Andrew Leigh

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

When Employers Collude, Workers Pay

Published in The New Daily

24 May 2026

Adam Smith saw it 250 years ago. ‘We rarely hear,’ he wrote, ‘of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen’. And anyone who imagines employers do not combine to lower wages, he added, is ‘ignorant of the world’. Such arrangements, Smith observed, are conducted ‘with the utmost silence and secrecy’.

He could have been writing about Silicon Valley.

For years, some of the biggest names in American tech operated what looked less like a labour market and more like a private arrangement among insiders.

Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and eBay entered no-poach arrangements under which they agreed to avoid recruiting one another’s staff.

In some cases, they went further. If an employee applied to move, the current employer could be tipped off. In some instances, hiring required permission. At least one arrangement barred bidding wars.

It was cartel conduct, translated from the product market to the pay packet.

The secret deals were made by those at the top: senior executives and board members.

The Hon Julie Collins MP
Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry

The Hon Anne Aly MP
Minister for Small Business

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

22 May 2026

Keeping machinery moving when it matters most: Right to Repair reforms for farmers and drivers

The Albanese Government is seeking feedback on reforms to strengthen competition in repair markets and expand choice for drivers and farmers.

We know some Australians are doing it tough, which is why we are expanding consumer choice to help put downward pressure on the cost of maintaining vehicles and machinery.

Global uncertainty, including the current conflict in the Middle East, is putting pressure on fuel prices, freight costs and supply chains.

For farmers, keeping their machinery running quickly and affordably has never been more important.

Today, the Government has released a discussion paper outlining proposals to extend Australia’s Right to Repair framework to agricultural machinery, alongside targeted improvements to the Motor Vehicle Information Sharing Scheme, which has been operating since 2022.

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

Linking the Dots

Workshop On Maximizing The Use of Linked And Integrated Administrative Data Assets To Inform Government Policy Decision-Making

ABS House, Belconnen,
Online Address

Friday, 22 May 2026

I acknowledge the Ngunnawal people, on whose lands you are meeting today, and pay respects to all First Nations people present.

I’m sorry to be appearing on screen rather than in the room. I’m in Tasmania, where the datasets are rich, the scenery is richer, and every regression should probably include a variable for sudden rain.

Let me begin by acknowledging and thanking Professor Philip Clarke, of the University of Melbourne and Oxford University.

Philip has probably had a bigger impact on Australian policy than any Oxford professor since Keith Hancock. That is because he brings intellectual horsepower, but also because he brings the rarer gift of applying frontier research to practical public problems.

Australia is lucky that Philip keeps returning home. He is one of those scholars who reminds us that research isn’t only about top journals. It can also help a minister, a department, a clinician or a service provider make a better decision.

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

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO HOBART, BREAKFAST WITH RYK GODDARD
THURSDAY, 21 MAY 2026

SUBJECTS: 2026 Budget; Giblin Lecture on ‘The Economics of Human Extinction’; AI; Albanese Government cracking down on the supermarkets

RYK GODDARD: Right around Tasmania today, Dr Andrew Leigh MP is visiting Tasmania to deliver a lecture about economics and he's one of those people who actually has a portfolio in an area in which he has some expertise. Andrew Leigh, good morning.

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

RYK GODDARD: Welcome to Tassie. You're speaking at the Giblin Lecture today at the University of Tasmania on economics and we will dive into the economics of crisis. But is the Prime Minister really taking 47 per cent of my small business?

ANDREW LEIGH: No, that's simply not right. I mean, right now there is a capital gains tax discount and in the future, there'll be a capital gains tax discount. But it won't be an arbitrary one, it'll be based on inflation - going back to the system we used from 1985 to 1999. So you'll pay capital gains on the real gain, not on the nominal gain discounted by 50 per cent. For some people, that will be more generous. For some people, it'll be less generous. But overall, it's going to help 75,000 people get into the housing market who can't get in there now.

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

The Economics of Human Extinction

Giblin Lecture,
University of Tasmania

Thursday, 21 May 2026

1. The Last Externality

I acknowledge the muwinina people, the traditional and original owners of the land on which we gather tonight, and pay my respects to Tasmanian Aboriginal people and to First Nations people present. My thanks to Mark Bowles, the University of Tasmania and the Tasmanian branch of the Economic Society of Australia for organising this event.

As a longtime admirer of Lyndhurst Giblin, it is an honour to be delivering the 2026 Giblin lecture. Giblin was born in 1872, exactly 100 years before me. He was both a Labor member of parliament and a professor of economics (Cain 1981). He loved Tasmania’s high country, and I like to think that in the modern era, his passion for exercise and mountains would have made him a keen ultramarathoner.

At this point, I can almost imagine we belong in the same paragraph. But not when you note that Giblin also played Rugby Union for England, prospected for gold in Canada and taught ju-jitsu in London. In the First World War, Giblin fought at the Somme and Passchendaele, was wounded three times, and received the Distinguished Service Order.

As an economist, Giblin focused on large, practical questions. How to manage an economy in crisis? How to design institutions that would endure? He did early work on what became known as the Keynesian multiplier, shaped the approach of the Commonwealth Grants Commission and helped form the Economic Society of Australia.

Giblin did not confine himself to tidy questions. He worked on problems that mattered, even when they were messy or uncertain. He belonged to a generation of economists who did not wait for perfect data before offering advice, perhaps because the problems they faced did not wait either.

That makes him an apt namesake for a lecture on a topic that economists have largely neglected: the risk that the system does not merely falter, but ends.

