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Considering calculated risks, with Andrew Hastie
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Right-wing political parties are facing identity crises across the Anglosphere. Reform is pushing the Conservatives to the brink of extinction, and Trump has remade the Republicans. However, the challenge may be most acute for the Australian Liberal Party, who are trying to work out what whey should stand for after a crushing election defeat earlier in the year. To discuss the future of the Liberal Party, and Australia, Will is joined by the Federal MP for Canning, Andrew Hastie.
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Read The Spectator Australia here.
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Transcript
Introduction and Political Reflections
00:00:19
Speaker
G'day and welcome to Fire at Will. I'm Will Kingston. Regular listeners and viewers will note that we are not in our regular recording location. I'm in my old bedroom, having returned to Australia briefly for a wedding.
00:00:34
Speaker
it got me thinking, actually. I think the last time I probably slept in this bedroom, John Howard was the Prime Minister of Australia. And I don't think even the most ardent Liberal supporter would deny that both the state of the Liberal Party...
00:00:48
Speaker
And I would argue the state of the nation was in much better shape when Howard was Prime Minister. Much like right-wing parties across the world, the Liberal Party is facing identity crosses. The broad church of social conservatives and classical liberals is praying at the seams.
00:01:05
Speaker
And you have an ascendant Labour government, despite the fact that it is being led by what many people would argue is a mediocrity.
Andrew Hastie's Political Insights
00:01:14
Speaker
To discuss the challenges that the Liberal Party faces and the future of Australian politics more generally, I'm delighted to be joined by Andrew Hastie, the MP for Canning.
00:01:27
Speaker
Andrew, welcome to Fire Will. Thanks, you Will. It's really good to chat with you. Mate, I made an assertion there. Do you think Australia if we look back to, let's say, 2005, 2004, do you think Australia is in a worse place and today than it was then?
00:01:44
Speaker
Look, I think there's certainly anxiety and in the community, wherever you go. There's economic economic anxiety. People feel like they're going backwards financially. We know that. We've gone backwards in living standards. People have less disposable income.
00:02:00
Speaker
There's civilizational anxiety. People are concerned about Australia, our values. They look back, say, to the ninety s and whether it's nostalgia or a reality, people feel like things have changed very rapidly over the last 20 years or so.
00:02:15
Speaker
And then there's also anxiety about what's happening around the world. We're in a more dangerous, disordered strategic environment. And whether it's the war in Ukraine or in Gaza or the geopolitical competition in our region here, which is, you know,
00:02:33
Speaker
on our back doorstep in india in the Indo-Pak, there's ah an anxiety as well about that. So yeah, there's a lot of things going on. And I think the challenge across the democratic West is what do we make of our present moment? And I think center-right parties across the West are grappling with that right now, including our party here, the Liberal Party of Australia.
00:02:54
Speaker
We'll get to all of those challenges, but we've got both listeners and viewers in Australia, but also many in ah in the UK and the US as well.
Personal Background and Community Commitment
00:03:03
Speaker
So I guess to frame the conversation, Andrew, who are you?
00:03:07
Speaker
Tell me about your background and tell me about how that particular background has influenced the way that you approach politics. Sure. Well, I'm 43 years old.
00:03:19
Speaker
I'm married to Ruth, who is an American originally, but a dual citizen. We got married in Washington, D.C. in 2008. So Washington, D.C. is my Paris. It's the city of love.
00:03:30
Speaker
We've got three three kids, Jonathan, age 10, Beatrice, 8, and Jemima, age 4 in a couple of weeks. ah We live in Western Australia, but in a sense... My story starts in rural Victoria in Wangaratta. My father was a Presbyterian minister. After originally studying law in Sydney, he decided to become a Presbyterian minister. So I grew up in a sort of a public setting with my father pastoring a church. When I was four years old, we moved up to Sydney in Asheville. For those who are international, it's about 10, 15 minutes away from Sydney University. So
00:04:03
Speaker
you know I grew up in ah in a church that was this beautiful old Victorian building financed by a ah Scotsman. And when we were there, Australia was rapidly changing to a ah country with new migrants. So we had a Chinese church, we had a Korean church, we had a Western Samoan church for a while.
