{"id":168598,"date":"2025-09-25T17:51:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T17:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/168598\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T17:51:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T17:51:09","slug":"future-liberal-leader-or-party-disruptor-andrew-hastie-and-the-rise-of-the-maga-right-australian-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/168598\/","title":{"rendered":"Future Liberal leader or party disruptor? Andrew Hastie and the rise of the \u2018MAGA right\u2019 | Australian politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the Sunday before he was overthrown as prime minister in September 2015, Tony Abbott<\/a> sweated through a gym workout with his candidate in the upcoming Canning byelection, Andrew Hastie.<\/p>\n

Hastie, who went on to win the seat<\/a> on the southern outskirts of Perth despite the political chaos of the days preceding it, took the opportunity to ask for Abbott\u2019s advice on leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked him about leadership and he said, \u2018Look, I never sought the leadership actively \u2013 but I always put myself in striking distance\u2019,\u201d the Liberal MP told a business event<\/a> in November 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the way to look at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rise of the \u2018MAGA-right\u2019<\/p>\n

A decade on from that conversation with Abbott, with whom he remains close, the former Special Air Services (SAS) captain is putting himself within striking distance of the Liberal party<\/a> leadership.<\/p>\n

Or at least that is how some of his colleagues interpret the personal crusades Hastie has launched since the federal election, including a public threat to quit the shadow frontbench if the Liberals re-committed to net zero by 2050 and freelancing on manufacturing and immigration policy.<\/p>\n

Hastie has denied his interventions amount to a leadership pitch, insisting he supports Sussan Ley<\/a> and anyone suggesting otherwise is being \u201cmischievous\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n

His actions have split Coalition MPs, widening the divisions created after Ley won the leadership and which were inflamed following Jacinta Nampijinpa Price\u2019s sacking from the frontbench for refusing to back the opposition leader.<\/p>\n

Hastie has emerged as a defacto leader of what some insiders describe as the \u201cMAGA right\u201d of the Liberal party, a small but noisy insurgent force attempting to drag it down a populist path.<\/p>\n

After not contesting the post-election leadership ballot, some colleagues \u2013 including friends and allies \u2013 are perplexed and frustrated at Hastie\u2019s apparent pre-positioning, which they see as not just distracting for the party but damaging for his own long-term aspirations.<\/p>\n

His decision to publicly admonish anonymous colleagues briefing against him in the media \u2013 labelling them \u201cnameless cowards\u201d and \u201cmuppets\u201d \u2013 has prompted some to question his judgment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m greatly surprised by the lack of strategic sense,\u201d said one sceptical colleague, who predicts Hastie\u2019s flame will quickly burn out.<\/p>\n

\u2018He\u2019s cutting through\u2019<\/p>\n

Others \u2013 including Price \u2013 are right behind the 42-year-old, adamant the Donald Trump-esque \u201cAustralia first\u201d vision outlined in a recent video about domestic manufacturing is the path forward for a party searching for direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe party has been drifting and he\u2019s cutting through that in the way that the party needs,\u201d said the Liberal MP and Hastie supporter, Garth Hamilton.<\/p>\n

\u201cAndrew\u2019s laying out a vision. It\u2019s been a long time since someone on the right has captured the narrative the way he has. We\u2019ve heard for a long time about his leadership potential. I think we\u2019re seeing him really grow into himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another supporter, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said: \u201cAt some point someone needs to have a backbone and do what\u2019s right and not what\u2019s popular. Hastie is filling that void.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liberal sources are downplaying any immediate threat to Ley with a majority of the party room, including the bulk of conservative MPs, unwilling to entertain the distraction of a leadership contest so early in the term.<\/p>\n

But Hastie\u2019s interventions have fast-tracked consideration of the alternative.<\/p>\n

It is not just an alternative leader for the party, but an alternative brand of rightwing politics anchored in flag-waving patriotism, faith, family and a fight for what its proponents see as \u201cwestern civilisation\u201d itself.<\/p>\n

The most high-profile exponent of which is Abbott.<\/p>\n

Then prime minister Tony Abbott (L) with Andrew Hastie in 2015. After entering parliament, Hastie joined Abbott in fighting against same-sex marriage and helping to kill the national energy guarantee <\/a>policy. Photograph: Richard Wainwright\/AAP<\/p>\n

Multiple Liberals aligned with Ley, who spoke to Guardian Australia on the condition of anonymity, strongly suspect Abbott and the rightwing campaign outfit Advance are influencing, if not orchestrating, Hastie\u2019s disruptive interventions.<\/p>\n

After entering parliament in 2015, the young religious conservative joined Abbott in fighting against same-sex marriage<\/a> and helping to kill the national energy guarantee <\/a>policy that hastened Malcolm Turnbull\u2019s demise.<\/p>\n

