Latest news with #Hastie
Perth Now
14-07-2025
- Politics
- Perth Now
Big call on US' ‘unreasonable' Taiwan order
Australia is not obligated to disclose whether we would support the United States in a potential conflict sparked by China's hypothetical invasion of Taiwan, Coalition home affairs spokesman Andrew Hastie says. Mr Hastie, a former SAS commander, has lashed the Pentagon demand as 'unreasonable'. The Financial Times has reported Elbridge Colby – Pentagon policy chief and the man leading the US review into the AUKUS agreement – has urged Australian and Japanese officials to reveal their position in meetings. Asked whether Australia was 'obligated to clarify what our role is', Mr Hastie said: 'I don't think we are'. 'I think the US is ambiguous in its position with Taiwan. If that's the case they can't expect their allies to be declaring their position hypothetically,' Mr Hastie said. '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.' Andrew Hastie said the reported Pentagon demand was 'unreasonable'. NewsWire/ Martin Ollman Credit: News Corp Australia However, he said Australia needed to be 'ready' and willing to work with the US to ensure we were 'intimately involved in integrated deterrence throughout the region,' something he said Anthony Albanese was 'failing' on. 'The US has made it very clear that 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,' Mr Hastie said. 'And he's yet to really voice the national interest in personal terms to the President of the United States.' Asked about the reports on Sunday, the Prime Minister said he supported the 'status quo when it comes to Taiwan'. Speaking from Shanghai on his six day trip to China, he said it was 'important' to have a 'stable, orderly, coherent position' and reiterated calls for 'peace and security in our region'. Anthony Albanese said Australia supported the 'status quo' on Taiwan. NewsWire/ Nikki Short Credit: News Corp Australia Mr Hastie also rebuffed comments from Mr Albanese that there needed to 'be a little bit of perspective' on a potential meeting with US President Donald Trump. Mr Hastie said the leaders needed to have a conversation about the AUKUS review, as well as demand transparency around whether Australia would be asked to deploy the Virginia-class submarines obtained from the US through the AUKUS agreement. 'I think (it's been) 250 days since President Trump was elected, and the US is our closest security partner,' Mr Hastie said. '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.'
Perth Now
30-06-2025
- Politics
- Perth Now
‘Rejected': Albo's big call on US demand
Anthony Albanese has rejected Coalition's front bencher Andrew Hastie's call for more 'transparency' from the United States in relation to their operations on Australian bases. Mr Hastie, a former SAS commander, has previously called for 'greater transparency' on how the US is using its Australian bases like Pine Gap near Alice Springs, and the Naval Communication Station on Western Australia's North West Cape, in order to bolster military posture in the Indo Pacific. The Coalition's home affairs spokesman urged for more 'mature' discussions on operationalising the alliance, guard rails for combat operations and clearer definitions for Australian sovereignty. Responding to the suggestion on the ABC, the Prime Minister said: 'I'm not sure what he means by that,' and rejected the idea of Australia using defence as a bargaining chip to secure a tariff exemption. Andrew Hastie has said the government should press the US to be more transparent on its Australian military operations. Richard Dobson/ NewsWire Credit: News Corp Australia 'He belongs to a political party that during the election campaign, when President Trump announced tariffs on what he called the Liberation Day, they drew into question, said 'we should be bargaining with our defence relationship,'' Mr Albanese said. 'That was something that I rejected on that day.' Asked if US' military footprint would make Australia more vulnerable in the event of intensified conflict with China, Mr Albanese said it was his goal to 'avoid conflict,' and backed Australia's alliance with the US. 'I think it is in Australia's interest and the United States' interest and the interests of other partners we have to have interoperability, to have the AUKUS arrangements in place,' he continued. 'If Mr Hastie is questioning that, then he should say that. It's why I've been very clear on that.' Anthony Albanese rejected Mr Hastie's calls and backed the Australia-US alliance. NewsWire/ Martin Ollman Credit: News Corp Australia Mr Albanese also said despite the 'laser-like focus' on when he would secure a meeting with US President Donald Trump, he was more concerned with 'supporting Australia's national interests'. He also noted that while he was prepared to meet with Mr Trump 'when a suitable time could be organised,' he flagged the yet-to-be-finalised Quad meeting between the US, Japan, India and Australia which will occur in the 'coming months'. 'We also have the Quad meeting coming up, which we are finalising as well,' he said. To date Mr Albanese has had three phone conversations with Mr Trump, and also met with US treasury secretary Scott Bessent, US trade representative, Jamieson Greer and US National Economic Council director, Kevin Hassett while he was in Kanamaskis for the G7.
AU Financial Review
29-06-2025
- Politics
- AU Financial Review
US forces make Australia a Chinese target: Hastie
Shadow Home Affairs Minister Andrew Hastie has pointedly posed a question that successive Australian governments have not dared to answer, nor even mention. Namely, just what Australia is getting itself into as the US military footprint across the country expands. Will it involve us in a war with China? Hastie's remarks represent the frankest statement on the US alliance by a serving member of parliament since Prime Minister Julia Gillard's 2011 announcement that US marines would rotate through Darwin. Yet at no point in the intervening period has any government or indeed think tank spelt out the implications of this deepening alliance.
