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

TRANSCRIPT
INTERVIEW WITH GARY ADSHEAD, ABC RADIO PERTH DRIVE

Monday 15 September 2025

Topics: National Risk Assessment, Charlie Kirk.

E&OE……………………………………

GARY ADSHEAD: Let's bring in Andrew Hastie, who is the Member for Canning, and he's the shadow spokesperson for Home Affairs in Western Australia and the country. Thanks for your time, Andrew.

ANDREW HASTIE: G'day, Gary. Always a pleasure.

GARY ADSHEAD: Ok, can I just go back to last week? Was Sussan Ley right to dump Jacinta Nampijinpa Price from the frontbench?

ANDREW HASTIE: Look, Sussan had no choice in the end because Jacinta Nampijinpa Price didn't express support for her leadership, and one of the conditions for serving in the shadow cabinet or the other ministry is that you support the Leader. So once that was clear, it became inevitable. But Jacinta is a great Australian. She's a good friend. She's got a bright future, and I don't think we'll see the end of her.

GARY ADSHEAD: Well, I have to then ask you, does Sussan Ley have your full support as the Leader of the Liberal Party?

ANDREW HASTIE: She has my support, Gary, because if she didn't, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you as the Shadow Minister for Home Affairs.

GARY ADSHEAD: Now let's just move to this Climate Risk Assessment report that's been released today, your reaction to it, because there's some sober reading in it, Andrew.

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, sober, if you take it seriously. I think this is a lot of climate alarmism put together by politically compromised, economically insulated public servants who are running cover for Labor. Who are effectively providing cover for Labor's massive wealth grab under the cover of climate alarmism, which is going to take place under the net zero transition. We know, through independent modelling conducted by Net Zero Australia, that Australians can expect to pay up to $1.5 trillion by 2030 for net zero. And the cost of that is going to be extracted from Australian families, households, businesses and industry. So we need to be honest about this. If the Prime Minister really took this report seriously, the first order of business would have been him picking up the phone to Prime Minister Modi of India, President Xi of China and President Donald Trump of the United States, because those three countries comprise more than 50 per cent of the world's emissions. And he would have said: fellas, we need to take action – you need to take action. We only produce 1.1 per cent of the world's emissions, but you guys comprise more than 50 per cent. What are you doing to reduce climate change? He would have said to Prime Minister Modi and President Xi: stop the economic development, stop the economic growth, no more electricity, no more sanitisation, no more lifting your people out of poverty. But he didn't. Did the Prime Minister pick up the phone to the Rio bosses, to the Fortescue bosses, to the BHP bosses, to the Woodside bosses up at Karratha and Port Hedland and said men and men and ladies, no more exports of coal, gas and iron ore? Did he do those things? No, he didn't. So it's great hypocrisy here, Gary, and since we've signed up to net zero, gas prices have gone up 40 per cent for Australian families, electricity prices have gone up 30 per cent for Australian families. And all the while, we keep exporting coal, gas and other minerals. I mean, the hypocrisy is breathtaking.

GARY ADSHEAD: Well, the hypocrisy, I could certainly agree with you in relation to last week, is an announcement that Woodside's North West Shelf gas project can continue till 2070 under conditions. And then this week, we're getting a risk assessment about how perilous our situation is and we need to act. Is the timing a bit weird?

ANDREW HASTIE: It is. I think this is about the public service providing cover for the Albanese government as they push even deeper into the net zero transition with more aggressive 2035 targets. The report says this, Gary: Australia's climate is changing, posing risks to key systems that underpin our way of life. I'll tell you what the key risks to our way of life is – the real risk is from these alarm scientists, lobbyists, grifters and foreign businesses who benefit from the net zero transition. Who take money from some of the poorest people in this country via the taxation system and make profits out of it. We are dismantling one of our great advantages. We have an abundance of coal, we have an abundance of gas, and we are dismantling that key advantage, and we're going to be less competitive, less prosperous and less secure as a country under Labor.

GARY ADSHEAD: Just on that, though, Newspoll shows the Coalition in a pretty perilous situation itself, with that 27 per cent rating in terms of the primary vote. And one of the things that was asked by The Australian, who does the Newspoll, was Australia should increase its action on climate change because the cost of not doing more is too great. Well, that's pretty overwhelming in terms of Australians believing in that.

ANDREW HASTIE: Look, I don't want to get into the details of it. I mean, most Australians have never had an alternative view. Australians have never had a politician really, in the last decade, come forward and say: guys, we're going to put Australians first. We're going to deliver cheaper energy to you. We're going to look after you, your family, your business, your job in industry, we're going to put you first. And we're not going to take orders from the International Panel on Climate Change, which is what informs this report – it even says in the report that they're using the model from the IPCC. You know what, our first question will be: what's best for the Australian people? And I think the best thing we can do for the Australian people is to have a target to get prices down for affordable electricity, affordable gas, so families have more disposable income. They can choose where they send their kids to school. They can choose to have private health cover. They can put more money into their mortgage. They can have a holiday. This is why energy is so critical, because it's driving inflation – it has been. Since we signed up to net zero, as I said, electricity has gone up 30 per cent gas has gone up 40 per cent. Labor are taxing us, and they're doing it in the name of climate alarmism.

GARY ADSHEAD: If Sussan Ley, though, supports net zero by 2050 where does that leave you?

