Liberal MP Andrew Hastie has branded Pauline Hanson "MAGA first". The Sydney Morning Herald has decided he's the cure. Both landed the same week Newspoll showed One Nation overtaking Labor on primary vote for the first time in the survey's 41 year history.

The Newspoll, published in The Australian on 8 June, had the following:

One Nation on 31%,
Labor on 30%
Coalition on 18%.

It's the first time since Newspoll began in 1985 that both major parties have come in under 50% combined. Anthony Albanese's net approval has hit its lowest since the 2022 election, with 60% of voters dissatisfied.

The number Hastie decided not to talk about

18%.

That's where the Coalition is sitting in the same Newspoll Hastie used to lecture Pauline Hanson. It's the lowest figure the Liberal Party and Nationals have ever returned since the survey began. And the Liberal Party's most outspoken media performer this week spent it talking about Pauline Hanson instead.

Angus Taylor's open door

Today, Opposition Leader Angus Taylor told reporters the Coalition would work with anyone to defeat Labor and did not rule out a preference deal with One Nation. But Hastie decided to spend the same week calling Hanson "MAGA first" on the front of the SMH.

The leader is chasing the voters. The deputy is chasing the cameras. The first loyalty Hastie keeps invoking turns out to be to Andrew Hastie.

Hastie's week

Last Wednesday, Hastie was thrown out of Question Time under Standing Order 94A for heckling Defence Minister Richard Marles. Speaker Milton Dick noted he'd ruled in the Opposition's favour on a point of order when Hastie started up.

Five days later, the Liberal MP was on the front of the Sydney Morning Herald telling the masthead's readers:

"Pauline Hanson's problem is that she is MAGA first, even when the Australian people suffer the economic consequences. Our first loyalty must be to the Australian people," Hastie added. "Not to international institutions, not to ideology like MAGA, but to the Australian people, first and foremost'' - Andrew Hastie, Shadow Minister for Industry and Sovereign Capability

The masthead ran the headline "More Hastie, less need for Hanson" the same day. Deputy Liberal leader Jane Hume called One Nation "a grievance party that delivers slogans but not solutions" on Sky News. Anthony Albanese called One Nation "populism and opportunism without answers". Three parties, one talking point, all of it pointed at the party gaining ground and deflecting rather than the parties losing it.

The defence file Hastie didn't read

Hastie hasn't been shadow Defence Minister since Dutton lost the May 2025 election. Sussan Ley took the leadership and moved him to Home Affairs. He quit Home Affairs in October, saying he had been excluded from writing the immigration policy, sat on the backbench for four months, and was rescued in February by Angus Taylor with Industry, Sovereign Capability and a custom-built Deputy Liberal Leader title in the House to keep him in the room.

Two consecutive Liberal leaders have looked at the SAS veteran with three years as Dutton's Shadow Defence Minister and chosen someone else. Sussan Ley gave the brief to Angus Taylor. Angus Taylor, on becoming leader himself, gave it to James Paterson.

The MAGA jibe at Hanson made the front page anyway.

There's a small detail about the jibe. Pauline Hanson's signature slogan is "MAGA - Make Australia Great Again". She launched it last year, defended it at Willowbank Raceway in April, and reaffirmed it on national radio backing Jacinta Nampijinpa Price's use of the same phrase. Hanson's MAGA, in her own words, is Australia first.

Hastie's complaint is that Hanson is "MAGA first". In Hanson's usage, MAGA stands for ''Make Australia Great Again.'' Hastie looked at the four letters on a One Nation slogan and decided the A in the middle still meant America when applied to a Queensland senator running on putting Australia first. He then added that "our first loyalty must be to the Australian people", which is what the slogan he was attacking actually says. The Liberal MP can't decode a four letter acronym written for him by the senator he's attacking with it.

Image: AshPolitik's take on Hastie's MAGA jibe, with the acronym defined as "Make American Great Again". The Liberal MP isn't the only one struggling with it.

