Andrew Hastie on social cohesion, defence, and strategic challenges
Transcript
(This transcript is partly AI-generated and may contain inaccuracies.)
Andrew Hastie
If I reflect on public culture now, everyone has this she'll be right attitude. We're the lucky country. And I don't believe in luck. I believe in hard work and I believe in competition. And I think you're always in a contest and you've always got to be striving to improve your position.
National Security Podcast
You're listening to the National Security Podcast, the show that brings you expert analysis, insights and opinion on the national security challenges facing Australia and the Indo-Pacific. Produced by the ANU National Security College.
Rory Medcalf
Welcome to the National Security Podcast. I'm Rory Medcalf, head of the National Security College at the Australian National University. And I'm privileged today to be joined by Andrew Hastie, who, as many of our listeners will know, is a key voice in Australia's national security debate. But more immediately, of course, is the shadow minister for defence, shadow minister also for defence industry and defence personnel.
We're recording this podcast in Canberra. So we're recording on the lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people and I'm paying respects to their elders past, present and emerging. So in this conversation, Andrew, welcome to the podcast. Rory. It's good to be with you. In this conversation, I'd like to go a little further than some of our previous engagements. I know you spoke very generously at our national security conference, securing our future earlier this year.
You've engaged a lot with the National Security College over the years including with our executive courses But I would like to go a little bit further today in the context of the very challenging global strategic environment We face Australia's difficult environment in the Indo-Pacific the contest of ideas in the Australian policy debate I'd like to help our listeners Understand a little bit more about your worldview And really what's formed your worldview – in this role and throughout your parliamentary career as a federal member for Canning. And I'd like to then take that further and perhaps build into some thoughts about your policy agenda. So why don't we just get started and hear a little bit more about what has brought you to this point in your professional life and in your thinking about Australia's future?
Andrew Hastie
Of course. Well, it's a long story. It's 42 years long, but we can pick certain moments which were critical. think growing up in Sydney, my father was a Presbyterian minister and we lived in Anthony Albanese's seat actually, Grendler. And it was a very multicultural community. And my father had a church which was built in the 1880s and he had a number of services running. He had an easy English service for migrants. He had an English service. He had a Korean service. He had a Mandarin Chinese service for a time he had a Western Samoan service. And so I grew up in a context where I was meeting people from different cultures, different backgrounds, united by one common faith in a very public setting. My father put our phone number on the church sign, which was on Liverpool road in Sydney. And so we had four phones in the house.
Rory Medcalf
Which suburb is this?
Andrew Hastie
This was Asheville.
Rory Medcalf
Asheville.
Andrew Hastie
Yeah. So we had four phones in the house and it was all of our jobs to pick up the phone when people called through and we had people for dinner most nights. was a great training ground for someone in public life. So I've always felt like politics was a bit like being part of that community. And my father, I learned a lot from my dad actually. So that was the beginning strong sense of community. And as you say, a very diverse community, but also clearly a sense of a sense of purpose, a sense of mission. Take us forward because I mean, obviously there's a military career, but there's a lot more than that. Sure.
I get to age 18, I go to UNSW in Kensington. I'm thinking of being a journalist and I was a bit listless at the time. I was doing philosophy and history and
Rory Medcalf
nothing against journalists,
Andrew Hastie
nothing against journalists at all. no. but I, I, really didn't have a sense of what life was going to look like. And then nine 11 happened. And like many people, it touched, it touched my life. My, my grade two and three teacher, the late, Juliana Ferreira from Ashbury Public School. She lost her daughter in one of the towers. And I just remember sitting there with my father thinking this is a hinge point. And I decided to join the reserves. And then after that, I transferred to the Australian Defence Force Academy. I finished my degree. It was an easy transfer from the Kensington campus to Canberra. Did the three years at ADFer, then a year at Duntroon, and then off to Darwin for three years with the second cavalry regiment.
ADFA was really important though, because I came into contact with the late Jeffrey Grey, Robin Pryor, Peter Dennis, and the late James Goldrick, who was my commandant. And in fact, I think I really, one thing I really think about is in 2004, I'd won the military history prize in my first year at ADFA and I got called to the commandant's office. I thought, what have I done now? So I walk in there and James Goldrick, he was very serious.