Two of Hastie\u2019s new focus areas \u2013 dumping net zero and cutting immigration levels \u2013 are long-running campaigns of Abbott and Advance, which have enthusiastically promoted the Liberals MP\u2019s interventions.<\/p>\n

Abbott declined to comment and Advance denied it was \u201corchestrating\u201d Hastie\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdvance will always encourage politicians who align with our supporters and criticise those who don\u2019t. Nothing more, nothing less,\u201d the group\u2019s executive director, Matthew Sheahan, said.<\/p>\n

One Liberal noted that just like Abbott, Hastie\u2019s political mission was shaped by a global culture war being fought on the political right to preserve supposed threats to \u201cwestern values\u201d.<\/p>\n

The two men are advisers to the UK-based Alliance for Responsibility Citizenship<\/a>, whose stated mission is to \u201cre-lay the foundations of civilisation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Hastie pointed to this struggle in a social media post marking the shooting death of the US conservative political activist, Charlie Kirk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He wrote that Kirk\u2019s murder was itself an attack on western civilisation, the result of \u201cmany of our intellectual class\u201d not believing in western values.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow is not the time to take cover, even as bullets are fired at our friends. Our movement needs to grow, and we must speak the truth about the challenges ahead. If we don\u2019t get moving, the west will continue to decline,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hastie used the same call to action \u2013 \u201clet\u2019s go\u201d \u2013 at the end of an Instagram video last week lamenting the demise of Australian manufacturing, specifically car making.<\/p>\n

\"'We‘We got smashed’: Sussan Ley reflects on Coalition’s historic election defeat \u2013 video<\/p>\n

Standing next to a 1969 red Ford Falcon, dressed in denim jeans and brown boots, he bemoaned how Australia has turned into nation of \u201cflat-white makers\u201d and asks: \u201cWhat sort of country do we want to be?\u201d<\/p>\n

The video was overlaid with old footage of race cars, car yards and factory floors.<\/p>\n

He sought to invoke a similar sense of nostalgia for a bygone era in a series of posts arguing the Liberals could \u201cdie\u201d as a political movement unless it committed to cut immigration, which he blamed for the housing supply and affordability crisis.<\/p>\n

Hastie\u2019s brand works in Canning<\/a>, which skews older and less multicultural than the national average. He secured a 5% two-party preferred swing at the last election, defying a trend against the Liberals in Western Australia and nationwide.<\/p>\n

But even some supporters questions whether he could appeal to urban voters that have largely abandoned the party at the past two elections.<\/p>\n

Critics point to a catalogue of past controversial comments, including suggestions women shouldn\u2019t serve in frontline combat roles <\/a>and comparisons between China\u2019s rise to the threat of Nazi Germany, as evidence of a belief system that is out of step with mainstream Australia.<\/p>\n

Hastie\u2019s target does not appear to be Liberal voters who have switched to Labor or the teal independents but rather those who are bleeding to One Nation or other rightwing minor parties.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think we need to reconstitute our natural constituency on the centre right if we\u2019re going to be a force to beat Labor in two years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u2018A potent weapon\u2019<\/p>\n

Kos Samaras, a former Labor strategist-turned pollster with Redbridge group, said Hastie was the Coalition\u2019s most \u201cpotent weapon\u201d, capable of building a political movement around millennial-aged families in the outer suburbs and regions.<\/p>\n

Samaras said unlike Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton, who sought to appeal to outer suburban voters while at the same time punching down on unions, Hastie better understood the working class.<\/p>\n

He pointed to his solidarity with local workers from US-based resources company Alcoa<\/a> during a strike in 2018.<\/p>\n

But Samaras cautioned Hastie about continuing his anti-net zero, anti-immigration campaign, warning that while it might win him the Liberal leadership it could ruin his chances of becoming prime minister.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo matter what he may personally think of net zero, what he may think of our migration levels, they run up against the politics of urban Australia, particularly in Sydney, Melbourne,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Hastie] is an extremely rational, deep thinker about the world around him. The [comments in the] last couple of months have been very, very weird.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hastie declined Guardian Australia\u2019s request for an interview.<\/p>\n

His supporters deny suggestions that his actions are part of some calculated, machiavellian plot to undermine and eventually overthrow Ley.<\/p>\n

Instead, they insist, Hastie is simply fighting for what he believes in \u2013 fully aware of the personal risks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to be an MP forever,\u201d Hastie told the 2 Worlds Collide podcast in August.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always said to myself \u2013 when I stop taking calculated risks for my country I\u2019ve got to leave because you have no business drawing a salary as an MP if you\u2019re not taking calculated risks to improve your country.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou got to keep [firing] and moving.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the Sunday before he was overthrown as prime minister in September 2015, Tony Abbott sweated through a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-168598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}