate the right decision, don't you?

ANDREW LEIGH: I think that's absolutely important. I think your editorial is a good reminder that all of us in politics need to be recognising when the other side does it right.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Now, something you've been talking about for quite some time is banning unfair non-competes. Now, this is something that you and I have kind of clashed on to a certain extent and at the lower end of the market, for lack of a better way of putting it, I think you're on the right money here. I mean, if somebody, you know, is preventing a hairdresser from going and working in another salon then that's fair enough. But in an industry like mine, for instance, where there's intellectual property involved, there's a fine line. How do you get this right?

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

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TV INTERVIEW
ABC AFTERNOON BRIEFING, WITH PATRICIA KARVELAS
MONDAY, 7 SEPTEMBER 2026

SUBJECTS: Housing; Bathla Group; Superannuation; Social media algorithms; Digital Duty of Care; Tobacco excise

PATRICIA KARVELAS: I want to bring in Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Productivity, Andrew Leigh. Welcome. 

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

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Just on the collapse there and obviously, this is a really disturbing story. The NSW Premier, Chris Minns, says the federal government's changes to tax treatments on housing have played a role in blighting the construction sector. I mean, he's a Labor Premier saying this. What's your response? 

ANDREW LEIGH: Well, when we look at what's happened with the Bathla Group, my heart goes out to those who are waiting for their homes to be finished and to the workers who've been stood down. We do know that this is a group that's made extensive use of private credit, and in its statement to a Parliamentary Committee last Friday, ASIC made clear that it was looking quite carefully at private credit markets. There's over $3 billion outstanding since it's gone into liquidation. And so, this is an issue that's clearly been one of the major factors at play. 

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Okay. So there's lots of reasons, but do you think the role of the government's tax changes is part of the reason? 

ANDREW LEIGH: Well, what we've done is sought to create more opportunities for young Australians to get a home of their own. We've got house building continuing apace across the country, directly funded by us through the Housing Australia Future Fund but also turbocharged through the investments we're making into enabling infrastructure with states and territories that allows them to unlock more private sector development. My concerns clearly are with the people involved in this collapse, but I don't think you want to draw broader lessons from that. 

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

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO CANBERRA, DRIVE WITH GEORGIA STYNES
MONDAY, 7 SEPTEMBER 2026

SUBJECTS: Social media algorithms; Digital Duty of Care; Albanese Government banning unfair non-compete clauses, wage-fixing cartels and no-poach clauses

GEORGIA STYNES: Joining us right now is Andrew Leigh. He is the Labor MP for Farrer and joins us. Good afternoon.

ANDREW LEIGH: G'day Georgia, great to be with you.

GEORGIA STYNES: Yeah, nice to have you on. So, the idea around it could impinge on free speech – what's your view on that?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well, as a parent, I'm deeply concerned about algorithms which are funneling toxic filth to our kids and increasing behaviours such as sexual choking, that we're seeing rising across the community. 40 per cent of young Australians who are sexually active say they've been sexually choked. We're also seeing a lot of the misogynistic content coming into people's feeds much more often. 

So, we need to take back control of this. We did that, in part through the social media minimum age, which has now seen more than 5 million accounts deactivated. And the digital duty of care is also about requiring digital services providers to adopt safety by design and protect young Australians from online harm.

GEORGIA STYNES: So, your understanding of how these laws will do that, though? Because there's been criticism that they won't necessarily be able to stamp out some of the things you've just mentioned. So, can you explain to the listeners how they would work?

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

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO SYDNEY, DRIVE WITH EMMA CROWE
MONDAY, 7 SEPTEMBER 2026

SUBJECTS: Albanese Government banning unfair non-compete clauses, wage-fixing cartels and no-poach clauses

EMMA CROWE: Do you have a non-compete clause in your contract at work and has that ever limited your work opportunities? Do you even know if you have a non-compete clause? This clause, it can take a number of forms. It can hold you back from changing jobs by dictating where you can work in your next job. It can prevent you from taking on new clients in the same area as your old job. And I wonder if this is what's often called gardening leave, when you're paid to not work rather than be allowed to work for a competitor. Research by the Australian Bureau of Statistics has found almost 47 per cent of businesses use some type of non-compete clause. And the federal government is proposing laws today that would ban them for people earning under $190,100 a year. Andrew Leigh is the Assistant Minister for Productivity and Competition, and he's with you now. Hello there, Andrew.

ANDREW LEIGH: G’day Emma, great to be with you.

EMMA CROWE: Thanks so much for being here. What are you proposing, and are you looking at banning them altogether?

ANDREW LEIGH: Banning them for nine out of ten workers. For those workers that earn less than $190,100 a year. And this is because non-competes are popping up in all kinds of different employment agreements. One in five workers cop a non-compete from their boss, making it harder for them to move to a better job. 

This includes early childhood workers, security guards and even yoga instructors. This is holding back not only workers getting better pay, but also a start-up entrepreneur who wants to hire workers away from an established firm in order to start up a new competing business. Non-competes are bad for the economy, bad for productivity and bad for the dynamism that we need to get back in the economy.

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

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP
PARLIAMENT HOUSE, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ENTRANCE
MONDAY, 7 SEPTEMBER 2026

SUBJECTS: Albanese Government banning unfair non-compete clauses, wage-fixing cartels and no-poach clauses

ANDREW LEIGH: Good morning, my name is Andrew Leigh. I'm the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities, and Treasury. Right now, millions of Australian workers are being stopped from moving to a better job by so-called non-compete clauses. 

