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 SIMON BEAUMONT, 6PR

WEDNESDAY 23 APRIL 2025

Topics: Coalition’s increase to defence spending, “Bravery And Betrayal — The True Story Of The SAS In Afghanistan” documentary.

E&OE...

SIMON BEAUMONT : Well, Andrew Hastie is the opposition spokesperson on matters defence, and he's been out and about today with the Liberal Leader Peter Dutton. Peter Dutton is in Perth, and Andrew Hastie joins us now. G'day, Andrew,

ANDREW HASTIE: G'day, Simon, good to be with you.

SIMON BEAUMONT: Yeah. Good to talk to you. What's what is the announcement today? What does it entail?

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, the announcement today is that we take our country's security very seriously. The Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said on many occasions over the last three years that we're living in the most dangerous times since the end of the Second World War and he's right. We've seen a war in Ukraine. We've seen China flexing its muscles in the region. We've seen Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis creating all sorts of strategic disorder in the Middle East. And we now have President Trump, who's moving the United States to an America first posture. So we need to do something about it. And Anthony Albanese has run Defence down, he's weakened our Defence Force, and he's weakened our industrial base. So what we're going to do is we're going to increase Defence spending. This is a big announcement today. We're going to get Defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP within five years and three per cent within 10 years. Now, Labor will only get their Defence spend to 2.3 per cent in 10 years. So there's a massive gap there – it's billions of dollars. And the reason why we're making this decision is because we can't go it alone. We need to really invest in the ADF and our industrial base, and particularly here in Western Australia, with AUKUS and the Henderson shipbuilding program that is looming large over the next few years.

SIMON BEAUMONT: This comes on a day Andrew, where Newspoll, have a poll saying only one in six would sign up to the ADF and perhaps go to a theatre of war like you yourself have been. So I guess we go to the detail here, then, is the $21 billion on bolstering the ADF? Is it kit? Is it bolstering existing relationships, like AUKUS? Is it capacity building? What's the money going to spent on?

ANDREW HASTIE: It's a range of things, Simon. But just on that point about young Australians – no one's actually challenged them. No one's asked them: will you stand up for your country? Do you want to be want to be part of the great ANZAC tradition that we have in this country? No one's really said to them: will you step up for your country? And that's what political leadership is all about. If you think back to Bob Hawke in the 80s, your listeners can look it up on YouTube, he did a Defence recruiting at his Prime Minister. He's sitting in a helicopter, and he says "the greatest risk to Australia is not from external threats, but from apathy." And I think a lot of Australians are lacking political leadership. They've certainly got a very weak Prime Minister. So we're going to fix recruiting, we're going to fix retention, we're going to keep more people in uniform, and we're going to fix the readiness crisis. We don't have enough flying hours, we don't have enough crews for our ships, we don't have enough sustainment, and we're not getting ready quickly enough for AUKUS. If AUKUS doesn't get moving, it's going to fail, and that's going to be catastrophic. So here in WA, down in Rockingham particularly, down in Mandurah, all those suburbs, they're critical to AUKUS. We've got to build the homes to house our sailors and the United States sailors who are going to come over here. We've got to uplift the base there at Stirling from a conventional base to a nuclear base. We've got to build supply chains. We need the tradesmen, we need the engineers, we need the scientists to support all of that. It's a massive opportunity. For a lot of families who do FIFO work, if they want to work and be at home every night with their kids, AUKUS is a great opportunity, but Labor is not leading, and they haven't funded it. And because they haven't funded it, other capabilities in the Defence Force are getting run debt or cut. There's been $80 billion worth of cuts from Labor over the last three years.

SIMON BEAUMONT: Didn't think I'd hear you quoting Hawkey, Andrew.

ANDREW HASTIE: Hawkey got it right! I believe in giving credit where credit's due, and to Bob Hawke's credit, he understood the importance of getting young Australians to serve their country. I believe in public service, whether it's in uniform or in the Parliament, or anywhere else for that matter. So I want to see young Australians joining up. And here's a sad statistic, Simon, under Labor last year, almost 90 per cent of Defence applications were withdrawn for people wanting to join the ADF. There's a real problem at the heart of Defence, and we're going to fix it.

SIMON BEAUMONT: Andrew, your regiment, your former regiment, you were a captain in the Second Cavalry SAS regiment, and you served for 14-15, years from 2001. There's an article in the paper today from Malcolm Quekett, who's a good journalist and a good writer, and there's a new doco coming out, the secret war in Afghanistan, or something like that. And a lot of the serving soldiers are really unhappy about the tarnishing of the brand of the regiment. Has that happened? Do you feel that? Do you hear that?