Most of the time he said, do you have a passport? And I said, I don't think so. And he said, we'll have to get you a passport because you're coming to Washington, DC with me. And he took me to the society for military history conference in Bethesda. Wolfowitz among others spoke there. He gave this counterfactual defence of the invasion of Iraq. And James was very kind and he let me sit down with all his contemporaries. And so for a week as a young, I think I was 21, 22, I just sat there soaking in history and strategic thoughts and …They treated me with respect and that's when I really came to kind of have a love for history and strategy and thinking about the big issues and more politically engaged.
Rory Medcalf
It shows the power of sort of personal connections and mentorship and that sort of faith and confidence. know from personal experience and as a friend of James Goldrick and know, really a great Australian, that he saw the strengths in people. He also saw the rough edges.
I'd be curious to know what he would say, were he around today about your life and career, Andrew?
Andrew Hastie
Well, I kept up with James. Every time I came back to Canberra, I'd reach out to him and then regularly as a politician because I really valued his counsel. So it was very hard to say goodbye and he leaves a big hole. But one of my favourite memories of Jeff Grey, who sadly passed away in 2015 and James was – them both walking down a Bethesda street, having this heated historical argument where they were really hot under the colour. And I think it was something to do with the officer class in the UK and how army officers were different to naval officers. And I was thinking, what an esoteric debate. to see these two men getting heated about it.
Rory Medcalf
It showed they were passionate about their craft of history. But all this translates to real world issues today, of course. So let's go beyond that, those early years of your military career.
Andrew Hastie
So I ended up doing a few tours in Afghanistan. And I think that was very formative in the sense that it was a field trip in learning about other cultures, other societies. And I have affection for the Afghan people, great respect for their resilience, their heartiness, and their sense of community. In 2009 in July, I was in an Overwatch position in an armoured vehicle. There was a road behind me.
About 100 meters away, this family was driving down in a Hilux and there was probably about 10 of them. They hit an IED. It wasn't a big blast, but it destroyed the vehicle. And they had some broken noses, and they were battered and bleeding, but not badly wounded. And we asked them after treating them, are you headed? And they said, we're walking home. And off they went. And I remember just thinking that is a tough institution, that family.
And there are a lot of Afghan families like that. So I asked the question, you know, what's special about Australia? What's unique? And when I came home, I started to realise how blessed we are with our tradition of ordered liberty, open markets, rule of law, parliamentary democracy. These are things that I really value and preserve having seen what it can really look like when power and violence dominate a society as it did in Afghanistan. And that again, led me to want to get involved in a more public setting. So I joined the Liberal Party and then a couple of years later I was elected in a by-election.
Rory Medcalf
So this was, I think, what, 2015?
Andrew Hastie
2015, yeah.
Rory Medcalf
And I think your experience in Afghanistan, and we can perhaps go into that a bit later on or in another conversation, I know that your experience in Afghanistan also gave you very clear views about Australian Defence Force, particularly Army, particularly Special Forces, issues of culture, but more than that, issues of really how do we or how do you as an Australian Defence Force really reflect Australia's values? So it'd be interesting to come back to that at some point.
Andrew Hastie
Sure, sure. I remember being in Zabul province, far-flung province in the middle of nowhere. You couldn't get further away from modern civilisation. And I remember thinking, who's watching? Who's watching what we do here? And if no one's watching, then who's keeping us accountable?
And so, if you're wearing a flag on your shoulder, Australian flag, that's got to mean something. And that's the standard by which we are judged because that flag represents all those traditions that I just mentioned. And so, this sense that we've actually got to hold ourselves to high standards. And of course, we could go into the Brereton report and the accusations or allegations that have been made. But nonetheless, my point still stands. The thing that distinguishes our soldiers from other soldiers is that we have moral and ethical standards, and they need to be upheld.
Rory Medcalf
Let's move from your entry into politics then to the present day. Influence influences, has your worldview changed? The world's changed. Tell us about the last 10 years.
Andrew Hastie
I think Australia has changed and I think the great moral and social consensus of the 20th century is breaking down and we're becoming more tribal.
