Sam Hawley: He’s been seen as leadership material ever since he entered the parliament a decade ago. But are Andrew Hastie’s far-right leanings that have brought the likes of Nigel Farage to prominence in the UK an attraction for voters here? Today, Tony Barry, a former Liberal Party strategist and director at Redbridge Group, on Andrew Hastie’s resignation from the Coalition frontbench and whether it’s a move that will pay off. I’m Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily. Tony, let’s chat first about who Andrew Hastie is, his background and really what he stands for. Before he entered politics, of course, he was a Special Forces soldier. He apparently signed up to the Defence Force after the attack on the Twin Towers in 2001.
Andrew Hastie: I remember watching it unfold on television that night. Terror had touched my life and entered my personal world. I had to respond.
Sam Hawley: So he had a lengthy time in the military, didn’t he?
Tony Barry: Yeah, he’s not your white bread sort of cookie cutter politician. He’s got a very diverse background, a very interesting background. I think his mother worked in childcare and his father was a pastor and he travelled around Australia a fair bit as they moved for his father’s job. So he’s not your silver spoon sort of liberal that some people perceive liberals to be. And of course, he served in combat which makes him quite unique.
Sam Hawley: Yeah, in Afghanistan, of course. It was in 2015 that he swapped his military attire for a political suit. One of his key allies back then, of course, was Tony Abbott, wasn’t it?
Tony Barry: Yeah, he came in at the passing of the late Don Randall in the seat of Canning in 2015. And I think that by-election was just before Tony Abbott lost the prime ministership.
Tony Abbott, former PM: I’m very proud to be standing shoulder to shoulder with Andrew Hastie. I am happy to take every opportunity that I can to stand next to this absolutely outstanding Australian.
Tony Barry: I think he had quite a few mentors and certainly in Western Australia, he got along well with Matthias Cormann and Julie Bishop, who were both the most senior figures at the time. But yeah, he was seen as sort of having a bright future. So he sort of made friends very fast in the little party.
Sam Hawley: Yeah, all right. So he entered politics a decade ago. Very early on, he was talking about leadership. He was even doing that in his maiden speech.
Andrew Hastie: I thank the regiment for their support and for those officers and soldiers who have invested time in me to improve me both as a person and as a leader. You know who you are, who dares wins.
Sam Hawley: Do you think he saw himself as a potential leader, even from the beginning of his political career?
Tony Barry: I remember Amanda Vanstone in sort of 25 years ago, as a senator saying, all the House of Reps, they all see themselves as a future prime minister one day. And I think that’s very true. But obviously, you know, he showed leadership skills in the military. So I don’t think that that’s a misplaced confidence at all. But I think probably what was sort of quite influential on his political career was in 2022, where the Morrison government lost and he had a massive swing against him of around 8%. He hung on to his seat, but it was become a very marginal seat. And of course, he improved his margin the last election, 2025. And so I think that’s kind of influenced a lot of his thinking and his behaviour. Subsequently, he’s very focused on his seat and he understands his seat very well.
Sam Hawley: He can be quite controversial, can’t he? I mean, he said that women should not serve in combat roles in the military. He abstained from the same sex marriage vote.
Andrew Hastie: My personal view is that the fighting DNA of a close combat unit is best preserved when it’s exclusively male. I am personally opposed to same sex marriage. But I’m very much in favour of the Australian people having a popular vote to decide this crucial issue.
Sam Hawley: Very recently, of course, he said he’d quit the front bench if the coalition didn’t abandon net zero.
Andrew Hastie: I mean, everyone is whispering that anyway, so I may as well just say it out loud. I’ve nailed my colours to the mast. I went on Four Corners and I said the net zero policy is a straitjacket for our economy and our country. And I believe that.
Sam Hawley: Is that a key to why his electorate likes him?
Tony Barry: Well, I think we’re in an era where voters crave authenticity, even if it’s not something that might be considered a popular view. But at least you’ve got a view and it’s a strong view and you articulate it. So I think he gets a reward for that. But he’s certainly someone who I think he recognises he’s got to expand his portfolio interests beyond just being the military guy. And there’s been a lot of briefings in the media about how he wanted to get into a more economic portfolio, which of course would give him greater credentials to potentially run for the leadership down the track.
Sam Hawley: Would you say that he sits on the far right in terms of the political spectrum?
Tony Barry: Yeah, I think that’s a fair characterisation.
News reader: The federal Liberal MP Andrew Hastie has quit the shadow cabinet because of a disagreement about immigration policy.
Andrew Hastie: I thought it was time for me to depart because essentially, I want to be able to speak about immigration, which I think is a critical issue for a lot of Australians at the moment.
News report: And while he says policy is at the heart of the matter, Sussan Ley’s recollection differs. In a statement, she says Mr Hastie did not raise any matters relating to policy on this call.
Sam Hawley: Well, last Friday, of course, he did quit the front bench and immediately the thought of all commentators was leadership, that leadership was in his mind, that he would challenge Sussan Ley, even if he was insisting that he wouldn’t. So do you think that is ultimately what he is after here?
Tony Barry: Well, I think they’re all after leadership at some point and positioning is incredibly important. But I do feel that if he was wanting the leadership sooner rather than later, you know, he’s sort of jumped the gun a little bit too early in that regard. I think you need to show a little bit more patience if that’s his short-term game. I think the longer-term game would be to sit down and start sort of broadening your portfolio interests.
Sam Hawley: All right. Well, he has been described, Tony, as a de facto leader of the so-called MAGA right of the Liberal Party. He does advocate for Australia first and, you know, he campaigns on the threat to Western values, right? We can see that after the assassination of Charlie Kirk in the United States and comments he made after that, including on Sky News.
