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 LUKE GRANT, 2GB

THURSDAY 24 APRIL 2025

Topics: Coalition’s increase to defence spending, combat roles in the ADF, Labor approving Royal Australian Navy vessels to be built in China.

E&OE...

LUKE GRANT: Andrew Hastie is the Shadow Defence Minister, a veteran of the Afghanistan conflict, a man who's worn the uniform. I'm delighted to say the Shadow Defence Minister joins me on the line. Andrew, thanks for your time, and thank you for your service.

ANDREW HASTIE: Good morning, Luke. Great to be with you and your listeners today.

LUKE GRANT: Tell me what your idea is. Tell me the costing. I've heard the $21 billion but in particular, what does that give us? What are you hoping to do?

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, Luke, the first thing is to realise there is a problem with Labor's handling of Defence. Every time they come into power, they treat the Defence budget like an ATM and they ram-raid it. What's happened is they've taken money out of Defence and put it elsewhere in the Commonwealth budget, and as a result, we are now weaker as a country. And what we've seen happen is the AUKUS budget cannibalise Army, Navy and Air Force. At the moment, under Labor, we have a recruiting crisis, we have a retention crisis, and we have a readiness crisis. So we're investing, over five years, $21 billion into Defence to get our Defence Force strong again, to get it back on track. And we're going to get Defence spending to three per cent within the decade because we believe that we're living in dangerous times – as you said, the most dangerous since the end of the Second World War – and Australia needs to be strong. So if I am the defence minister, I'm going to fix the recruiting crisis, I'm going to keep good people in uniform, and we're going to make sure that we are ready for whatever challenges are ahead.

LUKE GRANT: I know the figure, three per cent, and there were one or two likely suspects in the press gallery saying, oh, that's a Donald Trump figure. But if Donald Trump has proven nothing else, it's proven that you've got to do your own stuff. You've got to prepare yourself, you've got to resource yourself. We can't always rely on other people. I mean, to simplify it, it's like saying in the middle of the pandemic, oh, we don't make face masks here. It is time that we took responsibility for our own defence, and if the figure is three per cent, then so be it.

ANDREW HASTIE: That's right, Luke. We've got to be able to take a punch, and we've got to be able to give a punch before our mates arrive. We've got to be able to stand on our own two feet, which means we've got to have resilience as a country, and we need more Reserves. We need more investment in Reserves – Labor ripped a billion dollars out of our Reserves and Cadet program. We've got to be able to supply ourselves with fuel, with ammunition, and we've also got to have depth in our combat power. So that's why we're reinstating the fourth squadron of F-35s which Labor's cut. We need to get more supply ships so that we can resupply our Navy at sea. We need more money so our troops can do more training out in the field with live ammunition. We need more money so that our pilots can do more flying hours. These are all critical things that have gone backwards under Labor.

LUKE GRANT: Yeah, take a punch and give a punch before your mates arrive. That's extraordinary. You made the point there and I just want to drill down on two things. First thing, so the exercises that our soldiers do with live ammunition, time our Navy spends in the water, are you telling me that we don't do enough of that to be battle ready?

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, if we only have a certain amount of money. Every single round that our troops fire costs the taxpayer money and if Labor is taking money out of the Defence budget, well there's just less ammunition to fire off. There's less fuel for our fighter jets so that our pilots can train. There's less money to sustain our fleet so we don't get as much time at sea. So when you take money out of Defence, you actually degrade our combat capability and that's exactly what Labor has done, which is why we're saying to the Australian people: you know what, we take our security seriously. We want to be able to give a punch, we want to be able to take a punch, and we're going to invest $21 billion over the next five years to get us up to speed, to get AUKUS moving.

LUKE GRANT: What do you say to those in the commentariat that say, gee, you shouldn't have waited so long to release a policy like this. It is late in the game, but it does coincide with Australians reflecting on our military history, I guess. But why now? Why not in the first week of the campaign?

