Seizing the moment is a pretty good tactic in warfare and politics. Liberal MP Andrew Hastie, the opposition’s most talked-about leadership contender-in-waiting, is proficient in both.
The former SAS commando is on a media mission. His moment has been provided by Israel, Iran and US President Donald Trump’s nuclear bunker-busting megabombs. Just yesterday he was on Radio National Breakfast with Sally Sara, Afternoon Briefing with Patricia Karvelas, ABC Radio Perth, Sky News Australia’s AM Agenda with Laura Jayes, and 2GB. A media tour de force!
Grabbing his opportunity with both martial-arts-trained hands, Hastie is busily raising his profile. He’s showing off his articulate smarts and confidence to speak out in the complex and sensitive portfolio territory where foreign affairs and defence intersect.
Except that his shadow portfolio is home affairs. No matter. Circumstances favour the bold.
Speaking for himself …
And as good fortune would have it, he’s acting opposition spokesman on foreign affairs while the formal position-holder, Hastie’s fellow West Australian Senator Michaelia Cash, is off base. So Hastie had cover to freelance — and he hasn’t missed. As his regularly updated personal website shows, since Sunday he’s been on a rare media run for an opposition politician.
He’s been lucky timing-wise too. On Sunday morning, Hastie was the featured political guest on the ABC’s Insiders with David Speers, the national broadcaster’s political lead. Officially Hastie was there as opposition home affairs spokesman, but with the acting cap in foreign affairs on full show. Given geopolitical events, all Speers wanted to talk about was the Israel-Iran hot war, what the US might do, and Australia’s military alliance and challenging relationship with Trump’s America.
Hastie was more than ready to follow the lead. After all, as well as being an ex-military officer with deep frontline experience in Afghanistan, one of America’s “forever wars”, Hastie spent the past three years — May 2022 to May 2025 — as the opposition’s defence spokesman.
No kidding
When it comes to matters of khaki, he knows his stuff. That’s more than can be said for his successor as defence spokesman, Angus Taylor, who failed last month to become Liberal Party and opposition leader. He lost 29-25 to Sussan Ley.
At the time, there was rampant speculation that Hastie would be a contender, but he quite deliberately stayed outside the immediate post-election fray. With a young family, he insisted the time wasn’t right for him, although now you’d be forgiven for thinking his three-under-10 kids must be growing up awfully fast.
If Taylor has good survival instincts, they should be working overtime. Ley, from the Liberals’ moderate faction, is clearly in a state of constant vulnerability. Taylor lurks in the wings as the hard right faction’s main man. But Hastie is from the same factional stable, a conservative thought-leader and, intellectually speaking, runs circles around him.
None of this has to mean Hastie is planning an insurgency against Ley any time soon. But if one comes on, whatever the trigger, he’s doing no harm to his prospects in any head-to-head contest with Taylor. Hastie can bide his time, impressing potential allies through performance, with no pressure to strike first.
Ahead of the pack
Hastie’s Insiders appearance was only an hour or so before the world learnt that US B-2 bombers had struck Iran, dumping payloads of 14-tonne “massive ordnance penetrator” bombs on two key nuclear facilities. A volley of Tomahawk missiles, launched from an American submarine, struck a third nuclear site.
But that hadn’t happened when Hastie was giving an intelligent and strategically incisive and nuanced account of himself. With just the right amount of populist common sense too, for example insisting:
“I think we need to have a much more mature discussion about our relationship with the United States.”
His Israel-Iran-US situational analysis was right on the money:
“Diplomacy is probably going to fail here and we are going to see a strike of some sort.”
In the panel discussion after the interview, Speers highlighted Hastie’s comfort, confidence and capability in the foreign affairs and defence space. The ABC’s Raf Epstein cited his “future prime minister” status. You can bet plenty of Liberals were watching, being given cause and pause for thought.
Action man
Later, while sledging Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for being “flat-footed” in his response to the US intervention in Iran, Hastie showed that he’s fast on his political feet.
