Andrew Leigh

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RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC CANBERRA DRIVE WITH SASKIA MABIN
TUESDAY, 2 JULY 2024

SUBJECTS: Senator Payman, Two-state solution, Coalition’s confusion on competition.

SASKIA MABIN, HOST: You are listening to the ABC Radio Canberra Drive show with me, Saskia Mabin. Next we'll be getting into a bit of a discussion about how things are within the Labor Party since the suspension of Fatima Payman. Let me just remind you, this is a little bit of audio from her interview on the weekend with David Speers on the Insiders program.

SENATOR FATIMA PAYMAN: If the same motion on recognising the state of Palestine was to be brought forward tomorrow, I would cross the floor. I respect the Prime Minister and my senior colleagues, and obviously the Prime Minister had a stern but fair conversation with me a few days ago and I understand that he's got very important decisions to make as the leader of our nation. When I made the decision on the Senate floor to cross, I did it with the understanding that this could lead to expulsion and costing my Labor membership. But what I know is this is about 40,000 Palestinians that have been massacred and slaughtered since 7th of October, and I know that Australians are a fair people. And knowing about the Labor Party, we are a party with a conscience and champions of human rights, whether that be justice, fighting for freedom or equality. So, I believe that I've been abiding by those principles of the party.

MABIN: So, after those comments on the ABC Insiders program, Senator Payman was indefinitely suspended from the Labor Caucus. Here's a little bit about what Anthony Albanese said on ABC Radio yesterday.

PRIME MINISTER ANTHONY ALBANESE: The actions of an individual which is designed to undermine what is the collective position that the Labor party has determined. No individual is bigger than the team, and Fatima Payman is welcome to return to participating in the team if she accepts she's a member of it.

MABIN: "No individual is bigger than the team." Joining me is Andrew Leigh, the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury, also the Assistant Minister for Employment. Andrew, thank you for your time on the show.

ASSISTANT MINISTER ANDREW LEIGH: Real pleasure, Saskia. Thanks for having me on.

MABIN: A pleasure. Now, what do you think there? "No individual is bigger than the team." Do you agree with our Prime Minister in his assessment of Fatima Payman?

LEIGH: Look, absolutely, Saskia. I like to think that I'm well liked around Canberra, but I'm pretty realistic in knowing that if I had put my hand up to run for election in 2010 without the words ‘Australian Labor Party’ underneath my name, I would have been lucky to get more than the votes of my family and a few mates. The reason I'm in the parliament is because I'm part of a team. That's true of Senator Payman. That's also true of everybody else in the Labor Caucus. We first got elected thanks to being part of a team. So, the obligation there is to make strong arguments in the party room and then to go out in the field and to play as a team. It's what the Brumbies do, it's what the Raiders do. You can have an argument in the locker room, it's about whether you're going to pass the ball to the left or the right. But once you agree you're going to pass the ball to the left, you've all got to go out in the field and play that play.

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RADIO INTERVIEW
2CC CANBERRA DRIVE WITH LEON DELANEY
TUESDAY, 2 JULY 2024

SUBJECTS: Strengthening protections for consumer and small business groups; Coalition’s chaos on competition policy, Dutton adopting Greens policies.

LEON DELANEY, HOST: Today the Federal Government has announced the appointment of three consumer and business advocacy groups to be named as designated complainants. Joining me now to explain what that means, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities, Treasury, Employment, and our local Federal Member in the seat of Fenner, Doctor Andrew Leigh. Good afternoon.

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

DELANEY: We have spoken about this concept before, but let's start from the beginning. What exactly is a designated complainant?

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DOORSTOP
PARLIAMENT HOUSE
TUESDAY, 2 JULY 2024

SUBJECTS: Coalition’s chaos on competition policy, Dutton’s dud divestiture policy, Teamwork.

ASSISTANT MINISTER ANDREW LEIGH: On the issue of nuclear power we've, in recent weeks, seen the National Party tail wagging the Liberal Party dog. A policy which was not supported by experts has nonetheless been backed by the Coalition party room against the interests of the Australian people. We're seeing that again today the hopeless, hapless, friendless policy on competition put forward by the National Party and the Liberal Party today.

In the Coalition's time in office we saw one of the most appalling decades of productivity and living standards growth in the postwar era, and a big reason for that is they dropped the ball on competition. Since winning office, we've had an active competition reform agenda, probably the most active of any Australian government since Federation. We've banned unfair contract terms and increased penalties. We've set about reforming our merger system, in the biggest shake up of our merger laws in 50 years. We're looking seriously at the issue of non-compete clauses. We've asked the competition watchdog to look at supermarket competition from a consumer perspective. And we funded CHOICE to carry out quarterly grocery price monitoring to put information in the hands of Australian shoppers.

Joint media release with
The Hon Kristy McBain MP
Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories

ENERGY BILL RELIEF FOR JERVIS BAY TERRITORY

The Albanese Labor Government continues to deliver cost of living relief to families and businesses across the Jervis Bay Territory, through the Energy Bill Relief Fund.

From today, every household will see a $300 credit automatically applied to their electricity bills and eligible small businesses will receive $325 off their bills over 2024–25.

This relief will be directly applied to people’s energy accounts, with the Government to work with territory electricity providers to deliver this support.

CONDOLENCE MOTION FOR THE VICTIMS OF BONDI JUNCTION
House of Representatives, Federation Chamber
Thursday 27 June 2024

The shocking events at Bondi Junction have impacted many. Six lives were lost, 12 people were injured and many others were traumatised. We've heard much about the heroism of the first responders. I, too, acknowledge the extraordinary work that they did in swiftly addressing this shocking tragedy.

