There are political scandals that destroy careers. There are leadership spills. There are corruption inquiries, disastrous interviews and spectacular election-night implosions and then there is whatever Andrew Hastie has been doing on the internet since January.
What could probably have been a 24 hour argument about one parliamentary vote has somehow evolved into an eight-month political custody battle between the Member for Canning, his own former supporters, Pauline Hanson, One Nation and random Australians in Facebook comment sections.
At this point, we aren't sure whether Andrew needs a political strategist or someone to simply take his phone away for the weekend.
The whole thing began with a fairly straightforward political problem.
On 14 January, Hastie appeared on Instagram discussing Labor's proposed Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism legislation and told Australians plainly: “I'll be voting against it.” He described the proposal as an attack on freedom of conscience, speech and religion.
Six days later, Hastie voted for the legislation.
The legislation was materially changed before the final vote. The government removed proposed racial-vilification provisions and the final Criminal and Migration Laws Bill instead contained measures covering prohibited hate groups, advocacy or threats of force or violence, radicalisation of children, sentencing and migration powers. Hastie later argued that the part he had objected to had effectively been “gutted” and that he voted for the negotiated version because it was preferable to the alternative.
Rather than acknowledging that people who had watched him say “I'll be voting against it” might reasonably wonder why he subsequently voted yes, Hastie decided to fight the internet.
His Facebook response included the memorable line:
“Purity is for keyboard warriors and paid influencers.”
An interesting communications strategy when many of the “keyboard warriors” in question were the same conservative voters who had spent years liking, sharing, donating to and promoting Andrew Hastie.
The reaction was enormous. One of the most-liked responses reportedly came from fellow Afghanistan veteran Dean Parkinson, whose advice was substantially shorter than this article:
“Read the room Andrew.”
That probably would have been an excellent place for the story to end. It did not.
SOMEHOW, PAULINE HANSON ENTERED THE CHAT
By June, Hastie was publicly accusing Pauline Hanson of being “MAGA first” rather than Australia first over her position on the United States and international conflict. Then One Nation began openly targeting Canning, eventually establishing a branch inside his electorate.
By August, Hastie was discussing One Nation repeatedly in national interviews. He accused the party of being “fixated” on him, joked that he was living “rent-free in James Ashby's head”, discussed their cartoons and their campaign against him, and insisted that politics was not about “slogans or online likes”.
Which is a reasonably funny observation given how much of his political energy now appears to be consumed by slogans and things happening online.
Then came the One Nation cartoon Don't Be Hastie, published in July. The cartoon repeatedly uses the word “traitor” in relation to Hastie. Pauline Hanson says it is satire and denies personally describing Hastie as a traitor. Hastie sees the cartoon as an attack not merely on his politics but on his military service and his decision to give evidence under subpoena in the Ben Roberts-Smith defamation proceedings.
Chris reminded Hastie of the January voting controversy and specifically said:
“Your ADF career is not part of this equation, your political choices are.”
Hastie's response?
Until Chocky had taken an oath of enlistment and put his body on the line for Australia, Hastie said he might then start taking him seriously.
He finished with:
“All the best Little Chocolate, don't melt under the heat.”
There is something genuinely extraordinary about an elected federal MP responding to a constituent-style criticism of his parliamentary record by effectively saying come back when you've served in the military.
Sir, this is Instagram. More importantly, the response completely misses the point being made.
Hastie's ADF service and deployments deserves respect but neither of those things place his parliamentary voting record beyond criticism. Australians do not need an oath of enlistment before they're allowed to question an MP.
They need a vote. That's the point of the whole system.
THE GENERATIONAL CRASH OUT
Hastie publicly called Hanson and Barnaby Joyce “lying cowards”, twice for emphasis, accused them of trashing his military service and declared that One Nation had “picked a fight with the wrong veteran”. He demanded Hanson either remove the cartoon or publicly own its contents.
What began as criticism over a parliamentary vote has now spawned Facebook arguments, Instagram replies, political cartoons, interviews, demands for deletions, accusations of cowardice, military-service comparisons and a federal politician calling Big Chocky “Little Chocolate”.
This is no longer a political communications strategy. This is a generational crash out, and everyone has the popcorn ready.
THERE IS ONE PROBLEM WITH FIGHTING EVERYONE ONLINE
Canning isn’t social media, it contains actual voters and there are now some fairly sizeable warning lights flashing in Hastie's own backyard.
At the 2025 federal election Hastie received 42.52 per cent of the primary vote in Canning. He ultimately won comfortably against Labor, 56.55 to 43.45 on the two-candidate-preferred count, but One Nation's primary vote jumped 6.79 points to 11.41 per cent.
Secret Harbour sits substantially within federal Canning. At the by-election held on 29 August, One Nation's Luke Herdegen won. Once preferences were distributed, Herdegen finished with 57.19 per cent of the two-candidate-preferred vote.
That does not mean Andrew Hastie is guaranteed to lose Canning in 2028 but pretending there isn't a political warning sitting directly inside his electorate would be equally silly.
Hastie himself has acknowledged his “political mortality” and conceded that MPs ultimately have to reapply for their jobs at elections.
Correct.
Which makes his current strategy particularly strange.
When voters are frustrated about cost of living, housing, immigration, infrastructure, energy and the direction of the country, spending enormous amounts of political oxygen fighting Pauline Hanson and people in your Instagram comments may not be the killer electoral strategy somebody thinks it is.
People elected Andrew Hastie to represent Canning. They did not elect him to win the comments section.
Perhaps the greatest irony of this entire saga is that the politician who told everybody else that “politics isn't about slogans or online likes” might currently be Australia's most committed participant in an argument taking place almost entirely through slogans and online engagement.
At the current rate, we fully expect the 2028 Canning campaign to be conducted entirely in the Instagram comments beneath a Reel.
