Andrew Hastie declares ‘desire to lead’ the Liberal Party

In a podcast recorded on the day Sussan Ley pipped Angus Taylor for the party leadership, Hastie outlined his vision to connect with younger voters and focus on the four enterprise institutions of family, the home, education and small business.

WA Liberal MP Andrew Hastie. Picture: Martin Ollman

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Andrew Hastie has declared his “desire to lead” the Liberal Party, revealed the de-industrialisation of Australia keeps him up at night and warned about the power of big tech and corporates in a podcast with a Labor-aligned think tank.

In a 50-minute podcast recorded on Tuesday after Sussan Ley pipped Angus Taylor for the Liberal Party leadership, Mr Hastie outlined his vision to connect with younger voters and focus on the four enterprise institutions of family, the home, education and small business.

Speaking on the Curtin’s Cast podcast with John Curtin Research Centre executive director Nick Dyrenfurth and RedBridge Group pollster Kos Samaras, the 42-year-old cited his young family and the pressures of commuting from Western Australia as reasons he decided not to run for leadership.

In the immediate aftermath of the Coalition’s May 3 election bloodbath, the former Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security chair and Special Air Service regiment officer was touted for leadership by senior Liberal figures after he secured primary and two-party preferred swings in his outer-metropolitan Perth seat of Canning. While Liberal MPs in capital cities across the country lost their seats, Mr Hastie increased his margin.

Mr Hastie, the son of a Presbyterian minister and public school teacher, who has three children with wife Ruth aged between three and nine, said he was focused on understanding the “problem that we’re facing as a party”.

“Leadership is going to come in many forms over the next three years. Susan Ley has just made history as the first female leader of the Liberal Party. That’s a really important role,” Mr Hastie told the Curtin’s Cast podcast.

“But leadership can’t be confined to just the position. We’ve also got to lead in the battle of ideas as well. And I think that’s where I want to make a contribution.

“I’d be foolish to say I don’t have a desire to lead. I do have a desire to lead. But the timing was all out for personal reasons. A really important thing in politics is to know where you stand. And I came to that conclusion very quickly.”

Ahead of Ms Ley finalising her frontbench next week, The Australian understands Mr Hastie is keen to step-up into a prominent role outside of the Defence portfolio he held under Peter Dutton.

Asked to identify the big policy challenge Australia must confront into the 2030s, Mr Hastie said “the thing that keeps me up at night is the de-industrialisation of Australia”.

“I worry that at some point we’ll be so dependent upon supply chains outside of this country that in a strategic crisis or a war, we’re completely cut off and alone and unable to feed our people, fuel our economy and maintain civic order,” he said.

“Because once the panic sets in, it’s very hard to arrest. That’s the thing that I really worry about, that with power prices surging, with a lot of our industry offshoring, with diminished business investment into advanced manufacturing in this country, we become a supplicant state and vulnerable to coercion.

“I would love to see the re-industrialisation of Australia so we can make stuff, so we can refine our own fuel, but also because, and I think this is what’s happening in the (United) States as well, there’s actually meaningful work.”

Liberal Party leader Sussan Ley. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

After comfortably beating Labor in Canning, Mr Hastie said it was time to stop forcing people into universities if they can find meaningful work that doesn’t “saddle them with a heap of debt”.

Mr Hastie, who wants more people in parliament with real-world experience, said big tech and corporates should not be allowed to “push us around” and compromise Australia’s sovereignty.

“They have a huge say on our political system, whether we like it or not. And these are the questions that both parties, all parties need to answer going forward.”

On the four enterprise institutions of family, the home, education and small business, Mr Hastie said “I believe that our freedoms are best lived out in association and in relationship with others”.

“I’m a big believer in those little platoons and I’m not an abstract sort of person. I’m not an abstract Libertarian. (On the four enterprise institutions) I think that’s where we get to express ourselves, grow, develop, take risk, and I think that’s where the Liberal Party really needs to focus on … to get the country going again.”

Mr Hastie said before the party looks at its social media performance and campaign infrastructure, it must identify “who are the forgotten people of 2025?”.

“We’ve first of all got to have a vision and an identity as a party. I think a lot of (Gen Z and Millennials) are activist voters because the system isn’t working for them, and so they want to drop the system.”

“The question I think is how do we turn them from activist voters to prudential voters? And I think you become a prudential voter once you have something to fight for and conserve.”