Joint media release with
The Hon Dr Jim Chalmers MP
Treasurer

MEASURING WHAT MATTERS TO DELIVER BETTER OUTCOMES

The Albanese Government is strengthening Australia’s first national wellbeing framework to support policy development and better align our economic and social goals in communities right across the country.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics will deliver a newly renovated annual survey on the wellbeing of Australians, helping to inform a more comprehensive statement that the Government will publish every three years.

This is about measuring what matters most to Australians to deliver better outcomes for our communities and our economy.

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RADIO INTERVIEW
2CC CANBERRA BREAKFAST WITH STEPHEN CENATIEMPO
TUESDAY, 25 JUNE 2024

SUBJECTS: St Vincent De Paul’s CEO Sleepout, Coalition’s failure to provide detail on their nuclear plan, Food and Grocery Code of Conduct, Government funded CHOICE reports to help Australian shoppers.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO, HOST: All right, time to talk federal politics with the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury and Member for Fenner, Andrew Leigh. Morning, Andrew.

ASSISTANT MINISTER ANDREW LEIGH: Morning, Stephen.

CENATIEMPO: How did you pull up after the sleep out?

​LEIGH: Oh, pretty rough. That's the aim of the game, isn't it? One rough night and reminds you how much tougher so many people who have to sleep rough have it. It's brutal in the Canberra cold.

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RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC PERTH DRIVE WITH JO TRILLING
MONDAY, 24 JUNE 2024

SUBJECTS:  Supermarket Code of Conduct, Food and Grocery Code of Conduct, Government funded CHOICE reports to help Australian shoppers, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission inquiry into supermarkets, Government’s plan to reform Australian merger laws.

JO TRILLING, HOST: The major supermarkets could cop fines in the billions of dollars as part of a suite of recommendations in a new report examining the power and behaviour of Coles, Woolies, Aldi and Metcash, which runs many IGA's. The review into the grocery chains' conduct was led by former Labor MP Craig Emerson, and today, the Federal Government announced it will implement all of his recommendations. So, what's set to change, and what does it mean for you at the checkout? Doctor Andrew Leigh is the Assistant Minister for Competition. Good afternoon.

ASSISTANT MINISTER ANDREW LEIGH: Good afternoon, Joanna. Great to be with you and your listeners.

TRILLING: Let's start with the Grocery Code of Conduct. It's been voluntary, I think, for about a decade. It's now set to be mandatory. What sorts of things will that ensure?

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RADIO INTERVIEW
6PR PERTH MORNINGS WITH JO MCMANUS
MONDAY, 24 JUNE 2024

SUBJECTS: Food and Grocery Code of Conduct Review, Government funded CHOICE reports to help Australian shoppers.

JO MCMANUS: Well, supermarkets are under the spotlight yet again. Last week, you'll recall, CHOICE released the first of ongoing reports on price monitoring. And you may remember that, surprise, surprise, Coles and Woolies' basket of goods was basically the same price. We know Aldi was a lot cheaper, we know IGA was a bit more expensive, but the two big ones basically exactly the same. So, today the Government announced that what was a voluntary code of conduct for the supermarkets will become mandatory. And that means they could be fined billions, I'm not saying millions, billions with a B for Bobby, of dollars if they breach the code. Interested to know what it all means, whether it's going to make any difference to the prices that you pay each week, which is, I think, what we all actually care about. So, Andrew Leigh is the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury, and it's with that hat on that he joins me this morning. Good morning, Andrew.

​ASSISTANT MINISTER ANDREW LEIGH: Good morning, Jo. Great to be with you and your listeners.

​MCMANUS: Yeah, thank you very much. Look, first of all, can you tell us what this mandatory code will do - what it means, how it works?

LEIGH: Australia's supermarket sector is one of the most concentrated in the world. The big three have a 75 per cent market share and the risk when you've got large firms is that they can squeeze their consumers, and they can also squeeze their suppliers. The Food and Grocery Code of Conduct, set up nearly a decade ago, has been a voluntary code and many farmers have been telling us it's just not working. Suppliers are scared to make complaints because they're scared of being dropped by the majors. So, we asked Craig Emerson, the former Competition Minister, to review the Food and Grocery Code and he's come back with a recommendation to make it mandatory, which the Government's announced we're accepting today. Now, that means that it'll be a code with teeth, not a toothless tiger like was set up by the Liberals and Nationals, but a code which ensures that there are significant penalties, as you said in your introduction.

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RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC MELBOURNE DRIVE WITH CHARLIE PICKERING
MONDAY, 24 JUNE 2024

SUBJECTS: Food and Grocery Code of Conduct Review 2023–24, Government funded CHOICE reports to help Australian shoppers.

CHARLIE PICKERING, HOST: Australia's supermarket giants could be fined billions of dollars if they breach a revamped and mandatory code of conduct designed to fix the imbalance of bargaining power between major grocery chains and small suppliers. Woolworths would face maximum penalties of $5 billion, Coles up to $3.8 billion, and Aldi, around a billion dollars, which shakes out at the end of the day to around 10 per cent of each company's annual turnover. That's the recommendation of a major review tasked with strengthening the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct and making it a mandatory code of conduct. The report also recommends stronger protections against retribution for suppliers who make complaints. What do you think? Is that going to make a difference? 1300 222 774 is the number to call. Or are consumers always going to end up paying for whatever extra costs the supermarkets face? Well, to talk about the report, the code and where to from here, I'm joined by Andrew Leigh, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury. Andrew, welcome to ABC Drive on 774.

ASSISTANT MINISTER ANDREW LEIGH: Thanks, Charlie. Great to be with you.

PICKERING: Now, Andrew, what are these measures meant to achieve?