Why Hastie v Hanson has become a defining moment for One Nation … and the Coalition

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On the face of it, Andrew Hastie’s confrontation with Pauline Hanson is an entertaining personal dispute over an animated cartoon. But it runs much deeper. This week it arrived as a stark test of Australian politics. Unexpectedly, it’s also presenting a clarifying moment for Australian society.

First principles here. Why would One Nation bother taunting the Liberal frontbencher as a “traitor” in a cartoon spoof?

Illustration by Dionne Gain Hanson repeatedly has said that she wants the Liberals and Nationals to co-operate with her to get rid of the Labor government: “Work with me,” she has urged. So why on earth complicate the effort by insulting Hastie, the Liberal leader in waiting?

Her reasons are twofold. First, because Gina Rinehart wants her to. The iron ore heiress worships the war-hero-turned-accused-war-criminal Ben Roberts-Smith. In her persona as a defender of Roberts-Smith, the pro-Trump billionaire has positioned herself as an opponent of Hastie.

Because Andrew Hastie, together with 20 other former soldiers of the elite Special Air Services, was called to give evidence about Roberts-Smith’s conduct during a defamation trial. It was a trial that Roberts-Smith had initiated in an effort to sue The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age for reporting allegations that he had murdered unarmed Afghans.

Hastie, who reached the rank of captain before leaving the military, was subpoenaed to appear before the court and gave evidence against Roberts-Smith in 2022. The trial judge found Hastie to be an honest witness. By contrast, he ruled that Roberts-Smith was not honest. Justice Anthony Besanko ruled that, on the balance of probabilities, Roberts-Smith had committed or was complicit in the murder of four unarmed Afghans. That was a civil trial; a criminal trial of Roberts-Smith for five war crimes is pending.

Pauline Hanson has billionaire Gina Rinehart (right) as a prominent supporter.Alex Ellinghausen, Getty ImagesHastie didn’t realise he had incurred the wrath of Rinehart until later. The call came when he was driving to a Liberal Party fundraiser one evening in the approach to the 2022 federal election. He was doing a favour for Rick Wilson, then, as now, the Liberal member for the federal seat of O’Connor. Hastie was the assistant minister for defence at the time. As the ranking party member at the fundraiser, he was expected to give a speech of support for Wilson.

But an apologetic Wilson phoned to tell Hastie that he was passing on a message: Hastie was not welcome. The reason? The event was sponsored by Rinehart’s company, Hancock Prospecting. In effect, Rinehart was wielding a veto over which Liberals could be invited to a fundraiser for the Liberals. There’s no such thing as a free sponsorship.

And Rinehart, as we know, is a prominent supporter of Pauline Hanson. Apart from the millions of dollars that Rinehart and associated interests have donated to One Nation, she gave Hanson a plane.

The second reason that Hanson would target Hastie? She’s using the Ben Roberts-Smith case “as a proxy for their real concern”, says Kos Samaras of the political consultancy Redbridge. “They are worried because, if Hastie becomes Liberal leader, One Nation have a big problem.”

In this way, the Rinehart-Hanson clique and its social media claque cast Hastie as the mortal enemy of Ben Roberts-Smith. The honourable soldier against the dishonourable. One overlooked fact is that a person close to the Rinehart family also testified against Roberts-Smith.

One Nation expects that Hastie would be a more formidable opponent than the ineffectual Angus Taylor. The party fears that he’d be able to appeal to its own voters as well as to Liberals. One of the factors protecting Taylor in the leadership is the Rinehart veto over Hastie.

Some Liberals are in awe of Rinehart, or perhaps in thrall to her. Even though she supports their rival, One Nation. The Liberals are a party in a crisis of confidence that seems unable to act boldly in its own interests.

Hastie this week demonstrated why One Nation is right to fear him. His challenge to Hanson was a test for her and her party but also to the larger political system. Hastie chose his moment with care. One Nation’s cartoon trolling was posted on July 23, nearly seven weeks ago. Why did he wait so long?

Two factors clicked into place. First, investigators in the Roberts-Smith war crimes trial issued a reckoning of witnesses whose names cannot be published in the proceedings. Hundreds are subject to these orders. Hastie was not among them. He felt liberated. He’d been quiet to protect the integrity of the trial but that was no longer a risk because his name was not suppressed and he does not expect to be called as a witness.

Second, Hanson was excited by One Nation’s victory in the byelection on August 29 for the West Australian state seat of Secret Harbour. That seat overlaps Hastie’s federal seat of Canning.

