Andrew Hastie

While the health impacts of the Coronavirus hit Australia early in 2020, Hastie saw "how vulnerable we are to strategic coercion or supply chain warfare." More than that, it highlighted “serious problems with the Chinese Communist Party. How they deal with truth, the way they mask the outbreak and the way this was not risk mitigated but was allowed to spread across the globe.” Hastie was one of a number of backbenchers who pushed for added restrictions on foreign investment into Australian companies at this time, other supporters included Labor's Anthony Byrne and Kimberley Kitching then coalition MPs Dave Sharma, Tim Wilson, James Paterson, Alex Antic and Amanda Stoker. The rationale was, "Aussie businesses have taken some big hits through the COVID-19 pandemic. We need to protect our most vulnerable from authoritarian states angling for bargains through their business fronts. There won't be a fire sale on our watch." However, Hastie went further, arguing that such purchases are simply part of a wider arsenal of Political warfare currently conducted by the Chinese Communist Party. "Although few will admit it, the Chinese Communist Party seeks to reshape the global order and Australia's position in it through foreign interference, ownership of strategic assets and influence operations. Australian institutions, universities, and assets are now contested; our sovereignty and independence will be diminished if we don’t continue to push back." By late April of 2020 Hastie was arguing that CCP Actions in Australia were actively prosecuting political warfare, using economic and diplomatic channels.

The National People's Congress of China made a resolution in May 2020 which would "set up a new legal framework and enforcement mechanism to ensure national security in Hong Kong." Hastie became one of "nearly 200 global political leaders — including 20 Australians" to decry the move as "comprehensive assault on the city's autonomy, rule of law and fundamental freedoms."

Hastie sees the digital space as being critical to matters of sovereignty, "Sovereignty in the future is having control over your data. As Mike Pompeo has said, 'If you don't control your data, then you're not sovereign.'" Given that companies such as Huawei would be legally required to pass on information carried on their networks to the Chinese government, Hastie was a strong supporter of the Turnbull Government's decision to prevent that company from providing 5G services in Australia. Along with other parliamentarians from the Liberal Party, including Tim Wilson and James Paterson and Labor's Kimberley Kitching and Anthony Byrne, he has been active in applying pressure to Australia's partners in the Five Eyes security alliance to do the same. In a public statement he explained how important that security arrangement is, "In a time of growing strategic uncertainty, Australia values that membership more than ever." In private settings, it is known that he has supported Byrne, the Deputy Chair, who used forceful language in discussions with UK leadership in January 2020, asking “How would you feel if the Russians laid down infrastructure in your own networks? That’s how we feel about Huawei.” Hastie is quoted as supporting frank conversation about data sovereignty with western allies, saying "We save our toughest talk for our closest mates. I back my deputy chair.” On 23 May 2020, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced plans that would "see China's involvement in the UK's 5G network reduced to zero."

I just felt sick... It was arrogant to think we could build a mirror image of ourselves in foreign lands. [The boys’ deaths] underscored the gap between our aims and reality. The two boys who perished were bystanders in this larger struggle. I was humbled and chastened by this experience. War is a miserable enterprise. I remember saying to my boss: ‘I didn’t come here to kill kids’.

In the 2019 Australian federal election, held on 18 May, Hastie ran for re-election and won 61.83% of the two-party-preferred vote against the Australian Labor Party's candidate Mellisa Teede. On entering the 46th Parliament of Australia Hastie, in which Scott Morrison was returned as Prime Minister, Hastie become increasingly involved in lawmaking around matters of national security. He spoke in 45 debates in 2019, above average according to Open Australia, the bulk of them surrounding matters of security or sovereignty. Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security pushed forward the Temporary Exclusion Orders Bill designed to prevent dual-national terrorists from returning to Australia.

