Andrew Leigh

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

OPINION PIECE

We must stay open: Five reasons tariffs are a bad idea

Published in The New Daily

14 August 2025

For more than half a century, open trade has helped make Australia more prosperous, dynamic and resilient. Yet around the world, support for openness is fraying. Big economies are turning inward. Tariffs are creeping back. Multilateral institutions are struggling.

At times like this, it’s worth reminding ourselves why Australia has done well by keeping our doors open, and why tariffs are rarely the answer.

The case for openness starts with the idea of comparative advantage. Just as most of us don’t cut our own hair or fix our own shoes, countries do better when they specialise in what they’re relatively good at, and trade for the rest. That’s why Australian miners export lithium to Korea, our farmers sell beef to Vietnam, and our universities teach students from across the Indo-Pacific.

We’re a small share of the global economy – just 0.3 per cent of the world’s population – so trading with others is essential. Trade supports nearly a third of our economic activity and one in four Australian jobs. It keeps prices lower for consumers, encourages innovation, and helps businesses grow to a scale that wouldn’t be possible on the domestic market alone.

It wasn’t always this way. In the late 1800s, most colonies slapped hefty tariffs on goods such as furniture, musical instruments and carriages. Federation removed internal tariffs, but high external tariffs persisted for decades. Only after World War Two did we begin serious cuts, first through global trade agreements, and then on our own.

From Whitlam’s across-the-board 25 per cent tariff cut in 1973, to the Hawke Government’s phased reductions in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Australia chose to lower barriers regardless of what others did. The results were clear: more competitive industries, better jobs, and stronger links to the region.

Today, we have 18 free trade agreements covering 30 economies, with more on the way. But the case for openness still needs defending. Tariffs may sound like a quick fix, but they come with real costs.

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

Fair Play, High Performance: What Sport Teaches Us About Productivity

SOUTH AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR ECONOMIC STUDIES
ADELAIDE

THURSDAY, 14 AUGUST 2025

I acknowledge the Kaurna people, traditional owners and custodians of the Adelaide Plains, and all First Nations people present. Thank you to Jim Hancock and the South Australian Centre for Economic Studies for the invitation to speak with you today.

1. A Nation Obsessed with Performance

On most mornings, I start the day with a run through the bushland behind our home. I nod to the kangaroos, exchange grins with the kookaburras, and watch the sun rise over Canberra’s ridgeline. If I’ve pushed myself – sprinted up hills or chased a personal best – then whatever else the day holds feels a little bit easier.

Australians love to move. We hike, we swim, we ride, we play. In a sun-drenched country with open spaces and a culture of mateship, sport isn’t just recreation. It’s part of our national identity. Whether it’s a footy game in the park, a community netball match, or the roar of a stadium when the Matildas score, sport brings us together and brings out our best.

And when it comes to performance, few do it better. Australian athletes routinely punch above their weight. From the pool to the track, from cycling velodromes to cricket pitches, we overachieve. Not because we’re richer or more populous, but because we’ve built systems that work. Talent gets spotted early. Coaching is world-class. Infrastructure is a priority. Incentives are smart. And we measure everything, from split times to stride length, because we know that what gets measured gets improved.

So why is it that while our athletes keep breaking records, productivity seems to have pulled a hamstring?

When we came to office, labour productivity – the engine of long-term prosperity – had suffered its worst drop in 45 years. The decade ending in 2020 was the worst decade for productivity growth in the post-war era. We had seen a decline in the rate at which Australians switch jobs or start new businesses. Today, some of our largest companies are the same giants that topped the sharemarket a century ago. Economic mobility is stuck in second gear. In too many sectors, it’s not the best that win, but the biggest. Some markets are so concentrated, if they were sporting leagues, they’d have one team, one trophy, and one very bored mascot.

This isn’t just a technical problem. A sluggish economy means fewer chances for the aspiring entrepreneur, fewer pathways for the ambitious worker, and a lower ceiling on our collective ambition. We’d never tolerate a sporting system where a few legacy players won every match, newcomers couldn’t crack the starting lineup, or results bore no relationship to effort. Yet that’s precisely what we’re seeing in parts of our economy.

What if we treated productivity the way we treat sport?

What if we built an economy that celebrated effort, rewarded ingenuity, and gave everyone a fair shot?

What if we saw dynamism and decency not as opposing forces, but as complementary goals?

In this speech, I want to explore what sport can teach us about building a more dynamic, inclusive and high-performing economy. I’ll draw on stories of athletes and teams, of rule changes and coaching breakthroughs, of fair play and relentless ambition. Because when it comes to reforming our economy, we don’t need to start from scratch. We just need to look around the oval.

