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 ANDREW CLENNELL, SUNDAY AGENDA

SUNDAY 2 MARCH 2025

Topics: Coalition’s commitment to increase F-35A capability, Defence spending, Chinese warships off Australia’s coast, President Trump – President Zelenskyy meeting, WA election.

ANDREW CLENNELL: Joining me live is another big player now in terms of this election, Shadow Defence Minister, Andrew Hastie. Thanks for getting up so early in Perth, Andrew Hastie. Might not be your birthday, but you have made a sacrifice for Sunday agenda. Let's start with your announcement today, you would purchase $3 billion of fighter jets. What's behind this, and where will you get the money?

ANDREW HASTIE: Under Labor, Defence Minister Richard Marles has presided over $81.6 billion worth of cuts to defence, which included the fourth squadron of the Joint Strike Fighter, or the F-35 – 28 of them. And so what we're doing today is we're announcing that we will restore to the Air Force that fourth squadron, we're going to invest in Defence, and we're going to rebuild the Defence Force, which has been run down under Labor.

ANDREW CLENNELL: Does this mean we're in for a khaki election?

ANDREW HASTIE: I think the election will be fought on a range of issues. But what is clear is that under Labor, our Defence Force has been driven into the ground. Morale is at an all time low. We have a recruiting crisis, we have a retention crisis, we have a readiness crisis. And this is a signal from Peter Dutton and the Coalition that we care about Defence. We want a strong country, and given today's dangerous strategic circumstances, we are investing in it so that we can secure the Australian people and our interests.

ANDREW CLENNELL: Does the money cover hangars, pilot training, all those odds and ends? And where does it come from?

ANDREW HASTIE: We're committing to an additional $3 billion of expenditure today to secure that fourth squadron, and we will negotiate the costs of not only the aircraft, but all the ancillary capabilities that need to support it once we're in government. This is a sensitive commercial negotiation, given the technology, but it's very clear, and we want to make it clear that we are rebuilding the ADF, which has been run down by the Albanese Labor Government.

ANDREW CLENNELL: Is it from borrowings or back office savings or both?

ANDREW HASTIE: We'll make all that clear when we release our costings prior to the election.

ANDREW CLENNELL: All right, the government has increased Defence funding by 20 per cent between the 2022-23 Budget and the 2024-25 Budget. You say they've run Defence spending into the ground. They've certainly committed more and committed more for AUKUS. It's growing to 2.3 per cent of GDP by the decade. Are you saying you're going to make it an even higher figure than that? That this is the first of a number of Defence announcements, for example?

ANDREW HASTIE: Sure, Andrew. Well, Richard Marles stood up last year and said that by the end of the decade – 2033-34 – that Defence expenditure would be a 2.4 per cent of GDP. We found that last week, in Estimates from an official that it's actually on track for 2.33. So they're not even going to hit the target they've set for themselves. But moreover, with inflation eating into purchasing power across the country - not just families and businesses, but also Defence – we're actually going backwards in Defence. And like I said, Richard Marles has presided over $81.6 billion worth of cuts, reprioritisations and re-scoping, as they call it, which is ultimately bad for the ADF, because the ADF is being forced to cannibalise itself. AUKUS is a massive, multi-generational endeavour, it's a nation building endeavour. It's going to be expensive, and if we don't account for the cost structural pressure that that will put on our Defence budget, well, other capabilities will be cannibalised, and Labor have not accounted for it. So yes, we have committed to increasing our Defence expenditure. Again, that will be made clear when we release our costings.

ANDREW CLENNELL: Alright, so are we looking perhaps at more warships, given the experience with China, for example, in recent days?

ANDREW HASTIE: I'm concerned about our Navy. Our Navy is going to get weaker before it gets stronger. We won't see our Virginia class submarines until the next decade, and the general purpose frigate program, under Labor, is already sliding. We found out that there won't be a selection for the shipbuilder until next year. It was promised this year, it won't be until next year, and we won't get those general purpose frigates until late in the decade. We've got very old Anzac class of frigates – we've already had to decommission one – and we're going to get weaker before we get stronger under Labor, because they're not making the necessary decisions, and they're not accelerating those decisions, which is critical.

ANDREW CLENNELL: Mr Hastie, will you be able to accelerate that? Or it's just not that easy?

ANDREW HASTIE: Under Peter Dutton, I intend to accelerate this at best speed. You bet we will. That's the whole point of leadership. Right now, we've got a very passive Prime Minister who's not across his brief on national security. He appears flustered a lot of the time. Peter Dutton, former Defence Minister, knows what needs to be done. And of course, if I'm Defence Minister, I'll be driving at best speed to make sure that our country is secured and our acquisitions and our procurement cycle is accelerated.

ANDREW CLENNELL: It was an extraordinary exchange by Donald Trump and JD Vance with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine that broke yesterday morning in Australia. What did you make of it?

