Andrew Leigh

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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?

RANDOMISED TRIALS ARE OUR PATH TO EFFECTIVE SPENDING

In medicine, bad evaluation comes with a body count. Until it was shown up in a randomised trial, hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid cost more than 10,000 lives. Before they were proven to be dangerous in a randomised trial, antiarrhythmic drugs for errant heartbeats cost more than 50,000 lives. In the century before they were put to a randomised trial, radical mastectomies for breast cancer disfigured 500,000 women while producing no better outcomes than targeted surgery.

Expert opinion and low-quality before-after studies supported these harmful treatments. If randomised trials had not put a stop to them, the toll might have been greater still. Yet while randomised trials are common in medicine, rigorous evaluation remains rare in policymaking. A study from the Committee for Economic Development of Australia think tank examined a sample of 20 Australian government programs conducted between 2015 and 2022, with a total expenditure of more than $200bn.