Andrew Hastie has told Coalition colleagues he's been marked for security upgrades at his home and electorate office, and he's pinned the decision on an online campaign he blames on One Nation and its supporters over the Ben Roberts-Smith case. One Nation says it's running no campaign against him at all.
WAtoday reported that Hastie made the comments in Tuesday's Coalition party room. He told colleagues that Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke had recently informed him he'd receive enhanced security, without disclosing the nature of any specific threat, and that he believed the move was driven by an orchestrated online campaign fuelled by One Nation over the Roberts-Smith controversy.
Hastie gets his upgrade while Hanson's protection stalls
The timing's hard to miss. As Hastie was granted upgrades to his home and office, the leader of the party he's vowing to "do slowly" is still waiting on protection she's formally requested.
Pauline Hanson has been appealing to the federal government for a higher level of Australian Federal Police protection after a run of threats. Her chief of staff James Ashby warned a Cabinet Minister in early May that "it only takes one crazy person", and the family has since gone public: Hanson's daughter, Tasmanian Senator Lee Hanson, says the death threats now reach three generations, including her own children.
On the public record since: a man carrying several knives was reportedly detained outside Hanson's Albury hotel on the eve of the Farrer poll, a drop down screen was smuggled onto the stage during her National Press Club address on 17 June in a breach GetUp claimed, and the NSW riot squad was deployed to a Sydney charity ball she attended. A veteran of the AFP's Close Personal Protection team told The Nightly she "should be rated as a 'high'" and given a full detail, noting "several Cabinet ministers have had CPP teams for years."
The backdrop isn't in dispute. Politicians across the parliament are getting more protection under a $150 million Commonwealth scheme, and the AFP says threats against federal MPs have nearly doubled, from 555 reports in 2021 to 2022 to 951 in 2024 to 2025. Hastie's upgrade is part of that rollout. Hanson's request for the same kind of protection is still waiting.
No upgrade to Hanson's protection has been announced, and her "events based" assessment hasn't been confirmed as changed. The AFP, by standing policy, doesn't discuss individual assessments, and Anthony Albanese says protection is decided independently by the AFP, not the government. The request sits in limbo. One frontbencher attacking One Nation has his protection. The One Nation leader, facing threats her family has taken public, is still asking.
What Hastie said about One Nation
The language was his. According to sources cited by WAtoday, Hastie told the meeting,
"I would rather get taken out in a box than bend the knee to One Nation." He's reported to have gone further, vowing: "I will never surrender to One Nation, and we will do them, and do them slowly."
He'd set the tone days earlier. In an interview with Sydney station 2GB, Hastie said of Pauline Hanson and her chief of staff James Ashby, "If Pauline Hanson and James Ashby want war, I'm going to give them war." He dismissed One Nation's online campaigning as "sugar hits", and said it was easy to "pop off on a 30 second reel" but harder to cost a policy and win an election.
It's been that kind of week for Hastie on camera. The morning UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer resigned, he went on Sky News and held a Treasury consultation paper up to the lens with one word scrawled across the cover in red marker, TOXIC, his verdict on the government's startup tax changes. As One News reported, that's the kind of paper that invites written submissions, just not in texta on the front.
One Nation's response: we're driving no campaign
One Nation rejects the premise. In a statement, the party said:
"One Nation isn't driving any campaign against Andrew Hastie. The Liberals are doing plenty of damage to themselves; they don't need our help. We make no apology for joining the many Australians who support Ben Roberts-Smith VC."
That leaves a gap between what Hastie has alleged and what's been confirmed. Burke told him he'd get extra security but, on Hastie's own account, didn't point to a specific threat. One Nation says there's no campaign to point to. What's on the record is a sitting MP tying his political opponents to a question of his own safety, and a party denying it.
The contest in Canning is real, and out in the open
Where One Nation has been open is on the politics. Ashby has flagged running a strong candidate against Hastie in his West Australian seat of Canning. The Conversation reported in May that Ashby cited 430 paid up members in the electorate, and that Canning is one of four WA seats One Nation has named as priorities, alongside Forrest, Hasluck and Pearce. That's a normal electoral contest, declared in the open, and Hastie has said he welcomes it.
Why Hastie is in One Nation's sights
Hastie is a former SAS captain and one of more than 20 current and former soldiers who gave evidence in the defamation case Roberts-Smith brought against Nine newspapers and lost. As One News has reported, he's become a target for Roberts-Smith's supporters since a Federal Court judge found in 2023 that the allegations against the Victoria Cross recipient were substantially true on the balance of probabilities.
Roberts-Smith has since been charged with five counts of the war crime of murder over the alleged killing of unarmed Afghan detainees. He denies wrongdoing, is entitled to the presumption of innocence, and the criminal matter is yet to be heard. He remains one of the country's four living Victoria Cross recipients. Hanson has publicly backed him, and One Nation says supporting him is exactly what it's doing.
The bigger picture: the Coalition is bleeding to One Nation
The fight sits on top of a problem the Coalition can't shake. One Nation has been polling ahead of the Liberals and Nationals across parts of the country, and Roberts-Smith has become a rallying point for the conservative voters the major parties are losing. Hastie, who only weeks ago branded Hanson "MAGA first", and was himself thrown out of Question Time under 94A, is now casting the same party as the force behind a threat to his safety, a charge it rejects and the government hasn't spelled out.
Hastie has said he may be called as a witness if Roberts-Smith's matter goes to a criminal trial. For now, One Nation has confirmed only two things: that it'll contest his seat, and that it backs Roberts-Smith. The promise to "do them, and do them slowly" is Hastie's own.