ANDREW HASTIE: I mean, I sat down and I watched the full 53 minutes of it. It was a very heated exchange towards the end. I think there's two things I want to make clear. Number one is that Australia stands with Ukraine. We've always stood with Ukraine since Russia's illegal, immoral and unjustified invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. That's why we provided diplomatic, political, military and humanitarian aid to the Ukrainians. And we want to see Ukrainian sovereignty upheld in any peace settlement. So that's our position. But I think what we saw yesterday in the Oval Office is a very different US approach to security and trade. I think President Trump is rebalancing the terms of trade and security, and that has implications for Australia. We need to demonstrate a strong hand. President Trump studies your cards very closely, and I think he wants to know that his allies have a strong hand. What does a strong hand look like? Well, I think that means investing in our Defence Force. That's why today's announcement of the F-35s, which has been in the works for many months, sends a strong signal, not just to the region, but also to a critical partner like the US, that we're not a free rider, we're actually a heavy lifter, and we're going to invest to take care of our own security, not be dependent upon United States all the time.

ANDREW CLENNELL: Well, you're right that he talks about cards, but President Trump and the Vice President were telling President Zelenskyy he wasn't grateful enough for America's support, and that his country would have been overtaken quickly without US military support. Is that true in your view?

ANDREW HASTIE: We supported Ukraine with Bushmasters. We urged the government to commit our retiring Abrams tanks - 49 of them. They won't be given until later this year, which is a disgrace, in my view. They should have been given to the Ukrainians a long time ago. That's why we've supported Ukraine, because they needed our help, but they demonstrated they could stand on their own two feet. But of course, this is a war of attrition, and they've needed a lot of military, material and humanitarian aid, which the Australian government has been happy to give it – first on the Coalition, and then Labor, and we've been bipartisan on that approach. President Zelenskyy is fighting for his country. He's fighting for his country. I'm not going to comment on an exchange between President Trump and President Zelenskyy. Of course, we support Ukraine. Of course we have supported them, literally with military and material aid over the years. There's a lot to play out still, and we just hope we can get some sort of peace settlement that upholds Ukrainian sovereignty in the process.

ANDREW CLENNELL: Because this is an extremely tricky foreign policy, no matter whether you win or Anthony Albanese does, isn't it? Where are we at as a country if we have to disagree with the US administration on this and yet still have an alliance, still have AUKUS and try to prevent tariffs on our country?

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, that's right. Like I said, President Trump is rebalancing the terms of trade and security, and we need to have a strong hand. We've got a very passive Prime Minister. We saw that on full display last week, where he was flustered, he wasn't across his brief. He should have gone to President Trump's inauguration. He should have been there to build that relationship. We have to demonstrate that we have a strong hand. Andrew, if you watched that video as well, you saw President Trump talk a lot about raw earths, or I think he meant rare earths. We have an abundance of rare earths. We have four per cent of the world's reserves. We actually have a very strong hand. We have a strong hand when it comes to rare earths and we also have a strong hand with our alliance with the United States, with the strategic depth that we've provided for many years now. But the signal is very clear from the Trump White House: don't be a free rider. Be a heavy lifter. Invest in your own security. Invest in the Defence Force. And that's what we're doing today by announcing the fourth squadron of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.

ANDREW CLENNELL: Just on these Chinese live-firing incidents. The government says the Chinese are complying with international law, that Australia does all sorts of exercises in the South China Sea. Do you see any equivalence there?

ANDREW HASTIE: No, I don't see any equivalence. If we have done live-fire, my understanding is it's always been de-conflicted, it's been coordinated, and it's been very controlled, always part of a larger multilateral exercise. Nowhere near Chinese waters and no disruption to Chinese commercial flight path. There is no equivalence here and that's the key point. The Prime Minister again, given his very passive approach and weak approach to leadership, was at pains to explain the last weeks' incident away as being within the bounds of international law. That totally misses the point. It was an overt signal of military strength from the Chinese government, and it's a reminder to Australians that we can't take anything for granted. We are geographically isolated. We have very vulnerable lines of trade and communication – they need to be protected. The only way you can do that is by investing in your Defence Force. That's why the Joint Strike Fighter, or the F-35, is an excellent platform for maritime strike, and we're investing in that for the future. We're building on an already strong Air Force with further capability.

ANDREW CLENNELL: Mr Hastie, it sounds like there is a Budget now and May election, just from my report and Jim Chalmers' comments about the Budget. What do you think that says about the political contest at the moment, just briefly?

ANDREW HASTIE: I think they're looking for an answer. I think the Albanese Government is casting around for an answer, because they're in trouble, and they're hoping that with more runway they can land. They've had 27,000 small businesses go under Labor. Our Defence Force is going backwards. Families are doing it really tough. Gas prices, electricity prices, grocery prices, insurance premiums, school fees – everything is up. And this is because of Labor's homegrown inflation. This will be a referendum on Labor's ability to manage the cost of living crisis that is impacting all Australians.

ANDREW CLENNELL: Alright, briefly, because I'm out of time, WA election this weekend. What sort of showing can we expect from the Liberals? Because Roger Cook is the hot favourite. What would you say to WA voters?

ANDREW HASTIE: I know that our team has been working very, very hard, and I'm confident that we will acquit ourselves well. You never say never. We could have a massive swing here. Of course, the bookies are all backing Roger Cook, and we have a long way to go, only holding a couple of seats in the lower house in WA. But I'm confident that the wheel is turning, and we are working hard to deliver for the Western Australian people. So watch that space closely. There are some good people who are entering the Parliament, and I'm confident that we'll give ourselves a good showing.

ANDREW CLENNELL: Andrew Hastie, thanks for your time.

ANDREW HASTIE: Thanks, Andrew.

[ENDS]