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, our team wanted to make sure that the numbers stacked up. It's really important that we get the numbers right. There are a lot of competing priorities in the Commonwealth budget. You're always making trade-offs. There's never enough money for all the needs out there. And so the team wanted to make sure the numbers stack up, and they do. That's why we have announced it this week, and we're going to talk about it rightly so as we come to remember ANZAC Day, because the RSL motto, as you would know, Luke, is "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." Well, we believe that to our core, and we need to be vigilant as a nation and that involves investing in Defence.

LUKE GRANT: Do you find the $21 billion by increasing taxes? How do you fund it?

ANDREW HASTIE: Look we're going to find it, and we will release our costings in due course, as everyone does prior to an election. And for those who are criticising us, Labor didn't release their costings until the Thursday before the election back in 2022. So that'll come, and it will be clear how we're going to finance this.

LUKE GRANT: This announcement yesterday was big, and there was a media conference where a lot of people I know in the conservative side of politics looked at the way you dealt with it, and applaud you for the stance that you took. But it goes back to a few years, and a few people don't understand the comment, or don't agree with the comment that you've made as a. individual. This is not Liberal Party policy, this is your own view. And you were talking about close combat and women. Now I can't argue with you because I have no idea what it's like, but you gave an example, I think it might have even been to Peta Credlin yesterday, maybe someone else, where you explained where in close combat you had to collect a colleague who was unwell or fallen. You had his 85-kilos and your pack on your back and your legs almost gave way. If you can for my listeners now, particularly people who think, well, hang on, we should have combat roles open to men or women, what do you say today?

ANDREW HASTIE: Well it's a good question, Luke. The first thing I'd say is Coalition policy has always been that there's one standard for our close combat units, and it's open to men and women. You just have to meet a very high standard. But in combat, there's no points for second place. You either win or you lose, and we want to be winners. I got asked a question seven years ago, and I answered it honestly, and it was based on my personal experience serving in the SAS. The example I gave was on the patrol course, which you do soon after SAS selection. We do live fire drills, where you practice a man down, where you simulate someone getting shot and using live ammunition and breaking contact, I to pick up a bloke and move. It was one of the most intensive anaerobic and aerobic activities I ever did in the ADF. So it's very, very tough. And so I got asked the question, I answered it seven years ago honestly. I was thinking about it the other day – every time I got up in a helicopter overseas, I looked left and right at the blokes I was with and I had to be prepared to die with them. It's very hard to explain. I was just trying to let people know there's a bond that occurs with blokes in these sorts of units. Now that doesn't preclude women at all, and our policy has always been that men and women can apply to be fighter pilots, can apply to serve in Special Forces, can apply to serve in our cavalry or our armoured or our infantry units but we have high standards, and that's what we'll insist on.

LUKE GRANT: Because you've got to get the enemy, but you also want to keep everyone with you, those mates –

ANDREW HASTIE: – That's right.

LUKE GRANT: You want to keep everyone as safe as you can, I guess.

ANDREW HASTIE: That's right. And look, I only did it in training, but I've worked with men who had to drag a fallen comrade under fire, 20 metres – an incredibly tough moment for them. I always bring it back to our guys and girls in the field. I just want the best for them. I want standards to be high so that if we have to go to war, God forbid it again, we win because we can't afford to lose.

LUKE GRANT: Final question, Andrew, and thank you so much for your time. I've been handed a story which I find hard to believe. But is it the case that Defence have bought tugboats made in China? Is our Navy buying boats made in China?

ANDREW HASTIE: It appears that under Richard Marles, the Deputy Prime Minister and part-time Defence Minister, we're buying tugboats from China. Either he signed off on it or it slipped past him because he wasn't paying attention. But either way, he's got to explain this. This is ridiculous, and it again, is another data point for the shambolic handling of Defence by Labor.

LUKE GRANT: Yeah. Well, we can have someone like you who's largely been there or done that, or we can have a career politician. Hello. It's not hard. Thank you, Andrew. Best of luck for the rest of the campaign and again, thank you for your service and thank you for your time.

ANDREW HASTIE: Thanks, Luke. It's a real pleasure. Thank you.

[ENDS]