THE HON ANDREW HASTIE MP

SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDUSTRY AND SOVEREIGN CAPABILITY
FEDERAL MEMBER FOR CANNING

TRANSCRIPT

INTERVIEW WITH CLINTON MAYNARD, 2GB

Tuesday 19 May 2026

Topics: EV manufacturing in Australia; Budget; Collins class submarines; ISIS brides.

E&OE……………………………………

CLINTON MAYNARD: The Shadow Minister for Industry and Sovereign Capability is Andrew Hastie and joins me on the program. G'day, Andrew.

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

CLINTON MAYNARD: What do you make of the PM's comments?

ANDREW HASTIE: He's a bit late to the party. A lot of Australians have lamented the decline of Australian advanced manufacturing over the last 40 years, and I think the biggest symbol of that decline has been the collapse and closure of our car industry. Every time I see a Ford or Holden on the road that is made in Australia, I point it out to my kids. It's right to be proud of that because we were making complex machines of value in this country, and we don't anymore. I think what a lot of Australians feel is, are we ambitious enough as a country? Can we make things again? And so the Prime Minister, I think, was trying to tap into that feeling. Unfortunately, with the call to make EVs here, I think he was a bit misguided there. We can do so much more than just that.

CLINTON MAYNARD: We dig up plenty of critical minerals, though, in this country and export them - that's good for those companies involved in that – but send lithium off to China and buy it back in the form of EVs, and then batteries as well. Do you think there is capacity to develop a high-tech component industry, whether it's batteries or the other things that go into making an electric vehicle?

ANDREW HASTIE: Yeah, for sure. EVs are about 10 per cent of our car market here in Australia. Hence my point, we've got to think beyond EVs if we're ever going to revive something that resembles the car industry here. But certainly, the one thing that makes us not competitive at the moment is the high cost of energy. The Albanese government for the last four years has pursued radical Net Zero targets and the consequence of that is that we're deindustrialising Australia. That's why last week Angus Taylor – when he gave the Budget in Reply speech – said we're out of Net Zero, we're going to leverage our abundance of coal, gas, and we want to lift the ban on nuclear. Of course, we're happy to use wind and solar, but we shouldn't be giving handouts to the green industry at the expense of Australian families, small businesses, and industry who pay the cost of Labor's radical Net Zero ideology.

CLINTON MAYNARD: Do you think the federal government – because I know in Queensland, the Queensland government's looked at this – should financially support the development of more coal-fired power stations?

ANDREW HASTIE: I have no problem with that. We export coal and gas to some of the world's fastest growing and biggest emitters – places like China, India, Korea, Japan. If we're happy for them to use our coal and our gas, why should we deny the Australian people the same privilege, especially when it could make us exceptionally cost competitive as a country, and especially when that is the key to unlocking our advanced manufacturing capability once again.

CLINTON MAYNARD: In the end, we might not be able to produce a car here, but we're buying Chinese cars now. They're actually the biggest country producing cars that are coming into the country now. But we're selling our coal to them, so they can power their factories to build the EVs that we're then buying back.

ANDREW HASTIE: It's ridiculous, we're probably sending our critical minerals there as well. You're absolutely right. As for the car industry, never say never. I mean, there are countries like Korea and Japan who are deeply integrated in our defence sector, and maybe one day we might see a Toyota, Mitsubishi, Hyundai or a Kia factory open up here if we get our energy costs down, if we integrate the latest advanced robotics and AI, and make a real fist of it and go after it. So, never say never, but certainly, whilst our cost of energy is as high as it is under Labor, we don't stand a chance of ever reviving advanced manufacturing.

CLINTON MAYNARD: Do you think maybe the PM has raised this this week to divert a bit of attention to the Budget, given there's all these memes now floating around with Anthony Albanese as a co-investor in small businesses across the country – he wanted to divert attention from that?

ANDREW HASTIE: He's a master magician, and he's run out of tricks, so he's throwing flash grenades now – the old let's manufacture EVs in Australia trick. I don't think people are buying it, because people are outraged by the changes that he ruled out before the last election.

CLINTON MAYNARD: Andrew, just while I've got you here on the program, as a former Defence Force officer. Richard Marles this afternoon has confirmed work is going to begin this month on the $11 billion program to extend the life of the Collins class submarines for another year. That they did announce this a couple of months ago that it would happen, but the work is going to begin this month. Given the Virginia class won't arrive here – the ones we do import – until at least 2032, did the government have any other choice but to do this?

ANDREW HASTIE: The government has had four years now, and what we've seen is cuts in Defence, Defence sustainment budgets being cut to account for AUKUS. Because what we really needed to do with AUKUS was actually to increase our overall Defence spend, and they haven't done that, so Army is suffering, Navy is suffering, Air Force is suffering, and now the Collins class Life of Type Extension – which was absolutely critical to maintaining our submarine capability before the Virginia class submarines arrive – now that's being downsized as well. This just shows that this Labor government is not serious about national security. I will tell you listeners, though, I live about 35-40 minutes south of HMAS Stirling, which is the AUKUS space, where the US submarines will start operating from next year. If they think about AUKUS being divided into two phases – there's phase zero and there's phase one. Phase zero is the establishment of a US submarine base on our shores, so we're going to have US submarines operating out of Perth next year. And then the next phase – phase one – will be our own submarines around 2032. But that's a long way off, and we still have to keep our Collins class running, and all we've learned today is that the government is cutting costs there, so we're going to have less capability going forward.

CLINTON MAYNARD: Andrew, actually, let us ask you one last question. This story has just broken in the past half hour via The Australian. They're reporting that the remaining former ISIS women – I don't like calling them ISIS brides, but the ISIS women – and their children are expected to arrive back here as early as next week. Of course, we had several arrests when they came - the first load came back a fortnight ago. Is this the right move? Has the Australian government done enough to prevent these people coming back?

ANDREW HASTIE: The Albanese government have been again deceptive about their plans here, and how they've been involved with this. They could have done a far more controlled return of these ISIS brides. In the end, these ISIS brides betrayed their country. They joined up with the most murderous terrorist organisation of the 21st century. They committed all sorts of atrocities, and they chose to pitch in with these people. Now they are Australian citizens, and there's nothing that we can necessarily do to prevent them coming back, but we can certainly control their return, put conditions on their return, and the Albanese government hasn't done that. We're going to have these people come back to our community – they might be still very radicalised; they might still hold to extremist views. So, what we've got now is an additional burden on our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to make sure that they're not celebrated, they're not sharing those ideas or ideology with other Australians and radicalising other people.

CLINTON MAYNARD: Well said. Good on you, Andrew. Thank you.

ANDREW HASTIE: Thank you.

[ENDS]