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
WEDNESDAY, 13 AUGUST 2025

SUBJECTS: ACT Economic Reform Roundtable, national Economic Reform Roundtable, ANU

GEORGIA STYNES: I need to go now to Dr Andrew Leigh, who has been waiting very patiently. He’s the Federal Member for Fenner and the Assistant Minister for Productivity. Why are we talking about productivity? Because 27 local groups were invited today to meet, including local charities, to talk about productivity here in the ACT, and he joins me. Good evening.

ASSISTANT MINISTER ANDREW LEIGH: Good evening Georgia, great to be with you.

GEORGIA STYNES: Yeah, great to be with you too. Tell me what happened today? What struck you today with the meeting?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well, I was really impressed by the collaborative spirit that the attendees brought to the conversation. Alicia Payne, Dave Smith, Katy Gallagher and I got together a range of organisations across the business community, social sector, higher education, in order to talk about how we get more output and less burnout. We're not aiming to try and make people work harder; it's about getting smarter outcomes. And you know, one way of thinking about productivity Georgia, is it's a bit like if the economy was a bicycle - productivity is the oil on the chain. So, we had a whole lot of specific ideas that came forward. Things around computing infrastructure, building more housing, ensuring that we're better joining up university and vocational sectors and avoiding some of the unnecessary regulatory overlap with other jurisdictions.

GEORGIA STYNES: I understand the PM said there's low-hanging fruit. Is that what he's referring to, that could be acted on quickly?

ANDREW LEIGH: Look, absolutely. And one of our attendees made the point that just as the ACT was the first whole jurisdiction to roll-out the National Disability Insurance Scheme, so too we could be a testing ground for other new ideas - building on our strengths in innovation and the care economy and quality of life. Now, we're a smart city with a lot of big ideas and that was really on display today with the constructive conversation that we had.

GEORGIA STYNES: We're also a city that is growing rapidly, and you've also got obviously this national focus here as well. You heard there, probably the interview before. Thank you for waiting so patiently too. But there's a pressure on development, there's a pressure on here in Canberra, how to grow but not leave people behind. Do you see that though, in your role?

ANDREW LEIGH: Absolutely, and I know every time I chat to the ACT Government about things like their missing middle plan - their desire to see houses built more quickly. We know we need to bring to these conversations an environment lens, an agenda lens, they are things that are so important to the values of Canberrans. And we also need to make sure that we're encouraging the right levels of tourism to Australia, particularly where that's students coming to make their very first visit to the ACT which sets them on a lifelong path of recognising how great it is to have a national capital with all our wonderful national cultural institutions.

GEORGIA STYNES: Just very quickly though, because we're coming up to news. What is one specific outcome that you'll take to the National Roundtable?

ANDREW LEIGH: Look, I think one thing that I'll take forward is the importance of getting good transport networks, the importance of having a connectivity to other cities and the challenge that we're having with flight cancellations and the cost of flying here to the ACT.

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

OPINION PIECE

When the empirical strikes back

Published in The Canberra Times

11 August 2025

When a German bakery chain wanted to boost sales, it didn’t hire consultants or launch a splashy rebrand. Instead, it did something more radical: it ran a randomised trial. Half its stores offered staff a modest group bonus. The other half didn’t. After a few months, the results were in: a 3 per cent sales increase in the bonus group. For every dollar spent on bonuses, the company reaped $3.80 in revenue and $2.10 in operational profit.

It’s a reminder that in business – and in government – the most powerful tool may not be charisma or instinct, but curiosity. Randomised trials help us figure out not just what sounds good, but what actually works.

In Australia’s public service, that ethos is taking root. We’re seeing an emerging culture of testing and learning: through small-scale trials, behavioural nudges, and rigorous evaluation. From tax compliance letters to SMS reminders, government is using evidence to improve how it delivers. Not by guessing. By learning.

Public sector productivity isn’t about profit margins. It’s about outcomes that matter: fewer people stuck in long-term unemployment, shorter hospital wait times, better school completion rates. And improving those outcomes begins with one key question: what works?

Randomised trials give us answers. They compare two versions of a program – one with a new tweak, one without – and show whether the tweak made a difference. A redesigned letter. A new prompt. A brief coaching call. Some ideas turn out to be duds. Others change everything.

Take Services Australia. In one trial, the department sent a simple confirmation text message to people who’d submitted a form. Just a short note effectively saying “we’ve got it”. That tiny tweak cut follow-up calls by 11 percentage points, saving time for both staff and callers. Another trial found that a well-worded SMS reminder to income support recipients boosted on-time earnings reporting by 13 percentage points and cut payment suspensions nearly in half. The message saved 6000 hours of staff time a year.

