Andrew Leigh

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

The Hon Emma McBride MP
Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention
Assistant Minister for Rural and Regional Health

How lowering prescription cost helps health – and the economy

Published in Canberra CityNews

28 March 2026

At a pharmacy in Belconnen or Tuggeranong, the moment is easy to miss. A card is tapped, a receipt prints, and the price is lower than it would have been a few years ago. For many Canberrans, that smaller number helps. It makes the household budget stretch further and ensures people are more likely to take their prescribed medications.

The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme has long been one of Australia’s great social institutions. Since 1948, it has ensured that life-saving and life-improving medicines are available at an affordable price, with the Commonwealth covering most of the cost. New medicines are assessed independently for clinical effectiveness and value for money before being listed. The PBS is a compact between government, taxpayers, patients and industry: rigorous evaluation in exchange for broad access.

Over time, co-payments edged upwards. By 2022, the general patient co-payment had reached $42.50 per script. For someone managing high blood pressure or diabetes, those costs accumulate quickly. For families with children on regular medication, they multiply. When out-of-pocket prices rise, adherence drops. Missed scripts lead to avoidable complications and greater pressure on the health system.

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

A Wiggle-Worthy Conversation On Keeping Kids Safe

28 March 2026      

Parents and carers are being encouraged to take a closer look at toys and household items young children can access, in a new episode of Wiggle Talk – A Podcast for Parents.

In the episode, What Every Parent Should Know About Toy Safety, Wiggle Talk hosts Simon Pryce and Lachlan Gillespie are joined by Rod Balding from Standards Australia and Sarah Hunstead from CPR Kids to discuss button battery safety, children’s toy safety, and what parents and carers need to know.

The episode outlines how button batteries are commonly found in toys and household items and can cause catastrophic injuries or even death if ingested by a child. It also highlights how Australia’s product safety standards, which businesses must comply with, are designed to reduce risk, the importance of warning labels and secure battery compartments and information for parents.

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
FRIDAY, 27 MARCH 2026

SUBJECTS: Middle East conflict; President Trump comments; social media ban; latest CHOICE quarterly grocery basket survey; Albanese Government cracking down on supermarkets; Bulk billing GP Clinics for the ACT

ROSS SOLLY: Dr Andrew Leigh, the Member for Fenner and Assistant Minister for Competition is with us this morning. Dr Leigh, good morning to you.

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

ROSS SOLLY: And with you as well. Got a lot to get through, so let's rattle through a few things straight up. Donald Trump overnight singling out Australia, saying he was disappointed that Australia wasn't more forthcoming in helping what's going on in Iran. Has he got a right to be disappointed, do you think?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well, I'm not going to run a running commentary on Donald Trump's comments Ross, but we've not been a party to this conflict. We weren't informed before it started. Our view is that the US' objectives have broadly been achieved and it's time to bring the war to an end. It's clearly having a huge impact around the world economically as well, of course, as the human toll that it's having in Iran. So, we've urged the US and Israel to engage in peace talks that would wrap up that conflict, given the main aim was to reduce Iran's ability to get a nuclear weapon.

ROSS SOLLY: He's obviously applying the full court press, though, Andrew Leigh, to the EU, to, you know, Japan, China and to us to join up. Can we afford to be in his bad books?

Senator The Hon Katy Gallagher 
Minister for Finance
Minister for Women
Minister for the Public Service
Minister for Government Services

The Hon Mark Butler MP
Minister for Health and Ageing
Minister for Disability and the NDIS

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

Alicia Payne MP
Member for Canberra

David Smith MP
Member for Bean

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP
TUGGERANONG
FRIDAY, 27 MARCH 2026

SUBJECTS: Bulk billing GP clinics for the ACT; fuel; Canberra Stadium; EV road user charges

DAVID SMITH MP, MEMBER FOR BEAN: I'd like to acknowledge that we're here on the land of the land of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, pay my respect to their elders past and present, and thank them for their stewardship of this land for thousands of years.

And it's just great to be here in the heart of Bean for a really, really exciting announcement, a critical announcement that all my ACT colleagues and myself have worked hard for.

I'm here with Minister Gallagher, Assistant Minister Leigh, and my good friend Alicia Payne, the member for Canberra, and today we're announcing that we've secured the future of the Tuggeranong Family Centre Practice here and announcing the location of the three bulk billing clinics that we committed to during the last federal election.

This, of course, comes on top of the recent opening of the Urgent Care Clinic in Phillip, which I understand has already seen more than 2,000 patients go through, to date.

At a time like this, it's really critical to be delivering that primary health care to as many people across Canberra as possible and in an accessible and affordable way. I'd like to pass over to my good friend, Minister Gallagher.

SENATOR THE HON KATY GALLAGHER, MINISTER FOR FINANCE: Thanks very much, Dave, and it's great to be here with Dave, Alicia and Andrew as the ACT's Federal Labor representatives to deliver on our commitment that we took to the last campaign, which was to provide some additional investment over and above the Bulk Billing incentive and the Bulk Billing practice incentive payment that we have applied across Australia to really specifically intervene in the ACT because of some of the unique circumstances we have here.