The jibe also missed what the close ally has actually been doing. The Trump administration captured Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela in January, closed the Strait of Hormuz on Beijing's largest single source of cheap crude in February, expanded sanctions on Cuba's Chinese-aligned intelligence apparatus in May, and is currently building the trade architecture to lock China out of the South American lithium and rare earths supply chains the next century's technology runs on. We mapped the full picture in Trump's Real War: Dismantling China's Global Energy Network. Allied access to that architecture is what being "a close ally" actually buys an Australian government in 2026.

The Coalition's defence voice of last resort spent the past month on morning television talking about Pauline Hanson instead. He's also the best they've got.

The pattern

This is not the Liberal MP's first contribution to Coalition communications in the past 12 months.

Roberts-Smith. Hastie gave evidence for the defence in Ben Roberts-Smith's defamation case. He also featured in the 2023 Stan documentary Revealed: Ben Roberts-Smith - Truth on Trial, the feature length film made in collaboration with the same Nine newspapers BRS was suing. The Federal Court found, on the civil standard, that the war crimes imputations carried by the Nine newspapers were substantially true. That finding was upheld on appeal. Roberts-Smith is now facing separate criminal proceedings on five counts of the war crime of murder. Those charges remain before the courts. Roberts-Smith is presumed innocent.

One Nation has campaigned on the issue. James Ashby, Pauline Hanson's top adviser, delivered what The Conversation described as "a very direct political threat" to Hastie earlier this year. One Nation's corflutes in the Farrer byelection, which the party won in May, read: "He fought for us. One Nation stands with him."

The antisemitism bill. Earlier this year, Hastie said he couldn't support the original draft of the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026. He then voted for the amended version once the clauses he objected to had been stripped out. Two positions, one bill, in the space of a fortnight.

Frontbench shuffles. A short recap of Hastie's positions since the May 2025 election:

  • Shadow Defence Minister under Peter Dutton
  • Shadow Home Affairs under Sussan Ley
  • Quit Ley's shadow cabinet in October over immigration policy
  • Ruled himself out of the leadership contest after admitting he didn't have the numbers
  • Now Shadow Minister for Industry and Sovereign Capability under Angus Taylor

Four positions in nine months. Innovation Aus described the move to Industry as a demotion.

What the voters appear to be responding to

The press gallery wants Australians to believe One Nation is an American import. The voters appear to have different receipts.

  • Real wages are down 3% under Albanese, on Liberal Party figures from last week's Fair Work Commission decision
  • GDP per capita has gone backwards in 10 of the last 15 quarters, on ABS data
  • The Housing Accord is on track to fall 262,000 dwellings short of its own target
  • First home buyer 90 day mortgage arrears are at a seven month high, on Equifax data
  • Sydney prices are falling because borrowing capacity has been squeezed by APRA

None of that has anything to do with Donald Trump. None of it is fixed by Andrew Hastie branding Pauline Hanson "MAGA first".

The audit

Barnaby Joyce defected from the Nationals to One Nation in December. David Farley took Farrer for One Nation in May, becoming the first One Nation candidate ever elected to the House of Representatives. Newspoll now has the party ahead of both Labor and the Coalition on primary vote.

The pattern repeats below the federal line. Earlier this week, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan accused Hanson of choosing to "barrack for the bullies" over One Nation's billboards calling for Allan to be "ditched". Hanson's substantive point, which Allan didn't engage with, was Victoria's record state debt, rising crime and the corruption allegations that put the CFMEU's construction division into administration last year. Allan called it bullying. The Newspoll the same week suggested voters were seeing it differently.

The Liberals aren't being outsmarted by Pauline Hanson. They're being audited by the voters they spent a decade ignoring. Federal Labor calls One Nation populism. The federal Liberals call it MAGA. The Victorian Premier calls it bullying. The voters are calling it the only party currently telling the truth about the bills.

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