THE HON ANDREW HASTIE MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDUSTRY AND SOVEREIGN CAPABILITY
FEDERAL MEMBER FOR CANNING

TRANSCRIPT
INTERVIEW WITH TOM CONNELL, NEWS24

Thursday 17 September 2026

Topics: Immigration; veterans’ allied health cap scrapped; One Nation; advanced manufacturing.

E&OE……………………………………

TOM CONNELL: Andrew Hastie, thank you for your time. Reaction to what you've seen today – restriction on international students in particular, and on visas as well, and overstaying. What have you made of what you've seen from Tony Burke today?

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, I think the headline is Labor are not cutting immigration. We know immigration is too high, the standards have been too low under Labor over the last four years, and there's no real cuts. There are changes that they're going to make by regulation, but fundamentally for the Australian people, there's no big cuts in the headlines from this speech.

TOM CONNELL: So, what they're saying is they will hit the forecast, which does go down. The last completed year was 306,000 all the way down to 225,000. So, immigration would go lower than forecast, but it is, according to the government, forecast to go fairly significantly lower on the NOM – the net overseas migration.

ANDREW HASTIE: The NOM is still very high, and there's no guarantee they're going to hit their target of 225,000 in year 2027-28. We know that we've got to get the NOM below housing completions. Housing completions last year was about 173,000. So, we are going to cut immigration, but we're going to do it smartly. We're going to do it in such a way as to spread the impact. There, of course, are budgetary, economic, and human impacts, and that's what we're working through on Angus Taylor.

TOM CONNELL: We'll be able to compare the two plans soon enough, from my understanding, and your good friend Jonno Duniam, once he's done this. But the government said it was working with the Coalition on legislation because you can do some things by regulation. It said it could be better targeted. Who knows? Maybe the figure would be lower with legislation. Why has the Coalition walked away from that?

ANDREW HASTIE: We went to the government with about 10 areas that we wanted to work with them on – making it illegal to repatriate ISIS brides, deporting criminals, changing the eligibility for temporary graduate visas – a whole range of things and we couldn't work on an agreement. They came to us, remember. We said, “we're willing to work with you, but here are our red lines, this is your problem - this is Labor's problem - we’re willing to work with you”. And in the end, because of their divided caucus, they just couldn't come to us and agree to a position.

TOM CONNELL: Red lines. To me, ISIS brides is less a migration issue as a security issue, right? Should we just deal in migration with the government?

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, we believe in lower numbers and higher standards. We also want to make Australian values a condition of getting a visa as well – signing up to our Australian values – and we made clear that that's what we want. So, it's a combination of things.

TOM CONNELL: Vets cap – this is for allied medical services. It's a threshold according to the government, but it is a back down. Do you agree the system – this is according to Labor – has been rorted in particular by practitioners? Not by vets, but practitioners perhaps giving people things they don't need or overcharging for it. Is that a problem worth addressing?

ANDREW HASTIE: Definitely. I think the Department of Veteran Affairs needs an overhaul. That's why we had a Royal Commission. There are quite a few recommendations that need working through. This is an area of reform but in the end, the men and women who served our country – they need the government to serve them. And by putting a cap on allied health services, it was effectively telling them, "thanks for your service, but there's a limit to how much we'll care for you post-service". That's why it's been scrapped – we're glad that's happened. It's a huge win for veterans who came here and campaigned. I've got to say, a lot of veterans, particularly online, are very disillusioned with our institutions. I think the signal to them today is that the institution of Parliament is working. They partnered with us to fight this cap. We've got a big victory, and I want to congratulate them for the work they've done, advocating for thousands of veterans across the country.

TOM CONNELL: In terms of the threshold and why it was such a problem, could it be that we can improve DVA somehow? It seems like having to deal with DVA is sort of the thing that people dread the most. And look, I must admit, dealing with aged care in Australia at the moment – I get a bit of a shudder every time I've got to make that phone call. Is that the issue? Because it's not a straight cap but having to go through this sort of bureaucratic nightmare.

ANDREW HASTIE: Yes, it's a difficult process. It needs to be streamlined, and I think what's missing in a lot of government is the human element. I get seniors who tell me all the time they have trouble with Services Australia with their pensions. Veterans have –

TOM CONNELL: And outsourcing too.

ANDREW HASTIE: There's a lot of outsourcing. So, I think decentralising government, perhaps putting more people in that are more accessible to the public would be beneficial, I think, for confidence in government services.