And so, I think you have to work harder to understand where people are coming from. You have to respect the differences, and you have to listen a lot more. And that's the challenge for politicians. And I think that's made me realize that, you you've really got to work hard to build personal relationships and you've got to go the extra mile to do deals with people.
Come to some sort of compromise because our politics only works when there's a compromise. It can't be a zero-sum game. Otherwise, it just becomes a power contest, and you end up trampling on minorities or those who don't have the numbers.
Rory Medcalf
So you were a backbencher, but you moved pretty quickly into the public debate, you know, beyond your constituency, obviously, but also, I think you became chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security within some years, you were prominent in the debate on China, for example. So again, interested in that period of time, particularly the, I guess, the Turnbull and Morrison governments.
Andrew Hastie
Yeah, I came in in 2015 and I remember the unions running a campaign against the Chinese free trade agreement in Canning. I remember thinking that's kind of odd. And I think we voted to ratify the Chinese free trade agreement. And then I came in contact with people like John Garner who
Malcolm Turnbull had appointed into his office and John had written a paper, Engineers of the Soul, about the nature of the Chinese Communist Party. I remember reading that and thinking that makes a lot of sense. And that opened my eyes. I call it the red pill moment where I started to understand a bit more of what was happening in a geopolitical sense. And I decided I should be vocal about some of these questions.
We spend a lot of time away from our families. We are here for a finite period. So we may as well to use modern language of young people, send it, say what you're thinking. And as it turned out, Malcolm Turnbull was leading us through a pivot. call it the China pivot over the years of 2017 and 18. And he brought in historic espionage and foreign interference laws which I had to shepherd through the committee process as the chair of the intelligence committee. That was a tough time. was, there's a lot of advocacy on all sides and …
Rory Medcalf
.. I recall you came in for special criticism.
Andrew Hastie
Yeah, I did. I just, well, a year after that, well, I did a speech, which we won't talk about for legal reasons, but I also did an op ed in 2019, which caused a bit of a ripple or a wave. And yeah, that was, I read that now and it holds up pretty well.
Rory Medcalf
Towards the end of this conversation, I'd like to come to a number of strategic issues. is one of them. let's get a sense of where your worldview got to on that. We haven't, you've mentioned family and I've deliberately kind of withheld you from going there. But I think of course, family is an influence too. So anything that you can say apart from your, obviously your father, but whether it's your broader family, I guess your wife, you your role as a father, I'd be interested to know also how that's shaped Andrew Hastie.
Andrew Hastie
Well, I grew up and my grandfather, when I was little, he pulled up his pyjama top, I think I was about seven or eight, and he showed me his bullet wounds from World War II. He got hit with a Japanese 7.62 round that entered his stomach, exited his back. He was kept alive by a US medic and then by US surgeons at Moratai Island. And my uncle served, he went through Skyville.
My great uncle was killed on the Montevideo with Kim Beasley's uncle and others, other Australians. And I always had a sense that military service was something you did. My mom would always say about my uncle, well, he was a layabout, know, he was sitting around reading Time magazine, you know, not doing very much. And then he went to Skyville and then he got a job. And so I just, when 9-11 happened, I thought, well, I'll follow in their footsteps. So military service was something that I think was always in the back of my mind. My wife Ruth, we met in Washington DC. I went over for a short course at George Washington University back in 2007. I met her within 48 hours of arriving in the US.
Rory Medcalf
You knew it was a short course.
Andrew Hastie
It was a short course
Rory Medcalf
You moved quickly.
Andrew Hastie
That's right. I actually met her at a church in DC and we went to lunch on the Sunday. We had a Marine from the White House whose job it was to kind of go mountain biking with George Bush and keep him fit. We had a Democratic staffer who was working for the late Robert Byrd, who was the West Virginian Senator. We had people from the Bush White House and Ruth at the end of it said, I do want to catch up during the week. And so I gave her my hotmail address on a piece of paper because I didn't have a phone back then. And her friend said, I've got tickets to the White House to watch George Bush walk from the Oval Office to Marine One. And it's a bit of a thing.
Rory Medcalf
That's not everyone's idea of a romantic first date.
