Independent senator Jacqui Lambie has delivered a blunt warning to Pauline Hanson, telling the One Nation leader to “leave veterans alone” after a video shared by Hanson’s party branded Liberal frontbencher and former SAS soldier Andrew Hastie a traitor.
Lambie, who also served in the military, said the attack — made in a satirical cartoon posted to Hanson’s social media — was a “massive slur” not only against Hastie but against veterans around Australia.
The latest political clash follows long-running tension linked to Hastie’s evidence in the defamation case involving Ben Roberts-Smith, the accused war criminal and Victoria Cross recipient with whom Hastie served in the SAS.
Speaking on Thursday, Lambie tore into Hanson, calling her a coward and demanding she “show some bloody courage” by apologising to Hastie.
“I’m on to you now,” Lambie told News24, looking directly into the camera as she issued her warning.
“I warned you years ago to leave my bloody veterans alone. Well, now you’ve got Lambie, and I’m absolutely fuming. That woman is disgusting,” she said.
The Tasmanian senator escalated her criticism further, describing the One Nation leader as a “10-second grub of rubbish”.
“She has never achieved one bloody thing up here,” Lambie said. “What have you actually done up here? Have you actually got anything through Parliament and been able to achieve anything with it?”
Independent senator Jacqui Lambie slammed Pauline Hanson as a coward after the One Nation leader labelled Andrew Hastie a traitor
Hanson is facing blowback from across the political spectrum for the controversial cartoon (pictured with One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce)
As of Friday morning, the cartoon sketch still remains pinned to the top of Hanson’s X account
‘She has no idea of patriotism. You don’t attack veterans, and you don’t stand like a coward behind your goddam cartoons,’ she said.
‘How they are allowed to go out over social media is beyond me because they incite hatred. They are vile. They are disgusting.
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‘Show some bloody courage and apologise to that veteran, Andrew Hastie, right now. I tell you what, these men from the Special Air Service made the SAS. Only the best of the best get in there, and, by God, they’ve got to be the toughest. And the country asks them to do so much more than anybody else can imagine.’
Lambie’s comments come after politicians of all stripes closed ranks around Hastie this week.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor was the most prominent figure to spring to Hastie’s defence on Thursday, touting his colleague’s military record and again demanding the One Nation leader remove the video.
‘Andrew Hastie has served this country with distinction as an officer in the SAS. She should take it down,’ Taylor said.
Later, during a speech before Question Time commemorating the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the Liberal leader again alluded to Hastie’s service during the global War on Terror.
‘I take this opportunity to acknowledge all our warfighters who served … in that necessary and noble cause over many years, patriots like the member for Canning (Hastie),’ he said.
Hastie retaliated to the cartoon by calling Hanson ‘glass-jawed’, branding her and One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce ‘lying cowards’ after she refused to take down the sketch
An unlikely coalition of politicians, including staunch adversaries, has also stepped up to defend the conservative Liberal frontbencher.
‘I think how Pauline Hanson has treated Andrew Hastie is appalling,’ Labor minister Madeleine King told News24 on Thursday, echoing calls for the senator to take down the video.
The attack on a decorated member of the Australian Defence Force was ‘despicable’, she said.
King condemned the One Nation leader for backing away from the traitor label on Wednesday, when she said the cartoon was satire and accused Hastie of ‘making a mountain out of a molehill’.
‘She’s just got this habit of gaslighting … What she is doing is accusing someone of one of the most serious things you possibly can,’ she said.
Greens senator David Shoebridge, who declared he would ‘go out and fight Hastie on pretty much every one of his political opinions’, also delivered an impassioned rebuke of Hanson.
‘I can’t work out how any political party can stand by an attack on somebody because they go into court and tell the truth as they understand it,’ he told News24.
‘It’s actually pretty f***ing disgraceful.’
The spat comes as the Coalition seeks to neutralise a surge in support for Hanson’s populist party, which has captured a significant share of the right-wing vote, particularly in regional and rural Australia.
The WA state seat of Secret Harbour, which sits within Hastie’s federal electorate, was the latest seat to flip to One Nation at an August by-election, as the anti-immigration party targets Coalition-held electorates.