Scoop
25-06-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
Hastie's Sensible Advice: More Transparency On US Forces In Australia
It was a blast to a past wiped out by amnesia, social media and mental decrepitude. Andrew Hastie, Australia's opposition minister for home affairs, had been moved by an idea: greater transparency was needed regarding the US military buildup in Australia. It was an inspiration overdue by some decades, but it was worthwhile in its unaccustomed sensibility. In an interview with the Insiders program on the ABC, Hastie proved startling in proposing that Australia needed 'to have a much more mature discussion about our relationship with the United States. I think we need greater transparency.' He proceeded to recall the frankness of US Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth's testimony before the US Senate Armed Services Committee, which saw China named 'as the pacing threat' in the Indo Pacific. Australia, Japan and the Philippines were mentioned as part of 'the integrated deterrence that the US is building in the region.' This saddled the Albanese government with significant obligations to the Australian people. Be clear, suggests Hastie. Be transparent. 'I think we need to talk about operationalising the alliance, building guard rails for combat operations, and of course defining our sovereignty. And this will make things clearer for us so that we can better preserve our national interest.' With admirable clarity, Hastie places the Australian security establishment in the dock for interrogation. 'We're not just a vassal stage, we're an ally and a partner and I think it's time that we had a good discussion about what that looks like.' Advertisement - scroll to continue reading Given that Australia already hosts a rotational US Marine force in Darwin from April to November, the Pine Gap signal intelligence facility in Alice Springs, and, in due course, the Submarine Rotational Force out of Perth from 2027 ('effectively a US submarine base'), it was time to consider what would happen if, say, a war were to be waged in the Indo Pacific. It was 'about time we started to mature the [relationship] model and we're open to the Australian people what it means for us'. These views are not those of a closet pacifist wishing away the tangles of the US imperium. Having spent his pre-political life in the Australian Defence Forces as a member of the special services, he knows what it's like playing valet in the battlefield to Washington's imperial mandarins. Not that he rejects that role. Fear of abandonment and Freudian neuroses tend to pattern the Australian outlook on defence and national security. Yet there was something comforting in his awareness that the American garrisoning of its ally for future geopolitical brawling needed explanation and elucidation. The response from Australia's Defence Minister Richard Marles was typical. Spot the backbone of such a figure and find it wanting. US intentions and operations in Australia, he insisted, were adequately clear. Australians need not be troubled. There was, he told reporters during a visit to London to meet his UK counterpart John Healey 'actually a high degree of transparency in relation to the United States presence in Australia.' The Australian government had 'long and full knowledge and concurrence arrangements in relation to America's force posture in Australia, not just in relation to Pine Gap, but in relation to all of its force posture in Australia.' Reiterating another fable of defence orthodoxy, Marles was also convinced Australia's sovereignty in terms of how the US conducted its operations had been spared. Given Canberra's abject surrender to Washington's whims and interests with the AUKUS trilateral pact, this is an unsustainable claim. To this day, we have sufficient anecdotal evidence that Pine Gap, notionally a jointly run facility between US and Australian personnel, remains indispensable to the Pentagon, be it in navigating drones, directing bombing missions and monitoring adversaries. The Nautilus Institute, most capably through its senior research associate Richard Tanter, has noted the base's use of geosynchronous signals intelligence (SIGINT) satellites, Space-Based Infrared Systems (SBIRS) and its acquisition in the early 2000s of a FORNSAT/COMSAT (foreign satellite/communications satellite) function. This makes Australia complicit in campaigns the United States pursues when it chooses. Dr Margaret Beavis, Australian co-chair of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), outlined the potential consequences: 'We risk accelerating nuclear proliferation, we risk Pine Gap becoming a target, Tindal airbase becoming a target.' All efforts to raise the matter before the vassal representatives in Canberra tends to end in a terminating cul-de-sac. Regarding the latest use of US B-2 stealth bombers in targeting Iran's three primary nuclear facilities, the Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, was curt: 'We are upfront, but we don't talk about intelligence'. The bombing had been a 'unilateral action taken by the United States.' Australian candour has its limits. There is also no clarity about what the US military places on Australian soil when it comes to nuclear weapons or any other fabulous nasties that make killing in the name of freedom's empire so glorious and reassuring. As a signatory to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (SPNFZ), Australia would be in violation of its obligations, with Article 5 obligating each party 'to prevent in its territory the stationing of any nuclear explosive device.' Yet deploying B-52 bombers at the RAAF Tindal base would suggest just that, though not all such bombers are adapted to that end. The naval gazing toadies in foreign affairs and defence have come up with a nice exit from the discussion: such weapons, if they were ever to find themselves on US weapons platforms on Australian soil, would only ever be in transit. In a Senate estimates hearing in February 2023, Defence Department secretary Greg Moriarty blithely observed that, while the stationing of nuclear weapons was prohibited by the treaty, nuclear-armed US bombers could still pay a visit. 'Successive Australian governments have understood and respected the longstanding US policy of neither confirming nor denying the presence of nuclear weapons on particular platforms.' It is precisely that sort of deferential piffle we can do without.
