Patricia Karvelas:
My guest this afternoon is the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury, Andrew Leigh – welcome to the program.
Andrew Leigh:
Thanks, Patricia. Great to be with you.
Karvelas:
I want to start on the conflict, and then we’ll move, of course, on to these domestic economic issues which are huge. We’re yet to hear from Israel in relation to this ceasefire. It’s been several hours now since the President declared a ceasefire. Are you worried that sends perhaps a message that this cease fire may not hold?
Leigh:
I’m certainly hopeful that it does Patricia. We need sustained peace in the Middle East, and the prospect of an ongoing Middle East war – a conflagration that’s even worse than we’re seeing now – would be desperately dangerous for so many people in the region, including thousands of Australians who are there right now. It’s important that we keep Iran within the non‑proliferation treaty that allows that IAEA monitoring of its nuclear capability, which has been important. And long‑term, we want Iran to be joining that prosperity agenda which has been pursued by other countries in the Middle East, which is of course in the interests of Iran and its people.
Karvelas:
What powers – I want to change the topic if we can to oil prices just to let our viewers know. But what powers does the government have to prevent service stations from taking advantage of petrol prices?
Leigh:
Well, the competition watchdog has monitoring powers which it uses to make sure Australians are getting a fair deal at the bowser. We’ve seen the oil price go from $62 at the start of the month to $79 at the start of this week, and then moderate a little recently on the news of the ceasefire. These are very volatile prices, and we want to make sure that Australians aren’t being taken advantage of by fuel companies as they’re under a lot of pressure. So, the direction that the Treasurer has given to Gina Cass‑Gottlieb, the head of the ACCC, is important as part of our ongoing work to make sure customers get a fair deal.
Karvelas:
Have we seen any examples of price gouging already?
Leigh:
Not directly, but it’s always a concern that when prices are jumping up and down, that the fuel companies will take advantage of that volatility in order to increase their profit margins. And that’s why the Treasurer has taken the decisive action he has today.
Karvelas:
Well obviously, this isn’t our first rodeo. We have been in these situations before. Is there precedent for them taking advantage? Is there sort of a sense that this will happen?
Leigh:
You see it in a whole range of markets. When input prices are volatile Patricia, there is a risk that profit margins get padded. That’s the risk we want to avert, and that’s why the Treasurer has taken this action today of writing to the head of the competition watchdog.
Karvelas:
I want to change the topic again, but again to an economic issue. The Coalition has released an analysis today, and it says that there have been more than 5,000 regulations added under your government’s first term. Their argument is essentially that you’re disingenuous when you talk about wanting to cut red tape. So just on those figures, are they right that you’ve radically increased regulation in Australia?
Leigh:
Patricia, I saw this story on the front page of one of the broadsheets today where Andrew Bragg had asked the Parliamentary Library to count the number of regulations in Labor’s last term and come up with the number 5,034. So, I asked the Parliamentary Library to answer the question, ‘how many regulations were passed in the Morrison government’s last term in office?’ The answer they came back with was 5,383. So, Andrew Bragg is a rolled gold hypocrite and somebody who is just playing a puerile game.
The idea that when we pass a regulation somehow that’s hurting Australians belies the fact that we pass regulations to make our efficient merger system work. We pass regulations to deal with consumer issues, such as button batteries. We pass regulations in order to ensure that there are nurses in aged care homes, and that system is monitored. So, if the Coalition is serious about productivity and deregulation, they need to stop playing these sorts of silly political games and actually engage with the big reform agenda that Labor has been pursuing.
Karvelas:
Okay,so I just want to understand. You say you asked the Parliamentary Library, when did you do that? This morning?
Leigh:
This afternoon. So, I just asked them to do exactly the same exercise they’d done for Andrew Bragg, but instead to do it for the last term of the Liberal government.
Karvelas:
I have to ask, and just – I have to nail it down now that I have these two figures. What was the time frame for the 5,383 regulations that were passed by the Morrison government?
Leigh:
So, that’s the last term of the Morrison government between 2019 to 2022, compared with the first term of the Albanese government between 2022 to 2025. They were passing regulations at a faster rate than us. So if Andrew Bragg had any honesty, he would make the point that the rate of regulation has gone down under Labor. But really, you’ve got to look carefully at what these regulations are Patricia. That’s where the real careful analysis comes. And sadly, that’s not what we’re getting from the Coalition. We’re just getting more simple sloganeering rather than actually engaging with how to make Australians’ lives better.
Karvelas:
I think your point about having to look at the regulations is a really important one. And I can’t go through 5,000 regulations to see which ones are worthy or not. And I bet it’s value‑based as well. Not everyone agrees on everything. So, let me broaden out this conversation with you.
You gave a major speech which was inspired by Abundance. It’s a new book by journalist Ezra Klein. It’s a great book calling for progressives to adopt ‘YIMBY’ policies – that’s ‘yes in my backyard’, to basically get on‑board with progress and development, saying that the left has held it back. One of the critiques from the conservative side of politics is that the Labor government has just read this book and discovered that red tape is bad. What’s your response to that critique?
