THE HON ANDREW HASTIE MP

SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDUSTRY AND SOVEREIGN CAPABILITY
 FEDERAL MEMBER FOR CANNING

TRANSCRIPT

INTERVIEW WITH CLINTON MAYNARD, 2GB

Tuesday 31 March 2026

Topics: President Trump; fuel security; sovereignty; Labor’s plan to expand Parliament.

E&OE……………………………………

CLINTON MAYNARD: Andrew Hastie joins me on the program. G'day, Andrew.

ANDREW HASTIE: G'day, Clinton. Great to be with you and your listeners.

CLINTON MAYNARD: On the issues that you did touch on across the weekend, there's reports today that Angus Taylor has "counselled" you. Is that what's happened with Angus Taylor?

ANDREW HASTIE: No, that's not true at all. Angus and I see each other a couple of times a day – first of all, in the morning for leadership, then we have another meeting before question time to go through the questions. We have a lot of conversations throughout the day. Yesterday, Angus actually came up to me and said: mate, I've read the transcript, and there's no issue with us. And I think that's the mark of the man – he's a good leader because he gets the facts straight. There was a bit of media speculation and a narrative out there that I was causing trouble – not at all. Angus knows that, and we're working well together, as you'd expect.

CLINTON MAYNARD: You had said that you're open minded on tax reform, and you said that Donald Trump had made a miscalculation. I've got to tell you, Andrew, I've received a lot of messages from our listeners in the past 24 hours saying: is Andrew hasty talking to Malcolm Turnbull behind the scenes?

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, let me take them one by one. The first question on tax:  Australians are doing it tough – they're living through high inflation, their purchasing power is going down, interest rates are up and real wages have flat lined as well. People are doing it really tough and the last thing we want to do is put more taxes on people and business. Business is really important – I'm talking small business here – they're the engine of our economy. The overall net tax take from the government shouldn't increase, but the way we redesign a tax mix, particularly, I think should be open for debate. I'm open minded, because I think we need a new political settlement. A lot of your listeners would agree – things don't feel like it's fair anymore. You can work hard, but there's no reward for effort – people feel like they're treading water and they can't get ahead. That's why I'm open minded about a number of different things.

On President Trump: my grandfather was saved in World War Two by a U.S. medic under fire, I've served overseas with Americans very closely, I've worked with their special forces and my wife is American. I love America, I believe our alliance is absolutely critical to Australia, but I do think we don't have to accept everything that Donald Trump says. This is a guy who posts a lot on social media in a pretty confrontational way. I think he respects strength and what friends do is they give honest feedback.

Now, as to the Malcolm Turnbull stuff: Malcolm and I had plenty of scrapes in Parliament. It's no secret that I voted against Malcolm back in 2018 in the leadership thing. But you know what – in this game, there's no point maintaining hostilities with someone. Malcolm and I have got a mutual respect for each other. We're not best friends, but yes, we talk from time to time – particularly on strategic issues – and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not interested in fighting personality wars from 10 years ago – I'm interested in building up Australia. I'll work with anyone who wants to join in on that vision, and Malcolm has a fair bit of experience.

CLINTON MAYNARD: BJ has just sent me a message here, Andrew. He says: ask Andrew if his mentor is Malcolm Turnbull.

ANDREW HASTIE: No, Malcolm is not my mentor – I'm my own man with my own mind. People unhelpfully magnified a small story in the Australian Financial Review yesterday. Tony Abbott is a close friend of mine. John Anderson – many of your listeners would listen to his podcast – he's probably my closest mentor. He's the guy who's been the greatest encouragement to me over the last 10 to 15 years. I take as much wisdom and counsel from people with experience that I can and that's what you should do.

CLINTON MAYNARD: Andrew, on some of the issues of the day, there's no bigger issue than fuel. Now, you are responsible for sovereignty on the opposition frontbench. I just want to play you a little what the New South Wales Premier, Chris Minns has said today. He says we need less reliance on Middle Eastern oil. This is part of the Premier.

*EXCERPT PLAYS*

As the Shadow Minister for Sovereignty, how do you react to his comments?

ANDREW HASTIE: Chris Minns, the Premier, is on the money there. I spent a couple of hours with the Premier out at Lidcombe on Friday night – good guy, really got along well with him – and I think he's speaking absolute sense there. I think we should be focusing on securing our energy supplies. He's absolutely right – at the moment, there are multiple choke points throughout the world where our liquid fuel supply chain is exposed to geopolitical risk of war. The Strait of Hormuz in the Middle East, the Taiwan Strait, the Korea Strait in North Asia, and in Southeast Asia, the Malacca Strait, Singapore Strait, Lombok Strait – I could go on. So I think what we need to do is invest in our refining capacity, but also our own feedstock. We have an abundance of energy under the ground in this country, so that's why Angus Taylor has been talking about drilling again. We should be getting stuff out of the ground, refining it, being self-sufficient and self-reliant as a country, and then exporting what's left.

CLINTON MAYNARD: Chris Minns says it means we should be investing in electrification, whether that's our car fleet, transport fleets or industry. Do you agree with him on that one?

ANDREW HASTIE: I'm not opposed to electrification, but it's not a silver bullet, as many people make out. We have an abundance of energy in this country – coal, gas, uranium – I still think we should partner with the private sector to bring on nuclear power. I think where we can electrify things, great, but for the foreseeable future – for the next 20, 30, 40 years – we will need diesel and petrol in this country because of our car fleet, our heavy haulage trucking fleet, our planes and our Defence Force. This is just a reality we've got to get our heads around and fix.

CLINTON MAYNARD: Just lastly, Andrew, I want to ask you about this one. There has been the suggestion, and the government is looking at it – Labor's looking at it – to expand the size of Parliament. Parliament is the same size the number of MPs that it was in the early 1980s and the population has obviously boomed since then, so each MP represents much bigger electorates numbers wise. Suggestion that as many as 40 extra politicians could be part of an expanded Parliament. What's your position on that?

ANDREW HASTIE: My position is the same as the Leader of the Opposition, Angus Taylor's, and that is, we are opposed to it. We think at a time where families and businesses are having to tighten their belts and manage their budgets very closely, it's ridiculous that there's talk of introducing up to 40 new parliamentarians at the cost of more than $620 million. That's a lot of money and there's no guarantee it would actually increase the outcomes from Canberra. I'm not sure too many Australians want to sign up to that, so we are opposing expanding the size of the Parliament.

CLINTON MAYNARD: I think you'll win a lot of support for that position. Thank you, Andrew.

ANDREW HASTIE: Clinton, it's a pleasure. Thank you.

[ENDS]