However, the Identity-matching Services Bill 2019 and the Australian Passports Amendment (Identity-matching Services) Bill 2019 were reviewed by the committee and sent back for redrafting. By 2020, Hastie was able to review the suite of legislative changes security as being all of one piece, to strengthen Australia's position in the region and the world:

What we’ve done in Australia over the last three or four years, I call it our pivot... taking action to preserve our digital sovereignty by excluding high-risk vendors from our future 5G network, passing the Espionage and Foreign Interference Laws, stopping the extradition treaty to China, those things were part of the pivot and ultimately, they’re expressions of our sovereignty. 

In August 2019 Hastie wrote an Op-ed column, "We Must See China with Clear Eyes" for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers, where he stated that Communist China — rather than Islamic terrorism, on which he had concentrated in his military career — would be the real security concern of the 21st Century. Moreover, a rising, revisionist, expansionist China would frame "almost every strategic and economic question facing Australia in the coming decades." What brought more attention was his strong criticism of Western democracies and their mistaken belief "that economic liberalisation would naturally lead to democratisation in China" much as the French had believed the Maginot Line would guard them against the German advance in 1940. Hastie wrote:

The piece caused "a firestorm" with the Chinese Embassy in Australia denouncing the remarks as reflecting a "Cold War mentality", while Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan, whose state is heavily reliant on China for trade, accused Hastie of "threatening WA jobs with extreme and inflammatory language." An academic at UWA opined that the Western Australian government's contemporaneous relationship with China may not be sustainable in the future, saying "But there may come a time where this relationship is not possible to be run purely on commercial lines, and I have to say most of the reason for that is the changing behaviour of the Chinese Communist Party." Conversely, Hastie received support from his colleagues Dave Sharma and Peter Dutton. Hastie had been invited on a study trip with several colleagues to China with the independent think tank China Matters. However the Chinese embassy announced “that at this time Mr Hastie and Senator Paterson are not welcome" unless they "genuinely repent and redress their mistakes." This snub was part of a wider activity of Overseas censorship of Chinese issues by the Communist Party of China and had the effect of making Australians more aware of CCP attempts to control Australians, with Hastie later saying "That press statement did all the work for us." Hastie's warnings about Chinese abuses of human rights and interference with sovereign nations appeared to be further vindicated when newspapers released 400 pages of Chinese documents on the workings of internment camps in Xinjiang, shortly followed by the apparent defection of a young Chinese spy with information in connection with a Chinese Australian, Nick Zhao who was funded by Chinese interests to run for parliament, and was later found dead in a hotel room. As a further coincidence, in the weeks following publication, authorities in Hong Kong began arresting leaders of the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests, a movement Hastie has strongly supported. By raising concerns about foreign interference, the opinion piece has been seen as a "threshold", with other commentators predicting that Hastie's concerns "will dominate the political agenda", having been discussed in the pages of global newspapers such as Haaretz The Times and The New York Times. When interviewed by The Washington Post six months after his op-ed, Hastie said that while he had experienced ridicule, at first, from Australian officials and business leaders for sounding the alarm about China, the "debate has shifted", and the concerns about China intimidating democratic nations are now mainstream.

The Chinese government’s done pretty well this week. On Monday they threatened us with economic collusion. On Tuesday they ran a false narrative about Frances Adamson, the Head of DFAT and Ambassador Cheng, and on Wednesday they got a publicity stunt where they could basically parrot talking points at a Commonwealth press conference, no less, than by a former Cyber-spy.

I take my time in Afghanistan, especially in my first deployment, particularly my time with MRTF2 with the 1RAR battle group, as being very formative for me, doing Nation Building and realising the limitations of government to change people and their culture. We built bridges, we built a bazaar where we expected people to trade, we built schools and hospitals, we built all sorts of things, but fundamentally, we didn’t change the way the Afghan people lived. Respecting people’s sovereignty, and people’s freedom to live as they choose is something that I learned over there.