The Tax Office tried something similar. Letters to tax agents that gently flagged possible over-claiming of work-related deductions resulted in average claims falling by $191 per taxpayer. Across the sample, that meant more than $2 million in reduced deductions.

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

Open Trade: Australia’s Strength

ASIALINK LEADERS SUMMIT 
CANBERRA 

FRIDAY, 8 AUGUST 2025

I begin by acknowledging the Ngunnawal People, the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we meet, and extend that respect to all First Nations people here today.

It’s terrific to be back at Asialink talking about openness. Asialink is passionate about making the most of opportunities in Asia. It’s an ambition the government shares as we implement our Southeast Asia Economic Strategy (Moore 2023). People-to-people links are a valuable part of that strategy. So it’s fantastic to have initiatives like Asialink leading the way for the past 30 years (Asialink 2025).

There has been significant change over the past year. The global rules-based economic system that has underpinned decades of relative prosperity and stability for Australia is under strain. Intensifying strategic competition between our most important trading partner and most important security ally, regional conflicts and weakening multilateral institutions are all contributing to a more fragmented and less resilient world.

We’re eleven days out from the Economic Reform Roundtable. Building economic resilience in the face of rising fragmentation and global uncertainty will be a key theme. In this context, and in the face of increasingly frequent global shocks, we must ensure our economy’s ability to withstand, adapt and recover. It’s something that’s crucial to expanding your horizons. As the Treasurer has said, it goes to securing investment capital, shoring up supply chains and building more partnerships in our region (Chalmers 2025).

In other words, we’re seeking ideas and proposals on opening doors not closing them. And today I want to talk about the benefits of open trade, the ways economic engagement has helped Australia prosper, and the reasons why tariffs are not the answer. 

Doing what we do best

Nobel laureate and economist Paul Samuelson described free trade as the best example of an economic policy that might not be obviously beneficial, but is demonstrably welfare enhancing (Samuelson 1948,). Plenty of smart people don’t immediately see the case for open trade.

Trade is most beneficial when it leverages our comparative advantage. Most of us don’t cut our own hair, sew our own suits or cobble our own shoes – which is a relief, since in my own case, I’d end up looking like Mr Bean on laundry day. Thanks to specialisation in the labour market, we do what we do best. Then, we pay others to do what they do best.

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

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO MELBOURNE, DRIVE WITH ALI MOORE

THURSDAY, 7 AUGUST 2025

SUBJECTS: Economic Roundtable in Melbourne, Labor’s productivity agenda, GST, Economic Reform Roundtable in Canberra, Productivity Commission, Artificial intelligence

ALI MOORE: Ahead of the Roundtable, 25 economic experts have been talking options to boost productivity in Melbourne today, and the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury, Andrew Leigh was there. Andrew welcome.

ANDREW LEIGH: Thanks so much Ali, great to be with you.

ALI MOORE: I had a look at the list of people who were part of this roundtable. It is very, very long. Did you actually manage to come to any conclusions with so many people in the room?

ANDREW LEIGH: Yes. We had a wonderful range of people. Obviously local experts from the University of Melbourne, Victoria University, Monash and we had thinktanks like the Grattan Institute, e61 and the Superpower Institute. There was a strong consensus around the idea of not making things worse - an emphasis the government should, first of all, do no harm. And then also…

ALI MOORE: You don’t need a roundtable to tell you that surely?
ANDREW LEIGH: No, but it never hurts to be reminded Ali. And just a big emphasis on the dynamism of the Australian economy - that we can boost productivity by making individuals more productive, by encouraging individuals to move to more productive firms, and by encouraging the growth of more productive firms. And so that for me is a really useful framework. An emphasis on making sure that those reallocation processes are working as well as possible, and on ensuring that our tax system is absolutely fit for the 21st Century, and we're making the most of artificial intelligence.

ALI MOORE: So, let's go to tax first then. This proposal that's being put on the table – Allegra Spender is one of those very much behind it. We've spoken to her previously about it. Raise the GST to 15 per cent, but give a cash rebate of $3,300 as compensation which would sort of essentially erase the impact of the higher GST on the first - I think they say 22,000 of annual purchases. So, that would really help lower-and-middle income earners, but 15 per cent would put a lot more money in your coffers. What do you reckon about increasing the GST?

