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 20 FEBRUARY 2025

Topics: Chinese warships off the coast of Australia, ASIO’s annual threat assessment, President Trump’s comments on Ukraine.

GARY ADSHEAD: Let's go straight to Andrew now, who joins me. Thanks very much for your time, Andrew.

ANDREW HASTIE: Hey, good to talk to you, Gary.

GARY ADSHEAD: Okay, so at the moment, we understand that these Chinese navy vessels are around 277 kilometres off Sydney. What do you think of that?

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, I think the Albanese Government has failed to be transparent with the Australian people. They've known about this for some time, and the only reason we know about it today is because it was leaked out of the Financial Times newspaper. The Albanese Government should have updated the Australian public that there were these three Chinese warships tracking on a course south past Sydney. It's not completely unusual, but it is very close, and I think it represents a signal from the Chinese government. They're undergoing the biggest peacetime military buildup since 1945, they're building a Blue-water Navy, which means a navy that can reach around the globe, and they're flexing their muscles in and around the Asia-Pacific region. This is an important moment for us, and I think if nothing else, I want the Australian people to realise that we have to be able to stand up on our two feet. We need to invest in our Navy, and we need to grow our Defence expenditure.

GARY ADSHEAD: Alright, but whatever we do in that regard, though, Andrew, we're playing catch up. And I mean, it takes a long time to catch up.

ANDREW HASTIE: Absolutely we are. There's not a day to lose. And you won't see the urgency that we need from the Albanese Government. We've only got five of seven frigates that are actually out on the water, operational. We've got five crews for seven frigates, and we're not going to get new frigates until later in the decade, at best. So our Navy is actually going to grow weaker before we grow stronger again. The world is getting more dangerous.

GARY ADSHEAD: Well, what do we do? What's the gap then? I mean, how do we fill that gap in the meantime? Because the AUKUS commitment is huge, and you'd agree with that, but of course, it is down the track. But what do we do in the meantime? Are you saying that we need to go and buy ships from a friendly ally now?

ANDREW HASTIE: The general purpose frigate program, which will be delivered through Henderson shipyard, that still hasn't been decided. Again, the government needs to make a decision. There are two tenders left – one is German, one is Japanese – but we need to be building these ships yesterday. That's the point. This government keeps telling us that we're living in the most dangerous circumstances since the end of the Second World War, yet they've not committed any additional money to the Defence budget. The budget is actually going backwards if you factor in inflation, and we're not seeing any of the hard decisions being made. We need to grow our industrial base. The US is, Europe is, every other country around the world is investing in its industrial base – we're not, and we need to get this thing moving.

GARY ADSHEAD: Can I just ask you, in relation to the ASIO boss, Mike Burgess', update that was delivered last night – you usually attend those, I'm not sure if you were there last night – but he's clearly put out more concerns about what his agency and other agencies have been facing, including talking about hostile foreign nations plotting to assassinate people here in Australia. I'll play you a little bit of it.

*EXCERPT PLAYS*

He talks about the situation getting more and more heightened as time goes on, and he obviously talks about the threat from far-right extremists again as well. from your point of view, isn't that just ASIO and other agencies doing their jobs? Because there's always going to be some sort of threat from foreign nations.

ANDREW HASTIE: That's right. But I think what the Director General, Mike Burgess, said last night is that this is a new era with new rules. He said, the traditional rules of spying are being rewritten right now. We've got state sanctioned assassination attempts, state sanctioned espionage, foreign interference, state sanctioned plans for sabotage and terrorism, and it's more violent, it's more dangerous, it's more aggressive, and it's on our shores. And so we need to wake up. This is not the peace that we've enjoyed for the last 20 years. We're in a new era of geopolitical competition, and we need to be sovereign, we need to be strong, and we need to be investing in our security forces across the board – not just at ASIO, but also ASIS, who collect our intelligence offshore, but especially our Defence Force.

GARY ADSHEAD: Andrew Hastie, the Shadow Defence Minister, you could be in government within months. What would you do? What would be your first item on an agenda in terms of the Chinese threat that we're facing just off the coast of Sydney, and the situation that ASIO paints a picture about? What would you do?