Andrew Hastie: Charlie Kirk’s political assassination was designed to silence us all. He was willing to step out into the arena and engage with his opponents. And he was doing that very thing when he was cut down by a sniper’s bullet.
Sam Hawley: Just tell me about that. Just tell me about his thinking in that regard.
Tony Barry: Yeah, I think the problem with that kind of pitch is that it’s to a very narrow part of the electorate. You know, I think one of the most important things for the Liberal Party to remember is that we’re a broad church, not an actual church. And the electorate is very different to what it was when John Howard was prime minister. Now, John Howard was a great prime minister and a very successful one. But I think a lot of people pull out the 2004 John Howard playbook and think that can make it relevant today. Well, Australia’s a very different electorate. Harking back to that era and sort of thinking you can dust off the old playbook and make it relevant today is not going to fly. And that sort of nostalgia for the Australia that existed in 2004 is just not relevant anymore to most voters. And you can talk about, you know, starting up an Australians for an Australian Australia and, you know, getting to this very pro-nationalistic sort of message to the electorate. But it’s a very diverse electorate now. And there’s a big Indian community in Australia who, quite frankly, that’s stereotyping, should be voting Liberal. They’re great wealth accumulators, very hardworking. They want choice. They want choice in education. They want choice in health. These are all Liberal values. And as a Liberal, I find it incredibly frustrating that we haven’t better reached into these communities and articulated our values and aligned them with their values. This very lazy policy development about, oh, we’re going to criminalise anyone who burns a flag. No voter’s going to vote on that. And what we’re seeing in a lot of our polling and research right now is the coalition, the Liberal Party in particular, is really struggling in the Gen Z and Millennial cohorts, which is basically any voter up to the age of 45. In both those cohorts, the coalition and our most recent polling are polling 18% amongst Gen Z, which is catastrophic, and around 25% with Millennials. Now, at the next federal election, the projections are that about 47, 48% of the electoral roll will be Gen Z and Millennial. So almost half the electoral roll.
Sam Hawley: Well, let’s look then, Tony, at whether someone like Andrew Hastie might make them competitive in those cohorts. The message, of course, after the election for the coalition was that the party really needed to move towards the centre, that MAGA, far right, does not work here. Do you think that’s still the case, that Gen Z and Millennials don’t want that?
Tony Barry: I think there’s a couple of different things at play here. When people talk about Reform, Nigel Farage and MAGA and so forth, one of the big differences between Australia and the United States and United Kingdom is they have voluntary voting. And so the last elections, there was just under 60% in both constituencies. I think 57% in the UK, 59% in America, I think. But both were under 60%. So 40% of the electorate didn’t even vote. In Australia, because of compulsory voting, you get around 91, 92% of the electorate will vote. You know, 8% won’t turn up on the day. And so therefore, you need to pitch to the centre a lot more than these other jurisdictions. In the UK and the United States, there is a very large cohort of what we call news avoiders or disengaged voters who just, they sort of feel there’s no difference between each major party and they don’t turn up to vote. In Australia, you can’t ignore or gloss over that middle cohort or the news avoiders. You need to pitch your message and your policies across the whole 92% of the electoral roll that are voting. And so people get confused with this sort of what we’re seeing in the United States and the United Kingdom and sort of think, well, you know, let’s do that here in Australia. Well, that’s not going to fly because, you know, you’re pitching a message to a very narrow section of the electoral roll where you actually need, you know, we’re in the game of getting 50 plus 1%.
Sam Hawley: So people like Andrew Hastie then would be in the wilderness, wouldn’t they? You’re sort of suggesting there that there’s no way if he went down Nigel Farage’s path and set up a far right populist group here that that would succeed. There’s no way that that could succeed here. So where has he left himself at this point?
Tony Barry: Well, I think, again, this is one of the misunderstandings of some of those who advocate for a similar sort of MAGA- Reform type movement here in Australia, the so-called cultural wars. But the bottom line is that across all demographics, cost of living and housing is the number one issue. The number one issue of the younger voters, including their parents and grandparents in our focus group research, is housing attainability and their ability to get into the housing market. That’s the biggest driver of their vote considerations, not some of these sort of cultural war issues. I think what some members of the Liberal Party are forgetting is that they actually need to win government and then they can start implementing some of these so-called cultural issues that they think is important. But this is what Labor does. They make sure they win the election, get into government, and then they pursue some of these issues that they’re particularly interested in that, you know, sort of aren’t as salient as the economic management.
Sam Hawley: All right. So for the opposition, for Sussan Ley, should they just say this is all just noise and continue down the same path that they’re currently on? It matters, doesn’t it, Tony, because oppositions in democracy, they need to be strong. They’re vital.
Tony Barry: Yeah, absolutely. And I think Sussan Ley, to her credit, I mean, she hasn’t been given much opportunity. And I think, you know, they smashed the Kingswood. They tossed the car keys to Susan Lee and said, there you go, you know, she’s all yours. And what, six months later, they’re sort of, you know, well, you know, is it roadworthy? Yeah, it’s not roadworthy. Well, no, of course it’s not going to be roadworthy. It’s, you know, been totalled. It’s going to take a long time to get the roadworthy certificate for this car. And that’s going to require, you know, going back to basics, articulating a vision, showing what your values are and making them relevant to voters.
Sam Hawley: Tony Barry is a former Liberal Party strategist and director at Redbridge Group. This episode was produced by Sydney Pead and Jessica Lukjanow. Audio production by Sam Dunn. Our supervising producer is David Coady. I’m Sam Hawley. To get in touch with the team, please email us on abcnewsdaily@abc.net.au. Thanks for listening.