00:04:21
Speaker
My father worked very closely with migrants, teaching English and also running a migrant church service for people who were new to the country So I grew up in a setting where we interacted with politicians from people with all walks of life. And in many respects, I watched my dad and my mom very closely serve their local community.
00:04:40
Speaker
And nine eleven came around. i wasn't sure what I was going to do with my life. And at that point, based on a tradition of family service in the military, I decided to join the Australian Army.
00:04:51
Speaker
Finished my study with the army, became an officer, a cavalry officer. Went over to Afghanistan, then came back and applied for service in the Special Air Service Regiment, our Special Forces unit. know Did five years there, another tour or two.
00:05:04
Speaker
And then in 2015, I was suddenly elected in a by-election. And I've been in the parliament for 10 years since. So if I was to define my my upbringing, it was...
00:05:15
Speaker
an upbringing where our local community was front and center. And I grew up with people from all walks of life. and And that's why I love people. And I love politics because it's ultimately about our community locally, of course, but also our our nation as well.
00:05:33
Speaker
Well said.
Liberal Party's Identity and Community Focus
00:05:34
Speaker
and And mate, you know, as well as I do that that CV ticks the all the boxes that you could potentially ask for for a politician and a future leader, um you know, from the solid family upbringing, the military service, photogenic looks, you know, to the extent that some people may suggest that sort of a CV should put you in a position to be leader of the party.
00:05:56
Speaker
I wouldn't dare go near that conversation, at least, yes. Before we get there, am curious as your thoughts on the Liberal Party. John Howard discussed or famously called the Liberal Party Abroad Church.
00:06:10
Speaker
Now, there's a similar conversation in the UK at the moment where the Conservative Party is dying. And you have an incumbent challenger in reform, which could very easily kill off what is, at least was, the most powerful and successful political party in Western history.
00:06:27
Speaker
Similarly, Trump completely made remade the Republican Party. It feels to me, and I'm not as close to Australian politics living abroad, but it feels to me like the Liberal Party currently is suffering an identity crisis. I ah don't think it looks like it knows exactly what it wants to be at the moment.
00:06:42
Speaker
Do you agree? And the second part of that question is, what do you think the Liberal Party should stand for? And is it living up to those standards? Yeah.
00:06:53
Speaker
Look, I think it's ah a really good question. I've never been a huge fan of the broad church metaphor, given that we're not a religious organization and there's a diversity of thought in the in the party.
00:07:04
Speaker
That's the beauty of political parties. They operate in the secular realm rather than the sacred. But having said that, I do think we are looking for an identity to take us forward into the next few decades.
00:07:17
Speaker
And i come back to the things that I really care about. And they're institutions, basically. I think we express our freedom first and foremost in community with others, in the institutions that matter in our lives. So we start with the family where we learn self-government.
00:07:33
Speaker
And so I think we need to be a party that supports and fights for Australian families. And that includes families who might be Indigenous, seventh generation, or they've only just recently taken citizenship.
00:07:47
Speaker
All families matter. We want stronger families in Australia. Then our local communities, and we have local government and the state government that does work in that space. But I do think there's been a big decline in volunteerism in this country. I think we're seeing that across the West. People are moving online. they're not actually dedicating themselves to their local community. And we're seeing an epidemic of loneliness and and anxiety out there. And I partly wonder if that is due to the fact that we live our lives digitally so much these days.
00:08:17
Speaker
And then finally, the nation, the final institution which binds us all. And we can't be a nation of tribes. We can't have separatism within our borders. We have to be Australians. We have to insist on our values as ah as a country, the things that make us distinct.