Non-compete clauses are holding workers back. They don't just affect high-paid executives; they're impacting early childhood workers and security guards. Even gardeners are being subject to what we used to call gardening leave. What this means is that we get less productivity and lower wages. e61 research says that the average worker subject to a non-compete loses $2,500 a year, relative to where they would have been without that non-compete clause. 

Labor will scrap non-compete clauses for workers earning below the Fair Work Act's high-income threshold, currently $190,100. We're also getting rid of wage-fixing agreements, which allow employers to collude in keeping wages low. Right now, employers can't collude in keeping prices high, but they can get away with colluding to hurt workers. That's unfair. It hurts productivity and it hurts the dynamism and the mobility that we need to get productivity moving again. Labor is also cracking down on no-poach clauses, which say to firms that they can't poach each other's employees. For example, the no-poach clauses that currently exist in the franchise agreements of some fast-food companies. 

These reforms are vital to productivity. Labor is committed to a more competitive and dynamic economy. As the Assistant Minister for Productivity and the Assistant Minister for Competition, I'm really proud of our reforms in getting national competition policy moving again. The merger reforms that overhauled our merger laws for the first time in 50 years, and the vital work that we're doing on economic dynamism. 

The Hon Amanda Rishworth MP
Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations

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

Opening The Door To Better And Higher Paying Jobs: Banning Unfair Non-Competes

Monday, 7 September 2026

Whether you’re a child care worker, a tradie or a receptionist, you should be able to take a better and higher paying job without being held back by a clause buried in a contract.

Today, the Albanese Government is releasing draft legislation to ban non-compete clauses for Australian workers under $190,100 per year (the Fair Work Act high-income threshold). Our reforms will also ensure that workers are not held back by other unfair restraint clauses.

The widespread use of these clauses can lead to lower wages, and negatively impact labour mobility and productivity. Building a more innovative and productive economy depends on workers being able to move to jobs where their skills are most valued.

Research by the e61 Institute found that one in five Australian workers are subject to a non compete clause in their employment agreement, impeding them from moving to a better job. e61 also finds that a ban on non competes could lift the wages of affected workers by up to four per cent, or about $2,500 per year for a typical worker. 

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

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TV INTERVIEW
NEWS24 WEEKEND FIRST EDITION, WITH ALEX THOMAS
SATURDAY, 5 SEPTEMBER 2026

SUBJECTS: Housing; National Accounts; Interest Rates; Social Media

ALEX THOMAS: Let's speak to Assistant Treasury, Productivity Competition and Charities Minister Andrew Leigh, who joins us live now. Andrew, thanks again for your time on News24. 

ANDREW LEIGH: Good morning Alex.

ALEX THOMAS: Those REA figures make pretty grim reading don’t they? Does the government need to do more? 

ANDREW LEIGH: We’re the government that is most engaged in home building of any government in the past half century. We're working with states and territories engaged with those policies at the state and local level which have impeded building. And we're building more social and affordable housing through the Housing Australia Future Fund. 

Our government recognises that the primary solution to the housing affordability challenge is home building. We've got to boost supply. We're engaging on modular construction, thinking about how we can get more homes built affordably through factories. And we're working to ensure that land release is supported through more Commonwealth funding in order to unlock the enabling infrastructure. We're pushing on all of these levers. But as your viewers know Alex, building homes take time. And after that decade-long pause under the former Coalition government, there's a lot of catching up to be done. 

ALEX THOMAS: Yeah, and even in that clip we heard just then from one of the REA senior economists. They admit it is too early to tell how much May's federal budget has contributed to these changes in the housing market. How frustrating is it to see the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers under so much pressure? 

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
THURSDAY, 3 SEPTEMBER 2026

SUBJECTS: Housing; Property Prices; Interest Rates; AI; Tobacco Excise; One Nation

ROSS SOLLY: Andrew Leigh is the Member for Fenner, and also Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury. Andrew Leigh, good morning to you.

ANDREW LEIGH: Good morning Ross, great to be with you.

ROSS SOLLY: And thank you for joining us. So what do you say to people in Canberra, Andrew Leigh, who at the moment are sitting on a house that's suddenly dropping in value, they're in danger of having negative equity – what do you say to those people this morning? 

ANDREW LEIGH: Well, house prices are still up over the last year and over the last five years, they're up almost 25 per cent. If we look over the last quarter century, house prices have been rising about 6 per cent a year, and our Treasury modelling of the effect of the tax policies in the budget is that that growth would slow by about 2 per cent. So take about four months of house price growth out of the market. As PropTrack has said, the main headwind for property prices right now is interest rates, as well as some global uncertainty also having an effect.

ROSS SOLLY: So, with interest rates set to apparently go up again before the end of this year, at least once, if not twice, Andrew Leigh, can people expect that their house values are going to drop even further?

ANDREW LEIGH: Look, I don't get in the business of giving advice on interest rates to the Reserve Bank or making forecasts of things like house prices, but certainly what we've seen is strong house price growth over recent decades and it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that that will continue. The government's aim, through our increased investment in housing supply, is to slow the growth of house prices, and really housing supply is most of the action there. But of course it takes time. After the 10 years in which the Coalition dropped the ball on housing supply, we're working with the states and territories doing all we can to get more houses built. Yesterday's national accounts showed that building approvals and dwelling investment were up. That's a very positive sign. There's a lot more work to do.