THE HON ANDREW HASTIE MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR HOME AFFAIRS
FEDERAL MEMBER FOR CANNING

TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP, CANBERRA

Wednesday 27 August 2025

Topics: Iranian Attacks on Australia, AUKUS.

E&OE……………………………………

JOURNALIST: The accusations yesterday, how serious are they and should Australians be worried?

ANDREW HASTIE: Very serious accusations. I was briefed by Director General, Mike Burgess, of ASIO yesterday. They've done a lot of work, very forensic work, to build a case. And the case is clear – Iran was intimately involved with both violent incidents last year, and they have been sowing discord. They've been sowing antisemitism in our community. They've been behind these and that's why the government's taken the action they have to expel the ambassador and also to list the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Of course, the Opposition supports these decisions.

JOURNALIST: ASIO was flagging that there could be more attacks that they were behind. Do you think, from the briefing, that that is possible, and how many are we talking?

ANDREW HASTIE: I think it's absolutely possible. If they were willing to fire-bomb a synagogue through proxies in Melbourne, I have no doubt whatsoever they were probably involved in other incidents as well. The point is though, they met the threshold, ASIO were able to stack up these incidents, attribute them to Iran, and that's why the government's taking the action they have.

JOURNALIST: That must have been a pretty chilling briefing, then?

ANDREW HASTIE: Yeah. Australia is a wonderful country. We've been at peace for many years. We've got great social cohesion. The last two years, though, we've seen a lot of pressure on the Jewish community. They're living in fear, and now we know that a foreign state actor has been directing operations to undermine our social cohesion and target Australians of Jewish faith and heritage. I think it's very concerning indeed.

JOURNALIST: How do we ensure that, after these accusations, we maintain social cohesion across different diaspora in the community?

ANDREW HASTIE: I think there's a role for the government, the opposition, state Parliaments and governments and, of course, community leaders. We've got to all come together, and we've got to insist on our values as Australians. The rule of law means something, we do have standards, which is why punting the Iranian Ambassador is a good decision, because it sends a signal to anyone else who would try to conduct violent operations on our shores that we will frogmarch you out of the country if you mess around.

JOURNALIST: Richard Marles is meeting with officials in the US at the moment. What are you hoping will come out of those meetings?

ANDREW HASTIE: I think Richard Marles will have to explain why the Albanese Government is dragging its feet on AUKUS, why they haven’t increased Defence expenditure, and they're going to have to explain our role in all of that. Under Labor, we are failing in our part of AUKUS. But we also need to insist on a good deal for the Australian people, and that's up to Richard Marles. That's the test for him. We're going to have a US submarine base on our west coast from 2027-28 and he needs to make sure that we're getting everything that we can out of this AUKUS arrangement.

JOURNALIST: Can you be specific about what that is?

ANDREW HASTIE: Submarine Rotational Force-West?

JOURNALIST: I mean, what do you want as an outcome from this meeting?

ANDREW HASTIE: We want certainly around AUKUS. We want the US government to make very clear that they're all in on AUKUS with us, especially given that we are allowing a US submarine base to be built on our west coast. So it's really important that we get a deal that benefits the Australian people, it's in the national interest, and it builds our alliance. And at this stage, I think the Albanese Government has been very flat footed. We haven't sent the right signals, we haven't invested in Defence enough, and we're falling behind the milestones required for AUKUS.

JOURNALIST: Thank you.

ANDREW HASTIE: Thank you.

[ENDS]