TRANSCRIPT – RADIO INTERVIEW – ABC RADIO CANBERRA

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO CANBERRA, DRIVE WITH JAMES FINDLAY
WEDNESDAY, 1 APRIL 2026

SUBJECTS: Albanese Government banning unfair trading practices; banning card surcharges; electoral matters review; Prime Minister’s address to the nation; Middle East conflict

JAMES FINDLAY: Well, if you’ve been stuck paying for a subscription you can’t cancel or cancel easy, those days will soon be over. Look, it’s been talked up for months really, and finally the subscription trap laws have been introduced into Parliament today. Dr Andrew Leigh is the Member for Fenner and Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury and has been involved quite intrinsically with this process. A very good afternoon to you Andrew Leigh.

ANDREW LEIGH: Good afternoon James, great to be with you.

JAMES FINDLAY: Yeah thank you. How will this make things easier for consumers?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well this will ensure that if consumers want to cancel a subscription, it's as easy to cancel as it was to begin. Subscriptions are a part of our everyday lives – whether that's subscriptions for gyms or meal kits or newspapers or online services. They can be very useful, but what Australians don't need are subscriptions that are hard to cancel, where there's tricks and traps that keep you paying for things you don't want. Three quarters of Australians say they've had trouble trying to cancel a subscription and I've heard stories James, of people who have cancelled their bank accounts or credit cards because it's easier than trying to fight the subscriptions that are coming out.

JAMES FINDLAY: Oh, absolutely.

ANDREW LEIGH: And that ends with these laws. We're seeing a clear expectation on firms offering subscriptions that they need to have straightforward ways of cancelling those subscriptions. No more ‘sign up on the app, but phone us if you want to cancel’. Honest, straight dealing – good for consumers and good for competition too. Because right now, most firms are doing the right thing, but they're up against competitors that are sometimes playing a shonky game.

JAMES FINDLAY: What about, you know, if there are terms and conditions that say that you have to be subscribed for a certain amount of time? Can companies still do that?

ANDREW LEIGH: Companies can put in place subscriptions. They can have durations of subscriptions. They can have rules around how you can cancel. And I understand with companies that are making a big investment, like a gym, they might want a bit of certainty over when you subscribe, so you won't be able to just drop all your subscriptions tomorrow. If you've signed up for a period of time, then that'll be normal. But we won't have subscription traps in which companies are effectively putting hurdles in place that are doing nothing more than trying to keep you engaged in unwanted subscriptions.

JAMES FINDLAY: Okay, what are some of those most common hurdles that will be hopefully gone for good?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well, one of them comes through the pathway. And so if you can sign up through the app, you should be able to quit through the app. Another comes through what they call ‘confirm shaming’. You might try to cancel and come up with a page that says in very small grey font, ‘Yes, continue’, and a big one that says, ‘No, I'd love to keep on receiving these terrific services’. And so we need to make sure that the choices are clear, that firms are honest with their consumers and that they're not trying to pull the wool over your eyes as a way of making money. Today is April the first – it should be a day celebrated with whoopee cushions and tall tales, not subscription traps and dodgy behaviour.

JAMES FINDLAY: You've had that one ready to go. Now, what about drip pricing? One thing I really found interesting in today's announcement is that this is also going to target at, you know, those…The example I really cottoned on to was the airlines, for instance. Where you pay for a base fare, but then you get all these add-ons and then by the by the end of it you're paying, like, what – sometimes, you know, three or four times what you originally thought you were going to pay. This is going to target that as well?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well James, it's important to be clear about what this drip pricing law does and doesn't do. It says that if there is a mandatory per transaction fee, that has to be disclosed up-front. That means, for example, that companies can't say, ‘Here's a concert ticket for $100’. And then you get to the end, and suddenly there's a $20 handling charge that's put on and a $5 compulsory credit card fee and a credit card is the only way you can pay for the ticket.

Those charges will have to be put in. Where there's optional fees, such as a baggage fee, which you don't have to pay if you don't take a bag, firms will still be able to put that in place. If there is a free way of paying, then they won't have to include that other fee. But of course, this is coming on top of the week in which we've announced that debit and credit card surcharges will go, so I think many Australians will welcome the combined benefit to them of those two reforms.

JAMES FINDLAY: Okay. So what about those – you kind of brought up concert tickets there, and that's, I think that's a really good example, because you do often go to buy things online. There are several like, fees that you're paying before you get to the end. Will those disappear as well?

ANDREW LEIGH: If there is a compulsory per-transaction fee, it will have to be bundled in.

JAMES FINDLAY: Okay.

ANDREW LEIGH: And so the real problem we're getting right now is, you've got a decent firm offering a product for $100 and then it is being undercut by a competitor who says, ‘Oh, we're going to offer the product for $90’ then someone goes through the whole process, puts in all their shipping details and gets to the end, and it turns out that the $90 fee is actually $100 once some compulsory fee is added on. You won't be able to do that any longer. You will have to be straight with your customers, and that'll be great for competition because we want people competing based on offering the very best products and services, not on tricky tricks and dodgy deals.

