Labor cabinet minister Chris Bowen has delivered an extraordinary cross-party defence of Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie, calling the former SAS officer “a patriot” as pressure intensifies on Pauline Hanson to remove a One Nation cartoon repeatedly portraying him as a “traitor”.
The intervention came as Mr Hastie escalated his own attack on the One Nation leader, declaring her response to the controversy had shown she was “not up to the job of leading this nation”.
Mr Hastie said he had given Senator Hanson an opportunity to accept that the cartoon went too far or remove it from her social media accounts.
Instead, he accused her of doubling down through “cartoons and memes”.
“I’ve given her an opportunity to demonstrate to Australians that she could be a prime minister and accept that she’s wrong,” Mr Hastie said on Thursday.
“What’s she done? She’s doubled down into cartoons and memes.”
His attack came as politicians from Labor, the Coalition and the crossbench — along with Australia’s peak veterans organisation — converged on an unusually united position: whatever their political disagreements with Mr Hastie, repeatedly portraying an Afghanistan veteran as a traitor was beyond acceptable political combat.
Bowen crosses party lines to defend Hastie
Mr Bowen made clear he and Mr Hastie disagree sharply on many policy questions.
But the senior Labor minister said those disagreements did not diminish the Liberal MP’s military service.
“He is a patriot,” Mr Bowen said.
He said Mr Hastie had worn the Australian uniform and served his country in a war zone, and that service should be honoured rather than used against him.
Mr Bowen said Australians should be capable of maintaining fierce political differences while still recognising acts of service deserving respect.
“I honour the service of Andrew Hastie,” he said. “He is not a traitor to his country, he is a patriot.”
The intervention is politically notable because Mr Bowen and Mr Hastie sit on opposing sides of several of the country’s most divisive policy arguments, particularly energy and climate policy.
Mr Hastie is the Coalition’s Shadow Minister for Industry and Sovereign Capability and has been a prominent advocate for abandoning net-zero policy, while Mr Bowen has been one of the Albanese government’s leading defenders of its clean-energy transition.
Yet on the One Nation controversy, their disagreement has effectively been put aside.
Mr Bowen described “traitor” as an exceptionally loaded accusation and said the dispute reflected more poorly on Senator Hanson and One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce than on Mr Hastie.
Hastie says Hanson has failed a leadership test
Mr Hastie’s criticism has moved beyond demanding an apology or deletion of the video.
He is now using Senator Hanson’s reaction as a test of her claims to be a serious national alternative to Labor and the Coalition.
Mr Hastie has spent months arguing that if Senator Hanson wishes to present herself as a potential prime minister, One Nation must be subjected to the same scrutiny as the major parties on leadership, candidates, policy and judgment.
On Thursday, he said the cartoon controversy had provided precisely such a test.
His argument was straightforward: Senator Hanson could acknowledge the repeated “traitor” references were wrong and take down the animation, or she could explicitly defend them.
He says she has done neither.
“She’s not up to the job of leading this nation, and I think the last 24 hours has made that very clear,” Mr Hastie said.
He contrasted the seriousness of decisions made inside Parliament House with what he characterised as One Nation’s reliance on social-media entertainment.
Mr Hastie has used similar criticism against the party before, arguing that cartoons, memes and viral videos are no substitute for the detailed policy work required to govern.
The latest dispute has given that argument a deeply personal dimension.
Why the word ‘traitor’ caused such a backlash
The controversy centres on a July episode of One Nation’s animated Please Explain series titled “Don’t Be Hastie”.
The animation lampoons Mr Hastie and refers repeatedly to his cartoon character as a “traitor”. Mr Hastie says the word appears eight times.
One passage refers to his role as a witness in the Ben Roberts-Smith defamation proceedings, while another mocks his eventual support for amended federal hate and extremism legislation after he had opposed an earlier version.
Senator Hanson has insisted the animation is satire and denies personally calling Mr Hastie a traitor.
She has said explicitly that she does not regard him as a traitor and that she respects members of the Australian Defence Force.
But Mr Hastie argues that distinction is meaningless when the content was published as One Nation political material, prominently shared through Senator Hanson’s social media presence and authorised in her name.
The dispute has become particularly sensitive because Mr Hastie’s testimony concerned allegations about the conduct of Australian soldiers in Afghanistan.
He was subpoenaed to give evidence in 2022 during the civil defamation case brought by Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith against newspapers owned by Nine.
Mr Hastie has repeatedly said he regarded answering questions honestly under oath as part of his obligation to the rule of law and the standards expected of Australian soldiers.
He has argued that portraying him as disloyal for doing so also casts a shadow over the more than 20 other SAS veterans who gave evidence during the Federal Court proceedings.
Mr Roberts-Smith lost the defamation case in 2023. Findings made in that proceeding were civil findings determined on the balance of probabilities, not criminal convictions.
He is now separately facing five charges of the war crime of murder over alleged killings in Afghanistan. He denies wrongdoing and remains entitled to the presumption of innocence in those criminal proceedings.
RSL says dispute now affects every veteran
RSL Australia said on Thursday the controversy had moved beyond an ordinary fight between politicians.
The organisation said using military service as the basis for a “traitor” attack sent a damaging message to veterans who might be required to give evidence, report wrongdoing or otherwise uphold obligations that place them in conflict with former colleagues.
