Andrew Hastie has finally won applause in Question Time. Only problem is it came from the Labor front bench.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese rose in the House and offered the Liberal frontbencher his support in his fight with One Nation. "There's a lot of chatter about the Member for Canning, who's insisting he's running again, and good luck to you," the Prime Minister said. "Certainly, if it's you or One Nation, I'm for this bloke, that's where I come from, and good on you for standing up to them."
'Good on you.' From the leader of the party Hastie calls the real enemy. In front of the whole House. One Nation did not even need to interject. When the Liberals so called conservative warrior is collecting pats on the head from a Labor Prime Minister, the clip cuts itself.
Of course Albanese clapped
Nobody should be surprised. A Prime Minister applauding the man attacking his most dangerous opponent is a fisherman applauding a fish for jumping into the boat. One Nation is Labor's greatest fear, the party running neck and neck with it in the polls and peeling off the outer suburban voters Labor once owned. Albanese would applaud anyone standing up to One Nation. When the man doing it comes from the right, it's better than anything Labor could buy. The right tearing at itself, live in Question Time, with one of its own frontbenchers leading the charge. Every shot Hastie fires at One Nation is a shot Labor doesn't have to fire itself.
Of course the Prime Minister is "for this bloke." A Labor leader never hands out praise that costs him anything, and this one cost him nothing at all. Albanese cannot out-campaign One Nation on his own record, so he is delighted to outsource the demolition. Hastie is doing his work for him, free of charge, Sun Tzu quotes and all.
Andrew isn't for the right. Andrew is for Andrew
Let's make something clear about the man collecting Labor's applause. Andrew Hastie is not fighting for the right. The right is One Nation and the Coalition base now drifting to it, the fastest growing force on that side of politics. Hastie has declared war on it, told supporters they'd have to "blast me out of Canning," and dismissed any talk of preference deals as "weakness." The only war he's winning is against his own side.
His record says the same thing. He walked out on his own leader, Sussan Ley, and collected a promotion the moment she fell. The Daily Mail's Peter van Onselen read his recent Tom Hughes Oration as a pitch for the next job up, Angus Taylor's. A fortnight of war talk against One Nation while the Coalition sits on 17%. None of that is a man fighting for the right. That's a man fighting for Andrew Hastie, and the right is just the ladder he's standing on.
The rest of the record rounds it out. A security upgrade he blames on One Nation, which says it's running no campaign against him at all. Sworn evidence against Ben Roberts-Smith, the Victoria Cross recipient One Nation backs, who denies the war crime charges he faces and is yet to stand trial. And not quiet evidence either. Hastie is all through the Stan documentary on the case, his voice narrating stretches of the story against the man he served with, from the regiment's culture to his off the record conversations with the journalists who broke it. The Nightly summed his conduct up in one headline: "Inside Andrew Hastie's campaign against Ben Roberts-Smith". A "MAGA first" swing at Pauline Hanson. An ejection from Question Time under 94A. And now a warm word from a Labor Prime Minister in the same chamber he was once marched out of. One of these is not like the others, and it's the one his base will remember.
So slide left, Andrew
Which brings us to the kindest advice on offer. The whispers about Hastie walking from the Liberals haven't gone away, and maybe they shouldn't. If his applause comes from the government benches, if his wars are waged on the right and cheered by the left, then the honest move is to stop pretending and slide over to where his fans sit. In our view he'd fit right in on that side, the side that has spent decades putting everyone but Australians first and calling it virtue, the side that sells out its own country and then lectures you for noticing. Labor is already supplying his applause. It may as well supply the seat. The right, meanwhile, could get on with aligning itself without him.
Albanese got a laugh, Hastie got a compliment, and One Nation got the clip. Conservative voters got something too: a very clear look at whose side Andrew Hastie is on. His own. And when a man is only ever on his own side, the left will always find him a seat.