Senator The Hon Katy Gallagher 
Minister for Finance
Minister for Women
Minister for the Public Service
Minister for Government Services

The Hon Mark Butler MP
Minister for Health and Ageing
Minister for Disability and the NDIS

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

Alicia Payne MP
Member for Canberra

David Smith MP
Member for Bean

Future Secured For Canberra Health Co-Op And Three New Bulk Billing GP Clinics For ACT

Friday, 27 March 2026

The Albanese Government is delivering on its $24.3 million commitment to strengthen primary care, boost access to bulk billing GPs, and improve access to respite care in Canberra.

Commonwealth funding is delivering three new bulk billing GP Clinics in the ACT as well as securing the future of Interchange Health Co-op at the Tuggeranong Family Medical Centre, by supporting the new provider, ForHealth Group to take over and maintain services.

The clinics will also be supported to attract additional general practitioners to the ACT and help ensure timely access to primary healthcare services. This is funded by a $10.5 million Bulk Billing GP Attraction Initiative.

Following a highly competitive process, the locations and providers of the three new Bulk-Billing clinics will be:

• Macquarie General Practice, establishing a clinic in Gungahlin
• Next Practice Deakin, establishing a clinic in South Tuggeranong
• Ochre Health, establishing a clinic in Molonglo.

The Bulk Billing clinics are planned to open by 30 June 2026.

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

Three Ways We’re Protecting Australia’s Fuel Supply

Matters of Public Importance

House of Representatives

Tuesday, 24 March 2026

The three major parties of the right in this country have one thing in common: they're very happy to trade in anger but unable to actually come up with answers. They are all about slogans, but they have no solutions to Australia's problems.

If you want to think about how Australia is facing the crisis in the Middle East today, just think about how we would have been placed if the Coalition had remained in office. Under them, when fuel prices exceeded $2 a litre, at the beginning of the Ukraine war, what was the biggest penalty that the ACCC could impose? It was a $10 million penalty. We increased penalties to $50 million in 2022...

DEPUTY SPEAKER (Ms Claydon): The Manager of Opposition Business, you're not even in your seat!

...and we have made clear that we will now increase them to $100 million, with the Treasurer to introduce legislation to this House tomorrow.

Under them, we had four major refineries close. When the Leader of the Opposition was the Energy Minister, we went from six refineries in Australia down to four. Under them we had Australia's fuel reserve sitting in Texas. Under us it sits in Queensland and Victoria. If the Coalition had had their way, Australia would have continued to languish, rejecting the electric vehicle revolution. Under us, we've seen EVs go from four per cent to 12 per cent as a share of new vehicle sales. That means fewer Australians are lining up at the bowser and that the fuel is better able to get around existing vehicle owners. They opposed the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard, which is seeing more Australians move to more fuel-efficient vehicles, taking pressure off the fuel supply. In their last summer in office, there was twice the amount of gas used in the national electricity market as in the most recent summer.

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, 24 MARCH 2026

SUBJECTS: Fuel supply; ACCC

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Alright. Time to talk about all of these issues with the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury and the Member for Fenner, Dr Andrew Leigh. Andrew, good morning.

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

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: What is the answer here, because it wasn't that long ago the government was telling us there was no crisis? Well, it's pretty clear there is now, when the Minister was forced to admit in Parliament yesterday that at least 166 Australian service stations are without fuel?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well Stephen, I often think that fuel pressures can be a bit like bank runs in that they can be self‑fulfilling, and what we've got now is a spike in demand but no significant issues with supply. We've had a handful of tankers that haven’t been able to get through…

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: But hang on, hang on. The Minister also said. Yeah, that's the point. The Minister said yesterday there is an issue with supply because those tankers aren't getting through?

ANDREW LEIGH: We've had a handful – we've had six tankers that weren't able to get through. We've spoken to those fuel supply companies and they've secured supply from alternative sources. But what we're seeing now is much more akin to the panic buying of toilet paper during COVID than it is to a supply crisis. We have fuel supply flowing through, we have the national fuel stockpile, and we've released a fifth of that from the minimum stockholding obligation. But the challenges that we're seeing with a small proportion of fuel outlets running out of fuel is driven by spikes in demand and I don't think it's helpful, frankly, to be over‑blowing this issue.

We have strong supply links. The Prime Minister spoke yesterday with the head of the International Energy Agency and the Prime Minister of Singapore about securing that supply…

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, 23 MARCH 2026

SUBJECTS: One Nation; gas; budget; Middle East conflict; fuel supply; Reserve Bank Governor

PATRICIA KARVELAS: I want to bring in my political panel for today. Zali Steggall is the Independent MP for Warringah. Andrew Leigh is the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury. Welcome to both of you. Now, you know, I'm going to let people in on a little secret. Zali Steggall was basically heckling while Barnaby Joyce was speaking right there.

