Andrew Hastie Undermines WA Liberals as One Nation Mounts Major Secret Harbour Campaign

In a sharp attack published in The Australian Financial Review, Andrew Hastie has demanded the WA Liberals "run to win, not to help someone else win the seat" in Secret Harbour. His intervention comes just eight days after he insisted on ABC Afternoon Briefing that the by-election was "really a question for Roger Cook and for Basil Zempilas to answer," exposing raw internal fractures as One Nation mounts an aggressive push inside his local electorate.

Hastie calls the by-election a test for Basil Zempilas, with the booths already open

In an extraordinary act of friendly fire against his own party, Andrew Hastie slammed the WA Liberal apparatus in The Australian Financial Review on Tuesday, publicly undermining their strategy for the 29 August contest. Rather than backing the party workers and volunteers on the ground, political correspondent Tom Rabe reported that Hastie warned the Liberals against helping One Nation just to hurt Labor.

"My issue is with campaigning and messaging. We should always strive to win, and we should signal that ambition to our voters," Hastie told the paper. "If you're on the ground in a byelection, then you run to win, not to help someone else win the seat. We should never, ever indicate to voters that we are not fully committed to the fight."

Throwing state leader Basil Zempilas under the bus, Hastie declared: "This is a test for Basil Zempilas and the state opposition. I think it would be disappointing if we don't improve our position because of the swings that we've had over the last few elections in Secret Harbour." Demanding a "decent" Liberal primary vote, Hastie claimed he warned Liberal branches in January to start preparing, shifting the target back onto government: "This is an 11-year Labor government, it's increasingly unpopular in the outer metropolitan areas, especially in the regional areas, and we've known about this potential byelection since Christmas."

Adding insult to injury for local branch members, Hastie lobbed these criticisms into a Sydney financial masthead well after early voting began. The WA Electoral Commission opened doors on Monday 17 August at 7 Sunlight Drive, Port Kennedy and at its Perth office. By 4.15pm that day, election officials had issued 6,164 postal votes, received 3,158 back, and taken 1,155 early votes in person, already eclipsing the 3,843 postal votes issued across the entire 2025 election. Thousands of local Secret Harbour ballots were already cast while Hastie was busy sniping at his own team in the national press.

On 10 August he said the result was a question for Roger Cook and Basil Zempilas

To add insult to injury for his own party and in a stark display of political hypocrisy, Andrew Hastie was singing a completely different tune just eight days before taking to The Australian Financial Review to lecture his own colleagues. On his official website, Hastie published the transcript of his 10 August interview on ABC's Afternoon Briefing with Patricia Karvelas, where he explicitly dodged ownership of the Secret Harbour contest. "It's not a federal election, it's a state election. The result will reflect on the parties involved at the state level, so it's really a question for Roger Cook and for Basil Zempilas to answer," Hastie insisted, actively steering the conversation away when asked if a One Nation victory would trouble him.

Instead of fighting for his local candidates, Hastie used the national airwaves to brush off One Nation’s relentless personal attacks against him. "I'm obviously living rent-free in James Ashby's head, and I wouldn't be surprised if he spent some of that money on the cartoon he made about me. I'm flattered," he scoffed. "They seem to be fixated with me at the moment, making cartoons and devoting all this energy to taking me out when apparently they're all about getting rid of the Albanese Government."

This public posturing exposes Hastie’s transparent opportunistic streak. When Prime Minister Anthony Albanese praised Hastie’s war on One Nation during Question Time in July, One News highlighted where the MP’s true campaigning priorities lie. On 10 August, Hastie conveniently declared the Secret Harbour by-election completely outside his remit, only to execute a total U-turn on 18 August in the financial press, barging back into state politics to slap down his own party.

Missing in Action: Hastie Erases His Own Candidate

A true leader stands in the trenches with their team, but Andrew Hastie has been completely missing in action in supporting local Liberals on the ground. A review of the news page on Hastie’s official website highlights this striking absenteeism, listing nine separate media updates since 28 July without a single mention of Secret Harbour, the upcoming by-election, or Liberal candidate Ryan Robertson. While local campaigners work the doors, Hastie has focused his public footprint on statements regarding the Tomago smelter, Bell Bay, and Whyalla, a joint release on net zero, two 2GB transcripts on national energy policy, his Karvelas interview, a Sky News appearance, and a 3 August media release concerning Karnup station.

The Karnup station release represents the absolute closest Hastie comes to the local district, yet even that serves primarily to stake his own political claim to a project Labor first promised in 2013. Premier Roger Cook announced the $156 million commitment four weeks out from polling day, a deal involving just $10 million in actual current allocations, half the funding tied to future land sales, and $78 million requested from the Commonwealth, with construction pushed out to 2028.

While Hastie self-righteously lectured his party in The Australian Financial Review that the Liberals must "signal that ambition to our voters," his own actions tell a very different story. Throughout the entire campaign, Ryan Robertson’s name has not appeared a single time on the news page of Hastie's website, exposing a complete lack of leadership when his local team needed him most.

