www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-xFf0LZrEk

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 GREG JENNETT, ABC AFTERNOON BRIEFING

FRIDAY 9 AUGUST 2024

Topics: CFMEU, AUKUS, Paul Keating

E&OE…

GREG JENNETT: Andrew Hastie, good to have you back with us once again on Afternoon Briefing. Can I start with an emerging story of the day concerning the construction division of the CFMEU. The government has made it very clear that it will go down the path of legislation to put an administrator into that construction division across what we assume is all branches of this criminally infiltrated outfit. As the Coalition is opposed to criminality in that union, will you support the Bill in the Parliament next week?

ANDREW HASTIE: We're going to have a discussion about that but one thing I will say is that if the government was serious about tackling criminality in the CFMEU, the first thing they would do is deregister the union. The second thing they would do is restore the Australian Building and Construction Commission. And the third thing they’d do is they’d pass the Enhancing Integrity Bill, which the former Coalition government put to the Parliament in the last Parliament, and it was voted down by Labor. They also could look to Premier Malinauskas in South Australia who in 2022 returned $125,000 from the CFMEU after he found out that CFMEU members had vandalised the cars of the Master Builders Association. This is a test for the Prime Minister. He's received $4 million of CFMEU donations. It's a real test for him because if he doesn't act, and if he doesn't do those things that I've mentioned, there will continue to be a 30 per cent surcharge on Australian families who are paying for our roads, our schools and our hospitals to be built, and whilst this sort of behaviour is ongoing, that surcharge will be passed on to taxpayers.

GREG JENNETT: Okay. Look, one brief follow up on that. So are they non-negotiable conditions that the Coalition would place around its support in either or both Chambers?

ANDREW HASTIE: This is our principled position: deregister the CFMEU, restore the Australian Building and Construction Commission, and finally, pass our Enhancing Integrity measures. Those are the things that we want to see done. Of course, we'll enter into negotiations, and that's something that we'll do also as a Shadow Cabinet is discuss this position, but that's our principal position as it stands today.

GREG JENNETT: I do promise this is the last one. Just on the 30 per cent price premium, I've heard that number bandied around by others. On what is that based?

ANDREW HASTIE: That's our estimation within the Coalition. We think that this criminality is imposing a surcharge of around 30 per cent on families through the costs that are passed on to them through this criminal activity, and if it's not stopped by the government, it's going to continue to be more expensive to build roads, schools and hospitals. So that's our position, and we'll keep saying it until the government acts.

GREG JENNETT: All right, I will test that with others no doubt in the Coalition as we get through next week. Andrew Hastie, why don't we move on to AUKUS. We've got these two pages of a letter from the White House to the Senate and the House in Washington. Not a whole lot of other detail, I think it would be fair to say, coming from any government involved in this upgraded deal on cooperation over naval nuclear propulsion. Have you been briefed on its contents?

ANDREW HASTIE: I've written to the Deputy Prime Minister and I've requested a brief.  I think the government needs to be transparent about this document, and we need to know more about it because one of the most important things for AUKUS is social license. The Australian people need to be brought along through very good public advocacy from this government, and also from the Opposition, because this is a bipartisan, multi-generational, national endeavour. We can't afford to fail at it. We support AUKUS, obviously, on a bipartisan basis. It was the Coalition's idea. But where we differ is on the speed of delivery and making sure that it's communicated well to the Australian people.

GREG JENNETT: So Richard Marles has said that this document, or this agreement, provides the legal underpinning of the optimal pathway process that was laid out in San Diego. It's exceptionally non-specific, though. What does legal underpinning of optimal pathway mean to you?

ANDREW HASTIE: That's a great question, Greg, and I have the same question that you have which is why I've requested the briefing, and I'm sure we'll learn more about it in the coming week as we return to Parliament. But certainly, I want to reiterate our push for transparency on this. We want to understand what it means for us, for the US and for the UK. It's important to have this conversation with the Australian people.

GREG JENNETT: Yes, and look, I imagine you're not really going to be able to address this one, but the other talking point in the two pages of Joe Biden's letter is the "additional related political commitments" that all three governments have apparently made to each other. Do you have any inkling about what that might cover?

ANDREW HASTIE: I don't, and I don't want to speculate so we'll have to wait and see.

GREG JENNETT: Will Australian legislation or Parliamentary scrutiny in any formal sense be required for this?

ANDREW HASTIE: Again, that's a great question, Greg, and I'm looking forward to hearing from the Deputy Prime Minister – I'm due to meet with him next week. These are the sorts of things that we'll discuss as we come to understand this new document and what it means for Australia.

GREG JENNETT: There is a gaping hole in public understanding of where AUKUS is up to now, Andrew Hastie, let alone where it might go in future agreements and developments across the years. Now I'll suggest that some understanding might have been aided by the creation of a dedicated joint Parliamentary committee that was able to scrutinise these classified, or what may well be classified, agreements. The Coalition helped defeat that – you were once its greatest advocate. Would you now seek to re-enter negotiations with the government to revive it, or is it gone forever?

ANDREW HASTIE: Look, I think the Parliamentary Joint Defence Committee is an excellent idea. It's one I've advocated for over a number of years, as you know, I'm on the public record in support of it. Where we differed was on the composition of the committee, and we thought we should close the door on the Greens as members of the committee. They are openly hostile to AUKUS, to the alliance, and indeed to many of the arrangements that we have with the Americans, and we couldn't agree on that point which is why, in the national interest, we chose to oppose the Bill. Some point down the future we hope that the government will agree with us on this point and make sure that only parties of government – people who are responsible and who really want to see our national security increased, not decreased – will be allowed to serve on the committee.

GREG JENNETT: Might it be advantageous from your point of view to grasp that opportunity for further negotiation now, within this Parliament, as a hedge against what may well be a bigger and more influential crossbench in a potential hung Parliament?

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, that's right. This is democracy and we don't know what the composition of the next Parliament will look like. We hope to form government with Peter Dutton as the Prime Minister. But certainly, we think that this committee, the membership of this committee, should be from parties of government – the Coalition and Labor – and that's why we insisted on closing the door on the Greens and others who would be opposed to AUKUS and other defence arrangements that are integral to our national security as a country.

GREG JENNETT: All right, we'll await further developments on that. Just a final one on Paul Keating, if I may, Andrew. The former Prime Minister made a range of assertions, not for the first time, again on 7:30 last night against AUKUS, against a growing US troop presence in Australia's north, and strongly against any arrangement that might draw Australian Defence Forces, or its personnel, into the defence of Taiwan against China. Most of all though, he asserted towards the end that Australia is independently capable of defending itself against any invasion from the North. Can it?

ANDREW HASTIE: I think Paul Keating is increasingly out of touch. I think his interventions are becoming embarrassing, they're often impulsive, they're reckless, and with some of the more outlandish statements, they're actually damaging to the national interest. He's unfortunately become Labor's Mr Toad. And like Mr Toad in the Wind and the Willows, he needs his friends to intervene before he does any further damage.

GREG JENNETT: We'll wrap it up there, and who knows, we might be talking about Paul Keating again on future interventions, but that's enough for today. Andrew Hastie, we'll leave it there. See you back in Canberra before too long.

ANDREW HASTIE: Thanks, Greg.

[ENDS]