Perth Now
24-06-2025
- Business
- Perth Now
Budget full of ‘recycled promises' for Peel Health Campus
Peel Health Campus was top of mind at a Peel Region Budget Breakfast last week and not everyone was happy about the State Government's funding commitments. Minister for Peel Jessica Stojkovski was in town to present post-budget highlights for the region and answer questions. The minister drew some looks when she struggled to pronounce the names of suburbs in the region she represents, with Coodanup became Coondanup and Edenvale pronounced Evandale. Most of the funding announced for the region had been earmarked in previous budgets but highlights included $9.7 million for infill sewerage services to about 150 properties in Falcon, $200,000 to begin planning for a high school in Dawesville, which has been promised for decades, and access to the Forrest Highway from South Yunderup. Attendees could submit questions to the minister and Q&A host, Mandurah MP Rhys Williams, acknowledged that a number of these questions related to Peel Health Campus. 'The $152 million that was committed to the budget for the redevelopment, everybody knows that that's not going to cover the cost of the redevelopment,' he added. 'That is for the forward works, that is to get the project started, get the power there, get the works done so that the project can get under way. 'What we are hoping to understand is what the status of that project is.' Mr Williams and Ms Stojkovski give an update on the Peel Health Campus development. Credit: Supplied The minister confirmed that detailed plans for Peel Health Campus were 'close to being finalised'. 'It's a hard thing to get people to understand you can't actually build buildings unless you have water and power that those buildings can access,' Ms Stojkovski added. 'My husband's a builder, so he always talks about forward works, and the forward works always taking too long, but it's a really important part of the project, isn't it?' The $152m commitment was first announced by the State Government in 2020. This year's budget papers revealed an estimated expenditure of $2000 for the ED expansion in 2024-25 and $89,000 in 2025-26, out of a total estimated expenditure of $3,680,000. For the hospital redevelopment, the estimated expenditure in 2024-25 was $15,212,000 with $23,596,000 committed for 2025-26, and an expected total cost of $142,948,000. Earlier that morning, Canning MP Andrew Hastie criticised the government's funding commitment, saying, 'It's just more recycled promises with no real progress'. 'The people of Mandurah and the Peel Region were promised a $152 million redevelopment back in 2020 and five years later, we have absolutely nothing to show for it,' Mr Hastie said. 'The WA Government is still pointing to the same line in the budget but there are no new wards, no new beds and no upgrade in sight. 'Money in the budget doesn't mean anything if it never leaves the spreadsheet.' Mr Hastie said the government needs millions more dollars to account for inflation. 'It's simple: you can't build today's hospital with yesterday's budget,' he said. 'The numbers don't add up. That money won't stretch anywhere near as far now, and they know it. This tells us they're not serious about getting this project done. 'While Labor is busy patting themselves on the back, patients are ramped outside waiting for care. 'Some are walking away from the emergency department altogether because they simply can't wait any longer. Our dedicated healthcare workers are stretched beyond their limits.' At the breakfast, Mr Williams added that the campus was the number one priority for himself and Dawesville MP Lisa Munday. 'There's nothing more important than delivering the full-scale transformation at Peel Health Campus, we are meeting fortnightly with stakeholders in agencies and ministerial offices to get this project to where it needs to be, and we will keep that pressure on,' he said. Mr Williams then revealed that the Peel region had the highest rates of family and domestic violence in the State and asked the minister to speak on local investments in the sector. 'I'm really proud that our government has invested over half a billion dollars in the prevention of family and domestic violence since 2017 and that has been across the spectrum of interventions,' Ms Stojkovski said. 'There are a number of different refuges that we are expanding and new refuges that we are looking to put new units into, so not beds, because we understand that while women, historically, have been identified as the victim survivors in family and domestic violence, actually children are also victim survivors. 'So we're looking at how many units we can provide in different places, rather than just beds.' Local commitments include: $20m for a new Peel Netball Centre, with the location to be developed in consultation with the community and Netball WA; $6m for additional multi-use indoor courts at Mandurah Aquatic Centre to cater for basketball, volleyball, badminton and netball; $200,000 towards storage at Peel Reserve Oval to cater to the Halls Head Cricket Club and Mandurah City Football Club; $1.45m towards a new pavilion at Dwellingup Oval, including women's changerooms; $800,000 towards new women's changerooms at Waroona Football Club; $800,000 towards upgrades at North Pinjarra Park including for the multi-use courts, play area and barbecues; $750,000 towards upgrades at Edenvale Heritage Precinct including lighting and toilets; $400,000 towards lighting and storage upgrades at Merlin Street Reserve, used by the Halls Head Football and Netball Club; $180,000 to improve women's facilities at Sir Ross McLarty Oval in Pinjarra; $7.5m for major facility upgrades at the Pinjarra Race Club; and $2.2m for upgrades to the Pinjarra Harness Racing Club.