I grew up in a Chinese suburb basically, Ashfield is known as Little Shanghai... there was an explosion of Chinese Australians who’d come from the mainland, living under communism and had found faith and were living it out freely… My father baptised a man who went back to China, was handing out Bibles and went to gaol for six months. This is a guy who I sat at a dinner table with as a young guy and got to know personally. So for me, I’ve got a heart for the Chinese people.

Sovereignty is an increasingly frequent topic in Hastie's writing and speeches, which he defines as being the ability to "preserve Australia’s strategic freedom of action, the ability to pursue our own interest, economic or otherwise, and also it means resilience."

I remember looking at the target, and then hearing the guns fire and then the rounds splashing 600m away and thinking, ‘what the heck, that is not at all, that is not the target.

In August 2018, Malcolm Turnbull called for two leadership spills in which Hastie is known to have supported the call for a new leader. Scott Morrison was elected leader of the Liberal Party, becoming Prime Minister of Australia. Hastie maintained his chairmanship of the PJCIS as it took an increasingly serious tone on foreign threats. The committee carried the Assistance and Access Bill 2018 through to legislation enabling security agencies to access otherwise encrypted communications by people who intend harm to Australians. Prompted by the sale of the Port of Darwin to interests connected to the Communist Party of China, the Committee made recommendations for the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018 (Cth) (Act) — placing a national security test to any foreign investment into energy or water assets and, notably, ports. The committee also contributed amendments to the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act 2018. At this time, ZTE and Huawei and other "high-risk vendors" were deemed as unsuitable technology partners for the rollout of Australia's 5G network. Overshadowed by the leadership controversy, these security decisions went largely unreported. However, security partners, such as Congressman Mike Gallagher would later see that Australia was both the first Western democracy to be targeted by China and the first to protect itself:

Hastie locates the energy debates as sovereignty issue, and in 2018 said, "I have a problem legislating the Paris target because it undermines Australia's 'economic sovereignty'" which meant he could not support the National Energy Guarantee (sometimes called "the NEG"). Later in 2018 he made a speech in the Federation Chamber, saying, "Australian industry and Australian workers must come first. When it comes to energy, we must put the Australian people before Paris." In tension with Free market advocates within the Liberal Party of Australia, Hastie has made statements that appear close to Protectionism, strongly supporting plans of Minister Angus Taylor to build a national strategic oil reserve and of federal plans to "encourage greater manufacturing."

In May 2018, Hastie took the "dramatic" step of using parliamentary privilege to name a Chinese-Australian property developer as being a corrupt person acting in the interests of a foreign power, saying, "It is now my duty to inform the House and the Australian people that CC-3 is Chau Chak Wing, the same man who co-conspired to bribe the president of the United Nations General Assembly, John Ashe, the same man with extensive contacts in the Chinese Communist Party, including the United Front." The information had been given to the MP during meetings in the United States earlier that year. The move was criticised as "causing trouble" both to the government to Australia's relationship with China." Hastie himself believed he was compelled to speak as, "My duty, first and foremost, is to the Australian people and the preservation of the ideals and democratic traditions of our Commonwealth.”

“When we met with House and Senate leaders, and members of the [US] House Intelligence Committee, those committee members really emphasised the importance of the relationship... I was sitting there in front of the Senate Intelligence and Security Committee and the committee minority leader is a senator from Virginia and I said to him, ‘I wouldn't be sitting here if it wasn’t for a medic from Virginia who saved my grandfather’s life on the 31st of March 1945’.”

While the incident gave another example of the parliamentarian's determination to protect Australian institutions from the influence of the Chinese Communist Party his acting in consort with American defence forces and intelligence agencies such as the Department of Justice also provided more proof of his commitment to the U.S.-Australia alliance. At the high level, Hastie believes that this alliance is essential to Australia maintaining its sovereignty saying, “National leaders must affirm and articulate the values that define Western democracies, especially as we seek to build a coalition of like-minded partners to resist authoritarian political warfare.” He led a parliamentary delegation to the United States in early 2017 and afterwards indicated that, for him, the defence alliance holds personal importance

Hastie stood again for the division of Canning for the 2016 Australian federal election, on Saturday 2 July. He won 56.79% of the votes under the Two-party-preferred vote against Labor opposition candidate Barry Winmar, moving his seat from being "marginal" to "fairly safe" according to the Australian Electoral Commission. He maintained a pattern of conducting regular town hall meetings in 2016, 2017, and (29 in 2017 alone) where, he says, he got the clear message "they want government to continue to provide essential services and keep them safe but otherwise stay out of their lives."

