Andrew Leigh

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

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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

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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

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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.

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

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
NEWS24 AFTERNOON AGENDA, WITH TOM CONNELL
WEDNESDAY, 2 SEPTEMBER 2026

SUBJECTS: Housing; Property Prices; National Accounts; Interest Rates; Albanese Government making it easier for small businesses to lease and expand across Australia

TOM CONNELL: Joining me live now is Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury. I think that's all of his titles. Andrew Leigh, thanks for your time.

ANDREW LEIGH: Pleasure Tom, great to be with you. 

TOM CONNELL: Housing correction? Would you call it a correction?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well correction has got a technical meaning but what we're seeing is a small reduction in house prices, taking us back to where prices were in November last year. You’ve got to remember Tom, we've had an average 6 per cent house price growth since 2000 and the modelling in the budget was that the budget reforms would see about 2 per cent lower house price growth. In other words, they take about four months house price growth out of the market. Obviously, interest rates are the biggest driver and tax plays a part on top of that.

TOM CONNELL: Well, there’s modelling though, but budget modelling is never perfect is it? It's often quite inaccurate. Are you finding what's happened since, and sentiment is such a big thing in our property market, that it's become a watch? That if it falls quite quickly, the amount people have tied up in their houses, the amount of the economy it’s sort of linked to – it could be problematic?

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

Randomising Our Way to Better Policy

Asian Evaluation Week 2026,
Asian Development Bank, Manila

Online Address

Tuesday, 1 September 2026

Thank you for the opportunity to speak at this year’s Asian Evaluation Week.

I thank the Asian Development Bank for bringing together policymakers, practitioners and researchers from across our region.

This year's theme, ‘Put Your Money Where Your Evidence Is’, is  a powerful reminder that we have a responsibility to direct funding and resources towards programs that make a real difference.

At its core, evaluation is about answering a straightforward question: did a policy or program improve people's lives?

That question is surprisingly difficult to answer. We can observe what happened after an intervention was introduced, but we cannot directly observe what would have happened in its absence. Rigorous evaluation helps bridge that gap, because it gives us a credible counterfactual.

Evaluation moves us beyond assumptions. It helps us distinguish between correlation and causation.

Just as importantly, evaluation encourages humility.

Many policies that appear promising fail to deliver meaningful results when tested rigorously. Equally, some simple and inexpensive interventions produce benefits that exceed expectations.

Rigorous evaluation helps policymakers become more curious.

The Hon Dr Anne Aly MP
Minister for Small Business
Minister for International Development 
Minister for Multicultural Affairs 

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

Monday, 31 August 2026

Making It Easier To Lease And Expand Across Australia

The Albanese Labor Government is taking the next step to make it easier for small businesses to operate, grow and expand across Australia, with consultation opening on how retail leasing and commercial tenancy rules can be made simpler and easier to navigate.

Signing a lease is one of the biggest business decisions many small businesses will make, and clearer, more consistent rules can help reduce unnecessary costs, delays and complexities.

Businesses, landlords, industry groups and other stakeholders are encouraged to have their say as part of the revitalised National Competition Policy.

Retail leasing rules cover areas including disclosure requirements, rent reviews, outgoings, lease transfers, dispute resolution and enforcement.

The consultation will identify where unnecessary differences create additional cost, delay or confusion, and where greater consistency could make it easier for businesses to operate and expand. This is about simplifying existing rules, not imposing identical rules in every state and territory. 

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

How Frictions Reinforce Class

TASA Social Stratification Symposium,
University of Melbourne

Online Address 

Friday, 28 August 2026

I acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people of the Kulin Nation, on whose lands we meet today, and pay respect to their elders.

Thank you to Jenny Chesters, Penny Toth, TASA and the Social Stratification Thematic Group for convening today’s symposium. Professor Chesters and I worked together at the Australian National University many moons ago, and it has been a pleasure since then to watch her build a body of work that has deepened Australia’s understanding of education, family background, opportunity and social class.

Thank you for the chance to join you virtually to consider one of the biggest questions any nation can ask itself: who gets what chance, and why?

Let me start with a story.

Picture a young worker in her twenties. She has a job in childcare, hairdressing, disability support or aged care. She likes her work, but the pay is modest and the rent keeps rising. One day, a better job comes up. Higher pay, shorter commute, perhaps a roster that makes life a little easier.

Then she remembers the contract she signed on her first day.

Somewhere in the pages, perhaps after the probation clause and before the leave provisions, there is a non-compete clause. It says she cannot work for a competitor for a period after leaving. She does not know whether it is enforceable. She does not know whether anyone would sue. She does know that a letter from a lawyer would be terrifying.

So she stays.