THE HON ANDREW HASTIE MP
FEDERAL MEMBER FOR CANNING

TRANSCRIPT
INTERVIEW WITH MARK LEVY, 2GB

Thursday 23 October 2025

Topics: Liberal Party; Albanese-Trump meeting; Kevin Rudd; Defence spending; PLA’s dangerous interaction with RAAF; Liberal values.

E&OE……………………………………

MARK LEVY: It's been a while since we've spoken to Andrew Hastie, the Member for Canning over in Western Australia and now of course, sitting on the backbench within the Coalition. I'm delighted to say he joins us from over in the West. Andrew Hastie, good morning to you.

ANDREW HASTIE: Good morning, Mark. Great to be with you.

MARK LEVY: Well, mate, I'll tell you what I've missed you! I haven't spoken to you for a few weeks. You've been pretty quiet, mate.

ANDREW HASTIE: Mate, it's been a while, but I've just been getting my own house in order back home and focusing on the family. Now it's good time to come back out and have a chat to you, mate.

MARK LEVY: Come back out. I like that. Well, let's get the internal party politics out of the way first and then we can focus on more important things. You're on the backbench now, so is Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Barnaby Joyce – all this talk about him potentially jumping ship to One Nation. You're back in Canberra next week. Gee, what's the mood going to be like in the party room, and are you considering a switch as well, Andrew?

ANDREW HASTIE: First things first, Mark, I'm not switching. I wouldn't be elected if it wasn't for the Liberal Party. I'm very grateful for the opportunity the party has given me over the last 10 years to be a parliamentarian. So I won't be switching. As for Barnaby –  I don't know what's in Barnaby's mind, but I hope he stays within the Coalition because I think he does have a lot of experience, and he's got some good insight obviously. I'm keen to Barnaby to stay with us and all this speculation about One Nation, obviously it's unhelpful to our cause right now as we're trying to rebuild post-election.

MARK LEVY: Yeah, James Paterson and Angus Taylor have made that point. I mean, they've spoken about the need for unity. All this noise at the moment, I don't think is doing much good for the Coalition. It takes the focus away from holding the government to account. I don't want to sound disrespectful when I ask this question, Andrew, but I need to pose it to you. Do you need to shoulder some of the blame for this noise, and do you stand by the agitating you did prior to the resignation from the shadow cabinet?

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, first things first, what I was doing prior to my resignation was making it clear as to where I think the Coalition should go. And I resigned on a point of principle, as I made clear in that press conference a couple of weeks ago. But I've remained silent since. I haven't done any interviews, I haven't done any press, and I've given Sussan clear air, and I thought that was right. This is my first media interview since that Saturday. There's been plenty of people saying things, whether it be in the column pages of The Australian or elsewhere, that's their prerogative but I haven't engaged in that.

MARK LEVY: Alright, fair enough too.

ANDREW HASTIE: Keen to get on with business.

MARK LEVY: Yeah, fair enough. Well, business is back on next week, isn't it? Sitting fortnight. I understand there'll be a Liberal backbench meeting next Friday in which Net Zero will be discussed. Do you think the party's closer to a position on this?

ANDREW HASTIE: I'm not sure, Mark. I haven't really taken soundings on this. I've just been very clear In my own mind, to my supporters and publicly, in fact, on what my position is around Net Zero, and I think we should be out of it. I think it's a massive brake on our economy, it's a massive transfer of wealth from some of the poorest Australians to the wealthiest, it's making our country weaker and less secure, and we need to call out Labor on it. That's my position going forward, it’s a consistent one, I've held that for almost a decade now and I'll be holding to it going forward.

MARK LEVY: Alright, let's move on to other things. The big story of this week was the meeting between Anthony Albanese and Donald Trump, where the US President gave assurances around AUKUS, also signed that critical minerals deal. That that's good for Australia, isn't it, Andrew?

ANDREW HASTIE: It's a great deal. In fact, part of the deal is happening right here in Canning in WA with Alcoa investing in a gallium plant here, which is a critical mineral. it's great to see, it’s something I've said we should be doing for a long time. In fact, I remember in the previous Trump administration, A.B. Culvahouse, who was the US ambassador at the time, he was advocating for a rare earths deal or critical minerals deal as well. So this has been a long time coming and frankly, if there's a criticism to be made of the Albanese government is that they should have landed this sooner.

MARK LEVY: Alright, speaking of ambassadors, poor old Kevin Rudd. Talk about humiliation with what Donald Trump had to say. I note Sussan Ley's walking back from her original calls for him to be sacked. What are your thoughts on Kevin Rudd as Australia's Ambassador to the United States, Andrew?

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, I think Kevin Rudd got the job done in the end. He got the minerals deal and he had a seat at the table with President Trump and the Prime Minister. Frankly, he made some unwise comments prior to becoming the ambassador – we all make unwise comments. He sat there and he was humiliated by Donald Trump first by pretending not to know who he was, and then secondly, by saying “I don't like you and I think I never will.” But he copped it on the chin for the country, and we don't need to relive the humiliation. We got the deal and let's move on.

MARK LEVY: So you're pretty confident Donald Trump knew exactly who he was?

ANDREW HASTIE: Oh yeah. That was theatre. This guy does really good reality television and trolling the Australian ambassador was good TV. But in the end, Kevin Rudd copped it on the chin for the country, and we moved forward.