It warned that suggesting a veteran’s service could later be recast as betrayal for political purposes was corrosive to the broader veteran community.
For RSL Australia, the principle was not that former soldiers should be shielded from criticism.
Veterans remain accountable for their actions and their public positions.
The organisation’s concern was with connecting an accusation of treachery to somebody’s decision to give evidence under oath.
That position closely mirrors Mr Hastie’s argument that the dispute is no longer solely about his reputation.
Labor ministers join the criticism
Mr Bowen is not the only member of the Albanese government to defend a political opponent.
Resources Minister Madeleine King described Senator Hanson’s treatment of Mr Hastie as “appalling” during a News24 interview on Thursday.
Ms King, another West Australian federal MP, said she respected Mr Hastie for standing up to the attack and believed Senator Hanson should remove the video.
She described the implication against a decorated former member of the Australian Defence Force as “despicable”.
Ms King also accused Senator Hanson of attempting to distance herself from political content that remained pinned to her social media account.
Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek separately said people who had risked their lives for Australia deserved respect, while Greens senator David Shoebridge — who said he fundamentally disagreed with much of Mr Hastie’s politics — condemned attacking somebody for giving truthful evidence in court as contemptible.
The breadth of that response is unusual in an increasingly polarised federal parliament.
It has left Senator Hanson facing criticism from Labor, Liberals, Nationals, Greens, independents and veterans’ representatives at the same time.
Taylor and Canavan tell Hanson to remove it
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has also told Senator Hanson the video should come down.
Mr Taylor said Mr Hastie had served Australia with distinction as an SAS officer and repeated a direct call for Senator Hanson to remove the cartoon.
Nationals leader Matt Canavan went further, describing the use of such language against somebody who had served in the Defence Force as “contemptible”.
Mr Canavan said free speech did not provide freedom from criticism and argued that One Nation should accept responsibility for the content it had published.
The comments are significant because the Coalition is competing aggressively with One Nation for conservative voters.
One Nation has specifically targeted Mr Hastie’s WA electorate of Canning and recently won the state seat of Secret Harbour, much of which sits within his federal division.
Mr Hastie has argued for months that the Liberals cannot simply rely on One Nation preferences and must instead confront the party directly for voters.
The cartoon has now given him a cause around which senior Coalition figures can rally.
Lambie tells Hanson to leave veterans alone
Independent senator Jacqui Lambie, a former Army corporal, delivered the most furious response.
She described the cartoon as disgusting and called Senator Hanson a coward, demanding that she leave veterans alone.
Senator Lambie said attacking Mr Hastie over his military service was among the lowest forms of political conduct and urged Senator Hanson to take down the animation and apologise.
Her intervention was especially striking given that Senator Lambie and Mr Hastie are hardly natural political allies.
But like Mr Bowen, she framed the dispute around a principle extending beyond party loyalty: people who serve in the military do not surrender their obligation to tell the truth in legal proceedings simply because doing so may be unpopular.
Hanson refuses to accept Hastie’s version
Senator Hanson has continued to insist she never personally called Mr Hastie a traitor.
Entering Parliament House on Thursday, she again told reporters she had never used the term against him.
She had previously told News24 that the video was satire and said she would not delete it, dismissing the controversy as a “storm in a teacup”.
She also said she did not believe Mr Hastie was a traitor and respected his military service.
On Thursday morning, however, Senator Hanson returned publicly to questions surrounding Mr Hastie’s position on war-crimes prosecutions, using social media to call for journalists to question him about retrospective changes to Australian law.
That ensured the underlying dispute over Mr Hastie’s record was continuing even as pressure mounted for the cartoon itself to be removed.
Joyce changes tone
Barnaby Joyce has meanwhile put greater distance between himself and the video.
The former Nationals leader, who is now with One Nation, initially defended Senator Hanson’s denial and suggested Mr Hastie was reacting emotionally amid One Nation’s electoral challenge in Canning.
But by Thursday his tone had become markedly more conciliatory.
Mr Joyce said he had reached out to Mr Hastie and told him his door was open if he wanted to talk.
He maintained that he had not seen the cartoon before the controversy and said he did not regard Mr Hastie as a traitor.
That leaves Senator Hanson increasingly isolated on the central demand that triggered the row: whether the video should remain online.
Hastie rules out taking Hanson to court
Despite the strength of his language, Mr Hastie says he has no intention of launching legal proceedings.
Asked whether he would consider suing Senator Hanson, he referred to the financial backing One Nation has received from mining billionaire Gina Rinehart and said he was not wealthy enough to pursue drawn-out litigation.
Instead, he promised a political fight.
That may ultimately be the more consequential battlefield.
One Nation wants Mr Hastie’s seat. Mr Hastie wants the Liberal Party to confront Senator Hanson rather than accommodate her rise. And Senator Hanson wants Australians to view One Nation as capable of displacing the traditional parties and exercising national power.
The “traitor” cartoon has suddenly brought all three contests together.
For Mr Hastie, the question is no longer just whether Senator Hanson insulted him.
He is asking voters to judge what her refusal to retreat says about how she would behave with the responsibilities of national leadership.
And with political opponents from Chris Bowen to Jacqui Lambie now publicly defending him as the row widens, an attack designed to damage Mr Hastie may instead have given him one of the broadest displays of cross-party support of his political career.
