THE HON ANDREW HASTIE MP

SHADOW MINISTER FOR HOME AFFAIRS

FEDERAL MEMBER FOR CANNING

 

TRANSCRIPT

INTERVIEW WITH PATRICIA KARVELAS, ABC AFTERNOON BRIEFING

Monday 14 July 2025

Topics: Prime Minister’s China trip, national security, arson attack on Lovitt Technologies.

E&OE

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Shadow Home Affairs Minister Andrew Hastie joins us. Andrew Hastie, welcome.

ANDREW HASTIE: Afternoon, PK.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Decarbonisation and free trade will be the two main areas that Anthony Albanese hopes to discuss with the Chinese President Xi Jinping when they meet tomorrow. Are they the two chief areas you think should be focused on?

ANDREW HASTIE: I think we're in a very challenging world right now. Donald Trump is trying to rebalance the terms of trade and security with his allies and other countries like China. So, the Prime Minister has a number of things on his agenda. I think, number one, he's got to stand up for our national interest. He's got to secure good terms of trade with China, of course—$200 billion of exports every year for the Australian economy. I think he's got to stand up for stability and security in the Indo-Pacific, because our trade is dependent upon a secure Indo-Pacific. And I think he's really got to assert our national interests. We've seen over the last three years, the Chinese Navy and Air Force taking aggressive actions against the ADF in the Indo-Pacific. We saw the Chinese flotilla circumnavigate our continent earlier in the year with gunboat diplomacy. And I think these are the sorts of issues that the Prime Minister should be raising on his visit.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Do you think that should all be raised tomorrow with Xi Jinping?

ANDREW HASTIE: I've been calling on him to raise these issues for the last two or three years. So, anytime he has the opportunity to have a face-to-face conversation with a leader like Xi Jinping or Donald Trump, he should raise issues that are pertinent to our national interest.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: One of those issues you just mentioned—the circumnavigation of Australia—Penny Wong did raise this with her counterpart, is that enough?

ANDREW HASTIE: As I said back then, it was up to our Prime Minister to raise this with President Xi Jinping, and that's still our position now as the Coalition.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: This is all happening at the same time as some other news has emerged, the Pentagon pressing Australia and Japan to confirm what roles we would play in a potential war with China over Taiwan. That's according to reports out of America that I'm sure you're across by now. Are we obligated to clarify what our role is?

ANDREW HASTIE: No, I don't think we are. I think that the US is ambiguous in its position with Taiwan, and if that's the case, they can't expect their allies to be declaring their position hypothetically. I know at the operational level, I'm sure there's all sorts of war gaming and war planning about different scenarios that could occur in the Indo-Pacific, but I think it's unreasonable for Australia to have to declare a position for a hypothetical. I think we need to be ready, and I think we need to be intimately involved in integrated deterrence throughout the region. If we want a stable Indo-Pacific, then I think we need to demonstrate strength, and the US has made it very clear that's what they want as well, and that's why our partnership is so important. And that's why the Prime Minister is failing, because he's yet to secure a meeting with Donald Trump, and he's yet to really voice the national interest in personal terms to the to the President of the United States.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: He was asked actually about the Donald Trump meeting. He said there's been an obsession and over-emphasis by the media who have really dogged him with questions about this, and that his focus—particularly when he was asked, obviously, most recently—is on China. Is that fair enough?

ANDREW HASTIE: I don't think it's fair at all. 250 days since President Trump was elected, and the US is our closest security partner. We have this intergenerational AUKUS that needs to be realised in the next few years, and it's obviously under review, and I think it needs the Prime Minister's attention. I think he needs to go to Donald Trump and have an intimate conversation with him about AUKUS and many other issues—particularly given that it is such a close partnership we have with the United States.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: The Virginia Class subs. Will the US be able to demand that we do deploy them in a conflict over Taiwan?

ANDREW HASTIE: That's a good question to ask, and this is why I've called for transparency about our operational arrangements with the United States. We have the marine expeditionary force up in Darwin, we have Pine Gap, we have the naval communications facility on the northwest coast, and we're going to have Submarine Rotational Force West, which is essentially a US base from around 2027-28. So, it's really important that if a conflict arises, we have an understanding with the US about our role and what that means for our sovereignty and our national interests. And these are the sorts of things that the Prime Minister needs to be talking about with President Trump.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: But how can we even get to that point? Donald Trump is notoriously unpredictable. Look at the way that the Ukraine-Russia issue has played out. It is difficult to have any certainty around all of this, isn’t it?

ANDREW HASTIE: Of course it is. Politics is all about uncertainty and ambiguity, and good leadership is about providing clarity for the Australian people in those circumstances. Right now, the Prime Minister has failed to do that for the last six months. I think that's the problem here. So, he's going to spend six days in China. He's going to have a meeting with President Xi. He needs to get over to the United States, secure a meeting with Donald Trump, and get involved in this conversation about our terms of trade and the terms of security with the United States.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Andrew Forrest says security becomes a distraction. Now he's traveling with Andrew Forrest and other business leaders. That's their view. I'd love to hear your response to that, because that's how all the business leaders are viewing this trip.