ZALI STEGGALL: I was not!

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Why were you heckling?

ZALI STEGGALL: Oh look, I think it's an interesting – I think there is definitely a pushback against the major parties. People are doing a protest vote. But there's a real question of when you look at that result, there isn't a growth of the conservative vote. There's a realignment of conservative voters going from the Coalition and Liberals to One Nation. But ultimately the beneficiary is Labor. Labor now has a whopping majority and there really is no effective opposition in yet another state. So, I think we have to be really careful about understanding the analysis. It's that right side of politics realigning in a more, I think, extreme way – not a growth overall from the community.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Okay. I understand that point broadly. But Andrew Leigh, it is sending some messages about no doubt, some economic grievance. People are feeling under the pump, we know that. But also, according to your own political leaders like Peter Malinauskas, perhaps some cultural issues, patriotism, the way people view these issues. Do you agree with that?

ANDREW LEIGH: Absolutely Patricia. I think One Nation is out there trying to make people angry and people need to be asking, ‘What does One Nation stand for?’ This is a party that wants to take us back in terms of winding back abortion protections. That wants to increase tariffs that would make Australian goods more expensive. That wants to move to much more expensive ways of producing energy by opening three coal fired power stations at a time when we've just passed 50 per cent renewables in the grid. So that grievance, as Peter Malinauskas pointed out, is very real and it needs to be addressed by looking at policies which are going to see Australians earn more and keep more of what they earn.

Five books that offer a disquieting window into our possible futures

Andrew Leigh

Published in The Sydney Morning Herald

March 19 2026

Contemporary fiction chronicles the things around us. Science fiction imagines a futuristic world. But speculative fiction sits in between – envisaging a world that is not ours, but is nonetheless close enough to touch. Like the Netflix series Black Mirror, speculative fiction offers a disquieting window into our possible futures.

The Dream Hotel
Laila Lalami
Bloomsbury, $29.00

Hoping to improve her sleep, Sara Hussein installs an innovative prosthetic device in her brain. Unfortunately, Sara doesn’t read the fine print – who does? – and she fails to realise that the company is also sharing her dreams with the authorities. One night, Sara dreams of killing her husband. A few days later, landing at Los Angeles International Airport, she is detained by officials who inform her that her risk score has gone beyond the acceptable level. For the safety of her husband and the community, Sara must be detained in a retention centre for 21 days.

And so the dream becomes a waking nightmare. Echoing the worst patterns of custodial institutions, the retention centre is operated by Safe-X, a commercial firm that profits from keeping costs low and penalising even trivial breaches. Each infraction extends Sara’s stay. Complaints must be made to automated systems, which reply with non sequiturs. Legal help is slow to arrive. Friends desert her, fearful that visiting will lower their own risk scores.

Franz Kafka’s 1925 novel The Trial begins: “Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested.” A century on, Lalami’s novel updates the story for a technological age, except that this time a corporation is in charge. Sara’s attempt to leave the retention facility to see her husband and two children collide with the company’s goals of squeezing as much profit as possible out of its retainees. She isn’t in a prison, she is told, and she hasn’t been convicted of a crime. But she can’t leave until her risk score makes her safe.

If The Dream Hotel lacks the pace of Minority Report, that’s partly the point. Incarceration shrinks the world of those inside. Sara comes to recognise the smell of her roommate’s skin cream, to loathe the “greyish liquid” ladled onto her plate at mealtimes, and to worry endlessly about what she might have done differently to avoid being incarcerated. In a world where brain-computer interfaces and predictive analytics are rapidly improving, Lalami helps us imagine how we would feel if the machines got it wrong, and she reminds us of the dangers of surveillance capitalism run amok.

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

Opinion Piece

The “lone genius” founder myth is dead; innovation works like elite sport

Published in SmartCompany

23 March 2026

The stereotypical story of innovation features a solitary genius, a garage and a lightning-bolt idea that changes everything. The narrative is neat and cinematic. Unfortunately, it also obscures how technological progress usually happens.

In reality, modern innovation looks more like elite sport. Success depends on a coordinated effort involving talent, coaching, facilities and fair rules. Countries that understand this tend to build deeper and more resilient technology sectors. Those that do not risk watching the global competition pull away.

Talent remains the starting point. In the digital economy, that talent takes the form of entrepreneurs, software engineers, designers and data specialists who transform concepts into products. Australia has produced firms that have shown what is possible. Atlassian and Canva illustrate that companies founded here can reach international scale. Their rise reflects technical skill, creative design and an appetite for tackling large markets.

The pool of digital expertise has grown markedly. Employment in occupations linked to ICT, software and database management has increased by more than 40 per cent over the past decade. Demand for AI-related skills has expanded rapidly as well. References to these capabilities in job advertisements have more than tripled in ten years.

Marketing professionals now use generative tools to refine campaigns. Engineers draw on machine learning to improve systems. Analysts routinely work with datasets of a scale that would once have seemed implausible. The digital economy rewards people who can connect technical understanding with practical judgement.