Faking the Comeback: How Internal Spin Masked Hastie's Stagnant Vote

Internal Liberal documents expose an astounding level of self-delusion, falsely crediting Andrew Hastie with driving a voter surge that actually belonged to One Nation. According to The Australian Financial Review, a party briefing document circulated to state members touted a buoyant "rebound in support" across Secret Harbour polling booths, insisting that "Federal election results demonstrate a significant recovery in support for the Liberal Party across the Secret Harbour state electorate, with Andrew achieving swings towards the Liberals in every suburb in 2025."

The Australian Electoral Commission's official figures for Canning break that swing down, as One News reported when One Nation opened its Canning branch in Mandurah this month.

Official Australian Electoral Commission data tells a completely different story. As One News reported during One Nation’s local branch launch in Mandurah, Hastie’s own primary vote recorded a paltry 0.95% rise to 42.52%. The heavy lifting was done entirely by voters fleeing Labor, whose primary vote collapsed 5.08% down to 29.90% and flocking to One Nation’s Fernando Bove, who picked up a massive 6.79% swing from a standing start to hit 11.41%. The 5.35% two-party preferred margin that Liberal apparatchiks are celebrating as a Hastie triumph was artificially inflated by preference flows from the very party Hastie spends his time attacking.

Humiliated at Home: State Liberals Ignore Hastie Posturing

Andrew Hastie's aggressive rhetoric against One Nation has collapsed into empty posturing after his own state party explicitly ignored his demands. Barely two months after declaring in his June newsletter that preferencing One Nation signals weakness and urging Liberals to only act from a position of strength, Hastie has been completely overridden. His Sun Tzu quoting newsletter and his dramatic promise to the federal party room where he claimed he would rather get taken out in a box than bend the knee to One Nation and vowed to do them, and do them slowly proved to be nothing more than cheap theatre.

On 25 July, the WA Liberal state executive delivered a direct snub to Hastie by placing One Nation candidate Luke Herdegen third on the official Secret Harbour preference card, relegating the Labor candidate to tenth. State Director Simon Morgan defended the card as standard party approach over three state election cycles, while The Australian Financial Review noted that Basil Zempilas and senior party figures firmly backed the pragmatic strategy that damaging Labor is the primary goal of the opposition.

Now, with just 11 days until polling day, Hastie is publicly attacking the very strategy his colleagues finalised three weeks ago. By fighting a lost internal battle in the media, Hastie is not showing strength. He is exposing his total inability to command authority within his own party.

Bleeding Base: Frustrated Voters Turn to One Nation

The chaos within Liberal ranks has left local candidate Ryan Robertson fighting for survival as conservative voters defect to One Nation. Robertson conceded to The Australian Financial Review that doorstep conversations reflect deep cynicism toward established political parties. He revealed that voters outside of die hard Labor loyalists are demanding to know why they should vote Liberal over One Nation, with many concluding that both political parties have had their chance, done no good, and that voters might as well take a gamble on One Nation because things cannot get worse.

This widespread disaffection has effectively erased the Liberals from serious contention in the eyes of their rivals. Labor candidate Georgia Tree remarked that the contest is not even three cornered because the Liberals fail to come up in conversation on the doors. Taking advantage of the collapse in major party credibility, One Nation candidate Luke Herdegen described a proxy war between Anthony Albanese and Pauline Hanson, highlighting a surge in support among union members. WA One Nation leader Rod Caddies agreed, highlighting how traditional west coast union bases and FIFO industry workers are openly making the switch to One Nation.

Judgment Day in Canning: The High Stakes Fight for Secret Harbour

The final verdict on 29 August will land directly in Andrew Hastie's backyard, carrying major implications for his own federal seat. With 72% of Secret Harbour sitting inside the federal electorate of Canning, One Nation has treated this state contest as a direct dry run to unseat Hastie himself.

The party signalled its intentions early by opening a brand new Canning branch in Mandurah on 8 August, putting state leader Rod Caddies on the frontline of the campaign. Meanwhile, Labor is leaving nothing to chance, expected to spend up to the legal maximum of nearly $420,000 on intense online advertising and door knocking over 17,000 homes. That massive spend includes controversial social media ads targeting One Nation on Medicare, which One News recently fact checked for claiming a party founded in 1997 has always opposed a scheme created in the 1980s.

Beyond policy battles, Hastie continues to draw heavy fire from One Nation supporters over the evidence he gave against Ben Roberts-Smith, one of only four living Victoria Cross recipients, in the defamation case against Nine. One Nation has made no apology for standing with Roberts-Smith, who denies the war crimes allegations against him, is entitled to the presumption of innocence and is yet to have his day in court. With Labor holding Secret Harbour on an 11.5% margin across a crowded ballot of 16 candidates, every preference flow counts.

Hastie publicly admitted to The Australian Financial Review that One Nation's rise is a national phenomenon concentrated in outer metropolitan and regional areas. Secret Harbour and Canning fit that exact profile, meaning when voters deliver their verdict on 29 August, they will be counting the true cost of Hastie's political gambits.