Hastie’s ascent would be a gift for Labor

The chatter emanating from Canberra is as telling as it is delicious. The speculation that Andrew Hastie, the former SAS captain and current hard-right warrior, is considering a run for the Liberal leadership is the clearest sign yet that the party learned nothing from its devastating election loss in May.

For those of us who would happily see the Coalition spend a generation in the political wilderness, a Hastie ascension would be a dream scenario.

Let’s be clear about why the Morrison government was cast into the abyss in 2022. It wasn’t just the “it’s not my job” shirking of responsibility during a crisis. It was a profound rejection of a party that had drifted into the ideological extremes, becoming more a vehicle for culture wars than a competent manager of the economy. Voters, particularly women, turned away from a party they no longer recognised.

Andrew Hastie doesn’t just represent that shift; he embodies it. He is the physical manifestation of the very reasons the LNP lost in 2022. Electing him now would be to consciously choose the same path to irrelevance the voters sent them down in May 2025.

He is a staunch advocate for the AUKUS submarine deal, a monumental financial commitment that saddles future generations with debt for a capability that is decades away, all while doing profound damage to our relationship with a major trading partner. He speaks of the threat of China with a zeal that often seems to welcome conflict rather than manage complex diplomacy. This is not the steady, pragmatic hand the electorate is seeking.

His social conservatism, while sincerely held, places him firmly at odds with the majority of Australians on issues like climate action and equality. To install Hastie as leader would be to double down on the platform that was just resoundingly rejected. It would signal to every moderate Liberal voter who fled to the “Teals” that the party has no intention of winning them back. It is a strategy of managed decline, opting to represent a shrinking, angry base rather than the contemporary, diverse nation Australia has become.

The delicious irony, of course, lies in the numbers. Hastie’s ideals align far more closely with the barnacle-encrusted nationalism of the National Party – with figures like Barnaby Joyce and Matt Canavan cheerleading from the sidelines – than with the broad church of the Liberals. Yet, in a beautiful twist of political fate, Joyce and Canavan don’t get a vote in a Liberal party room spill. Hastie’s natural constituency is disenfranchised from the very process that could crown him.

This is the Coalition’s fundamental, perhaps existential, problem. The Liberal Party’s heart is increasingly held hostage by a faction whose soul belongs to the Nationals. They are tethered to a regional partner that demands ever more extreme concessions on climate and energy, pulling the entire Coalition further from the mainstream.

So, let the chatter grow. Let the speculation mount. The prospect of Andrew Hastie leading His Majesty’s Opposition is a comforting one for the government. It promises an opposition that is easier to paint as out-of-touch, reactionary, and unelectable.

If the Liberals are serious about a long and painful stint in opposition, they need look no further. Andrew Hastie is their man.

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