The Hon Kristy McBain MP
Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories 
Member for Eden-Monaro

Alicia Payne MP
Member for Canberra

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

David Smith MP
Member for Bean 

Wednesday, 20 May 2026

Black Spot Funding To Improve Road Safety Across Canberra 

The Albanese Government has committed almost $7 million to address safety at 17 locations under the Australian Capital Territory 2026–27 Black Spot Program funding round.

The Black Spot Program funds safety measures such as traffic lights, safety barriers, roundabouts and pedestrian crossings at locations where several serious crashes have occurred or are at risk of occurring.

Projects funded in this round include:

• Over $1 million to install mast arms and widen the road at the intersection of Hindmarsh Drive and Yamba Drive in Garran
• $120,000 to improve the intersection of Manning Clarke Crescent, Anthony Rolfe Avenue and Eva West Street in Gungahlin
• $225,180 for line marking and signage, speed limit reduction to 50 kilometres per hour and the installation of speed humps on Cowper Street in Dickson and Ainslie.

The projects were recommended by the ACT Black Spot Consultative Panel. This panel is comprised of local stakeholders who are best placed to ensure nominations of the highest priority and importance to the local community are recommended for approval.

The Black Spot Program provides $150 million annually towards improving road safety at sites across the country.

It is a key part of the Australian Government’s commitment under the National Road Safety Strategy 2021–2030 to reducing fatalities and serious injuries on our roads.

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

From Clever to Competitive: Lifting Productivity Through Innovation

Opening Keynote Address to 18th Annual Agile Australia Conference,

Melbourne Cricket Ground 

Tuesday, 19 May 2026

Thank you for the invitation to join you at AgileAus, on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation.

It is a pleasure to be with a room full of people who spend their days trying to make organisations less cumbersome, products more useful, systems a bit less maddening and the future more intelligent.

That last phrase is your conference theme this year: Building our Intelligent Future.

I’m a big admirer of intelligence. I’m an even bigger admirer of intelligence paired with wisdom. Wisdom is knowing which problems are worth solving. For a technologist, that means asking whether the clever thing is useful, safe, adopted, and capable of making life better beyond the demo screen.

My theme today is how innovation happens, and what governments can do to encourage more innovation and technological diffusion.

The history of innovation is full of myths about solitary genius. Alexander Fleming returns from holiday, notices mould on a petri dish, and penicillin is born. It’s a cute tale, particularly because Fleming considered calling penicillin ‘mould juice’, which should give comfort to anyone who’s ever launched with a bad product name.

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

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

Tuesday, 19 May 2026

Every Answer Matters: New myGov Feature Makes The 2026 Census Easier

Australians have a new way to get updates and access the 2026 Census online, with a new subscription option now available through myGov.

The myGov subscription option is just one way to access the 2026 Census.

From 18 May to 6 June 2026, those who choose to subscribe in myGov will get 2026 Census updates from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) sent directly to their secure myGov Inbox.

In late July, ahead of Census night on Tuesday 11 August, people who’ve subscribed will be sent a link to the online Census form. The link will take them to the Census website to complete the form for their household.

This new option makes it easy for people to get updates and access the Census form online through a familiar and secure digital channel.

Households that don’t subscribe through myGov will get their Census instructions in the mail. People will still be able to complete the Census form online through the Census website or using a paper form.

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, 18 MAY 2026

SUBJECTS: 2026 Budget; housing; Foreign Investment Review Board; polling

PATRICIA KARVELAS: For the government's view, I want to bring in Assistant Productivity Minister Andrew Leigh. Welcome to the program.

ANDREW LEIGH: Thanks Patricia, it's an armada of Andrews you've got this afternoon.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Oh look, doesn't that speak volumes about politics, although I respect your right to be here. Yes, there's a lot of Andrews in the Parliament, but look that's another audit for another day.

Has your decision to alter taxes and break election promises, clearly, backfired politically? I mean one poll today shows Angus Taylor as preferred Prime Minister next to Anthony Albanese.

ANDREW LEIGH: Patricia, reform is hard but that doesn't make it any less important. What we've done in this Budget is to make a series of tough changes around trusts, around negative gearing, around capital gains taxation, that experts like the Grattan Institute have been calling for for decades. And we've done it in the teeth of an international crisis not of our own making. The fifth big international crisis to hit Australia in a couple of decades.

I think that speaks volumes to the political courage of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer and the importance of continuing to reform despite the international circumstances coming at us.

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

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
ABC THE BUSINESS, WITH DAVID TAYLOR
MONDAY, 18 MAY 2026

SUBJECTS: Boosting Innovation and Encouraging Startups

DAVID TAYLOR: Australian entrepreneurs are lobbying the government to unwind the changes to the capital gains tax discount announced in last week's Budget. They say the reform could spark a mass exodus of small businesses from Australia. Andrew Leigh is the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury, and he joined me earlier. Assistant Minister, welcome.

ANDREW LEIGH: G'day David, great to be with you.

DAVID TAYLOR: Look, tech startups have taken to social media to express their frustration that the CGT changes will mean losing close to half their gains to the government upon sale of their business. Is that realistic?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well, we've been very clear that we're open to the conversation with that community. The Treasurer has been continuing that conversation. We've had good discussions already with the Tech Council and the Investment Council. But it is important to remember that new businesses and small businesses are at the heart of this Budget. We've got making the instant asset write-off permanent, permanent loss carryback measures and changes to the research and development tax credit that will deliver, in our estimation, another $400 million of research and development by new firms.