Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie has become a special target for One Nation over his willingness to give evidence against Victoria Cross winner Ben Roberts-Smith, who has been charged with five counts of the war crime of murder. <\/p>\n
One Nation used the Roberts-Smith issue in the Farrer byelection, with corflutes declaring HE FOUGHT FOR US. ONE NATION STANDS WITH HIM”.<\/p>\n
James Ashby, Pauline Hanson\u2019s top adviser and a long term leading strategist in the party, on Tuesday delivered a very direct political threat to Hastie. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe stand by all of our defence force members, and that is one thing that Andrew Hastie is forgetting. <\/p>\n
“What I will say to Andrew Hastie is that we\u2019ve got 430 One Nation members in his electorate [of Canning in Western Australia]\u201d, Ashby said on Sky. <\/p>\n
\u201cI did seek the number from our office before coming on air tonight.<\/p>\n
“So we\u2019re a strong 430 registered, paid up members of One Nation in that seat, and they expect us to run a very strong candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ashby said One Nation would stand by Roberts-Smith \u201cright to the very end, despite what the allegations are.\u201d <\/p>\n
He dismissed a rumour that Roberts-Smith (who is subject to strict bail conditions) could run in Canning. \u201cHe\u2019s not standing for us, but we will stand by Ben Roberts-Smith.\u201d <\/p>\n
Canning was one of four WA seats Pauline Hanson named at the weekend as campaign priorities. The others were Forrest, Hasluck and Pearce. <\/p>\n
Hastie, who was in the Special Air Service Regiment (SAS) and served in Afghanistan with Roberts-Smith, gave evidence for the defence in Roberts-Smith\u2019s failed defamation case, and expects to be called in a trial. <\/p>\n
He has been the target of a ferocious social media campaign for his stand. The Roberts-Smith issue has divided former SAS colleagues (some of whom made allegations against him), and also split Liberals. The furore has been a major political setback for Hastie, who has his eyes on the Liberal leadership. <\/p>\n
Hastie said when Roberts-Smith was arrested: \u201cAs a qualified member of the SAS, I was present on one of the operational missions in 2012 that was examined by the Federal Court. I gave testimony under oath, as required by law.<\/p>\n
“Mr Roberts-Smith is now facing criminal charges in relation to this operational mission, so it is possible that I will be called as a witness to this trial. I urge every Australian to respect the rule of law, the criminal justice system, and the accused\u2019s right to a presumption of innocence and a fair trial. Therefore, I will not prejudice this trial by making any further comment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hastie said on Wednesay: \u201cI don\u2019t live in fear of threats made by political operatives. <\/p>\n
“My mission is simple: to defeat the Albanese government at the next election. <\/p>\n
“If One Nation shares the same mission, why are they targeting a centre-right MP like me? Their strategy makes no sense. Who is pulling the strings in the background? <\/p>\n
“I will fight hard, and I won\u2019t be deterred.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie has become a special target for One Nation over his willingness to give evidence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-698375","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\/698375","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=698375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}