MARK LEVY: Alright. China. I personally think, Andrew, this is the most important story of the week, and it revolves around this Chinese jet which fired flares at an RAAF surveillance plane over the South China Sea. Richard Marles, in some of the commentary I've heard from the Defence Minister, has been trying to play this down. How serious is this, Andrew?

ANDREW HASTIE: I think it's very serious. This is a pattern of coercive behaviour, dangerous behaviour that we've seen from the Chinese Communist Party using the Chinese military against the ADF over the last three years. We've had a number of these incidents. Let's not forget what happened to our Navy divers under the water being targeted with a Chinese destroyer’s sonar. These are risky manoeuvres. They're dangerous manoeuvres, they’re provocative manoeuvres, and they're designed to send a message to the Prime Minister, the Australian Government and the Australian people. And that is: we are a global superpower, don't mess with us and be careful who your friends are – I think is the message as well.

MARK LEVY: I would have thought as well, Andrew, it's the reason why we need to be investing more money in Defence yet there's a story on the front page of The Australian newspaper today suggesting that Defence is cost cutting. I mean, really?

ANDREW HASTIE: That's right. What we've seen from Labor is no serious increase in Defence expenditure. We went to the last election committing to three per cent of GDP by the end of the decade, and Labor haven't really increased their Defence spend and they've taken on AUKUS. So when you don't increase Defence expenditure and you take on a big new project like AUKUS – this is the submarines now – you have to start cannibalising parts of your budget. That's why Army, Navy and Air Force are all suffering because Labor taken on AUKUS, but they haven't actually budgeted for it properly. What does that mean? It means we have less combat power overall and it means that our sustainment budgets – which are probably the most important parts of our Defence budget – the things that keep our really important capabilities going – our ships, our aircraft, our tanks, armoured vehicles and so on – they have sustainment budgets. They need fuel, they need maintenance, they need a whole range of things and if you're not funding those things, guess what? You could go to war and breakdown very quickly. So Labor has got to increase our Defence expenditure.

MARK LEVY: So off the back of that, Andrew, does that mean that we're vulnerable given that we're cost cutting in Defence and we're in the midst of waiting for these nuclear submarines?

ANDREW HASTIE: We are vulnerable and we're going to get weaker before the end of the decade under Labor. We don't get our first general purpose frigate to the end of the decade – these are the Japanese Mogami Class Frigates that we're getting. We don't get one until the end of the decade and our frigates are getting older and less serviceable over time. We're actually at risk and I think this is the hidden secret. This is the hidden message of the Albanese Trump meeting in Washington D.C. I think President Trump was friendly and respectful to Anthony Albanese because in the end, US interests were at play here as well. And that is they've got their eye on HMAS Stirling out here in Perth, which is only about 35 minutes to my north, as the US Naval submarine base, so they can disperse their forces. And if you see at the start of the press conference, President Trump, threw to John Phelan – who's the US Navy Secretary – he talked about the US being able to project power from our region using the base in Perth. That's the bigger play here and in a sense that will help offset some of the capability loss that we're going to experience under Anthony Albanese and the Labor government.

MARK LEVY: Alright. Two quick ones before you go, Andrew. I know you've got family duties and the like. All this talk at the moment about what the Liberals stand for. I've been quite critical of the Liberal leader in NSW, Mark Speakman, who's in the paper over here today talking about Liberal values. In 30 seconds, Andrew Hastie, what are the Liberal values?

ANDREW HASTIE: We believe in the family as the starting point for Australian society. We believe in strong local communities. We believe in free enterprise and businesses. We believe in a strong country and for a strong country we need to have a whole range of things. We need to have a strong industrial base, we need to have strong supply lines, and we also need to have a strong Defence Force. So when we talk about values, we talk about abstractions a lot of the time as the Liberal Party and I think we just get back to basics – what do we want? People want to have a home and a roof over their heads. They want to have a strong local community where they know their neighbours and are known by them. And they want a strong country which can protect them, look after them and make them prosper during times of peace and war. That's why we've got to focus on building up Australia and putting Australians first. That's my fundamental message to people out there. It's time we put Australians first. It's time we put Australians first when it comes to energy, particularly. We shouldn’t be taking orders from the United Nations, we should be looking after ourselves first and foremost, getting power bills down and investing in our country.

MARK LEVY: There was the fire in the belly I wanted to hear from you, Andrew. And just finally, we had a conversation in the first hour. There's a story over here about Junior sport registration fees. As a father, are you at that point with your children where you have to fork out some money for registration fees for junior sport or are they not at that age yet?

ANDREW HASTIE: We're playing touch rugby now. As I said, I grew up in inner west of Sydney so they're playing touch rugby and a bit of soccer as well. So yes, you pay these fees and it's pretty expensive for families who are already doing it tough.

MARK LEVY: Alright, fantastic. Good to hear your voice, mate, and looking forward to an interesting sitting fortnight in Canberra next week. I just want you to know there's a huge groundswell of support for you and our listeners certainly love hearing you so looking forward to continuing our regular chats. Andrew Hastie, thanks for joining as always.

ANDREW HASTIE: Thanks, Mark. A big bear hug over the radio waves, mate.

[ENDS]