TRANSCRIPT

INTERVIEW WITH LIAM BARTLETT, 6PR

THURSDAY 26 MAY 2022

 

 

E&OE…

 

THE HON ANDREW HASTIE MP, FEDERAL MEMBER FOR CANNING

 

LIAM BARTLETT: The post-election focus has so far been centred, I think, mainly on the demise of the Liberal Party and the rise of the teal independents, even though it appears that Labor will govern in their own right. Simple majority, at least in the lower house, not yet confirmed, but that's the way it's looking. And that would make the Teals largely irrelevant. However, talk now turning to whether the Libs need to find their salvation by turning right, more right, or turning left or double down on the centre. And amid that, of course, who will be the leader who is left to lead them. It seems fairly certain, as I mentioned, that former Defence Minister Peter Dutton will take that mantle unopposed. Here in WA there has been much discussion about how the state has turned red, which I've got to say is way overblown. The fact is, Labour only polled 3% higher than the Libs in WA. It was where the votes landed that counted and that lost them four seats to the new government and one to the Independents. One Liberal though that still managed to do very well, in the face of the national result, is the politician who's been on this programme a number of times during the campaign, well known to our morning programme listeners: former assistant Defence Minister Andrew Hastie in his seat of Canning. Andrew, good morning.

 

ANDREW HASTIE: Good morning to you and your listeners. Thanks for having me on.

 

LIAM BARTLETT: And congratulations, Andrew.

 

ANDREW HASTIE: Thank you. It's a real honour and a privilege to be re-elected, particularly in difficult circumstances. And so I'm looking forward to continuing my work as a member for Canning over the next three years and as a member of the Opposition.

 

LIAM BARTLETT: And that's the thing, isn't it? I mean, it probably feels like a bit of a hollow victory, because it's almost the sort of the team losing the grand final but you still played well.

 

ANDREW HASTIE: Yeah, look, I was I was humbled to be returned with a margin that was 6.5% swing against me, which is about 3%, less than the state average to Labor. And we focused this last term on delivering for Canning and problem solving for my constituents. And if I was to pick a reason why I was re-elected, it's because we focused on those two things. That's what government is about, solving problems for Australians. And I did that as a Liberal MP. And I think the future of the party lies in our We Believe statement. As Peter Dutton said overnight, we don't need to tack right or left,

we need to focus on the fundamentals, get back to our We Believe statement, and double down on it, focus on being good Liberals. And that's the pathway to victory in the future.

 

LIAM BARTLETT: What does that mean though, We Believe? We believe in what?

 

ANDREW HASTIE: We believe, well, I'm not going to read the whole We Believe statement here to you on air, Liam-

 

LIAM BARTLETT: - Thank you, thank you. Appreciate that-

 

ANDREW HASTIE: -But we believe in hard work, reward for effort. We believe in a lean government that minimises interference in our daily lives, and maximises the individual and private sector initiative. We believe in a just and humane society, basic freedoms, freedom of thought, worship, speech, and association. It's all there if people want to go and look it up. So that's the blueprint forward.

 

LIAM BARTLETT: Ok so the traditional sort of liberal values, if I can put it that way, back to the broad-church stuff, is that what you're saying?

 

ANDREW HASTIE: That's right. And those values are universal to all Australians. They're Australian values. There is nothing unique to the Liberal Party. We just articulated them well, in our We Believe statement. So the sort of people who are saying we need to tack right or left in the wake of our defeat would have said the same thing on the Friday before the election. And I joined the Liberal Party back in 2013, because I believed in the platform of the Liberal Party, and we need to return to it and focus on those fundamentals.

 

LIAM BARTLETT: Andrew, what do you think of Peter Dutton as leader?

