Updated ,first published
Independent senator and veteran Jacqui Lambie has labelled Pauline Hanson a “bloody maggot” and urged former defence personnel not to vote for her, as politicians across the political spectrum swing in behind Andrew Hastie in his escalating stoush with One Nation.
Lambie demanded on Thursday that Hanson take down an episode of One Nation’s Please Explain cartoon that the party leader has posted on social media. The cartoon labels Hastie, a former SAS captain, a traitor for testifying in accused war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith’s failed defamation action against this masthead.
In a slew of interviews this week, Hastie has branded Hanson a “lying coward” after she denied calling him a traitor, and accused her of politicising the saga to the point of risking a fair trial as Roberts-Smith faces war crimes charges. Hanson has said she did not think Hastie was a traitor, but refused to take the animation down, insisting it was satire.
Lambie, who served in the army for more than a decade, said Hanson was the “lowest bit of life” for attacking a veteran.
“What [Hanson’s] doing in those cartoons is absolutely disgusting. They are full of bloody violence. I mean, how people can watch that rubbish is beyond me,” Lambie told ABC radio.
“That woman is nothing less than a bloody coward. She always has been, and she always will be. She wouldn’t last one day in that goddamn uniform. Leave our veterans alone.”
Lambie urged former defence personnel not to vote for Hanson.
“Don’t you forget she held us off for that royal commission for months,” she said.
“Her true colour’s starting to shine now … any veteran out there thinking about voting for One Nation or standing for them, I tell you what, you had better think twice.”
In a separate interview on News24, an emotional Lambie accused Hanson of trying to grab attention without ever achieving anything of substance. “She’s finished, I’m onto you now,” Lambie said.
“Anybody that hides behind a cartoon and goes after a veteran and calls them… paranoid traitor, and a washed-up gutless maggot – I have to say, you’re a bloody maggot yourself, and you’re a coward.”
The federal police have upgraded Hastie’s security at his home and office over threats to his safety amid an online campaign after he told the Federal Court in 2022 that it was a “fairly well-established rumour” that Roberts-Smith had kicked an unarmed person off a cliff in Afghanistan, and had a reputation as a bully among the ranks.
Labor frontbencher Madeleine King also leapt to Hastie’s defence, commending him for standing up to Hanson and labelling the accusation despicable.
“I think how Pauline Hanson has treated Andrew Hastie is appalling – one of the more appalling things I have seen in my whole career,” she told News24.
“I’m not going to repeat the claim. I think it’s disgusting.”
King criticised Hanson for not taking responsibility for levelling “one of the most serious” accusations at Hastie.
“She’s just got this habit of gaslighting. Saying one thing, doing another thing, and then pretending it never happened, and that’s unacceptable,” King said.
As the Coalition grapples with how to combat Hanson’s rise, Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said the cartoon should be taken down.
“Andrew Hastie served this country with distinction as a member of the special forces of the SAS … I think [the cartoon is] wrong,” he said at a press conference on Thursday.
Hastie said on Thursday Hanson’s argument that she had never called him a traitor was “BS”.
“She posted it and pinned it on her X account, and she authorised it,” he said. “So to play dumb is just ridiculous.”
Hastie said Hanson was not fit to be prime minister, and that the minor party leader’s angry appearance on News24 (formerly Sky News) on Wednesday was evidence she was not leadership material.
“She showed herself to be brittle. She’s happy to make cartoons that are highly defamatory of other people, and then as soon as she gets a bit of pushback she goes to water,” Hastie said.
Hastie told 2GB he was speaking up now after enduring “five months of abuse from these people” and after he learned that he was unlikely to be called as a witness in Roberts-Smith’s coming war crimes trial.
He will not be pursuing legal action because Hanson was backed by mining billionaire Gina Rinehart – a staunch defender of Roberts-Smith.
“Why would I walk into a fight that I can’t win financially? But yes, I’m going to impose costs politically,” he told Radio National.
Asked by this masthead how much he believed One Nation’s attacks on him were driven by Rinehart’s influence, Hastie said: “That’s a question for Pauline Hanson. Suffice to say, she enjoys a good time with Gina Rinehart.”
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Brittany Busch is a federal politics reporter for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.
Emily Kaine is a national news blogger at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.From our partners
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