TOM CONNELL: Pauline Hanson, we better get to her. She did apologise over a couple of different comments, not to do with you and that the accusation she made there, but it is rare for her. Do you get a sense she's felt more pressure than she has before in her political life?

ANDREW HASTIE: I think so. I think she's had a significant amount of missteps in the last week or so. Some of them have been historic, but certainly, I think she demonstrated that she won't take responsibility for her actions. That's the fundamental lesson from the last week. I gave her a choice last week: own the words yourself or take the cartoon down. She didn't neither, she minimised it. But in the end, we've got better things to do. I'm drawing a line under it. I'm moving forward. I do want to give a shout out to Jacqui Lambie. I can see why veterans love her. She is good woman, and I appreciated her support.

TOM CONNELL: As recently as March, you were saying Coalition and One Nation could work more closely together. The change since then, is that the personal element for you that's changed? Because some of your colleagues say, "well, is this too much about Andrew Hastie?" Privately, they haven't said it publicly. What would you say to them if they go, "well, this has just become personal for you". In March, you were saying, let's work more together.

ANDREW HASTIE: Yeah, I misread things. I misread the character of Pauline Hanson. I misread the way they do business. I think we are now in a three-corner contest, and the Liberal Party and the Nationals – the Coalition – has to be number one on people's ballots. And pretending that we can do some sort of deal with One Nation-that's ridiculous. They play pretty grubby, as I've found out, and I want to win their voters back off them.

TOM CONNELL: There's no sense of fellow travellers on the right for you anymore? You felt that way in March – you don't now because of conduct of One Nation?

ANDREW HASTIE: That's right. I also think they're just a non-serious party. I think they've given voice to a lot of voter frustration – high inflation, particularly, high immigration – but their solutions aren't worked through. They like to do things on social media, post videos. And Pauline Hanson – this was her big moment – her thing is immigration, literally. And has she done a press conference this week? Has she come out and explained her position? I sat next to Barnaby Joyce on Monday night on the ABC, and he was literally holding his phone in landscape, going through their policy talking points. That was the extent of the presentation for One Nation's immigration policy. I think the Australian people deserve better.

TOM CONNELL: She's been out in the media, not an all-in lengthier press conference, I suppose. So, as to how you deal with it then, does that mean you wouldn't be comfortable with preference swapping?

ANDREW HASTIE: Preferencing is another thing. I don't mind preferences, but I think there was some sort of suggestion that we could form a formal Coalition with them.

TOM CONNELL: I understand that, I'm just going to that level. So, you at a pragmatic level, swap preferences to put each other above Labor.

ANDREW HASTIE: Pragmatically, I want to defeat Labor.

TOM CONNELL: Do that but not anything beyond that?

ANDREW HASTIE: That's right. I think it's clear now that Pauline Hanson is not fit to be prime minister. They're not a party of government. Who is the party of government we need to defeat? The Labor government. And so that is our primary objective.

TOM CONNELL: What do you make of the protests against her? Is that manna from heaven for her and her supporters?

ANDREW HASTIE: I condemn that behaviour. People need to be respectful in the end, and protests like that help her cause.

TOM CONNELL: I did want to ask quickly – Kevin Rudd is talking about getting the car industry back. You've famously, infamously – I'm not sure what people would say – posted a picture of an old car. I'm not a cars guy. I can't remember what it was.

ANDREW HASTIE: It was a Ford.

TOM CONNELL: Is there a possibility of us doing that? He spoke about wages used to be the big factor, high wages, and now maybe 3D printing means you build the factory and then maybe you're okay. Is that something you're looking into seriously?

ANDREW HASTIE: If we can lower taxes, deliver cheaper power, create the conditions for investment in our country, we can recover advanced manufacturing using AI and robotics –

TOM CONNELL: And probably government support to get it up and going.

ANDREW HASTIE: Government support, government as a customer potentially, particularly with dual purpose technology, which is what China and the US are very good at. I'm agnostic about what sort of advanced goods we would manufacture. But if the case was to be made that BMW or Tesla or Hyundai wanted to invest here to make something like EVs, what a great opportunity and what a way to recover some advanced manufacturing.

TOM CONNELL: Andrew Hastie, I'm going to leave it there. Thank you.

ANDREW HASTIE: Thank you.

[ENDS]