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 PETER STEFANOVIC, SKY NEWS

THURSDAY 15 MAY 2025

E&OE

PETER STEFANOVIC: Joining us live now is Andrew Hastie. Andrew, it's good to see you bright and early this morning. Thank you so much for coming on the program. So just elaborate, first of all if you can, on why you decided not to run this time.

ANDREW HASTIE: Good morning, Pete. Well, it's a challenge with a young family, as you'd know. I've got a nine-year-old, a seven-year-old and a three-year-old. I spoke to my wife, Ruth, and it was very clear that I wasn't in a position to lead and be a good dad and husband at the same time. You yourself would know as a dad as well, you only get one shot at it, and I decided that I owe that to my family first and foremost.

PETER STEFANOVIC: You also said in this Curtin's podcast that I enjoyed this morning that you want to listen before leading. Because you did well in your electorate, for the reasons that I said above, what did you do right that the others in your party did not?

ANDREW HASTIE: I think it's really important that we take a humble posture over the coming months, and we listen to the Australian people, and we really understand how we failed to connect. One of the things I did in my local community was listen. There were national issues to talk about, but I'll give you one example. I was out door knocking in my northern suburbs, and whenever I came to someone's door, the thing they would mention is the stench from a waste disposal business and a local piggery that was present in their house, outdoors, and it was a real issue and so I decided to hold a forum on that. Very, very local but very, very important to people. And I made the point that people don't want to listen to what you have to say about national policy if there are far more primal issues that they're having to deal with, like bad smells around the clock. So these are the sorts of things that people expect from their local members. Now I'm serving the national Parliament, I want to be a national policy maker, I want to look at national legislation and make national decisions. But the reality of modern politics is that you also have to be very local and sensitive to the issues that people are facing every day in their lives and I think we need to do a better job of listening first and foremost.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Okay, so what are things that you got wrong?

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, I think families are under a lot of pressure. I don't think the economy is working for a lot of families. I think a lot of young Australians are locked out of their homes. People are frustrated with our education system, the NAPLAN results speak for themselves – one in three kids are falling behind in numeracy and literacy. And we know that a lot of small businesses have closed or under immense pressure over the last three years or so. So people wanted solutions to those problems, and we really need to rethink how we approach them.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Well on that point, how do you rethink? How do you get back the female, city voters, migrants as well?

ANDREW HASTIE: That's a really good question. I talked about this in the podcast, I think there are four great enterprise institutions which are at the core of Australian society – the family, the home, our schools or education system, and small businesses. I think we've really got to focus on helping them along, getting them going. That's where all the magic happens. That's where people take risks. That's where people grow as Australians. And I think we've got to look at ways to improve those. Every single policy question should be hooked onto those institutions. How can we make our families stronger? How can we get more young Australians into homes? How do we make our schools better, and how do we get our small businesses firing? These are the sorts of questions we need to be asking.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Is Sussan Ley the right leader?

ANDREW HASTIE: Sussan Ley is the right leader. She's been elected by our party room, and she has my support, and I'm supporting Ted O'Brien as our Deputy Leader. They've got a big job ahead, and if we don't get our act together as a party, we're going to face an even more challenging election in three years’ time.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Will she last the full term?

ANDREW HASTIE: She will last the full term. She's been elected to get it to get us to the next election, and we're supporting her in that endeavour.

PETER STEFANOVIC: There's some reporting that suggested that you want a different portfolio. Which one are you hoping for or eyeing off?

ANDREW HASTIE: Pete, I'm happy to serve wherever the Leader asks me to serve. Look, there's no question that I'd like to serve in a portfolio that's significant, but that's up to the Leader. Again, I'll see what happens coming forward.

PETER STEFANOVIC: What are we talking there? Shadow Treasurer? I mean to Shadow Defence is pretty significant.

ANDREW HASTIE: It is significant, and it's a really important task in a dangerous world. There are strategic challenges that need to be dealt with. So again, this job is one where you serve at the pleasure of the leadership team and so I'm saying to you today, I'm open minded. I'm keen to get this Liberal Party moving again, I'm keen to get the Coalition moving again. Leadership takes many forms, as I made clear on the podcast, I think we've got a real contest intellectually going forward, and I'd like to be a part of that in particular.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Do you want to lead the party one day?