Andrew Hastie
No, well, I mean, Ruth, to Ruth, she wasn't asking me on a date, but she was setting the conditions for something. And so I went along and, and then I asked her out on a date afterwards, which was great. And so we had sort of 10 days in the U S then I came back, went to Baccarpaniel and we went for distance. We got married six months later. So it was a whirlwind kind of romance. And I think we've been married since January, 2008.
And I couldn't do this job without Ruth. She says it's easier being an SAS spouse than it is a political spouse. Very, very difficult, a lot of time away and she's away from her family, three kids, Jonathan, who's nine, Beatriz, who's seven and Jemima, who's three. And so I want to acknowledge her on this podcast because it is a team effort.
Rory Medcalf
Absolutely. So let's move closer to the present day. mean, you obviously towards the end of your time in the Turnbull and Morrison governments, you were Assistant Minister for Defence, I think, from 2020 to 2022. You're now in opposition. Opposition offers all sorts of challenges and opportunities. I assume you have a little bit more reading time than you did, but probably not a lot more. So interested to know how events and influences past four or five years have worked on you?
Andrew Hastie
Yeah, it's a great question. To go back to James Goldrick, he said to me, you've got to build an interior life. You have to keep reading and writing. It's essential if you want to lead and be a good leader, because he said in a crisis, you draw down on credit. And if you haven't been depositing into your mind with intellectual habits like reading and writing, you just won't have much to say. So reading is something I do a lot of.
I try to do as much as I can on long flights, particularly. so opposition offers that opportunity. And particularly when you're in opposition, it's a time to think about the problems with a fresh set of eyes, recast the challenges before us, and also reach back into history, I think, and look for patterns. And so that's something I've been doing. I've also just finished a graduate certificate in economics through Harvard Extension School, which I managed to do on long flights. It was fairly gruelling, but I think it's an essential part of being a good parliamentarian is having an understanding of economics too, which my criticism of ADFA would be they never offered that when we went through. So I felt like I had to go back and scrub up on that. And I'm glad I did it as a 41 year old, 42 year old with some life experience because it made a lot more sense doing that.
Rory Medcalf
That's a moment for me to do what I don't usually do, which is a shameless plug for the National Security College, and that is just to say that in recent years we've, and I really hear what you're saying, we've tried to really refresh what we offer because we now offer a lot more economics and geoeconomics, law, ethics, a whole lot of elements of the bigger national security picture, and we get the sense, particularly from all the agencies and departments that we work with, that that's the skill set that they need – that understanding international relations and even history is not enough. So it's useful to hear that.
Andrew Hastie
That's right. And there's been a revolution in online education. I was so impressed with the offering that I got from Harvard Extension School, the exams they did, the resources they give you, the lectures themselves. I did a subject on monetary policy and I was paired up with people from all over the world. And one of them actually worked in the New York Federal Reserve. you know, so I'm waking up at 5 a.m. in Perth doing online seminars with someone in New York at the Fed Reserve talking about monetary policy. It's amazing what you can do with modern technology.
Rory Medcalf
And before you've Harvard too much of a plug, I'll but I think that that is really useful to hear. I am interested to know also what are some of the insights or the shaping influences on your worldview from the wider reading, particularly of history.
What are the resonances you see in the present day from what you've been studying?
Andrew Hastie
Well, I think I'll start with the expression weakness is provocative. I think that's true of kids in the playground. I've been bullied before and the best way to overcome those who are bullying you is to be strong or at least build alliances. know that sounds trite, but it's true. I want a strong Australia that can deter its adversaries and
To deter adversaries, need hard power, which is why I believe we need to invest more in our military. We need to have a robust statecraft that makes the best use of that. We need to have good strategic leadership that knows how to make all the elements of national power work. And I think history bears that out. History also reminds us that we live in a world of uncertainty.
And we've got to be ready for the unexpected. And I think if I reflect on public culture now, everyone has this she'll be right attitude. We're the lucky country. And I don't believe in luck. I believe in hard work and I believe in competition. And I think you're always in a contest and you've always got to be striving to improve your position. So they're the kind of lessons that I continually are reminded of through history.