Hastie was appointed to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security in September 2016, and invited to chair the committee from February 2017. It's known the committee receives briefings from Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (Australia), Australian Signals Directorate and Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. As such, Hastie and fellow members of the bi-partisan committee are "privy to a lot of information and intelligence briefings that other members of parliament aren't." Through his work with the PJCIS Hastie came to conclude that Australia is "facing an unprecedented threat from espionage and foreign interference, and that current laws are not adequate to deal with this threat.” At this point the source of the foreign interference was unnamed. Following its deliberations, the committee reviewed and amended the Espionage and Foreign Interference Act 2018 and Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018

Hastie saw the 2016 Same-sex marriage debate in Australia as a conscience issue. He supported the postal survey because he believed that the institution of marriage, since it existed before the parliament, was an institution that "belongs to the people" so it was right for the people themselves to vote on it. When the "yes vote" was strongly returned, Hastie ensured passage of the bill, but could not vote for it himself. He explained, "We went to the election with it, I was on television saying I would abstain, I've been in dialogue with constituents for the last 18 months and whenever I've talked to them about the issue, I've said I would abstain. My intention is to abstain because to vote yes would go against my conscience, but I want to uphold both the vote in Canning and the national result and abstention is the best way to do that." Most of Hastie's statements through the public debate centred not on marriage, but on how to have the debate. When right wing commentators such as Larry Pickering used homophobic language towards LGBT persons, Hastie immediately condemned the statement, expressing his "dismay" at the degrading language, and pleaded for "higher personal and civic standards"

The seat of Canning became vacant by the death in office of the Liberal member, Don Randall, triggering the 2015 Canning by-election. Having won the Liberal Party pre-selection process against seven other candidates Hastie launched his campaign in the electorate with strong support from Mathias Cormann and Julie Bishop, however he was quickly inundated with media criticism about the "severed hands" incident and was further "rattled" by strong questioning of his family's religious beliefs. Within days Hastie would give a speech in which he strongly defended the soldiers under his command and his own military service:

On Saturday 19 September 2015, after a four-week campaign that centred on solving the methamphetamine epidemic, Hastie won 55.26% of votes under the two-party-preferred system, making him the 10th Federal Member for Canning, defeating Labor candidate Matt Keogh. He joined the government of Malcolm Turnbull who had himself become Prime Minister of Australia a week before the by-election. Hastie gave his first speech on 13 October 2015, which centred on his priorities for healthy democracy, stronger community institutions and for defending Australia's sovereignty, "To safeguard our freedom I believe that the first duty of the Australian federal government is to secure our nation." In the first months, when headlines were dominated by the Parramatta shooting and the Paris terror attack and the aftermath of the Sydney hostage crisis, it seemed that Hastie's parliamentary career would be marked by his concern about "radical islamist ideology" arguing in interviews and op eds that:

Hastie's mother Sue was a primary school teacher, particularly to children with special needs. His mother's mother, Rose — to whom, Hastie says in his first speech, he was "very close"— was a nurse throughout her life, caring for Hastie's grandfather, Reginald a war veteran, through to his death.

Hastie deployed in late-2014 and 2015 to an intelligence role in the Middle East-based role countering ISIL as an Operations Officer for Operation Gallant Phoenix a classified defence operation based in Jordan. The operation is said to be collecting intelligence "from commando raids in Syria and Iraq and funnelling it to law enforcement agencies in Europe and Southeast Asia to help stop future attacks."

