THE HON ANDREW HASTIE MP

SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDUSTRY AND SOVEREIGN CAPABILITY
FEDERAL MEMBER FOR CANNING

TRANSCRIPT

INTERVIEW WITH PETE STEFANOVIC, SKY NEWS

Tuesday 3 March 2026

Topics: Iran conflict.

E&OE……………………………………

PETER STEFANOVIC: Joining us is the Shadow Industry Minister, Andrew Hastie, for a bit more now. Andrew, good to see you this morning. We'll start there with these ceremonies that are going to be taking place in Sydney mosques. There's also been pro-Khamenei protests on the streets of Melbourne too, where folks have been crying, etc. Your thoughts on what you've seen here?

ANDREW HASTIE: The Ayatollah was an evil man. He sat at the very top of a regime that was responsible for the death of thousands of innocent people, religious minorities, ethnic minorities. And anyone who's celebrating the Ayatollah is celebrating a form of militant political Islam, which is completely at odds with our values here in Australia, our way of life. And I do think that if people are displaying the symbols of a listed terrorist organisation, or indeed glorifying it, they should be looked at by police.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Do you support this war that's been launched by the US and Israel?

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, I didn't get a choice. None of us got a choice – we got told about it via social media release by President Trump over the weekend. But I do support the United States, and I obviously support Israel and the Gulf states who are fighting against a murderous regime. War is a very, very risky business. It's a blunt instrument for regime change, which I think is part of Donald Trump's strategy. I'm circumspect about regime change, having been involved in the wars of the last 15-20, years, and we'll watch closely. But I imagine there'd be a lot of Iranian families in Iran who, yes, have lived under a murderous regime, but are wondering if they're going to be trading one tyrant for another. So my sympathy and thoughts are with those people.

PETER STEFANOVIC: We haven't been asked yet, but should we help the U.S. or Israel, or any other ally in the Middle East, if we are asked militarily?

ANDREW HASTIE: All options are on the table, I think, but I'd need more information to make a judgment about that. Suffice to say, the Australian national interest must come first. We have alliance obligations, obviously, but let's see what happens. But of course, we'd need more information.

PETER STEFANOVIC: I just spoke to Dave Sharma about this too, and he's highly critical of the government. Do you agree with him, in the sense that our government was caught on the back foot here by not being able to speak with a loudspeaker enough to get people out there, given that so many of America's military assets was assembling in the region?

ANDREW HASTIE: I think we've been discounted largely by the U.S. administration. We weren't there in the Middle East when the Houthis were tying up important shipping lanes – we couldn't deploy the Royal Australian Navy in support of that. And I'm not surprised that we allegedly weren't involved at all in this. Let's see what happens. But I think it reflects on the Albanese Government, rather than the Australian people.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Four to five weeks – that's the time frame that Donald Trump has given. I mean, in your experience in the theatre of war, is that enough time to get the job done?

ANDREW HASTIE: I think it's a very optimistic timeline, and it reminded me a little bit of the Mission Accomplished stuff back in 2003. Four to five weeks is a very short period of time. We're talking about a regime change here, and the war is escalating throughout the Middle East, so I hope that it's done quickly. I think it's also important, Pete, to remember there's a larger frame here. Iran is a close ally of China. China buys about 80 per cent of Iran's crude oil at a discount. They also buy a lot of Venezuelan oil. So I think the larger play here from the United States is to reorder the state of world affairs at the moment, and to compete with China. And by knocking out Iran, potentially, they're knocking out a really critical partner, a very cheap supply of oil for their industrial base. And I also should note that China entered into a 2021 Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Iran, investing up to $400 billion into their economy. Again, these are the larger things that we need to step back and look at as well.

PETER STEFANOVIC: No, I think you're right. And there has been a phone call, a phone conversation, as per AP this morning, that suggested that China's Foreign Minister has had a phone call with the leadership - whatever remains – of Iran overnight, saying that we are in full support of the defence that Iran is putting up. There's been no progress here, at least in the past three or four days on Taiwan. But given that you just raised China, would you fear, or do you think, that it could be on Xi Jinping's mind – a move on Taiwan – while the world's attention is on the Middle East?

ANDREW HASTIE: I think Donald Trump is an apex opportunist. He hit Nigeria. He's hit Venezuela. They've gone into Iran, or at least they've struck Iran. I think part of the plan here is also to re-establish deterrence. And the U.S. military is the apex military. I think that's partly what they've done here. They demonstrated in Venezuela and Iran that they can defeat Russian and military technology as well, and I think that's the larger play.

PETER STEFANOVIC: On the Strait of Hormuz, which will have an impact here, it has been closed, according to Reuters, although I don't think many ships were even going through there since Saturday. But does this show how exposed we are from a national security and supply chain sense, that we don't have much of an oil refining capability onshore anymore?

ANDREW HASTIE: Yeah, we have very limited extraction and refining capacity here. We import almost all of our liquid fuel at the moment, and we run a diesel economy in this country. All those Coles and Woolies trucks that deliver groceries to families all over the country, if they were to stop because there was no fuel, very quickly we'd have issues with food and other supplies and also our pharmaceuticals. So we are very vulnerable, and that's why I believe that we should re industrialise this country. And part of reindustrialisation will involve fixing our fuel security issues. We can't just rely upon ships that aren't even flagged with our flag, because what happens in war? They get they get diverted, and we're at the mercy of events.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Yeah, but on the flip side to that, Andrew, I mean, given that we are one of the largest LNG exporters in the world and Qatar's out of play, might that benefit us in the weeks ahead?

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, it might benefit us, but if we can't get gas moving, we can only move as fast as our current settings allow. These are all challenges that have to be priced in when we do our risk assessments. It can't just be a disruption to market. We've got to actually factor in geopolitical events. I think for too long, we've considered ourselves the lucky country, immune to world events, but we're very much at the heart of it, whether we like it or not. That's why I think we have to have a level of sovereign capability which gives us resilience and flexibility in a crisis.

PETER STEFANOVIC: It's not a quick fix, though, getting oil refinery capabilities here onshore, is it? I mean, that takes a long time. Is that something that you'd like to proceed with if given the chance?

ANDREW HASTIE: It takes a long time, and yes, I've consistently throughout my 10 years in the Parliament, been advocating to have sovereign refining capability. But we were importing crude and refining it here in Australia, you actually have to extract your own oil. Otherwise, you're going to have to keep moving that oil out of your storage. So, yes, I think we've got to have integrated vertical supply chains, and liquid fuel security has to be part of that.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Okay. Andrew Hastie, good to see as always. Thank you. We'll chat to you again soon.

[ENDS]