Rory Medcalf
That brings us to strategic challenges of the world today, I think, quite neatly. So if we can go there. We're recording this at the end of November 2024. It's been a turbulent year. There's clearly more turbulence on the horizon. We've got open conflict in Europe. We've got conflict in the Middle East. mean, there's talk now of an Israel Hezbollah ceasefire, but that's not the end by a long shot. We've got coercion and strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific and of course increasingly a perception that there's a single global theatre of struggle. How do you see the challenges of the present for Australia and I'll throw just for good measure the questions that the election in the United States has thrown up. How do you see the challenge?
Andrew Hastie
We're living in a world that's being increasingly shaped by revisionist powers. China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, culture and their proxies, whether it's Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and they're challenging what we would call the US global rules-based order. I'd call it Pax Americana. Australia has always benefited from some Pax, whether it be Pax Britannica or Pax Americana, our prosperity and security is tied to an English-speaking democratic power. And so these revisionist powers are threatening that. China is also being expansionist.
And I think we're seeing that as well. That's why we've had disputes over the South China Sea. That's why we've had the Belt Road Initiative pushing out as far as the Pacific Island chain. And that's why our ADF Navy and Air Force have had issues with the PLA. There's countless examples, not countless, but there's several examples over the last few years that come to mind.
Rory Medcalf
..That are incidents at sea and encounters and so and so forth.
Andre Hastie
That's right. Yeah. Whether it's, you know, divers being hit with a sonar or aircraft being glazed or had shaft fired at them. So I think, you know, we're under pressure. And, you know, we're in an era of geopolitical competition with China. Let's just face it. I think it's good to be clear about these things.
Rory Medcalf
And it’s not a bilateral competition. Australia's not the only..
Andre Hastie
No, Australia's not the only one. I wrote this in 2019 in that Sydney Morning Herald piece. said, you know, every big issue that Australia has to make a decision on will be refracted through the geopolitical competition of the United States and the People's Republic of China. And I think that's going to be more more acute now that Trump has won the election. Trump and the people he's nominated to be in his administration have openly named China as the pacing threat. Pete Hegseth did that in his Sean Ryan podcast. Marco Rubio has a very strong record on taking on China. Mike Waltz, the National Security Advisor is the same. And so we're going to be under pressure, I think, to sort of somehow find a pathway where we uphold our relationship with the United States and also uphold our trade relationship with China. And that's before tariffs are even implemented by the Trump administration.
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Rory Medcalf
And what about the global theatre of context? mean, in a way, you know, with North Korean troops in combat in Russia or on the Russia-Ukraine border, an extraordinary thing that no one could have anticipated some years ago. The indivisibility of the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific theatres is now pretty plain to see. So what happens in the Euro-Atlantic, you would think, is going to affect our interests, and what happens in the Indo-Pacific is going to affect the world. And then, of course, there's the Middle East as well. mean, how do you see that broader picture?
Andrew Hastie
It's a huge challenge for us with a defence budget of only $52 billion. It's about 6 % of the overall Commonwealth budget. And we do have global interests. We're a global trading nation. And because of our alliances, particularly with the United States, we have an interest in what happens in Europe and the Middle East, particularly with the trade routes coming through the Red Sea there. So we're not postured for three theatres.
And in fact, we're having to make very difficult trade-offs. Every time we commit something to Ukraine, it comes off the defence budget bottom line, which cannibalises other parts of defence. And so we need to have a mature conversation as a country about defence and how we uplift not just the ADF, but our resilience as a nation. And I don't think we're having that conversation.
Rory Medcalf
And if I was being uncharitable, I could say we're struggling to be postured for one theatre. And of course, the Indo-Pacific is our principal theatre of strategic interest but there has I mean to be fair there has been it appears to me some pretty significant movement under this government to to build on what previous governments have done modernize the ADF begin to prepare the nation for a more contested future I guess how do you see that in the context of what your agenda would be were you to be in government next year?
Andrew Hastie
Yeah I think
I think, well, let's go back to 1975.
Rory Medcalf
Okay, right. That's a long, long boat. Long historic arc.