Hastie has been described as a "conservative", a "social conservative" and, at least by the official Chinese government media as "an arch-conservative". Critics see his foreign policy outlook as being "jingoistic" and the MP himself as "a notorious hawk." Hastie himself has said, "I am not a libertarian, but I am a Liberal, which is to say that I am committed to freedom." This would appear to be confirmed by his decision to join the Atlantic Council — a Classical liberal bi-partisan think tank formed for "defending democratic values." The invitation came via US Congressman Mike Gallagher, a conservative Republican and Tom Tugendhat, a British MP who describes himself as a "community conservative."

One ABC profile on Hastie found that "the heart of his worldview is the belief that everyone is equal and has dignity and from here his convictions about democracy emanate. The belief in the inherent value of the individual means the individual must be free when it comes to "thought, worship, speech, association and choice" as Hastie said in his first speech. These freedoms allow our communities to naturally form and "are the fullest expression of self-government." Hastie recently collaborated with the Australian Labor Party's Kimberley Kitching to form the "Parliamentary Friends of Democracy." It comes out of a concern that democratic institutions are "under increasing pressure around the globe." They believe, "Australian parliamentarians have a duty to rise above party to defend the rule of law, democracy and the constituent freedoms that make Australia a special place to live." This view expands on concerns that Hastie has expressed elsewhere, that "our greatest vulnerability lies not in our infrastructure, but in our thinking. That intellectual failure makes us institutionally weak. If we don't understand the challenge ahead for our civil society, in our parliaments, in our universities, in our private enterprises, in our charities — our little platoons — then choices will be made for us. Our sovereignty, our freedoms, will be diminished." In February 2020 it was announced that Hastie had been invited to serve on a panel of western leaders who are concerned for the state of global democracy, the Commission on Advancing a Free World, in association with The Atlantic Council. Their Declaration of Principles for Freedom, Prosperity, and Peace articulates seven statements for protecting democracy across the world, beginning with "the right of all people to live in free and just societies, where fundamental rights are protected under the rule of law."

"I believe in the sovereignty of local communities to make decisions about how they conserve and develop their environment. The Bindjareb people, the First Australians in my constituency, have long been custodians of the waterways—for many generations back to the present. The Murray Mandurah community also shares this responsibility, and together we are all stewards of the beautiful Peel-Harvey Estuary, a body of water larger than Sydney Harbour, teeming with marine life and brimming with natural beauty. We, therefore, through our local governments, have sovereignty over this natural asset and should have a say about how development takes place. We're not antiprogress, but we are rightly cautious about development, as we are the ones most affected by it."

In January 2013, Hastie returned to Afghanistan as an SASR officer with Special Operations Task Group Rotation XIX. Hastie told journalist Chris Masters his role was now, "to protect the base and take the fight to the enemy." More widely, the mission was to provide force protection as the ADF mentored the nascent Afghan National Security Force. Hastie led his troop in operations against hostile Taliban leadership in southern Afghanistan, commanding B Troop:

In February 2013, Hastie led a squad of men to support a remote outpost of Afghan National Police in the Deh Rahwod District planning to "supply them with some water, some Red Bull" and build trust with the local commander. While there, the Electronic Warfare Operator received communication intercepts indicating two Taliban fighters, seen at a distance of 1,000 metres, were planning a rocket attack on the post. Hastie had authority to neutralise the threat, communicated the coordinates for the combatants and called in a strike by a US Army Apache helicopter. However, the attack went badly wrong:

On 28 April 2013, a major operation began against the senior insurgent commander, Abdul Hai. The attacking force of 120 included "one Commando and two Provincial Response Company platoons" led by Hastie's SASR B Troop, which he helped direct from the air. Several combatants were killed in the ensuing battle. On searching the dead men, one corporal severed the right hands of two "Enemy Killed in Action" using a scalpel. On attempting to do the same to a third EKIA the soldier was stopped by a sergeant who said, “What the f*** are you doing?” On arriving at this part of battle environment, Hastie gave the order to cease the practice and the next day the incident was reported to the CO, triggering a major ADF inquiry. The inquiry heard that there had recently been training on how to collect biometric samples, particularly in managing the aftermath of a suicide bomb event. Hastie later commented that “the guy giving instructions conflated site exploitation of a suicide bomber with that of biometric testing." The SASR corporal who severed the hands later conceded he had made an error of judgement in not first checking with his patrol commander. The inquiry made it clear that the practice, and the fact that some appeared to accept it at the time, "demonstrated a drift in values, or at least a degree of desensitisation."

Intelligence gathering operations constantly scanned for "chatter" on plans for suicide bombings by the Taliban. To interdict these operations, Hastie was required to work with local forces, however by May 2013 the Wakunish were now working independently, so Australia's forces need to work with the Provincial Response Company with whom they had few shared values. One of the first missions with the PRC was to capture a suicide bomber in Urozgan before he had the opportunity to attack. The operation was conducted in darkness "When they found the suicide bomber they were chasing, a barrel pressed against his temple was used to ease the man awake." Now the enemy was secure, along with his explosive vest, and rockets, the PRC commanders, and their own magistrate, had a stand off with Hastie — insisting that they should execute the captured man. The "person under confinement" was escorted to prison by Hastie and his team.

By mid 2013, Hastie had returned home to Perth. With his time in the SASR he felt he had achieved "the peak of soldiering" but had been frustrated at "the absence of strategy" which could only come from government. "We were hidebound by policy that compromised military principle. We were planning who we took out on the ground before we planned the mission.’ Hastie joined the Liberal Party of Australia shortly after his return. He resigned his commission from the ADF in August 2015 after announcing his candidature to run as the Member for Canning in the House of Representatives.

Hastie argues that Australia's representatives must be the ones making decisions, rather than foreign actors, and so "upholding our political system is the first thing that we must do because that at least preserves our political leadership and their ability to make decisions, un-influence by greater powers.” As such he strongly resists foreign influence on the working of the Australian economy, culture or political system. "My bottom line is Australian sovereignty – I want to protect our way of life, our freedom of action and our political institutions. That's my job as a member of the Commonwealth Parliament. I make no apologies for it."

This has been the main legislative focus for Hastie in recent times. In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Hastie explained that, "Democratic countries must take domestic measures to protect against these threats. Australia has led the way in this regard. Authoritarian states use all instruments of state power to pursue their strategic objectives. Seemingly innocent activities like diplomacy, foreign-investment flows into strategic industries and infrastructure acquisitions like the purchase of ports are not so innocuous. Democracies who don't pay attention to these activities – and take measures to guard against them – risk becoming tethered to hyper-modern authoritarian states and losing their sovereignty in the process."

Hastie's Selection experience concluded with a three-day extreme interrogation session, involving constant sleep deprivation and starvation. Men in the group lost between 10 and 15 kilograms from exertion and malnutrition. From Hastie's initial cohort of 131 only 26 completed the course. From there Hastie commenced the 18-month Reinforcement Cycle before receiving qualification with the Regiment, based at Campbell Barracks. He was one of 15 in his cohort to be issued “the sandy beret” in May 2012 and was assigned to 1 SAS Squadron. His first overseas deployment was in Port Moresby to support the Papua New Guinea Defence Force as they provide security and stability for the General Election.