00:08:33
Speaker
We share that great British tradition of liberty. It's in our flag. You look at our flag, it's got the Union Jack in it, that tradition of parliamentary democracy. We have the Federation Star, we're a federated country of six states. And then we've got the Southern Cross on our flag, which reminds us of our unique geography. So institutions, those three institutions, supporting them. And if you get those things right, I think you know the private sector takes care of
Energy Policy and Economic Growth
00:08:58
Speaker
itself.
00:08:58
Speaker
We want limited government that supports people, not that tells them how to live their lives or run their business. We've got to be the party of common sense, of courage, and also clarity. And I think where we're struggling right now is clarity. Who do we stand for? And I think Part of the challenge is that we're in a bit of a transition. I hold a seat now, the seat of Canning, which was once held 30 years ago, or at least a good portion of it, by the former Labor leader, Kim Beasley.
00:09:25
Speaker
And that just gives you an indication of how much things have changed, a heavily unionized workforce. And my my kids go to school with the kids of people who work at our local Alcoa refinery. So that just gives you a sense of how much the country is changing. And it's it's difficult, therefore, to work out where we are at the moment.
00:09:43
Speaker
I want to pick up on one line there. We can't be a nation of tribes. We've seen marches across Australia in recent months where there has been seething anger around policies of mass migration and there has been questioning of the multicultural project.
00:09:59
Speaker
Now, when I went to school, you know, 90s, early 2000s, multiculturalism in the curriculum was just taught as this inarguable good. You would have seen in the UK...
00:10:12
Speaker
significant social and cultural fracture as a result of mass migration and and problems around, one could argue problems around multiculturalism. I think you are starting to see similar levels of anger amongst elements of Australia and a lack of integration.
00:10:28
Speaker
Do you think the multiculturalism project has failed in Australia? Well, I should say, Will, I also have a ah Christian faith, and so I see every single person as unique and worthy of dignity and respect. so it doesn't matter what background you come from, whether you're Chinese or Korean or Arabic or Anglo-Saxon, as I am, everyone is worthy of respect.
00:10:50
Speaker
If Australia is going to work, though, what we all need to commit to is speaking English and Supporting our our values as a country, which is, you know, it's a it's ah Westminster democracy, rule of law, ah fair go.
00:11:05
Speaker
all those things which have made Australia unique and have made it survive as an experiment over the last 200 plus years. And if people don't want to commit to that, if people want to live in enclaves and retain their own customs and traditions which don't actually allow them to assimilate with the rest of the community in Australia, I think that's a big problem.
00:11:27
Speaker
Do you think that actually is a big problem in Australia at the moment? I think it's a growing problem. And I think that's where a lot of the anxiety is coming about. migration and and multiculturalism. And, you know, I don't think people like to say it's about racism. It's actually not.
00:11:42
Speaker
I grew up in one of the most multicultural communities and I saw every weekend in in a church built by a Scotsman, Chinese, Korean, Western Samoan, and people from all other walks or countries working together, sharing a ah shared space.
00:11:59
Speaker
And the reason why that worked is because they had a common set of values. and um and And so I think that's what we need to insist on. Everyone else is making, if everyone's making exclusive claims in the public square and we just sit back and say, well, that's fine.
00:12:13
Speaker
Very quickly, we break down into tribes. And so the role of government is to build a national narrative, a national culture, insist on civics, insist on participation. And that involves compromise from everyone.
00:12:25
Speaker
And I don't think we've done a good job of the last 20 years.
Immigration and Multiculturalism
00:12:28
Speaker
I agree entirely with you that this isn't about race, and I think that the left have very successfully conflated ethnicity with culture. And basically, as a result of that, if you question multiculturalism, it is very easy to get labeled racist when they are distinct concepts. I think that is the right distinction to make at the outset.
00:12:47
Speaker
You also mentioned how multiculturalism worked when you were growing up and when you were younger, and I would say your parents' generation as well. Basically, the idea was you have a common set of Australian values, yeah Western, liberal, democratic values as the overarching framework.
00:13:01
Speaker
You buy into that and then you get the best bits of Greek culture, Italian culture, you know a Chinese culture, you name it. And it pretty much worked. like it worked you know Australia has been yeah a long period of time, you know a largely multiculturalist history.