Andrew Hastie
It's almost 50 years. But back then our population was about 13.8 million people. Our defence spend was just under 3 % of GDP and we had 69,000 Australians in uniform. Come forward to 2024, our population is around 27 million people.
GDP spend is about 1.99 % and we have 58,000 people in uniform. So we've doubled our population. We've gone backwards in the amount of defence expenditure and we've gone backwards of about 11,000 uniforms. So you can see what's happened and we're now in a dangerous period. mean, that is the consensus. The minister for defence, Richard Marles has said it numerous times. We're living in the most dangerous period of time since the end of the second world war, but we're not actually stepping up. So, my view is if I become minister for defence next year, assuming a coalition victory, I think there's four areas that we really need to work on. Number one, I think we need to work on a command and control reform of defence. We need to thin it out. We need to sharpen it up. We need to make it faster in the way we do things. And that'll take organizational and cultural reform. think number two, we've got to fix the
retention and recruiting crisis. We can't keep people and we're not getting enough people back into defence or on board into defence. Thirdly, we need to speed up our procurement processes and number four, we need to get moving on these mega projects like AUKUS, which if they fail, it'll have catastrophic consequences for Australia.
Rory Medcalf
And taking that agenda or that sort of four point program, and I'm sure there's a lot more below the surface of that. What is it we're preparing for? Because we talk about a globe of strategic competition, we talk about tensions in the Indo-Pacific, we've talked, and this is not just you and me talking here, but there's a broad conversation about the impact of China in the Indo-Pacific, the risks of conflict. But of course also, seems to me there's a period of sort of constant competition going on, there are all sorts of contingencies that could occur short of all out war. What are we preparing Australia for do you think?
Andrew Hastie
I think the lesson out of Ukraine is that military adventurism is still a possibility. A lot of people didn't imagine it happening, but it did happen. And we've, we've now got a war where thousands of people have been killed and wounded. And so we want to avoid that in the Indo-Pacific and Taiwan is is a, is a potential flash point. And I think we want to avoid war. And so in order to avoid war, we've got to be strong and we've got to send a signal that war would not work for anyone in the region. And the US is looking for partners to preserve the peace. And in order to do that, I think we need to be stronger as a country, both militarily, but also in our general resilience.
Rory Medcalf
So it's about, I guess, credibility, because this is not just about Australia standing alone. It's whether it's Australia with the United States or with other partners, Japan or others.
Andrew Hastie
I think if we invest in our defence. We send a signal to our neighbours that we're reliable. We benefit them because of course, the peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific is something they want too. And a strong Australia means that we're a good neighbour and we can help others.
Rory Medcalf
Before we close, could I just sort of broaden this into the national conversation? When you spoke at our conference in April this year, I think you drew on your your reading of some very old literature, I think from Beowulf actually, and you spoke about the idea that perhaps we're in a fog, we're not articulating clearly our strategic narrative. It'd be interesting to know a little bit more of your thinking on that. And this goes not only to global geopolitics, but also national issues like cohesion.
Andrew Hastie
That's right. I think language is so important in that speech. I talked about having clear and precise words in describing what we're up against as a country and things like preventative architecture, which is a buzzword that's been used. I said, it sounded more like strategic contraception than it did deterrence. I think we have to use plain language. Talking about Taiwan, it's uncomfortable for many people, but we have to talk about it because it's a possibility. How probable it is,
Rory Medcalf
The conflict you mean.
Andrew Hastie
Yeah, that's right. How probable it is, that's up for debate. But given that it's a possibility, we've got to actually think about these things and what Australia would do if a war broke out over Taiwan. What options would we have? How would we uphold our sovereignty? How would we uphold our alliance obligations? And there's no shirking it. There's no getting away from it. We absolutely would be impacted because so much of our trade passes through that area of the Indo-Pacific.
So that's why we need to have clear language. That's why we have need to have clear thinking and we need to communicate with the Australian public about these sorts of challenges. Because otherwise we won't have the social license to invest in defence. We won't have cohesion because, you know, we're a multicultural society. It's increasingly challenging to have these conversations because people have different perspectives because of their different backgrounds.
But we still need have the conversation.
