THE HON ANDREW HASTIE MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDUSTRY AND SOVEREIGN CAPABILITY
FEDERAL MEMBER FOR CANNING

TRANSCRIPT
INTERVIEW WITH SALLY SARA, ABC RN BREAKFAST

Thursday 29 October 2026

Topics: Cost of living; government spending; Labor’s credit card ban; the Coalition’s Plan; culture in the ADF.

E&OE……………………………………

SALLY SARA: Andrew Hastie, welcome back to the studio.

ANDREW HASTIE: Great to be with you, Sally.

SALLY SARA: How concerned are you about the prospect of another interest rate rise next week?

ANDREW HASTIE: I think Australians should be very concerned. We are looking down the barrel of a 17th interest rate rise under this government. Bond yields are above five per cent – the 10-year bond yield – and spending is out of control. We've hit a trillion dollars of debt, and there's no sign that this government is going to kick its spending habit. And the Australian people are the ones who pay with higher prices across the board, but also in mortgage repayments. It's costing an extra $30,000 for the average family with a mortgage these days to pay it down per year.

SALLY SARA: Labor MP Ed Husic yesterday suggested the government should consider price caps on basic grocery items to help Australians with cost of living. Is that doable?

ANDREW HASTIE: That's very interventionist. I think the best thing that we can do is cut spending from the government. We ask families and businesses across the country to manage their own finances – it's now time for the government to manage its finances. If we do that, we can get inflation under control, we can balance the books and return this country to prosperity because our living standards are dropping. Inflation is a silent tax that is eating away at people's wealth. We have bracket creep. That's why we're introducing our tax plan, which gives people more of their money back, defeating Albanese's bracket creep.

SALLY SARA: Energy Minister Chris Bowen said in Question Time yesterday, the government is talking to industry about how to ensure Australian taxpayers can share in increased profits made by Australian oil refineries during periods of high fuel prices. Is this an idea that the Coalition supports?

ANDREW HASTIE: We have our own plan through the Future Generation Fund, where we'll set aside 80 per cent of all windfall profits from the oil and gas sector and put it into a fund, and use it to pay down the debt, but also on nation-building projects. We need more roads, we need more ports, we need more power plants. We need a whole range of things that will support the economy, particularly in the power space, to deliver cheaper energy for Australian families.

SALLY SARA: Let's talk about the credit card ban on paying tax. Commissioner of Taxation Rob Heffernan was in front of Estimates yesterday. He said the ATO could have consulted small businesses in a more extensive way before announcing this ban. What do you make of that?

ANDREW HASTIE: I think that's admission that the government didn't do its due diligence and that small business once again is paying. Small business is really doing it tough. We've had record insolvencies over the last four years, and they depend upon credit cards for cash flow. So, the ATO should have done a better job. But ultimately, the ATO is responsible to the government of the day, and that's the Albanese government.

SALLY SARA: You're listening to Radio National Breakfast. My guest is the Shadow Minister for Industry and Sovereign Capability. You're wanting to walk back government spending, but with the experience we've had with the Middle East and trade disruption, would a Coalition government need to be forking out money to invest and prop up some of the industries which may be under threat from global disruption?

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, the government's already doing that. We're seeing bailouts across the board, whether it's Tomago or Whyalla –

SALLY SARA: Will you not do that?

ANDREW HASTIE: I believe in sovereign capability, and I believe the government should have a role where market can't deliver the outcomes that we need, which is why we invest in critical capabilities like smelting, for example. But what we have to do is get spending under control, and that's why this week we identified $31 billion worth of savings, which will pay for our tax cuts. In the first year, average Australian will get $500, second year $750, third year about $1,000. Over 10 years, $14,000 back – they'll be better off. But we'll also have about $22 billion left over from that as well. So, we are identifying where the savings are. We're going to dismantle Labor's climate bureaucracy. We're going to bring in more revenue by fixing the illicit tobacco trade in this country. There's a range of areas that we're going to focus on.

SALLY SARA: On a separate issue, an inquiry into the culture and command of Australia's elite special forces units during the war in Afghanistan has now been made partly public. The inquiry was commissioned in the wake of the initial Afghanistan Inquiry, which found what it described as credible evidence of dozens of unlawful killings. The inquiry found systemic cultural problems, including what it describes as an inversion of the chain of command and an unhealthy imitation of American forces. It also pointed to a growing number of enemies being killed and fewer wounded. What do you make of these findings?

ANDREW HASTIE: Number one, I welcome the release of the report. I believe in transparency, and this is an important part of our military history that we need to understand and learn from. So, number one, transparency – it's a good thing. Number two, I lived a lot of what I read in that report. There are almost 50 findings, and a lot of it rings very true to me as a junior officer at the time. Number three, it confirms there was unlawful conduct. That's not in dispute. But this, rather than focusing on individuals, it spreads responsibility throughout the chain of command. And in the end, if you hold a commission in the Australian Army, then you are accountable for those underneath you – maybe not directly for actions, but certainly there's moral accountability and moral responsibility.

SALLY SARA: Those at the very top of that chain of command, processes are still ongoing, but have they adequately been held to account for the standard of leadership and the culture which emerged in some areas that was not ideal for those units?

ANDREW HASTIE: To recap where we're at, we've had the Brereton Inquiry, which was handed down late 2020. The Office of Special Investigations is running its own process as well. There's been an internal process within the ADF, which I'm not privy to. We've got this report now. So, there's a number of different data points. What I can say is that when I was the Assistant Minister for Defence in 2021, I initiated command reform of the Special Air Service Regiment, and what we did was we elevated the rank of the Commanding Officer from Lieutenant Colonel to Full Colonel. And what that means is that anyone who commands the SAS first has to leave the SAS, prove themselves in a command in wider army, spend time in Canberra building trust, and then they get the privilege of commanding the SAS. I think that was a really important change, particularly given that the report identified exceptionalism as one of the problems with the culture at the time.

SALLY SARA: Andrew Hastie, thank you very much for coming in this morning.

ANDREW HASTIE: Thanks, Sally.

[ENDS]