Hastie first deployed to Afghanistan with Mentoring Task Force Two, a 750-strong Australian combined arms battle group, all under the command of Colonel Peter Connolly. The area of operations was across Urozgan Province where "they're tough people and they fight hard." Hastie's role was to command a troop of Australian Light Armoured Vehicles as it helped to provide "cover when the Diggers go out on patrol" by using “close combat to destroy the enemy with precision." The troop's armoured operations began at the very start of the fighting season in May 2009, concluding in February 2010. In an extensive report on the mission, known as Operation Falcon's Talon, Colonel Connolly wrote that the goal of the Australian forces was "...to clear and dominate the valley." Australian forces, including Hastie's, pushed east out of Tarinkot District, up the Mirabad Valley from Charmestan to Khas Urozgan, all in order to extend the influence of the government of Hamid Karzai, who was seeking re-election in November of that year. The patrols were dangerous and at least four Australian soldiers were killed in Afghanistan at this time, mostly from attacks by improvised explosive devices. Hastie reported "we had four strikes in my troop alone” though no deaths or wounding, thanks to effective armour. Despite the attacks, the series of patrol bases were established through the valley system in Urozgan Province by December of that year, and the wider operation was considered, in official reports — at least at this point — to be a success. Hastie himself understood the role he and his men performed was part of a wider attempt to reshape Afghanistan:

Hastie met his wife Ruth in the summer of 2007 while he was studying at George Washington University. Their first date was "watching then President George W. Bush walk from the Oval Office across the lawns of the White House to be whisked away in the Marine One helicopter." Some months later, Hastie proposed to Ruth on the steps of the Sydney Opera House. The two were married in 2008 at Capitol Hill Baptist Church. Their children were born in Perth in June 2015 and August 2017. The family of four now lives in the City of Mandurah in the Peel region of Western Australia.

Hastie went on to officer training at Royal Military College, Duntroon in 2006. In 2007, Hastie completed the George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs's U.S. Foreign Policy Summer Program in Washington, D.C.

Hastie decided to join the Australian Army full-time, but completed his second year at the Kensington Campus in 2002 before transferring to the University of New South Wales at Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra in 2003. He completed his bachelor's degree in 2004 before being invited to do an honours year in 2005, his final thesis examined Charles Bean's official history of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. Hastie still regards himself as a student of history and recently wrote the forward to Destined for War a historical survey of global conflicts, beginning with the Peloponnesian War by Graham T. Allison.

While at University, Hastie had planned on a part time career in the military, and began officer training with the Australian Army Reserve in 2001 through the University of New South Wales Regiment. However, the events of 9/11 near the end of that year propelled him towards full-time army service, which he began as a Cadet in 2003. His officer training was completed at Duntroon in 2006, and he was presented with his Commission as Lieutenant from Governor General Michael Jeffery in December of that year. His first posting as a young officer was in 2007 with 2nd Cavalry Regiment, the second most senior regiment in the Royal Australian Armoured Corps, which he describes as "the last of the old army." At this time the regiment was based with 1st Brigade in Palmerston, Northern Territory. Hastie took command of a cavalry troop in 2008, preparing for deployment in Afghanistan the following year.

When the family moved to the inner west of Sydney, Hastie began his primary education at Ashbury Public School. From year 5 he attended The Scots College in Sydney, completing his Higher School Certificate in 2000. Intending to become a journalist, Hastie began a Bachelor of Arts in History, Politics and Philosophy at the Kensington Campus of University of New South Wales in 2001, and also joined the University of New South Wales Regiment as a part-time reservist. At a tutorial near the end of first year, following 11 September terror attacks Hastie says he listened to other students argue that the United States had “deserved” the attack, which he says he found “bizarre", the event would "shape the next decade of my life."

Andrew William Hastie (born 30 September 1982) is an Australian Liberal party politician who serves as Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security and as the Federal MP for Canning, WA in the Australian House of Representatives. He was first elected in the 2015 Canning by-election and re-elected in 2016 and 2019. Hastie has been described as a "conservative", who has made controversial public statements about Australia's need to "preserve our sovereignty" in defiance of an "expansionist" Communist Party of China; these views have been condemned as "totally intemperate" and "inflammatory" by Australian corporate leaders, then praised as a matter of "strong public interest" and "necessary, and important" by security analysts Professor Clive Hamilton and Professor Rory Medcalf. His stance led to the Government of China blocking him and his colleague James Paterson from visiting China on a study tour, demanding that they "repent" from their views.