ANDREW LEIGH: I like Richard Holden. He wasn't able to make it today, although he was one of the invitees. No one else raised that particular proposal…

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

The Heads We Know, the Tales We Didn’t

Launching ‘Heads and Tales’ by Granville Allen Mawer

ROYAL AUSTRALIAN MINT

CANBERRA

WEDNESDAY, 6 AUGUST 2025

I acknowledge the Ngunnawal people, on whose lands we meet today, and pay respects to all First Nations people present. My thanks to the Mint’s Acting CEO Emily Martin for hosting us today.

When I first began reading Heads and Tales, I was expecting a survey of coinage. Informative, perhaps even a little weighty. What I found instead was a book that is witty, elegant and delightfully idiosyncratic. A book that wears its learning lightly but never slouches. A book about coins, yes – but also about characters, chaos and the curious things we choose to commemorate in metal. A book with proof-quality scholarship and circulation-level charm.

Granville Allen Mawer has taken a subject that might have seemed numismatic in the narrowest sense, and given us something broader, richer and more alive. He reminds us that coins are not just currency. They are miniature monuments. They tell stories of empires and impostors, of saints and scoundrels, of innovation, inflation and, occasionally, elephants.

Take Themistocles, the Athenian general who helped see off the Persians at Salamis. After being exiled by the Athenians, who had a habit of discarding their heroes once they'd outlived their usefulness, Themistocles ended up governing a Persian satrapy. There, he did something extraordinary: he put his own head on the local coinage. According to Mawer, that is the earliest known example of a human being portrayed on a coin. It’s a fitting tribute for a man who had been both lionised and exiled – a face with a story on both sides.

This is one of the many joys of Heads and Tales. It doesn’t just list coins. It animates them. Each coin becomes a vignette: a parable of power, persuasion or sheer peculiarity. We meet a she-wolf suckling twins, a bronze dagger pretending to be money, an elephant in battle formation, and an emperor whose portrait on a coin tried to claim divine status, while everyone around him quietly rolled their eyes.

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, 5 AUGUST 2025

SUBJECTS: Canberra Trail 100 ultramarathon, Economic Reform Roundtable

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Time to talk federal politics. Well, we’re not actually going to talk much federal politics this morning 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: You're going to disagree with this. I think running is undignified, but you obviously enjoy it. And you went, you decided to run some stupid amount of distance on your birthday?

ANDREW LEIGH: Yes, it was my birthday on Sunday.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Happy birthday by the way!

ANDREW LEIGH: Thank you very much. As luck would have it, the Sri Chinmoy Canberra Trail 100 was also scheduled on that day, so I signed up again to run 100 kilometres up and down Canberra’s mountains. In politics we're used to long campaigns, uphill battles and occasional mudslinging, and Canberra’s trails provided just that.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: I was thinking about this when I saw your social media post on the weekend. I thought, who was the person that went out and worked out how many hills there are in Canberra before you started running?

ANDREW LEIGH: There's some remarkable people involved in the team. Big shout out to Prachar Stegemann and the team who walked through and tied little bits of pink tape on the trails and took them all down afterwards. A huge volunteer effort. And every time you come into the aid stations, there's a whole lot of people working hard there. Canberra’s local sports really thrive off volunteers, as you see every weekend.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Is there a competitive edge to this? Or are you competing against yourself?

ANDREW LEIGH: When you get to an ultramarathon, you're not really worried about your place. You're more worried about whether you finish. It generates a lovely sort of camaraderie on the trails. You're always checking in on other people, making sure they got what they need, offering them a gel if they need one and looking after those who seem to be struggling. So yeah, it's a lovely, friendly aspect to it. Much more participation than competition.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: So how long did it take you?

ANDREW LEIGH: Took me 12 hours and 43 minutes. It’s a little bit quicker than last year, but a little bit slower than the year before that.

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

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
ABC AFTERNOON BRIEFING WITH PATRICIA KARVELAS
MONDAY, 4 AUGUST 2025

SUBJECTS: Labor’s productivity agenda, Economic Reform Roundtable, Productivity Commission recommendations on company tax, ACTU recommendations on housing, the safeguard mechanism, working from home and productivity

PATRICIA KARVELAS: For the government's view, I want to bring in the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition and Charities, Andrew Leigh. Andrew Leigh, welcome.