He called an impromptu press conference in Perth on Sunday afternoon, leveraging his Insiders appearance and setting up his media-heavy Monday. Then, overnight, he sharpened his attack lines. Albanese was “too slow, too silent and too passive” in supporting the US intervention, Australia has to deal with “the world as it is, rather than how we want it to be”, and: “Anyone who talks about the rules-based global order is being nostalgic.”
National security in what Hastie pragmatically called a “world governed by might is right” is the opposition’s strongest card in a mainly weak hand. Hastie, an established China hawk and ideological conservative warrior, is ensuring everyone knows his credentials — especially his Liberal Party colleagues.
Eyes on the prize
Hastie also has an eye to his Liberal-National coalition recognition and support base. With the Nationals increasingly digging in on their trenchant opposition to net zero by 2050, he recently signalled on the ABC’s Four Corners that net zero is a “straitjacket [he] is already getting out of”.
Over at Sky News, he criticised the “massive hypocrisy” surrounding net zero, alleging the big emitters — China, the US and India — were walking away from it. However ideologically blinkered Hastie may be, he’s too smart to be doing this without a strategy.
I would have liked to see him more thoroughly interrogated about his alternative to the ‘rules based order’. Should all international agreements and rules be dumped?
Clearly he believes that now all international disputes should be settled by bunker busters at fifty metres.
I presume he does not ‘recognise’ borders or maritime boundaries
Real men don’t do alternatives.
I did see PK quiz him on that and he was very hard to understand
So, Hastie is from the right of the Liberal party it seems. Well I just watched Richard Marles on 7.30 and he’s the slimiest defence minister we’ve ever had. Equally as vile as Dutton., Andrews or Reith. A total lickspittle for the US and the Zionist regime. Shameful, dishonourable sycophant!
If the alternative to a ‘rules based order’ is ‘might is right’ then I’m sure China would be supportive & there’d be no containing that genie!
But he’s seemingly a creationist – constantly refusing to deny it – which would doubtless give great heart to the ascendant Christian nationalists
And we certainly don’t need them to have even a whiff of any route to power.
His happy clapper ‘creationist’ persona should sound the alarm bells – haven’t we been down this path before although admittedly he is easier on the eye than Morrison
God help us all
After Trump let God know that he loves him,there has not been a word out of the Kingdom.I think they’re consulting their lawyers.
Yes, and I am certain of one thing, after his political career, a job with merchants of war will be waiting.
I bloody well knew it!
Sussan Ley may as well leave Parliament now, because there’ll be no place for moderates of any stripe in the Liberal Party from now on.
He can talk a big game, but can he play one? Unlike the military, politicians and voters don’t have to follow orders!
Well he’s much more confident, as anyone would be, without Dutton breathing down his neck. Though I’m not impressed by being applauded by the media for being ‘quick off the mark’ to back the US dropping bombs on Iran and digging Albo for being slow. Did anyone actually confirm that nuclear bombs were indeed being made?…. Won’t look too Poster Boy if he failed to ask that question.
Well I’m sure there are people shredding machines there ….
This may not be the case but it does seem that he cowed Albo and Wong into condoning the US (illegal) action. I haven’t met anyone that thinks the same. It would have been better to have simply called for calm on all sides – which was essentially the original position. By the way it is very rarely the case that ‘might is right’ – if you need to use might there is a good chance that you are wrong.
Give us a break! Where was his ‘populist common sense” on the campaign trail? Hastie is also a very conservative religious idealogue (well hidden by his media mates) but like every other opposition MP still thinking ”how could we have possibly lost to these weak and flat-footed idiots (but 94 seat winners)?”, he forgets that far too many ‘ordinary’ (i.e. intelligent) voters had seen through the Murdoch/Sky garbage ‘news’ let alone Channel 7/9 news propaganda articles. That biased media support totally fooled them into thinking their moronic ‘policies’ were being given serious thought by the voters. The fact that Morrison and Marise Payne’s strident whining about who ‘started’ covid leading to billions of dollars lost in trade for nearly 3 years should have had Hastie thinking about not pushing his China hawk postulations, given China is our largest trading partner. I’m looking forward to Prue and Nick’s ”findings” about ‘how we lost the May election”!