00:13:16
Speaker
We've got to face an honest truth, which is that that model of multiculturalism, many argue, has broken down. And it's broken down, A, as a result of just the number of people who have arrived, and B, where people are coming from.
00:13:28
Speaker
Now, there has been a rise in the number of people coming from Islamic countries, and there's been a rise in the number of people coming from countries where, inarguably, they have particular value sets which are incompatible with the Western liberal democracy.
00:13:43
Speaker
That is not to say that everyone who comes here is a bad person or whatever, but the demographics have inarguably shifted. How do you think about where Australia sits in terms of immigration at the moment and how do you think about that trend that I've just mentioned?
00:13:58
Speaker
Yeah, I think one of the big problems we're all facing, not just Australia, but I'm sure the UK, if you looked up their stats, our fertility replacement rate is the lowest it's ever been in history. So we're at, I think, 1.5, maybe even 1.49 births per woman.
00:14:13
Speaker
And that means we're we're we're not going to replace ourselves. And as the population ages, there's a massive burden on the generations that come after it, particularly in terms of care and and financing a lot of the the the healthcare care system, aged care system to support those people. So i think immigration has been used as a tool by governments to mask some of those deep structural challenges that we have demographically.
00:14:42
Speaker
And recent more recently, they've been getting people from all walks of life and they've even, I think, reduced the standards by which we test people for entry into our country. And so, you know, how much do we insist on English language how much to insist on a level of Australian civics, for example.
00:15:01
Speaker
And if you're not insisting on those things, very quickly, you can find people living in enclaves and in fact, importing things that are inimical to Australia and and and living by them in our community. And I think you know you would have seen the the march over the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
00:15:17
Speaker
You had people supporting Hamas and other terrorist organisations. You even saw someone holding up a picture of the supreme leader of Iran. So These are all legitimate concerns for Australians. And if we don't listen to them, if we don't take heed of them, there's going to be massive kickback kickback as you've seen in the UK and elsewhere.
00:15:36
Speaker
How do you take heed of them? What are the practical steps that you take to listen to those dissents? Well, I've been listening. I've been listening and I do think we need to cut immigration. no No question whatsoever. And I think we also need to insist on the standards that we have as a country.
00:15:51
Speaker
it's it's not It's not difficult what people are asking for, but it requires courage and conviction and clarity. And I think we're not seeing that from people elected to this parliament and indeed running the government at the moment.
Economic Diversification and Housing Challenges
00:16:04
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. And look, I think if we were being honest with each other, I think there is a lack of courage um in various parts of both parties at the moment. You mentioned also that undoubtedly mass migration has been filled in part as a way to cheat growth.
00:16:21
Speaker
Basically, we haven't really got more productive as a country. Therefore, you can cheat GDP numbers by bringing in more people and whilst GDP per capita doesn't really improve, the number top line number looks good and governments can effectively put out a good press release, which is why people are feeling like they're worse off even if governments are telling them that they've never had it better.
00:16:44
Speaker
Well, to be honest, you know you know as well as I do that for a long period of time, The economic strategy has been dig stuff out of the ground and sell it to China and not a great deal else. How do we change that? How do we change that reliance on on how do we change that low productivity?
00:17:01
Speaker
How do we actually get real growth and how do we diversify in the in in the yeah possibility that that trade tap with China turns off? Say, for example, a looming conflict in the Taiwan Strait.
00:17:13
Speaker
Yeah, it's yeah exactly right. I mean, we're we're a trade-exposed country. We've got 27 million people. A lot of our goods are imported over the oceans on ships.
00:17:24
Speaker
if If there was to be a conflict to our north, let's just say in ah Taiwan, even if it wasn't war, if it was just some sort of blockade, very quickly we'd run low on fuel and a whole range of other goods. So there's big challenges for us in terms of our national resilience.