ANDREW HASTIE: Look, we have a lot to be proud about for our service in Afghanistan. Where wrong has been done, we have been accountable, and we're moving forward. And I think the soldiers who've made this documentary want to tell their story. There were two people in the paper today. Weeksy. He's a great soldier. He taught me how to shoot pistol. I had a bit of trouble with pistol, he turned me into a good pistol shot, and he's a great leader of men. And then Vando. I was on counter terrorism duties for a year with him back in 2012, so I know Vando very well also. Good guys, glad they're getting an opportunity to air their story, and you know, that's Defence. We're proud of their service, and they want to make it known.

SIMON BEAUMONT: And I guess again, sometimes defence and that war in Afghanistan, some of this does get politicised, which is disappointing. I've got some really strong messages from our listeners today. They understand the hidden nature of the of the enemy in Afghanistan, and, you know, not fighting with equal rules, I suppose. But there are many complexities and defence is a political issue today, but it also was in that conflict, and what we heard afterwards.

ANDREW HASTIE: Yeah, that's right. Look, you know, one of the most important tasks of a government is to keep the Australian people safe. It's probably the most important task, because if you're not secure, none of your prosperity amounts to much. And so we've got to have a strong Defence Force. Weakness is provocative. If we're weak, our adversaries will push us around, or indeed even threaten us or use violence against us. So that's why we need a strong ADF. And you can have all the capabilities in the world, you can have all the hardware in the world, but if you don't have the heart-ware, if you don't have the ticker, if you don't have the morale, you've got a big problem. And one of the things that Peter Dutton led Coalition government, with me as Minister for Defence, will do will bring more money and investment into Defence, but will also restore the fighting ethos and morale of the ADF, which is so important,

SIMON BEAUMONT: Just for our listeners, just a final one and while I have you, Andrew. What will AUKUS look like on the ground? We have talked about a new road being put through Lake Richmond, joining up some of the big streets in Safety Bay through to the Stirling base. For our listeners, what will AUKUS look like on the ground?

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, AUKUS, if it's done well, will be a massive boost to our region down in Rockingham and the Peel Region. We'll see more homes built. We'll see more infrastructure. We'll see more businesses. We'll see more jobs into the supply chain. We'll see more jobs for tradies, for people in the sciences and engineering part of the world. We'll see more jobs for sailors. We'll see greater prosperity and investment into the area. That's why working closely with the local governments, the City of Rockingham and the surrounding shires is so important. That's why working with the state government to deliver this is so important. And this is our criticism of Labor, they haven't funded AUKUS. They've eaten into the rest of the Defence budget, run down Army, Navy and Air Force, and they're not coordinating things here with state government. And residents are rightly concerned about the direction. Now the Americans get here in 2027, that's when the Submarine Rotational Force-West will be established, which means we'll have Virginia-class submarines operating out of Perth. We'll have a squadron of US submarines, and they'll bring their families as well. They're not going to live in a little America, they'll be integrated into our community. We've got a housing shortage. So when people talk about nuclear reactors, I think locals are more concerned with the housing shortage that we see in Perth, rather than the submarines that will be alongside our port here at Stirling. So this is where a Dutton government will take the hard decisions. We'll get things moving, we'll grip up the private sector, and we'll make it happen, because WA is so important to our future defence strategy.

SIMON BEAUMONT: So just a final, final one from me. Are you concerned that Mr Trump doesn't know the acronym? He might know broadly about the relationship he has with Australia but he didn't know what AUKUS was, Andrew. Do you worry about that?

ANDREW HASTIE: I'm not worried about that because we supported AUKUS with a with a Democrat President in Joe Biden. We support AUKUS with a Republican President in Mr Trump. It doesn't matter. We've already had Scott Morrison, obviously, leave office, we've had Boris Johnson leave office, we've had Joe Biden leave office. They were the original prime ministers and presidents who formed AUKUS. This is a multi-generational, nation building endeavour for Australia. It's going to have to survive changes in government, and it will, because it's supported bipartisanly. Our issue is Labor's lack of commitment and lack of funding for the project.

SIMON BEAUMONT: Yeah, all right. Andrew, thanks for chatting to us, and I didn't know about Vando and Weeksy being your mates and being your colleagues. We appreciate your time today.

ANDREW HASTIE: No worries. Appreciate it. Thanks very much.

[ENDS]