Hear. Hear
Is confidence a really good measure of anything… other than confidence?
I think a lot of the works today is being lead by incompetents who have plenty of confidence.
Some call it confidence. Some call it bluff, bluster and bullshit. The likes of Trump , Boris Johnson, Scott Morrison, Peter dutton are / were full of it. Perhaps they should read Dunning and Kruger’s 1999 paper “unskilled and unaware”.
Hastie is on the board of the Alliance for Responsible citizenship. Now there is an interesting bunch of folks worth checking out, especially if Hastie is thought leadership material. Bit surprised you didn’t mention that Murray. Perhaps another article…
Another Liberal Leadership prospect that has risen without trace and will probably disappear the same way.
Sure, he’s photogenic and knows how to speak proper. Give him this weeks “Student of the Week” prize!
However, is from WA (Is there still a Liberal Party in WA?), fundamentalist Christian and his Military record may not be as strong as the Libs would have us to believe. Didn’t leave Perth during the Election. So, was missing in action during the recent debacle. Obviously ,managing events from a long way behind the lines. As a Leader, he makes a very good bat boy.
His big impact statement is something, something, Albo is weak.
Yawn! We’ve seen this movie before.
The Liberal Party is little more than a Melbourne cup field,but not as smart,They would all be 200/1 with the bookies, and we do not need another God bothering,creationist,tub thumper.Go away.
Is he still persona non grata in China? Not much of a Prime Ministerial candidate if he can’t visit our largest trading partner. Ditto for James Patterson.
I heard Andrew Wilkie comment on Andrew Hastie, this morning.
Mr Wilkie, former Lt Col and deep expertise in the Defence side of both Defence and Politics indicated he didn’t think too much of Mr. Hastie, former Captain (a Junior Officer) with some Operational experience.
And please clue up the authors of these articles. An “SAS commando” doesn’t exist, they are separate Army Units.
Wilkie over Hastie every time
Hastie is also a fundamentalist Christian. Another little characteristic that seems to have been grouted over.
Why is so much attention given to the rabble that call themselves a liberal party. Tired of all of them
The MSM love a Phoenix storyline. It keeps them gainfully employed.
rather than “Albanese was “too slow, too silent and too passive” – how about, “considered” as the Governments response.
Of course he has the freedom to shoot from the hip. He’s not in government. The PM, on the other hand, has to think carefully about how to respond to current developments.
If Hattie is the answer, you’re asking the wrong question.
He doesn’t seem to accept that his approach was roundly rejected by the electorate on May 3. Yes, he’s reasonably articulate and good on his feet, but if the electorate doesn’t like what he’s saying – and there’s no reason to think that it does – he’s preaching to the choir. he’s clearly got a very high opinion of his own ability; that may not be the case in the real world. And we don’t need another foaming-at-the-mouth fundamentalist anywhere near the levers of power – Scotty from Marketing showed us what happens when you do that!
Hastie is a representative of the fools-based order.
I’m not really sure of the author’s connections, because the (inside Liberal) ‘goss’ is that Hastie started talking to colleagues about rolling Dutton post-election even before election day and THAT’s why he was told not to run for the leadership…the “young family” excuse was given to cover the earlier mishegoss. Nobody doubts he will challenge and become leader eventually…but PM, no chance (he’s Dutton 2.0).
Oh he’s clever enough, but a fundamentalist Christian. Not surprised about his defence outlook.
Give Peace a chance Hastie.
No Liberal or NP politician EVER receives a “more thorough interrogation” from David Speers.
Coming to this late, but is Hastie a fan of Israel’s ‘Palestinian Laboratory” and does he want to get hit hands on some of their (stealth) weapons? Goodbye democracy.