Melbourne, October 30, 2025 — ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb opened the Australian Competition Summit 2025 with a call for regulators to exercise “the responsibility of leadership” by combining enforcement, reform, and collaboration to sustain trust and promote competition in an era of disruption.
Cass-Gottlieb said competition agencies faced “new challenges and renewed responsibilities” amid geopolitical shifts, the rise of digital platforms, and cost-of-living pressures. “We must not simply react to disruptive forces,” she said. “We must lead with principle and purpose, informed by a strong evidence base.”
Collaboration and ‘Right-Sized’ Regulation
The ACCC chief on regulation said the Commission was committed to “right-sized regulation — rigorous where harm is greatest and proportionate to risk.” Cass-Gottlieb highlighted merger reform and the proposed code-based framework for digital platforms as examples of this approach.
“These reforms seek to strike the right balance,” she said, “between preventing anticompetitive acquisitions and allowing those unlikely to raise issues to proceed promptly and with certainty.”
Leading Through Disruption
The ACCC is also expanding data-driven enforcement, Cass-Gottlieb said, citing its new partnership with the NSW government to use procurement data and AI to detect bid-rigging patterns — similar to tools deployed by authorities in Japan, Spain and South Korea.
“Competition enforcement involves not only responding to reported harm,” she said, “but proactively anticipating risk, detecting patterns and disrupting anticompetitive conduct before its impact becomes entrenched.”
Enforcement, Deterrence, and Digital Cases
Cass-Gottlieb pointed to recent cases against Google, BlueScope Steel, Delta Building Automation, and civil cartel proceedings involving fresh produce suppliers and mobile crane services, as evidence of the ACCC’s “resolve to secure deterrence in markets that matter to Australians.”
“Our enforcement work,” she said, “is driven by public interest and grounded in evidence — a clear assessment of harm, competitive impact and consumer welfare.”
Rebuilding Trust in Institutions
Cass-Gottlieb linked effective competition policy to restoring public trust. “A belief that the system favours the privileged … is eroding confidence in institutions,” she warned. “In this time of disruption and diminishing consumer trust, it is more important than ever that we deliver on our mandate.”
Concluding, she urged regulators to ensure enforcement and reform remain “principled, proportionate and grounded in the public interest.”
