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

TRANSCRIPT

INTERVIEW WITH PATRICIA KARVELAS
ABC AFTERNOON BRIEFING

Friday 8 August 2025

Topics: Labor lowers visa English test requirements, net overseas migration, Israel – Gaza conflict.

E&OE……………………………………

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Shadow Home Affairs Minister, Andrew Hastie, joins me.

SHADOW MINISTER FOR HOME AFFAIRS, THE HON. ANDREW HASTIE MP: Good afternoon, PK.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: We start where I ended there with the Minister, who is the Assistant Immigration Minister. He said there has not been a lowering of the English standard test. There's been a review over some years, but it's not a lowering of that standard. What's your response to that?

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, we're going to ask questions through estimates, obviously, but it appears there has been a lowering of English proficiency standards for migrants to this country. And so the question for the Home Affairs Minister is, what's going on? We want some clarity around the government's immigration program, particularly with the high rate of net overseas migration we've seen for the last few years. Labor has let in one million people over a two-year period, the highest by 70 per cent for any two-year period in our nation's history. So the Australian people are feeling the pressure from this immigration under Labor. We're seeing it through the housing demand crisis – young Australians are locked out of homes, they're finding it very hard to get a rental or even buy a property. Our hospitals, our roads are congested, and of course, there's social cohesion issues. So the Albanese Government needs to explain its immigration policy, and lowering this English proficiency standard is one such explanation we all deserve.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Okay, well, he contests that, but let's just park that. Back on the immigration number per se, your side of politics is reviewing all of your policies that you took to the election, and there has been many on your side who think that that really hard-line approach you took to cutting immigration was too much. Do you think that that promise that you took to the election should be kept - there should be a dramatic cut to the immigration rate in this country?

ANDREW HASTIE: Yes, I do. I don't think we even sold it at the last election and that was part of the problem. Net overseas migration between the years 2000 and 2019 averaged about 190,000 people per year. For the last two years, it's been almost 500,000. Last year alone, 207,000 international students came to this country. The universities are making big money out of this so there's vested interest in keeping this system running. And I think we should be looking after Australians who are locked out of the housing market, who are struggling to see doctors, who are spending more and more time on the road to and from work, who are just fed up with it and I think it's right that we raise this issue.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: So are you happy with that reduction that Peter Dutton took to the election? Do you think that's where you should settle at ultimately, in terms of the immigration level for this country?

ANDREW HASTIE: Yes, I want to see a cut to the net overseas migration figures, absolutely.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Not everyone agrees, though, I've spoken to Paul Scarr who is also a minister in this space, and he says it's all up for review. But you're saying that you think that the cut that you took to the election was an appropriate cut. It wasn't too dramatic?

ANDREW HASTIE: It was an appropriate cut, and we didn't sell it. And I think it was a really important point to make to the Australian people. You talk to young Australians – they've given up hope of ever buying a home. When you move this many people into our country in a space of such a short time, you're going to see a massive shortage of homes. You're going to see a shortage of essential services. You're going to see more congestion. And I think people are also worried about our social cohesion. So this is a problem and my quibble with the last election was that we didn't actually make an argument for this. It just didn't appear in the campaign at all. And I think this is a really important issue. So to Coalition policy, we actually haven't dumped all our policies, we're reviewing them. But I do think there's some big, vested interests who are propping up this system, particularly the universities, who are making huge amounts of money. But our first obligation should always be to the Australian people.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Andrew Hastie, just on another issue, the Israeli Prime Minister has said he will now move forward to take over the entire Gaza Strip and eventually hand over Gaza to a collection of Arab States. He doesn't even want the Palestinian Authority involved. Does this development worry you?

ANDREW HASTIE: I think there's a lot going on at the moment, and we all want to see peace. I think there's four principles that are really important. We support Israel's right to self-defence, number one. Number two, there is no moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel. Number three, we do not want to see a humanitarian crisis in Gaza – we want that to stop. And number four, we want to see the return of hostages. So they are four principles which I think are really important, but I want to know what Israel's end game is here. I looked at Gaza from Google Earth during the week, and it is rubble. It has been largely destroyed. And so the question is, what end game will Israel achieve by sending an occupation force in? And that, I think, is a really important question, because I want to see peace, but we're not going to have a solution that endures. There are always just settlements, right? And we need a new settlement so that we can get peace and a level of security for both sides.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Australia has officially called on Israel not to go down this path. Our government, the Albanese Government, says it will worsen the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. That's a risk, isn't it, that this will actually make the catastrophe that you've looked at on Google Earth – and so have I – and it will actually accelerate that catastrophe?

ANDREW HASTIE: Quite possibly. Moreover, if you're an Israeli soldier in an environment like that, it would be almost impossible to fight urban combat. It would be incredibly difficult and complex. And so not only potentially, would you see more violence, but you'd see more IDF body bags going back to Israel as well. So the question is, what would such an occupation achieve? I think that's a good question to ask Israel. Also, I'm a student of biblical history as well, Patricia, and both parties have been pounding it out in the desert for the last three and a half thousand years. So we need to be realistic about what we can actually achieve in terms of a lasting peace solution, which is why I talked about a settlement. We need a new settlement, a new political reality that allows people on both sides to live in peace within reason.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Andrew Hastie, thank you for joining us this afternoon.

ANDREW HASTIE: Thank you.

[ENDS]