Do we like Andrew Hastie?
Our score: 3 out of 10. He stood up in court at a cost and no personal nastiness turned up, but his votes against climate action and refugee protections pull him down.
Hastie grew up in Sydney's inner west, where his dad, a Presbyterian pastor, ran church services in English, Mandarin, Korean and Samoan. He went on to be an SAS captain with an honours degree in history, then into federal parliament as the Liberal member for Canning in Western Australia. That mix of faith, uniform and country-town conservatism is the whole brand.
His defining moment came in 2022, when he gave evidence in Ben Roberts-Smith's defamation case. He told the Federal Court that alleged war crimes came to light because “the systems have failed thus far”, and he denied he spoke up to boost his own political profile. Plenty of veterans never forgave him for it, and that is the thread behind everything that has happened this year.
The latest stoush: a One Nation cartoon on Hanson's X account called Hastie a traitor eight times. Hastie called Hanson and Barnaby Joyce “lying cowards” and said the label was a slur on veterans. Hanson says she never called him a traitor, called it satire and refused to take it down, while Joyce said he doesn't believe Hastie is one. Labor, the Greens, Jacqui Lambie and his own leader Angus Taylor all sided with him.
On the planet, his record is not good. He has called net-zero targets a “con job”, though he also said: “The climate is changing. I don't dispute that.” They Vote For You shows him consistently voting against net zero by 2035, against the Paris Agreement, against increased investment in renewables and against banning new thermal coal mines.
On people, it's mixed and a bit grim. He posted that Australians were starting to feel like “strangers in our own home” over migration, and independent MP Allegra Spender pointed to Enoch Powell's speech; a Liberal colleague rejected any suggestion of racism. He voted for tougher citizenship rules and a lifetime visa ban for boat arrivals, and his 2018 line that close-combat units are best kept “exclusively male” resurfaced in the 2025 election campaign. On LGBTQ+ issues, he voted for a same-sex marriage plebiscite and for celebrants' right to refuse, and was split on LGBTI protections; I found no recent trans comments I could open.
The good-person side is stronger. Testifying against a Victoria Cross winner was never going to win him mates in the veteran community, and he has copped a sustained pile-on for it. He's also been backed by opponents who agree on nothing else, and he walked off the frontbench in October 2025 saying he wanted to speak more freely, while still saying he supported then-leader Sussan Ley.