JAMES FINDLAY: Dr Andrew Leigh is with you. He's the Member for Fenner and the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury. And you're hearing about the subscription – these laws that have just been introduced today, that will help you unsubscribe from things much easier than you can now. 14 to five on triple six ABC Canberra. Hearing from you on the text line on this. G'day Martin, you say the local paper requires you to ring up and cancel rather than being able to cancel online. Very easy to sign up online, not easy to cancel. Martin's brought up an interesting point, is that something that would have to change with these new laws?

ANDREW LEIGH: The Canberra Times won't be exempt from the new laws, they will apply to all people offering goods and services in the Australian economy, so that's true whether you're offering a newspaper subscription in print, online, a gym, an online service –this applies right across the economy. We're getting rid of subscription traps.

JAMES FINDLAY: How will it be policed?

ANDREW LEIGH: The ACCC is the federal competition watchdog, and so it will have a key role in this, and they've been calling for these laws for a long time, so I'm sure they're enthusiastic about getting their teeth into enforcing it. Each of the eight state and territory fair trading bodies will have an enforcement role as well.

JAMES FINDLAY: Okay. Just before we move on to a couple of other matters for today, it's been introduced into the House. When you expecting it'll go through both Houses? And are you expecting it to go through? I can't imagine there'd be much issue with the Senate?

ANDREW LEIGH: I am yet to have a Member of the House or Senate come up to me and say, ‘You know, really, what we need is to maintain these subscription traps. If only we could have more subscription traps and more drip pricing’. So my hope James, is it gets uniform support through the House and uniform support through the Senate. These processes are often caught up in other negotiations, but I hope that this is one of those bills that can receive enthusiastic bipartisan support.

JAMES FINDLAY: So when should we expect it to be law?

ANDREW LEIGH: It'll be a matter in terms of how things are scheduled in the House and the Senate. I know little about how things are scheduled in the House, and even less about how things are scheduled in the Senate. Of course, I'd like to see it done tomorrow, but we'll get it through as soon as we can.

JAMES FINDLAY: Okay. Just on a couple of quick questions before you go. First on the amount of MPs in the House of Representatives – been a bit of a topic of conversation of late this week. The Prime Minister has shut down any increase in MPs in the House of Reps, though. This is what he said in the House yesterday.

[Excerpt]

PRIME MINISTER ANTHONY ALBANESE: I am satisfied with the current number of seats in the House of Representatives. That's 150. That’s 150 with 12 Senators from each state.

[Excerpt ends]

JAMES FINDLAY: Now this has been a topic of conversation this morning, I believe that even though territories weren't mentioned there Andrew Leigh, any chance that the Prime Minister is open to an extra ACT Senator for instance?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well, we’ll see what comes back from the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. They do a review after each election to consider the electoral system, the running of the election, matters that affect the democracy. They haven't even brought down their interim report, let alone their final report. There's only one party doing costings on expanding the Parliament – that's the Coalition. Where our main focus, of course, is fuel security. So we'll respect the work of the Committee and wait for their recommendations to come down.

JAMES FINDLAY: Don Farrell is making some noise, though?

ANDREW LEIGH: Don Farrell is a thoughtful contributor to discussions around democracy. He did important work last year in order to get big money out of politics and reduce the ability of candidates to spend whatever they like on elections. He's strongly committed to strengthening the democracy, and certainly an enthusiastic supporter of Canberra.

JAMES FINDLAY: Okay, we'll keep our eyes peeled then. And look, question without notice; the Prime Minister is making an announcement tonight at 7pm. It's been big news today, and look, I'm not expecting you to gazump him Andrew Leigh, but can you give us an indication on what might be said?

ANDREW LEIGH: Well, I don't think it's any surprise to know what the Prime Minister's going to be talking about; he'll be talking about the Middle East conflict and the response from the government, that he will encourage Australians to play their part and the importance of buying as much fuel as you need, but not taking more than you need. Just as people needed to be sensible with toilet paper through COVID people need to be sensible with fuel right now.
We have fuel supplies coming through to the country. The reason we have had some small isolated temporary outages has been the spike in demand. So it's a matter of everyone stepping up to do our part.

I suspect this will be the kind of national address that you saw during the global financial crisis or the COVID pandemic, where the Prime Minister takes an opportunity to speak directly to the nation about what the government is doing and how people can pitch in.

JAMES FINDLAY: Oh gosh. Do you really want to compare it to an announcement during the COVID pandemic, though Andrew Leigh?

ANDREW LEIGH: Look, we all hope this conflict will end soon. It really is in the hands of the United States and Israel as to when it wraps up. Our government has been very clear with those countries that the original aim was to degrade Iran's capacity to get a nuclear weapon. That having been achieved, it is time to bring the conflict to an end. We have been a strong voice for peace in the region. We've sent over the Wedgetail asset and have a number of defensive assets there. Of course, we're not part of any offensive operations. This is about protecting Australians in the region and our partner countries in the region, but we need to end this war now.

JAMES FINDLAY: Okay. Thank you Andrew Leigh, we'll talk to you again soon.

ANDREW LEIGH: Thanks James.

JAMES FINDLAY: Andrew Leigh there. Dr Andrew Leigh, Member for Fenner, and Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury.

ENDS