ANDREW HASTIE: That leaves me without a job.

GARY ADSHEAD: Go on, elaborate on that. That would be it for you?

ANDREW HASTIE: I've nailed my colours to the mast, Gary. If I go out with the tide in two and a half years, that's great, I'll get a lot more time with my kids back. My primary mission in politics is to build a stronger, more secure, more competitive Australia. Energy security is a vital input to that. So that's my bottom line. I want to fight for a better deal for my state, for my country.

GARY ADSHEAD: You've had that discussion with Sussan Ley, have you? That you you're suggesting –

ANDREW HASTIE: I mean, I haven't. You asked me –

GARY ADSHEAD: Well, you're suggesting you're out if the party that you are a member of decides to adopt the status quo on 2050 net zero policy, that you would have to walk away.

ANDREW HASTIE: I mean, everyone is whispering that anyway, so I may as well just say it out loud. I've nailed my colours to the mast. I went on Four Corners and I said the net zero policy is a straitjacket for our economy and our country, and I believe that. I'm actually quite passionate about it, as you can tell.

GARY ADSHEAD: I can. So does that make you an independent to the next election if this was to happen? I know we're getting ahead of ourselves here, but it certainly seems like there's going to be a split on the net zero policy.

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, is there going to be a split? We've now had the WA Liberal Party, we've had the NT Country Party, we've had the LNP in Queensland, we've had the South Australian Liberal Party, we've now had the Victorian Liberal Party yesterday, express a desire to get out of net zero and start putting Australia first. So I'd say I'm in keeping with my party.

GARY ADSHEAD: Ok, well, Andrew, I know politicians are sort of reluctant to talk about polls, but if you are at 27 per cent primary vote – the lowest in Newspoll history – I'm sort of intrigued, and I think listeners would be intrigued, to know how you get out of that if part of the problem is not moving forward with the right policy settings?

ANDREW HASTIE: I think the right policy setting is to ditch the $9 billion of subsidies we're paying every year to transition to a net zero economy. We could repurpose $9 billion, start putting cheaper and more reliable energy back into the system, and supercharge this country. Here's the other reality, Gary, which no one's talking about, the artificial intelligence revolution is happening so quickly, and as a country, we're going to miss out because one of the key inputs for the artificial intelligence revolution is data centres. And for a data centre, you've got to have very, very cheap, reliable base load power which we do not have, and which we're getting further away from as we continue to build in solar and wind into our grid. So we're going to be dependent on other countries for our computational power going forward, which makes us less sovereign in peace and less sovereign in war. I think if we get our energy settings right, we can encourage investment down under, like what's happening in the US and the UAE. The UAE is building the biggest data centre in the world – five gigawatts – and they're partnering with OpenAI and Microsoft. We could be really developing a lot of things down under here and benefiting if we just got the energy settings right, which we're not under Labor.

GARY ADSHEAD: Hey, just finally before I let you go, and I know you're in a bit of a rush, but clearly, when I read some of your posts on the weekend, the death of Charlie Kirk has had a significant impact on you. Can you explain why?

ANDREW HASTIE: I think it's a watershed moment. For a lot of young people, it's a JFK equivalent. Someone who was always popping up in my Insta and Facebook feed. I have staff members who follow Charlie Kirk. I have people in the street who have been following Charlie Kirk across the world, and then to see him gunned down in cold blood, his neck torn apart by a large calibre round from a hunting rifle while he's doing the very thing that we value most in democracy, which is listening, engaging, debating, persuading. You don't have to agree with his views, but to have a person like that gunned down in cold blood, it was very, very sobering. I think some of the reactions from people have been equally disturbing. I think of the president elect of the Oxford Union who debated Charlie Kirk only months ago, who celebrated, on a WhatsApp chat, his death. You know, this is a guy who stood across the dispatch box at the Oxford Union, debated Charlie Kirk, he hears the news, celebrates it on a WhatsApp chat. How is it we're dehumanising people as some ideological abstractions. Where's the humanity in all of that?

GARY ADSHEAD: That's clearly absolutely sick for anyone to celebrate or have any sort of glee in someone's death. I agree with it, but I do point out that, you know, Democrats have also been assassinated, Andrew.

ANDREW HASTIE: No question.

GARY ADSHEAD: Melissa Hortman was shot in June, I think.

ANDREW HASTIE: Yeah, terrible, absolutely. But you know, Charlie Kirk was a 31-year-old father of two. He was going into university campuses, into hostile environments, intellectually hostile environments, and he was willing to make an argument. I made the point in my email and post on the weekend, he stood in the long-standing Christian tradition of faith, reason, inquiry, debate and persuasion, and I admired that because that's my job is to debate and persuade. It makes you think, could that happen here in this country? Are there people out there who spend so much time online, they've got Reddit brain rot, that they could radicalise themselves and do the same thing?

GARY ADSHEAD: Well, two police officers were shot in Victoria not long ago – you know that. And to hear any level of extremism at any level concerns me.

ANDREW HASTIE: Across the board. Gary, I agree with you 100 per cent. Right, left, wherever it comes from, political violence is never the answer, and we should never celebrate the death of anyone who is politically assassinated. That's the point I want to make today.

GARY ADSHEAD: Andrew Hastie, thanks very much for joining us.

ANDREW HASTIE: Thank you.

[ENDS]