Good afternoon.
At a time when the Liberals are struggling to fend off the rise of One Nation, Andrew Hastie may have found its weak spot.
The SAS veteran this week decided enough is enough, after a sustained attack campaign by Pauline Hanson and her supporters.
Today, the focus is on a crass nine-minute cartoon depicting Hastie, a Liberal frontbencher, as a pitiful and paranoid opposition leader manipulated by Anthony Albanese into taking on One Nation.
More importantly, he’s repeatedly labelled in the cartoon as a “traitor”.
A bold path
Despite the cartoon being uploaded 48 days ago, Hastie used the return of parliament to try to turn the tables on Hanson.
In an email to his supporters on Tuesday, Hastie said One Nation was trying to unseat him at the next election because he gave evidence against Ben Roberts-Smith in a failed defamation case against the Nine newspapers.
The 43-year-old said One Nation had “picked a fight with the wrong veteran” and that he would make the battle “a very costly exercise in time, money, and political capital” for his opponents.
Throwing down the gauntlet on One Nation is a bold move. The Coalition has been usurped in popularity by its rightwing political foe, and risks becoming an afterthought at the next federal election if One Nation’s polling numbers remain high.
It has also struggled to find ways to attack One Nation without it politically backfiring. This is despite Hanson being a fixture on the frontline of politics for decades – Thursday is the 30th anniversary of her inflammatory maiden speech to parliament, in which she claimed Australia was at risk of being “swamped by Asians”.
But it may be that Hastie has unlocked a new way to fight back – accusing Hanson and her party of undermining veterans, despite never having worn a uniform themselves.
‘She has no idea of patriotism’
It’s a point that will hit home for many. Hastie, after all, served three tours in Afghanistan in one of its most elite units.
Hanson claims the whole saga is a “storm in a teacup”. She won’t apologise or take the video down, because she says it’s satirical.
But the longer she holds out, the tougher the hurdles will be.
Hastie has found an unlikely champion in Jacqui Lambie today. The outspoken Tasmanian senator, a veteran herself, appeals to disillusioned voters in a similar way to Hanson – a direct and straight-speaking outsider.
So when Lambie speaks, the very same people who might consider voting One Nation tend to listen.
Lambie admonished Hanson, calling her everything from a “bloody maggot” and “coward”, to an “angry little woman”.
The key could be undermining Hanson’s credibility on an area that should be a strength.
“She has no idea of patriotism, that woman, she has no idea. You don’t attack veterans, and you don’t stand like a coward behind your goddamn cartoons,” Lambie said on News24.
Will Hastie’s fightback kickstart the decline of One Nation’s popularity? Unlikely.
But in a week where the populist party’s Victorian leader is in the spotlight for past drug use, despite its tough stance on the issue, the last thing Hanson wants is to be defending her party labelling a veteran as a traitor.
As the saying goes, a frog never realises it’s in boiling water until it’s too late.
Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP