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

PATRICIA KARVELAS: So, a lot of ideas around. I want to start with the Productivity Commission's ideas around company tax. Business, they're not great fans of it. They put out a joint statement last week saying that this idea of increasing taxes for the 500 top companies was unacceptable and it should be about lowering taxes. Is it dead on arrival?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well Patricia, as you wrote this morning it's important that we ‘ventilate big and radical ideas’. There is an appetite in the community for boosting productivity. As someone who's been a productivity nerd for decades, I'm enormously excited by the fact that this productivity conversation is happening, and that the Economic Reform Roundtable will be the focus for important ideas that will potentially boost our productivity growth rate for decades to come. We've encouraged people to bring their biggest ideas to the roundtable, and we're not going to engage in a kind of rule-in-rule out game in the lead‑up.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Oh yeah. Look, I'm not asking you to rule it out, I'm just asking you to engage in perhaps the idea itself. Do you think it's an idea ‑ you're somebody ‑ you're an economist, you see what they're doing here; do you think the idea has merit of actually, you know, radically reducing the tax for a lot of businesses and then increasing it for these top 500?

ANDREW LEIGH: I think you can't talk about productivity without having the tax conversation. Whether this specific idea is the right one or not will be a focus for the productivity roundtable. But I really welcome the fact that people are looking to engage in ideas that aren't just tweaks, but big generational reforms, reforms that future generations will look back to and say, ‘thank you for putting Australia on a better reform path’.

I find it pretty disappointing that the Coalition's engaging in this fearmongering. After all, Sussan Ley is part of a party that went to the last election promising to raise income taxes on every Australian taxpayer. So, running scare campaigns in advance of the Economic Reform Roundtable really ought to be beneath the Coalition.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Well, I think their view is that there shouldn't be a net increase in tax, and that some of these ideas would lead to that. What's your view on that?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well, look at what we did in the last term. We put in place important multinational tax reforms to ensure that multinationals paid their fair share, and we cut income taxes for every Australian taxpayer. That's our record, and they're the sorts of principles that will guide us as we go forward to try and boost the productivity speed limit of the economy through reforms that invest in individuals, in infrastructure and in institutions.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: And that idea is just one of many. There's also the ACTU's ideas, many ideas there, but one of them, of course, to revisit negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions. Do you think those need to be debated again?

ANDREW LEIGH: I really appreciated the point that Sally McManus made, which is that it's vital that we have a housing system which ensures that essential workers can live near where they work. The Albanese Labor Government is focused on a series of supply side housing reforms, some of the biggest investment from the Commonwealth standpoint in housing but also working with States and Territories to undo the thicket of regulations that slowed down housing approvals. Clare O'Neil has been very focused on the ambitious 1.2 million home target, and predominantly our focus there has been on supply-side measures.

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

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP
PARLIAMENT HOUSE CANBERRA
THURSDAY, 31 JULY 2025

SUBJECTS: Inflation, Labor’s productivity agenda, Economic Reform Roundtable

ANDREW LEIGH: Well good morning, and thanks very much for coming out. My name is Andrew Leigh, the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury. Well, if we look around the world we see countries where inflation is rising. In the UK and US, inflation has recently been going up. While inflation is going north in the UK and US, it's going south in Australia.

We've just seen the latest inflation figure, 2.1%, near the bottom the Reserve Bank's target band. That's thanks to the careful measures that Australians have put in place over recent years, working with the Albanese Government. We've been a government that's prioritised getting inflation down without smashing jobs. It's important to recognise that this is unique in Australian history. The story of the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s is that in order to get inflation under control, a whole bunch of Australians lost their jobs. That hasn't been the case this time.

We’ve got unemployment still low by historic standards. Our government has produced the best unemployment figures of any government in the past half century. So, to have unemployment in the low fours, inflation in the low twos really is a remarkable success for Australians, who have now seen three years of continuous economic growth.

And as we've dealt with those cyclical challenges, we've moved down to the structural issues in the economy. Getting productivity moving again is a priority for our government. The decade ending in 2020 was the worst productivity decade in the post-war era. We’re bringing together a group of people in the Cabinet rooms, led by Treasurer Jim Chalmers for an Economic Reform Roundtable from the 19^th to the 21^st of August.

Productivity is not a switch we can flip, but we know that there's a serious to-do list: competition reforms, clean energy, investing in education, getting infrastructure right. All of those topics and more will be part of the discussion in the Cabinet rooms. And in the lead-up to that discussion, I'll be part of a range of roundtables which are looking at particular sectors, including the charity sector. This is vital as we work together to find the solutions to Australia's productivity challenges. Building on the work of the last term, the historic merger reforms, national competition policy, setting Net Zero targets and investing in education through measures such as free TAFE. The Albanese Government has looked to tackle inflation while keeping unemployment low. And now, we're looking to tackle productivity while ensuring that we have the gains from growth equitably shared across the population.

Thanks very much.

ENDS