00:17:39
Speaker
One of the indexes I like to to study is the Harvard Index of Economic Complexity. And in 1995, Australia was ranked 62nd out of 149 nations.
00:17:51
Speaker
We're now ranked 105th. We've slid down over the last 30 years. And I think a large part of that story has been the cost of energy slowly increasing. which means our industrial base has moved offshore.
00:18:05
Speaker
we've We've lost the car industry. we've We've shut our refineries, oil refineries. Our smelters are struggling. You name it. Businesses are really doing it tough here.
00:18:16
Speaker
And we just don't have that economic complexity, which we had a generation ago. But tom back to your your question about, you know, Treasury sort of using immigration as a giant Ponzi scheme.
00:18:27
Speaker
That's how people have talked about it. Yeah. we've got to work out We've got to work out how to incentivize family formation earlier for young Australians. And a big problem is we just have this shortage of houses.
00:18:38
Speaker
Housing is so expensive. The median multiple, you know the the the mean salary to mean housing price affordability is about one to three salary to to cost of a home.
00:18:52
Speaker
In most metropolitan markets here, it's you you know more than one to 10. It's just unaffordable for people. And if people can't get into a home, they can't form family, childbirth is delayed into years where it's really difficult.
00:19:06
Speaker
it's It's much harder to have children in your mid thirties, late thirties than it is in your twenties. And so we've got to work out as policymakers how we get young Australians to form families sooner so they can have more kids and that way replace our population over time.
00:19:21
Speaker
Yeah. ah Anecdotally, I was told that in my grandparents' generation, in order to buy your first home in Sydney, you probably needed something like two to three times average annual salary. My parents' generation, something like seven to eight times average annual salary.
00:19:37
Speaker
My generation, so 25 to 35, let's say, something like 16 to 18 times average annual salary. ah You can see right why young people are disillusioned. And I've heard the argument made, not just in Australia, but across the West, that why would, as a young person, you bother voting for conservatives if you feel like you've got nothing to conserve?
00:19:59
Speaker
It's a great argument. Why bother saving for a deposit if no bank will give you a mortgage? to to buy first home with. i was speaking to someone yesterday whose son has saved quite a bit of money but still can't get a loan down in Melbourne.
00:20:11
Speaker
So yeah, there's no there's no incentive to conserve, whether it's financially, culturally, if if you don't have your own little patch of ground, which was part of the Australian dream, part of the yeah UK dream, the American dream.
00:20:25
Speaker
This so idea you work hard and you can save up and enough and buy your own home. And I think that dream is what we need to mike make possible again for young Australians.
00:20:38
Speaker
Sorry, you can hear the bells. I think, am I voting? All right, we'll pause there, Will. I'll be back soon. No, don't worry. That's ah excitement of the podcast. We'll pause here. Okay. So ladies and gentlemen, if you are watching this, what basically happens is in parliament, if there is a bell that rings,
00:20:56
Speaker
Someone has to, the politicians have to race in and make a vote on a particular issue. And Andrew has to now go in and vote on something.
Energy Policy Debates and Leadership Challenges
00:21:04
Speaker
So we are going to pause it there in this incredibly exciting moment, which I actually don't really know what they're voting about.
00:21:11
Speaker
And we are going to pick it up when Andrew has finished that vote.
00:21:21
Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, we're back with Andrew Hasey, who I think may rush back, but you look like you're pretty fit and there's no noticeable puffing there. So well done. Sometimes these you know with politics, you have these votes which are really important and interesting.
00:21:35
Speaker
And a lot of the time it's administrative and boring. I get the sense that was one of those administrative and boring ones. So let's not waste too much time on it. What I do want to get to, though, is a comment that you made earlier that energy needs to be cheap for Australians.
00:21:50
Speaker
Yeah. now I, again, I am not as close to Australian politics as I once was, but the apparent wishy-washiness of the coalition on energy policy, I think is very disappointing.
00:22:03
Speaker
And I think, you know, you would recognise that a lot of the coalition base is disappointed. I think this is the easiest argument to make in the world. Australia doesn't impact the global climate and net zero is making things much more expensive for struggling families.