A Perth newspaper, The Sunday Times, carried a front-page story quoting Hanson promising to unseat Hastie at the next federal election: “I’M CANNING FOR YOU NEXT: Hanson warning to Hastie after Secret Harbour romp”.

Hastie judged that Hanson had over-reached. This was a parliamentary sitting week where he could command maximum media attention in Canberra. So he struck. He told assembled reporters that Hanson should publicly call him a traitor or take down the cartoon.

He drove the point home: “One Nation are working to unseat me because they don’t believe in the rule of law, nor do they believe in holding Australian soldiers to high standards of battlefield conduct,” he wrote. “Now I’m calling time on cowards who have never served a day in the Australian Defence Force attacking my service record, my integrity, and my loyalty to Australia. I gave 12 years, eight months to the Australian Defence Force. I deployed twice on combat operations to Afghanistan. I left my wife at home, knowing that I might not return. And then to be called a traitor by One Nation … well, they’ve picked a fight with the wrong veteran.”

Simon Longstaff, who has taught military ethics at the Australian War College and abroad for some 30 years, cites Canadian philosopher Michael Ignatieff: “The difference between a warrior and a barbarian is ethical restraint.”

Longstaff points out the important principle that “it’s our standards that mark us out as different. If we set aside our standards, we risk becoming indistinguishable from those with whom we contest.” In the case of Afghanistan, the Taliban.

Hanson claimed that the animation was mere satire and refused to remove it. Hastie accused her of hiding behind a cartoon. He gave a staccato of interviews repeating this line: “I think she’s revealed herself to be weak, glass-jawed, and unable to take responsibility for her position.” He called her a lying coward.

It was a defining moment for One Nation and for the Coalition. The more independent leaders of One Nation distanced themselves from her. Barnaby Joyce apologised publicly to Hastie. The leader of One Nation in Western Australia, Ron Caddies, said: “I’m not going to condone calling anyone a traitor that served our country.”

Federal parliament’s barometer of moral affront, independent senator Jacqui Lambie, registered maximum. Hanson, said Lambie, an army veteran herself, was a “bloody coward”. The One Nation leader “wouldn’t last one day in that goddamn uniform. Leave our veterans alone, Hanson.”

Labor and the Greens denounced Hanson. Independent senator David Pocock told Hastie of his support. So did the prime minister.

The Coalition leadership was asked its view and, one by one, they stood by Hastie and denounced Hanson. “The mystical hold that One Nation has held over the Coalition has been broken,” Hastie tells me.

Samaras’ work with focus groups finds that public opinion is siding with Hastie and against Hanson. “When you ask people what concerns them about One Nation, they raise racism and they raise Ben Roberts-Smith, and not in a good way for Hanson.”

A Redbridge poll due to be published next week finds that One Nation’s primary vote in Victoria, where a state election is due on November 28, has fallen by 5 percentage points from its peak.

One Nation’s attack on Hastie is in the same mode as US President Donald Trump’s low barbs, combining adolescent insults, vicious slurs and phoney masculinity. Trump repeatedly mocked and demeaned true war heroes while celebrating thuggish violence.

By rejecting Hanson’s snide efforts at attacking the honourable soldier, Australia is rejecting the politics of Trump.

Even more fundamentally, Roberts-Smith and Hastie represent two clashing versions of masculinity. Roberts-Smith, found in a civil court to have murdered unarmed people under the control of Australian forces, represents a wanton violence, killing the helpless for some sort of sociopathic bloodlust. By contrast, in his reflections on Father’s Day last weekend, Hastie critiqued the “manosphere”: “It’s obsessed with physical appearance and expressions of dominance. Just open Instagram and you’ll find plenty of insecure blokes flexing for the cameras … But looks can be deceiving. We all know that to be true. That’s why I think masculinity is best expressed through function. By what we do, rather than by how we look. So, on Father’s Day, I want to encourage all those dads … who are quietly demonstrating masculinity by caring for their families without fanfare.

“Who show strength by their restraint. To those dads who work away. Or take the tough shifts. To those who are just keeping it together, one day at a time. But are making a difference by the fathering role they play in the lives of their children. Loving. Protecting. Serving. That’s what it is to be a man.”

At the end of the week, Hanson made a lame appeal for everyone to “take a chill pill”. She lit the fire but she can’t stand the heat. Hastie is not about to take her advice.

Peter Hartcher is political editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

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