ANDREW HASTIE: I made clear on my podcast, I have a desire to lead, but that was in the context of answering a question about why I didn't put my hand up. Pete, I made it clear that my family is important. It's also difficult from Western Australia, there's a lot of commuting, of course. But it was an honest question, I gave an honest answer, and had the result been different, it would have been the same answer. So I don't think there's anything to be read into that, except to say that there's a lot of people who go to Parliament with the hopes of leading one day. Timing is everything. Sussan is our Leader. She's the first woman in our history to lead the party. I support her. I want her to succeed, because if she succeeds, we all succeed.

PETER STEFANOVIC: I don't that there's anything controversial about that. I mean, as you point out, most people who go to Parliament want to lead, and most people are ambitious. You're young, 43 I think, aren't you, Andrew?

ANDREW HASTIE: Forty-two.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Forty-two sorry. You've got, you know, potentially decades there. I mean, it's something that will eventually happen surely?

ANDREW HASTIE: Look, I'm just going to keep doing my job as a local MP, serving my people, being a good team member as part of the Liberal Party and the broader Coalition, and I'll see what happens. But for the next three years, Sussan is our Leader. She has my support, as she does the party room, and I want her to succeed, because we'll all succeed if she does.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Do you think the Coalition can stay together?

ANDREW HASTIE: I think the Coalition can stay together. The Coalition agreement is going to be hammered out by Sussan Ley and Ted O'Brien, and we'll wait to see what that looks like. But for those who are claiming some sort of breach, I think we'll work through whatever issues there are, and we'll come into the next Parliament, when it's called in a month or two, a really strong Coalition.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Andrew, your defence policy was roundly criticized by having figures but no details during the campaign. Can you speak to that? Was it rushed? Why didn't it resonate?

ANDREW HASTIE: It's a great question, Pete. I think the truth of it is that it was released much too late. We only gave it 10 days before the election. It should have been released before the election, and we would have had a much longer time to talk about it. But these decisions were taken centrally, and that's something we're going to learn from going forward.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Did you have a good relationship with Peter Dutton?

ANDREW HASTIE: I had a good professional relationship with Peter Dutton, yes.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Professionally, not personally?

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, you don't go into Parliament looking to be best friends with everyone and he had a very busy job. I did what I had to do. He did his job. And there's a lot of things that we can learn from this campaign.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Did you feel sidelined during the campaign? Because, I mean, that was that was commented on.

ANDREW HASTIE: Look, there were a number of issues in the campaign that made it very difficult for us to get out there. There was stuff about women in combat and again, I didn't have a policy until 10 days before the election. So there's not a whole lot of reason to go out and talk about defence policy when you don't have one yourself.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Sure. Can I just ask, too? I mean, we're talking about migrants, and how you get the migrant vote back, particularly from a huge Chinese vote. Now, you and I, we've spoken about this. You've spoken to many others about concerns about the Chinese Communist Party and its obvious moves towards this part of the world. So how do you temper your language now, or position your policies against China, which is obviously trying to intimidate this region, without isolating the Chinese vote here in Australia?

ANDREW HASTIE: That's a really good question, Pete. I think the key is social cohesion. I think first and foremost, we've got to really work hard to demonstrate that we're for all Australians. That we do recognise that there are many people from different heritages and backgrounds in this country. That doesn't mean that we pull our punches when we talk about strategic issues and some of the threats and challenges that we face, but it just means we've got to work extra hard to make sure that our communication is clear and that we are bringing everyone with us. I don't have an answer exactly for that question, but I think we need to be more sophisticated, and we need to be carefully calibrated whenever we step out of the public square so that we bring all Australians with us on these really, really important topics.

PETER STEFANOVIC: All right. Andrew Hastie, really appreciate your honesty and for coming on the program bright and early this morning, so look forward to talking to you again soon.

ANDREW HASTIE: Thanks Pete.

[ENDS]