00:22:17
Speaker
And yet somehow the Liberal Party hasn't been able to make you that argument. Why not? And do you think that the Liberal Party should ditch net zero? Yeah, well, I've been very clear, first and foremost, we should ditch net zero, absolutely. We should repeal all the associate associated legislation which underpins it, all the subsidies, all the penalties, all the grift.
00:22:41
Speaker
And we should use our natural abundance of energy here in this country to fire up our economy. So we we have huge reserves of of coal, gas, and uranium.
00:22:52
Speaker
We need to repeal the ban on nuclear power here, particularly with AUKUS. We need a civil industry to support that project that we're undertaking with the UK and the US. We need to get pipe power prices down. That's fundamentally what's at stake, getting power prices down so we can be competitive, productive,
00:23:08
Speaker
secure and prosperous as ah Australians. That's all I want. And the great irony and the great moral hypocrisy of Labor's net zero policy is that we- And the Liberals' current net zero policy, if I'm not mistaken.
00:23:23
Speaker
wait wait Well, we we didn't actually support the legislation. I just want to make that clear. Nonetheless, I think we should not be pursuing net zero by 2050. We should be focusing on our energy security first and foremost, like the rest of the world, actually, like the rest of the world. But what I was going to say is that there's a real hypocrisy here for labor.
00:23:41
Speaker
We export 25% of the world's coal, 20% of the world's gas, the world's biggest and fastest growing emitters like China, India, Japan, Korea, China. And yet we deny those things to the Australian people.
00:23:53
Speaker
And instead we're importing industrial scale solar and wind farms made in China using our fossil fuels. So there's a deep paradox at the heart of all this. And that's why I think if you follow the money, you get it, you work out pretty quickly that net zero is actually about special handouts to those in the green lobby.
00:24:12
Speaker
And it's not in the interest of the Australian people, ah certainly not families, businesses and industry. I agree with you. I think most of the conservative base in Australia would agree with you. There is still a sizable portion of the Liberal Party that doesn't agree with you.
00:24:28
Speaker
Same with the Conservative Party in the UK. And they've suffered as a result to the st extent that might be nothing that will die as a political party. So that surely. It can be bad knocks committed though to repealing the climate targets yes that are on the statute books in the UK, which ultimately kills net zero.
00:24:47
Speaker
Well, again... she's functionally She's committed to not putting a timeline on it, whereas Farage has basically come out and done the whole drill, baby, drill. And the argument would be, why would you take the medium or the reform-like version when you can have reform?
00:25:02
Speaker
And I think a lot of people think about the Liberal Party at the moment like that. So my question to is, why aren't, and this is, I think, a symbolic but also very practical issue, why aren't the why are the Liberal Party struggling to be stronger on this?
00:25:15
Speaker
That's a good question, Will. I think... Fundamentally, we're still working out where we stand on these issues. You've got to actually understand what net zero is all about.
00:25:27
Speaker
And net zero, first and foremost, is about emissions reduction. And if your objective as a nation state is emissions reduction, then killing your economy, in a sense, is the way to go.
00:25:40
Speaker
But if you're more concerned about energy security for your people, if you're worried about prosperity, competitiveness, and productivity, then net zero is not going to help with those things. So it's how you frame the argument. And a lot of people out there still think of energy policy in terms of emissions reduction.
00:25:57
Speaker
And so we've got to reframe it. We've got to start talking about energy security and cheap power. Once we do that, the whole argument shifts and the average person on the street gets it intuitively because they're the ones with less disposable income after they paid their power and their gas bills each month.
00:26:14
Speaker
Yep. I agree entirely. The problem is if I can you know add an argument there, You do still in the Liberal Party have a lot of fake Liberal types.
00:26:25
Speaker
You don't have to kind don't want to put you in an uncomfortable position. You don't say anything. You have a lot of kind of fake Malcolm Turnbull type Liberal types who don't really believe in Conservative values, who hold a lot of sway. Once again, it is fascinating the parallels between the Liberal Party and the Conservatives in the UK where you've seen something very similar.
