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

 
TRANSCRIPT
INTERVIEW WITH KIERAN GILBERT, NEWS24

Wednesday 14 October 2026

Topics: Australian War Memorial; Labor’s botched credit card ban; Digital Duty of Care; gas reservation policy; Josh Frydenberg.

E&OE……………………………………

KIERAN GILBERT: Let's bring in now Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie, the Shadow Minister for Industry and Sovereign Capability. Andrew Hastie, thanks for your time. We've got lots of issues to get to, but I know you were there on Sunday for the 25th anniversary of our nation's deployment to Afghanistan, of which you served as well. This real sort of tragic mishap, where Sean McCarthy, his parents weren't invited to attend. There was a problem with their address, but Sean again had direct correspondence to him. He has been dead since 2008 – killed in action. It's a shocking bureaucratic mishap, isn't it?

ANDREW HASTIE: It's shocking, and to use John Howard's words, it's inexcusable. John Howard said that back in 2003 when the widow of SASR Sergeant Andrew Russell – who was killed in 2002 – his wife Kylie Russell was not invited when George W. Bush and John Howard laid a wreath at the War Memorial. So, I think the same standard applies here. This is a big failure by the public service, for which Matt Keogh is accountable. I know he apologised yesterday. I'm very sorry the McCarthy parents were left out of it. But it was a very solemn and special occasion for a lot of Afghan veterans.

KIERAN GILBERT: Yeah, I think that the War Memorial generally and Matt Anderson do a brilliant job at the Memorial. Is that the view among a lot of veterans as well?

ANDREW HASTIE: It was a very good service, and I thought they did a particularly good job of honouring family members – families of the fallen. One of my ADFA and Duntroon classmates, Bryce Duffy, he was killed in Afghanistan – I saw his parents. They honoured the partners and the children who were left behind for those who deployed for months at a time. It was a very well-done service.

KIERAN GILBERT: Let's bring the attention back to Parliament now. There are a few tensions around the place, including seemingly on the government side around the credit card ban by the ATO. Who was responsible for overturning it, the Prime Minister or Treasurer? At the end of the day, it doesn't matter – they got to the right outcome in the end, didn't they?

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, they did, but I think it's just a lesson in who runs this government. It's Anthony Albanese, obviously, as Prime Minister. But this is once again Jim Chalmers getting overruled. Jim Chalmers has been overruled several times now. Whether it's the widows' tax, the testamentary trust tax, the capital gains tax for small businesses, and now the ATO ruling – the Prime Minister is pretty good at rolling his Treasurer.

KIERAN GILBERT: Isn't it good to have creative tension there among senior figures in a party?

ANDREW HASTIE: Sure, but these are a lot of backflips over the last four or five months, and it shows that the government is not quite on top of things. And I don't think the treasurer particularly understands the pressure that small businesses are under right now. 

KIERAN GILBERT: The digital duty of care is one where the Coalition says that its concerns are insurmountable. One Nation going so far as to saying there are elements of state surveillance in this exposure draft. Do you see any scenario where you might come on board with that legislation?

ANDREW HASTIE: I don't think so. I think section 25, which is the ministerial power to define what online harm actually is – that amounts to sort of 1984 levels of censorship. And then we hear that the eSafety Commissioner will be able to create 'sock puppets' to sort of anonymously monitor people online. This has a really bad stench about it, and I think the government needs to go right back to the drawing board. We won't be supporting this.

KIERAN GILBERT: What would be your view though when it comes to protecting younger people online from things like chatbots that might encourage them to harm themselves?

ANDREW HASTIE: As a father of three – ages 11, nine, and four – I'm really worried about this. I'm worried about child pornography. I'm worried about sex predators. I'm worried about terrorism. I'm worried about espionage and other criminal scams that get a life online. We've got to clamp down on that, but not at the expense of regular Australians being able to express their minds and I think that's what the government did not get right. The 1984 Big Brother clause in the Bill – that's where we have huge problems.

KIERAN GILBERT: Josh Frydenberg's suggestion that he might come back. He has been asked about it repeatedly, says it's too early to say. Would you like him to come back?

ANDREW HASTIE: Josh would always be welcome back in Parliament. He's still a member of the Liberal Party. I read some of his contributions over the weekend, and I wish his memoir sales all the best. I saw he launched it I think it was yesterday.

KIERAN GILBERT: Do you think he makes some good points on GST, grand bargains and that sort of thing?

ANDREW HASTIE: Look, we've already ruled out the GST. We're committed to the Tax Back Guarantee – indexing tax bracket – to deal with bracket creep and give Australians more of their money back every year. So, the GST won't be part of our tax mix but certainly, I think Josh has some good points there. People want to see politicians of conviction.

KIERAN GILBERT: And they want to see people of capability in the place as well. That's important. 

ANDREW HASTIE: Capability, character, and conviction. Absolutely.

KIERAN GILBERT: Ok, so he'd be welcome. And finally, I should ask you about Madeleine King's position. I know she's your neighbour in WA. She came to your defence incidentally recently when you copped a spray from One Nation – I think it was from One Nation – and she said it was outrageous.

ANDREW HASTIE: Yeah, and I thanked her. She was good for that.

KIERAN GILBERT: But on the gas reservation, what's your read on that? 

ANDREW HASTIE: Look, we want more Australian gas for Australians. We want more gas into the system. We want cheaper gas. We've seen the outlines of this Bill – it's been a very short consultation period. Labor has always had an issue with gas, demonising gas. We don't want to see price controls, we want to see existing schemes honoured, and we want to see more investment. We want to see drilling and digging and more gas extracted for use by Australians.

KIERAN GILBERT: And our industry is pivotal to that.

ANDREW HASTIE: Advanced manufacturing in this country is going to collapse without cheaper gas. And then you add in the artificial intelligence revolution, our data centres – they're going to need gas too. In fact, I got Anthropic last week on the record saying that gas needs to be part of the energy mix.

KIERAN GILBERT: Alright, well, we'll see. But in principle, you like the broader parameters of this?

ANDREW HASTIE: More broadly, we want to see cheaper domestic gas prices for Australians.

KIERAN GILBERT: Okay, Andrew Hastie, Shadow Minister for Industry and Sovereign Capability, thanks as always. 

ANDREW HASTIE: Thanks, Kieran.

[ENDS]