ANDREW HASTIE: Under Labor, we're facing a recruiting crisis in the ADF. We're facing a retention crisis; we're not keeping enough good people in uniform. And we have a readiness crisis; we don't have enough combat power that we could deploy in an emergency. There are a number of things that we need to fix up. But first of all, we need the right sort of people in uniform, and we need the right sort of kit for them so they can defend us if necessary. When it comes to defending Australia, I think, given that we're an island nation, we need a strong Navy, and we need to invest in our Navy. We need to recruit young Australians and give them a reason to join our Navy and serve aboard our submarines and our surface fleet vessels. In parallel to that, we need to be building our industrial base. Right now, we are exposed. Our supply chain is stretched throughout the world, and we are too dependent on foreign powers for essential equipment. I think Australia has the answers - just look at WA, Gary, what we do here. We are a powerhouse, and if we turn our minds to building our industrial base, we can get the job done, and we can be self-sufficient in a number of key areas.

GARY ADSHEAD: Okay, just in terms of that, though, because I say it again, we can't just sort of click our fingers and have the military hardware overnight. So I can't figure out what it is that your policy would be to bridge that gap in the meantime, because the only way I can see you're doing it would be to purchase warships already there and bring them to Australia, if that's what you think we need to do.

ANDREW HASTIE: It's not just warships, Gary. We have some amazing Australian businesses who are producing munitions, drones and different equipment, which is being used in Ukraine to great effect. We have a lot of the expertise here in Australia, we just haven't invested in those businesses to scale them. Now, if you think about what we've got to defend, we've got a big air sea gap to our north, particularly. We could create all sorts of problems for an adversary using fairly low-tech equipment like drones and massing them, and creating all sorts of problems for people who'd want to coerce us, or even worse, threaten us with violence. So we do have the answers here. It's a question of the Australian Government backing our own businesses, and right now, our preference is to go offshore and buy equipment from other countries. It's time the Australian Government backed its own people and invested in our own industrial base here in Australia.

GARY ADSHEAD: Just while I've got you there, here's some of Richard Marles, the Defence Minister, who's spoken about this not too long ago.

*EXCERPT PLAYS*

That's the Defence Minister, Richard Marles, talking on Sky. You know, they're not doing anything that they aren't entitled to do, Andrew Hastie.

ANDREW HASTIE: Sure, but what Richard Marles really wanted to say, but didn't, was that it's old school gunboat diplomacy. It's a signal from the Chinese government that they are now a superpower with a Blue-water Navy, they can project force around the world, and I think what they've been doing is they've been testing the allies of the United States, like Australia. That's what the P-8 Poseidon incident last week was all about, where a Chinese fighter fired flares in front of our aircraft. They are testing us. And so far, the Albanese Government has not stood up for our sailors and airmen who have been impacted over the last two and a half years. I think weakness is provocative. You've got to be strong. You've got to stand up for the Australian national interest and say, we have a relationship with mutual respect, and that includes treating our men and women doing their job lawfully in international waters, you treat them with respect as well. And Anthony Albanese, as Prime Minister, has failed to pick up the phone to his counterparts.

GARY ADSHEAD: Last issue, Donald Trump says Ukraine started the war. What's your reaction to it?

ANDREW HASTIE: I think it's completely untrue. I think it's very clear who fired the first shot, and that was Russia. It was an illegal, immoral, unjustified invasion of Ukrainian territory, and it happened only weeks after President Putin and Xi Jinping met in Beijing and signed a no-limits partnership. That's the facts of the case. That's why we have supported the Ukrainians in their fight against Russia with military assistance, humanitarian assistance, and energy aid as well, in the form of coal.

GARY ADSHEAD: Okay, but then we sent over $1.5 billion in relation to the defence of Ukraine. Should we be worried with given that the US president appears to be siding with Vladimir Putin?

ANDREW HASTIE: This is going to be a testing time for all over the coming weeks and months. We all want peace, but I think the most important thing is that Ukrainian sovereignty is upheld. We don't have a seat at the negotiating table – that’s just the reality of being a regional middle power on the other side of the world – but it is important that we uphold the principle of sovereignty, because our own sovereignty could be at stake one day, which is why we support other powers who've come under threat, like Ukraine. That's why we stood with Israel as well. We absolutely believe in the right of nations to defend themselves when they are attacked.

GARY ADSHEAD: Shadow spokesperson on Defence, Andrew Hastie, thanks very much for your time.

ANDREW HASTIE: Thanks, Gary.

[ENDS]