00:26:42
Speaker
i know you said that you don't like the broad church metaphor in relation to the fact that it has religious connotations, but put that to one side. think more generally about can classical liberals and the more kind of conservative side coexist?
00:26:58
Speaker
Can the Liberal Party continue to function in that way or is that model now dead? I think there is hope and I think we're going through a debate now. And once we resolve the question on net zero, we get back to a consensus view.
00:27:14
Speaker
i think we can go forward. Compromise is inherent to politics and people might say, oh, that's you're weak if you think that. Well, no, you've you've got to be prepared to work with your neighbour's members of the party who you might not disagree with.
00:27:28
Speaker
But right now, were we're changing the paradigm. We're moving from one consensus, which is an emission reductions consensus, to a consensus which is all about energy security. And I see the party moving slowly in that direction. And I think we'll get there.
00:27:42
Speaker
Once we get there, we've got a great platform from which to carve a pathway to victory. But it's going to take some time. Politics is a about consensus. That's very well put. But someone who I imagine you admire greatly, Tony Abbott, one of his great lines is that the role of an opposition is to provide a clear alternative, is to distinguish themselves from the governing party.
00:28:06
Speaker
Do you think, and again, I can see that it has not been too long since the last election, conversations still being out. Do you think that the Liberal Party or the coalition is adequately distinguishing itself from the ruling Labour government?
00:28:20
Speaker
we're We're getting to that point. I think there's always a period after a big election loss like we had in May where you you revisit all your assumptions and you you come up with a new narrative, a new platform, new policies. We're going through that period now.
00:28:34
Speaker
I absolutely think we can win the next election if we make it a referendum on energy. Energy is so central to the economy, and I'm just looking up. That's a division. Another vote.
00:28:47
Speaker
All right.
Defense Strategy and Personal Reflections
00:28:48
Speaker
the last The last vote was important because it was to establish a joint defense committee, which would provide oversight over AUKUS. So your UK listeners would want to know that parliamentarians here take that venture pretty seriously.
00:29:02
Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, the joys of interviewing a sitting member of Parliament. We'll be back with Andrew Hastie in a second.
00:29:16
Speaker
Here he comes, coming in back off the bench. Andrew Hastie, welcome back onto the playing field. Thank you, Will. concede a difficult job for you being able to switch.
00:29:29
Speaker
We've got two things we need to get through before you have to head off to your next commitment. I was being a bit cheeky when I said that one of those votes was boring. Defence is very important. and Do you think Australia has its head in the sand over the threat from China?
00:29:43
Speaker
I think that we we talk about the the challenge behind closed doors, but I don't think there's been a proper public conversation with the Australian people about the need to up our defense investment, the need for a robust strategy that actually deals in reality and not platitudes.
00:30:05
Speaker
And I think we have a number of areas in defense that we really need to work on. The defense spend that we currently have is far too low, but you can buy a heap of stuff. But if you don't have the people to defend the country, you've got nothing. And I think we've got a big problem with recruiting young Australians and then retaining them for a career and in the Army, Navy or Air Force and something something we've got to work on.
00:30:28
Speaker
Whenever have anyone on the podcast, always put out a couple of tweets saying we've got, you know, so-and-so coming on the podcast, what should we talk about? Interestingly, there are a lot of people who are interested in your career.
00:30:39
Speaker
I received more irs more suggestions about this interview than than I had for for many other ah very prominent people. And about 90% was the same question. do you want to take a guess at what that question was?
00:30:51
Speaker
What would the question be? i don't know. Yeah, think you do. I think you do. The question is when will challenge for the leadership? There's obviously deep deep dissatisfaction in Susan Leigh.
00:31:02
Speaker
um I'm not going to put you in a position where you are going to be forced to lie. Obviously, you can't can't say that. No politician would would be stupid enough to to say something like that. But what I would say is if the Liberal Party continues on a path of that sort of gru you know wet, turnbullish style of you know Liberal Party, they don't dishent into they don't commit to lowering taxes.