Rory Medcalf
Can we close on that cohesion point? Because of course, another issue that you have, I think, been very understandably outspoken about this year has been the issue of social cohesion in Australia, particularly in response to the conflict in the Middle East. We're a federated, multicultural, liberal democracy. In many ways, that's part of our resilience as a nation. But at the same time, It poses certain challenges in really pulling together in a sense of crisis. So I'm just interested to know, I guess, in closing, whether it's your critique or whether it's your vision for social cohesion.
Andrew Hastie
I said in my first speech back in October of 2015 that Australia works if we cohere as a country around a common set of values. And my concern over the last year is that we no longer agree upon a common set of values.
The dignity and worth of every person, the right to protest peaceably, the right to feel safe. We could go through a list of things. And I think some of the protests and some of the protesters don't share those values at all. And they've imported ancient hatreds into our country, which are inimical to what we're trying to achieve here in terms of cohesion, which is why I said, I just can't tolerate people marching in support of Hamas or Hezbollah on our streets, both listed terrorist organizations in this country, both in their charters, supporting the destruction of the Jewish people in the state of Israel. Now, it's a complex, complex situation in the Middle East. Many innocent people have died on both sides. And to see little children die is a terrible, terrible thing.
But we can't have people in this country who, you know, effectively running soft arguments for Hamas and Hezbollah. It's as simple as that.
Rory Medcalf
And absolutely finally, how does, I guess, your vision on really trying to sustain or build social cohesion in Australia, which means sometimes if you like, criticizing or taking on those who would disrupt it.
How do you square that with the need for the political compromise that you spoke about at the beginning of this conversation?
Andrew Hastie
I think education is critical. I have three things I care about as an MP. Number one, families. I want to see stronger Australian families because then we have stronger neighbourhoods, communities, states and Australia. Families are under big economic pressure and we've got to work out ways to preserve that primary institution for self-government. I care about home ownership.
I think it's absolutely critical for a functioning democracy. If we lock a generation of Australians out of home ownership, they'll be activist voters, not prudential voters, because they won't feel they have a stake in the country. And it's also much harder for them to put roots down into their local community and also form families, because those things get delayed without home ownership. So we've got to work out how to increase supply and get people into homes. And then finally, education. And this goes to your point about social cohesion.
I think education is absolutely critical. It's ripe for reform and teaching kids how to think, not what to think, how to think. I'm very opposed to an ideological education. I'm more than happy for big debates to occur, but education is more than just how to think. It's also about character formation, moral formation as well. And I would say unapologetically that I reach back into the Western tradition, the Western canon, classical education. I'd like to see more of that influence on our education system, both at primary, secondary and tertiary levels.
Rory Medcalf
We haven't really talked about leadership yet. I know you've touched on it, alluded to it a bit in the conversation, but what are the big influences for you when it comes to the kind of leader that you would like to see or you would like to be?
Andrew Hastie
I love reading political biography. In the last few years, I've read
JFK's biography, Robert Menzies, Reagan, Roosevelt. there's almost a lefty there. You're covering the spectrum. That's right. Exactly. You're right. But look, I keep coming back to Churchill and to Lincoln. And if you were to ask me who my favorite all time democratic English speaking. Go on. Abraham Lincoln. Churchill was of bumptious and he would have been a lot of hard work despite his brilliance. But Lincoln, I think, was a genuinely good man. His integrity, his prudence, and I think justice as well is something that I'm really drawn to. And there's not a lot of writing that he did about his interior life, but we reflect on what he did leave behind. I think in terms of leadership,
And what I'd love to aspire to, of course, it's Abraham Lincoln. But you've got to set your sights somewhere. He's a man I deeply admire. So we should spend more time reading political biography. Is there a Lincoln biography in particular that you recommend? My favourite Lincoln biography is by Ronald C. White. It's called A. Lincoln. And he's got a great writing style, but he really goes into some of the influences on Lincoln's thinking, which is really, really important.
Rory Medcalf
Andrew Hastie, thank you very much for joining us on the National Security Podcast and really for opening up about your worldview, your influences. It's going to be a big year ahead no matter what happens. But it's good to know that across the Australian Parliament, there are voices that care about the national interest and we wish you well. Thank you.
Andrew Hastie
Thanks Rory.
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