ANDREW HASTIE: A distraction to who? China is undergoing the biggest peacetime military buildup since the end of the Second World War. We can't ignore that. It's not a distraction. It's a reality that we have to deal with. We want peace, we want stability, we want to continue our trade relationships, but we do need to have hard conversations about what that means for our defence strategy and our foreign policy more generally. I know there are people who would love to just talk about trade and economics and nothing else. But, unfortunately, a whole of government response requires that we talk about all elements of national power—which includes trade and, of course, security. And the number one job of the government is to secure Australian sovereignty and the people.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: If the Prime Minister walks out with some bigger trade deals and commitments, and we can increase our business relationship and our trade, would you view this six-day trip as a win?

ANDREW HASTIE: Not at the expense of our national interest in security terms. If we keep having flotillas sail around our waters—test fire in our waters—without permission or without letting us know about it, if our sailors and airmen are continually harassed up in the Indo-Pacific, as we've seen over the last few years, that's a problem. That's why we've called on Anthony Albanese to raise these issues over the last three years, and this is the test for him. Will he raise these issues? It's very easy to criticise the Republican Party and President Trump. That's easy. It doesn't require a lot of courage. It requires a lot more courage to be direct and forthright with President Xi.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: The government has confirmed it expects Chinese surveillance vessels to monitor the biannual Talisman Sabre war games taking place off the Queensland and Northern Territory coastlines. What did you make of Pat Conroy revealing, well, “we will be surveilling their surveillance too”?

ANDREW HASTIE: I'm glad the ADF will be doing their job, and I'm glad that the government is looking at these things seriously. We saw the flotilla, as I mentioned, we saw the spy ship sail along our southern coast. It appeared to be mapping submarine cables. These are very serious moves by the Chinese Government, and I'm glad that Pat Conroy is taking it seriously, as he should.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Just a couple of other issues in your own portfolio. The family of a Palestinian grandmother detained in Sydney by immigration authorities after a pre-dawn raid have pleaded with the Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke for answers on her visa cancellation. Are you satisfied with the way the government has handled this issue?

ANDREW HASTIE: We do have some questions. Was she part of the cohort of 2,600 visa holders that were referred by Home Affairs to ASIO last year? And if so, how many more other people are there who are potential security risks who were granted a visa in a very haphazard and rather quick fashion after October 7^th?

PATRICIA KARVELAS: But doesn’t it show the system is working? If we are, and I know there's a lot of ‘ifs’, and I don't know all the circumstances for this woman, but if there are security concerns, and this has now happened, isn't that evidence of the system working?

ANDREW HASTIE: It's evidence of the system working, but too late. This should have happened last year, when the visas were initially issued. That's our problem. That's the problem that we've identified with the government. Had they done their job properly, they would have had ASIO look at all these visas before issuing them. So, the question is: how far through the 2,600 visas are they in terms of security checks? How many more people will be found to be a security risk? What is the government doing to mitigate the risk to the Australian community?

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Another story has emerged this afternoon. Police are investigating an online video featuring a masked individual, a person sitting in front of a Palestinian flag, claiming responsibility for one of the incidents we saw on Friday night over a week ago. It includes claims that the cell has the address of Australians involved in the production of weapons supplied to Israel. They add that they'll distribute those details through their underground network. Obviously, the police are looking into this, but what's your response?

ANDREW HASTIE: My response is that this is very troubling. I looked up the definition of terrorism on the Attorney-General's Department website, and it meets the threshold. There was a threat of violence for a political element or an ideology, and they're threatening the safety of Australians and infrastructure as well. So, if Tony Burke, the Home Affairs Minister, wants to declare this a terrorist group, the Coalition is ready to work with him on that one.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Do you think he should declare this group? I’m still trying to work out what this group is to be honest Andrew Hastie, but they protest, they’re doing graffiti, they’re owning up to that. Do you think that’s terrorism?

ANDREW HASTIE: If you watch the full three minutes as I did, they threaten violence, they demonstrate how to make a firebomb to light under a car, they threaten employees of several businesses, they say “we know your addresses”, “this is a warning”, “we’ll come for you next”. That sounds a lot like terrorism to me. There's an investigation underway, but I hope the authorities are working very quickly to uncover these people and work out how we can prevent any more of these acts being committed against Jewish Australians and those people affiliated with those defence businesses that they cite in their video.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Just finally, and we don't know all the details, but US President Donald Trump is expected to announce a new plan to arm Ukraine with offensive weapons. It's a big departure from a previous position he's taken. He's clearly increasingly frustrated with Russia. This is a report in Axios. Would you welcome this shift in position?

ANDREW HASTIE: I've always been supportive of Ukraine. We uphold their sovereignty and their right to defend their country. We've been supporting them. We think we can do more as a government, and so to see President Trump commit to support Ukrainians is a good thing, and we back it.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Andrew Hastie, great to speak to you. Thank you.

ANDREW HASTIE: Thanks, PK.

[ENDS]