00:31:22
Speaker
They don't commit to lowering spending. They don't commit to the values that you yourself laid out at the start. Like, I was just, like, I'm trying to think of out frame description, but why would you choose to stay in the Liberal Party? Why would you choose to stay in politics? And, you know, would you pull up?
00:31:36
Speaker
Yeah, it's a great question because there's huge trade-offs in politics. it's It's a, I remember Donald Trump, I think back in 1987, he gets interviewed about running for for president of the United States. And he says, you know, it's a mean life being a politician. And and in some respects, it it is very tough on families.
00:31:52
Speaker
you know, I spend a fair bit of time away from my family. And when you are home, you're you're constantly working. And a lot of your emotional first fruits are given to other people. So when you get home, you know, connecting with Ruth, for example, can be really hard at the end of a long day.
00:32:06
Speaker
So the question is, you know, is it worth it? And we ask that, every yeah I ask myself that a lot. I still believe that the Liberal Party has a future, I still believe that it's worth fighting for because if we get the Liberal Party sorted out, then we can then contest the next election with a winning platform and fight for our country again.
00:32:27
Speaker
And my mum, when I first went into politics, it was very sudden. I was operating you know in a compartment within SASR that was you know, in the top secret space, I had no social media presence.
00:32:39
Speaker
I had no public profile and had to make a big decision to enter politics and give away that that career. And I remember my mum telling me, you know, hold it lightly because as quickly as you've come into politics, as quickly you can be taken out again.
00:32:54
Speaker
And that's why i feel like as soon as I stopped taking calculated risks, For what I believe to be the national interest, I'm gone. There's no point sticking around. The next young person needs to come in behind me and start taking risks to move the needle for the country. So um I still feel like I've got the energy to take on calculated risks to to build a better future for young Australians, for my kids and other people's kids.
00:33:19
Speaker
And so I'll keep doing what I'm doing. There'll be one final question along those lines then, because there was that debate and there continues to be this debate after the election loss. And look, it was a really, really poor campaign. i think even again, Liberal supporters would agree it was not a well-run campaign.
00:33:37
Speaker
And I think it was a very beatable government. The argument after that is, well, do you kind of go more in the teal direction and become more progressive? Or do you go back to the more kind of conservative roots of, or the more conservative side of the Liberal Party?
00:33:52
Speaker
strategically, if it was to be up to you, how would you answer that question? I think we need to have a big tent. I think it's got to be about common sense. It's got to be about courage. It's got to be about conviction.
00:34:05
Speaker
And I think we should be trying to win votes in every seat. Now, you've got to make decisions about which seats you target. But I certainly think that if we build a platform on those three things,
00:34:17
Speaker
that put families at the center, our local communities at the center, and ultimately we we focus on the national interest. I think we can bring people from teal seats, from working seats, from working class seats, from from seats that have never gone our way.
00:34:31
Speaker
I think there's a massive opportunity there if we have the courage to to to kind of let go of... a lot of our our old thinking and adapt to the situation before us ah and build a new constituency.
00:34:45
Speaker
Politics is always about building coalitions and new constituencies. And I think there's no point looking 20 years back in the past at ah at a previous constituency. We've got to look at a new one. And I think there's young Australians out there crying for leadership.
00:34:59
Speaker
We've just got to give it to them. Oh, well, I'm not able to get a leadership challenge out of you, but otherwise it has been an absolute pleasure. Andrew, thank you for joining me. one One final point, Will. you know yeah You were going to ask me that and I appreciate you treating it with the kind of care that you did because one of the things with politics is you know it's ah it's a matter of timing.
00:35:20
Speaker
it's ah It's a matter of you know making the tough decisions and who knows what the future holds. But right now, I enjoy doing my job. I love this country and I want to keep doing that.
00:35:33
Speaker
Thank you for coming on, mate. Thank you.