 

ANDREW HASTIE: Peter Dutton is one of the most effective members of parliament and ministers, I've known over my six and a half years in Parliament. I first got to know Peter when I had an immigration issue down here in Canning. And I went to his office back in 2015, 2016. And he resolved it. And it was a great pleasure last year to be at the citizenship ceremony for the person who was affected by it. So he's someone who is very task orientated, very focused on problem solving. But he's also from the suburbs. He's won eight elections from the seat of Dixon. He loves Australia, and he's, I think he will lead us well, if he is indeed elected, unopposed. So-

 

LIAM BARTLETT: -Should we be worried? I mean, Mark McGowan says he's not that smart, and he's an extremist.

 

ANDREW HASTIE: Look, I thought Mr. McGowan's comments came from a place of weakness and insecurity. Confident leaders don't denigrate people like that. And I thought it really diminishes him as the Premier. He needs to get his own house in order before he goes poking into the affairs of others. He needs to fix the hospital system here and the ambulance ramping before he starts giving us lectures on intellect and personal attacks. So putting that to one side, you know, the media has worked pretty hard to frame Peter Dutton in a certain way. But I know he's just like a lot of other regular Australians. And I saw him last year as the Minister for Defence, the SAS was in a very bad way. Morale was down. And he came over as a new defence minister. And I saw him uplift their morale. So he's a leader. And that's why I'm glad that he's putting his hand up to be our future leader.

 

LIAM BARTLETT: I'm wondering why everyone's sort of doubling down on him at the moment. I mean, Tanya Plibersek, applied that earlier on, she had a crack at him, you know, he was Voldemort, and that kids should be scared. And you know, she since apologised, but it says something, doesn't it?

 

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, cultural leaders don't have to attack their opponents by making rude remarks about their appearance or the intellect. They debate the argument, and they do it in a winsome way. So I think what Mark McGowan and Tanya Plibersek have revealed to the public is a deep fear, deep fear. And you know as I've said, Liam, already, we need to rebuild. I'm glad to be part of the WA team that rebuilds. Restoration follows ruin. And I think Peter Dutton is likely to be the Liberal Party leader to do that.

 

LIAM BARTLETT: It's the one to do it. All right. Speaking of leaders, leadership and, and former leaders, I want to ask you your opinion of where things went wrong in your own leadership. And the reason I asked you that, you would be well familiar with the comments made yesterday by David Sharma, one of your former colleagues - used to be before Saturday, the member for Wentworth - he, he really did put the Julius Marlowe's into where Scott Morrison, his former boss. He said that when he spoke to voters, they expressed a deep dislike of Morrison. He said it was almost visceral, their reaction. They would say he's too religious. They didn't like the fact that he carried a piece of coal into parliament, they didn't believe his sincerity on climate change, didn't like the handling of Higgins and Tame, et cetera, et cetera. Did you get the same impression, was the Scott Morrison drag factor the reason?

 

ANDREW HASTIE: Liam, I think we've got to account for differences in demography. Wentworth is a very different electorate to Canning. So whilst there are always grumblings about the leader, and I had those too, but there are a lot of people who supported Scott Morrison here in Canning as well. And Canning and Wentworth are a long way apart. And I'm a good friend of Dave's, spent a lot of time cycling in Canberra with him, keeping fit. I've had lots of conversations, I read his opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald, he's entitled to a view, but there will be a post mortem. And I don't want to get ahead of the coroner in understanding why we lost and lost comprehensively. So that's a task for the federal Party. That's a task for the state Party, particularly here. But it's not as dire as some are suggesting here in WA. For example, the state party had a primary vote of 21% last year. We got 35%. And so we are on the move. And I'm looking forward to being part of the team that rebuilds WA and challenges Mark McGowan in a state election in three years time, and Anthony Albanese when the federal election is called.

 

LIAM BARTLETT: Andrew, let me play you a little bit of what Scott Morrison said today. He gave his first interview since losing to 2GB, my colleague Ray Hadley, this morning. Is a little bit - he said specifically he was addressing this this whole teal independent avalanche. And this is what he said about the people who ran in those seats who won.

 

Excerpt: “…You know those who were elected in those seats, well, they've made all sorts of big commitments about how they think they can change everything. We'll just see, won't we. And they should be held to account for that. I mean, there was a whole bunch of promises and pledges not just about what was specifically said, but you know, how they've said they'd be able to change everything. They very vicious and very brutal campaigns, talking to my colleagues about them. They play things very hard on the ground. So anyway, that's, politics can be a tough and brutal business…”

 

LIAM BARTLETT: It most certainly can, Andrew.

