THE HON ANDREW HASTIE MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR DEFENCE
|SHADOW MINISTER FOR DEFENCE INDUSTRY
SHADOW MINISTER FOR DEFENCE PERSONNEL
FEDERAL MEMBER FOR CANNING

TRANSCRIPT
INTERVIEW WITH GARY ADSHEAD, ABC PERTH DRIVE

THURSDAY 13 FEBRUARY 2025

Topics: Dangerous interaction with PLA.GARY ADSHEAD: Let’s speak now to the Shadow Defence Minister and spokesperson from the Coalition, Andrew Hastie, who joins us on the line. Thanks very much for your time, Andrew.

ANDREW HASTIE: G'day, Gary. Good to be with you.

GARY ADSHEAD: So what do you know about this particular situation?

ANDREW HASTIE: I know as much as you do, Gary. This is a very cynical ploy by the Albanese Government. They knew about this on Tuesday. They didn't brief the Opposition. They didn't brief the Leader of the Opposition. They didn't brief me, the Shadow Minister for Defence. They didn't brief our Shadow Foreign Minister, David Coleman. Instead, they dropped it to the press after the bells had rung and Parliament had risen on a Thursday afternoon. This is a government focused on winning the next election, not governing in the national interest.

GARY ADSHEAD: Okay, so can you remember back to May last year when we had something similar happen, whether or not there was any sort of formal briefing or discussion around it with the Opposition?

ANDREW HASTIE: I have had briefings over the last two and a half years, because these incidents have occurred over the course of the Albanese Government. There's been several of them. You remember the divers who had a sonar pulse directed at them by a Chinese destroyer. You would remember the Seahawk helicopter – it had flares deployed in front of it as well, or it might have been a fly past. The point is this has been happening under the Albanese Government, and this is because it's a weak government, and weakness is provocative. We’re in the closing stages of this Parliament, and this government is focused on winning an election, and they didn't want two question times potentially having questions asked of them about their performance on national security.

GARY ADSHEAD: So the details that we do have - because we just heard a clip of Richard Marles, the Defence Minister, in the news at three o'clock – they describe it as an unsafe manoeuvre, what took place. But the reports are coming out that this People's Liberation Army jet was within 30-metres of an RAAF P-8 Poseidon. What does that tell you?

ANDREW HASTIE: That tells you that this is reckless and dangerous. Unsafe and unprofessional is not strong enough in my view. This is dangerous and reckless, it’s a continuing pattern of behaviour, and it's, frankly, the Chinese military flexing on our ADF in a very dangerous manner. If those flares were to get in the engine of a plane, you can only imagine what might happen – we could be losing people. This is the sort of thing that if you are friends, and we claim to be friends of China, there are boundaries in your relationship. It’s time our government asserted the boundaries that we won't put up with this sort of reckless behaviour.

GARY ADSHEAD: So how do we do it? I mean, what are we supposed to do in relation to this? What should the government's next move be?

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, we've said over the last two years that Anthony Albanese should pick up the phone peer to peer, man to man, and raise this with the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, or the Premier, and make it clear that we don't stand for this sort of behaviour and this is not what friends do. Pulling in the Defense Attache from the Chinese Embassy, or whatever they're planning on doing, isn't enough. It's got to be raised to a political level. And they're testing us. This is a new world order – we've got President Trump and his government newly elected, they're reshaping not only America, but also the region, and we're being tested as an ally. This is the Chinese military flexing on our men and women in a very dangerous manner.

GARY ADSHEAD: Can I just ask you, you've obviously been in critical situations yourself from your days in the Defence Force, what would be going through the mind of the pilots and crew aboard that RAAF plane when they've got a Chinese fighter jet within 30 meters of it sending out chaff?

ANDREW HASTIE: I think they'd be anxious. I mean, these are brave men and women, they do a fantastic job. They've got families at home, they want to return home safe and so to put myself in their shoes, they'd be thinking, 'I've got a job to do, I'm going to be professional, I'm not going to do anything provocative myself,' and I think they'd be worried about having some sort of mechanical or engine failure if these flares, or it might have been chaff previously, was to get inside the engine and cause damage.

GARY ADSHEAD: I know you can't put yourself in the pilot seat but what do they do? I mean, how does it get to a situation where you've got this jet so close to it? They must be relaying - the Australian crew – that this is the situation, what do we do now?

ANDREW HASTIE: To go right back to 2001 April Fools Day, the Hainan Island incident, when a US electronic warfare aircraft traveling through the South China Sea was intercepted by a Chinese fighter, it actually touched wings with the aircraft. It was forced to land on Hainan Island, and the Chinese fighter crashed. It was a big incident early on in the George W. Bush administration. So this is a consistent pattern that we've seen over the last almost 25 years now, and we're being tested. So yes, this is nerve wracking stuff for our ADF personnel, and that's why we're calling on the government to stand up for them and say, in relationships, there are boundaries, and the Chinese military keep crossing those boundaries.

GARY ADSHEAD: Now, speaking of boundaries, the other one – I don't know what detail you might have about this – is that there are Chinese warships which have been detected in what's described as Australia's exclusive economic zone (EEZ). It's in the Coral Sea just off North Queensland coast. Is that just standard that they would do that, or is there going to be some sort of discussion about asking them to leave those waters?

ANDREW HASTIE: It's a good question, Gary, and had I had a brief I'd be able to potentially answer that in more detail. But I think it's curious that the same day the government releases information about the incident in the air, they also alert the public to the fact that we have Chinese ships inside our EEZ. I think this is a bit of a flex from the Chinese military, and I think that's probably the right way to interpret this, and that's why we need strong leadership. That's why I'm hoping that a Dutton government will be elected in the next 10 to 12 weeks, maybe even sooner, and perhaps that's why Richard Marles didn't say anything until after Parliament had risen – he wanted to avoid scrutiny and it's a very cynical media drop on a Thursday afternoon.

GARY ADSHEAD: Interesting times as always. Andrew Hastie, appreciate yours.

ANDREW HASTIE: Thank you, Gary.

[ENDS]