Leigh:
Well Patricia, it’s an important book and Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein have done a nice job in laying out the case in the United States. Of course, things are different here, and we need to be focused on exactly what the challenges are locally. But I know in the area of housing for example, Clare O’Neil is very engaged on making sure that local, state and federal regulations work together to allow us to build more homes. Catherine King is focused on the same challenge in infrastructure. And Chris Bowen in clean energy. That philosophy of making sure that regulation is right and that we look at the way in which different regulations interact is really at the heart of what our government is doing.
Karvelas:
Yeah, but it is fair to say – I mean, I interviewed Clare O’Neil, and she made the point that, you know, you don’t usually hear Labor governments talk about this. Do you acknowledge that it hasn’t been the domain of Labor governments to talk about less regulation in terms of history? That hasn’t been the language you’ve often heard from Labor?
Leigh:
Absolutely, and we need to make sure we’ve got a progressive deregulation agenda which is about ensuring that we’ve got smart regulation, not just mindless cutting of regulation. That’s the difference from how we think about these things, from the silly regulation‑counting approach that you see from the likes of Andrew Bragg.
We are carefully looking through how to get better expedited housing projects, how to make sure that we’re able to build more clean energy and deliver the abundant society with more housing, more clean energy, more infrastructure that Australians are out there demanding. That’s the progressive productivity agenda. That’s the sort of things that we’ll be focused on when the reform roundtable comes around in August.
Karvelas:
Okay. Couple of questions on that. The reform roundtable in August, the Treasurer has revealed he is going to invite the Shadow Treasurer, Ted O’Brien. He wasn’t sure about his guest list, but now the Shadow Treasurer Ted O’Brien is getting an invite. Why?
Leigh:
Well, we want the Coalition to be part of the conversation. We’re keen for them to step up and actually engage with questions around productivity. You didn’t see much of that from them at the last election with their policies of raising income taxes and subsidising long lunches for bosses. That’s not a productivity agenda for the nation’s future. So, if we can have the Coalition in the room, hopefully they will come with more ideas and a greater sense of willingness to engage around the big productivity challenges for Australia.
When we came to office, it was the worst quarterly fall in productivity in 45 years, and the decade ending in 2020 was the worst productivity decade in the post‑war era. So, the Coalition have overseen some pretty awful productivity figures, and it would be great if they were part of the conversation as to how to turn productivity around.
Karvelas:
Andrew Leigh, we’ve just got some breaking news which is fairly significant. The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu has confirmed his government has agreed to a ceasefire with Iran. In a statement, the Prime Minister’s office says, a meeting of Israel’s security cabinet last night backed US President Donald Trump’s proposal for a truce. So that’s just breaking now. I know this is the first time you’ve heard it. Same with our viewers, but just to put that to you – that’s been confirmed. No doubt you welcome that?
Leigh:
Yes Patricia, absolutely. You think about the importance of putting Iran on a path of peace and prosperity, what this means for the Middle East region, and of course, the people of Israel and Iran. We want the broader growth and prosperity and trust in that region to be strong. Clearly, the situation in Gaza is untenable. Australia signed, along with 19 other countries, a statement calling for international humanitarian relief there. That’s an area where I hope Israel will move to make sure that we have greater peace in the region.
Karvelas:
Yeah. Does this vindicate, in your view, the approach that Donald Trump took? That your government took some time, but ultimately backed, which was to get involved in the conflict?
Leigh:
Well, Anthony Albanese decisively stated that he supported the strikes because we can’t have Iran getting a nuclear weapon. We had the IAEA reporting that there were some 400 kilograms of 60 per cent enriched uranium, not far off that 90 per cent threshold for building a nuclear weapon. That stockpile would have allowed 10 nuclear weapons to be built.
The whole purpose of Barack Obama’s 2015 deal was to make sure that Iran was at least a year away from building a nuclear weapon, and that’s clearly not the point at which they were at prior to these strikes. It isn’t in Iran’s interest to have a nuclear weapon. It’s not in the region’s interest to have a nuclear weapon. It’s not in Australia’s interest for there to be nuclear proliferation. So, we’re very strongly backing peace in the region.
Karvelas:
But because this ceasefire has been negotiated after the US getting involved as it did, does it legitimise the sort of ‘might is right’ approach?
Leigh:
Well, the use of the bunker busting bombs was unprecedented. I hope it’s not something that needs to happen again. Clearly getting back onto a path where international agreements are ensuring that Iran is stopped from a breakout is important. The physical facilities have been damaged, but Iran still retains much of that intellectual knowledge that they have built up in their pursuit of nuclear weapon. So, you need international agreements along with the international enforcement mechanisms. That’s the only way of maintaining a sustainable situation in which Iran is no longer striving for a nuclear weapon, as it has been in recent years.
Karvelas:
Well Andrew Leigh, I’ve certainly put things to you that you probably wouldn’t have expected as that news broke. You’ve dealt with it pretty well. Thank you so much for joining us.
Leigh:
Thanks, Patricia.