 

ANDREW HASTIE: It certainly can. And these are people who are running in Australia's wealthiest electorates, most educated electorate. The people least affected by the pandemic because they were part of the Zoom economy. They could stay at home and do all their work on Zoom and still make a living, whereas people in Canning, people elsewhere in the outer metropolitan suburbs of Australia where the Liberal Party has traditionally represented, they had to work through the pandemic. They did tough, and so the teal seats are unrepresentative of the rest of Australia. And, again, I think we'll find out more about why we were unsuccessful there. But again, demography in this country is on the move. And we need to get back to being the Liberal Party in accordance with our We Believe statement. And also remember what Robert Menzies said about the forgotten people. It's not the fancy suburbs of Australia that we represent, it's middle Australia, in the suburbs.

 

LIAM BARTLETT: You know, the foreign minister sorry, not the foreign minister, the ambassador, the French ambassador to Australia, has also come out overnight and declared that the former Morison government was widely seen as refusing to take responsibility to act on the climate crisis, and he has suggested that the Albanese government's new policy will help repair trust with the French government. Do you think that's still a little bit of a sideswipe over the submarine deal?

 

ANDREW HASTIE: I think Scott Morrison acted in the best interests of our country by striking the AUKUS deal with the United States and the UK. I'm looking forward to the delivery of those nuclear submarines. The French were always going to be upset. And so it's in that framework that I interpret those remarks. I wish Anthony Albanese well, and I want him to succeed, because if he succeeds, we all succeed. But we will be the Opposition, we will hold him to account. And these French comments, frankly, are a distraction.

 

LIAM BARTLETT: And Andrew just finally, I wanted to ask you a comment on this, your opinion, because it is obviously in the past. But this issue is well and truly alive. And you have a fair bit of background on this. The former Chief of ASIO, Duncan Lewis, has come out today and criticised the former Morrison government's rhetoric, hawkish rhetoric on China saying Australia's diplomacy had been quote, "rather louder than we should have been under the Coalition." And he says the change of government will give Australia a spring in its step and help a nation build trust and goodwill in the region. It's interesting comment from a retired spy chief, isn't it?

 

ANDREW HASTIE: It is. Mr. Lewis also has given some speeches over the last couple of years, where he used some pretty strong rhetoric, and where he pointed out China himself. So former officials will say what they like. But I'm proud of our record, under Scott Morrison on foreign policy and defence. We've responded to events as they unfolded globally. And we have a very, very strong record. And like I said, Anthony Albanese is now our leader. And because of the challenges faced by the global pandemic, and the geopolitical shifts caused by Russia and China, we do wish him well, but we will hold him to account as it is appropriate as opposition in our Westminster system.

 

LIAM BARTLETT: Well, he's got an opportunity now, hasn't He? I mean, he can use those sorts of comments against the likes of Peter Dutton. And in fact, for a restoration of relationships with China. You can say, well, you know, they were louder than they should have been, as Duncan Lewis said, but we would like to sit down and talk.

 

ANDREW HASTIE: That's true. But geopolitics is not university politics. It's the big league. And human nature hasn't changed throughout history. And if people think it's going to be easy, they should think, again. The CCP, and Vladimir Putin, they're in a no limits partnership, and we've seen what Russia has done in the Ukraine, and so we need to treat them with great caution.

 

LIAM BARTLETT: Andrew, great to catch up with you, hopefully on the programme we'll catch up with you and your opposing colleague from the left in Matt Keogh, because you'll still be sharing an aeroplane back and forth to Canberra for the next few years. So hopefully we can we can get the team back together again, get the band back on the road on the programme down the track.

 

ANDREW HASTIE: Happy to be part of your boyband, Liam.

 

LIAM BARTLETT: Andrew Hastie, the member for Canning.

 

 

[END]