Andrew Hastie calls out Trump’s war strategy

Andrew Hastie hung out his leadership shingle in a weekend interview that may have a few Liberals wondering if the right’s factional heavyweights made the best judgement in choosing Angus Taylor for the top job.

Hastie wanted to run for the leadership earlier this year but the right’s numbers men decided it should be Taylor, more senior in the faction, who toppled Sussan Ley.

But so far Taylor has not cut through, and indeed, he looks like someone suited to more conventional times.

When Ley was leader, Hastie took himself to the backbench and conducted guerrilla warfare from there. Now, under Taylor, he is shadow minister for industry and sovereign capability, a job he says he is happy in, but, as Sunday’s interview on the ABC’s Insiders showed, he has no intention of being constrained by.

Taylor, who made Hastie deputy leader of the opposition in the House of Representatives (the actual deputy, Jane Hume, is a senator), knows it would be potentially dangerous to try to put a lead rope on the aspirant who will be stalking him over the next 18 months.

In Sunday’s interview, Hastie strongly called out US President Donald Trump’s Iran strategy. On the domestic front, he urged the need for comprehensive tax reform – even sounding open to some of the government’s thinking regarding the taxes on assets – rather than following the Liberals’ talking point that Labor only wants to tax people more.

Like the new Nationals’ leader, Matt Canavan, Hastie comes across as someone worth listening to (agree or disagree with him), not just a politician with a good memory for the cheat sheet.

In common with most Australians, Hastie isn’t a fan of Trump and the way he conducts policy. After a Trump outburst against allies earlier this month, he called the president “petulant”.

On Sunday, he said he had a “visceral” reaction to Trump’s Friday criticism of US allies not stepping up in the war with Iran.

I don’t know why we went in there [to the Iran war] now. I thought last year we did the job [with the bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities].

There wasn’t consultation with allies, because had we had a bit more lead time, we wouldn’t be in the current crisis we are now where we’re trying to secure our liquid fuel.

I think this was a huge miscalculation. Iran has managed to pretty much hold the whole world economy to ransom.

While a critic of how Trump has handled things, Hastie is not going so far as to now reject the war.

If I have to choose between the United States and Israel, and Iran, I’m going to choose democracies rather than a murderous regime which has ambitions to build a nuclear weapon and potentially use it against Israel, the US and allies.

So don’t get me wrong here. But wounds from a friend can be trusted while an enemy multiplies kisses. As a close friend of the United States – I think that we can be honest, and we can ask hard questions.

Hastie warns against a ground war, fears for the United States’ credibility, and worries about Australians’ support for the US alliance being eroded.

I think the economic pain is going to be more acute, and they’re going to question the judgement of the president as this drags on.

As for a possible super profits tax on windfall gains gas exporters will make from the war – a policy both the Greens and One Nation urge – Hastie’s sympathies don’t lie with the large companies.

On that I’m open-minded because the Liberal Party is not the first line of defence for corporate Australia. I think multinationals and big business in this country have lost their social license, they’ve made no effort to recover it, and a lot of Australians feel like the system is rigged against them.

We [the Liberals] got smashed in 2022; we got smashed in 2025. Our primary vote is being cannibalised from both the right and the left. So I think adopting a posture of humility and being open minded is important – not being reactive.

So I think the bigger geopolitical frame here, and the macroeconomic frame here, is that we’re about to potentially slide into a recession. One of the things we’ve got going for us is our abundance of gas. Is introducing a new tax right at this time, going to help our situation? Before February 28 [the start of the Iran war], this conversation looked very different. We’re in a different period now.

This is a new era […] we need to overhaul the whole [tax] system. We either fix the system, or it’s torn down by people like Pauline Hanson.

No one’s going to reward us for a final last stand for neo-liberal politics, okay. There’s no medal for that. I actually want to win and deliver centre-right government for this country. And the best way to beat Labor is to start listening to people and meeting their concerns head on, rather than reactively slapping them down.

Labor will pick up on Hastie not being across the fine print when pressed about the Liberals saying last week the government’s batteries policy had integrity issues. This is evidence he’s not a details person, it will say.

But the Labor strategists looking to the longer term might be hoping the Liberals don’t eventually decide to install a third leader this term.

Meanwhile, and more immediately, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will hold a national cabinet on Monday morning to try to ensure maximum federal-state coordination as the fuel crisis deepens. The word from the federal government at the weekend was it wanted the next steps to be voluntary, rather than mandatory.

The government on Monday will also introduce legislation for new powers to enable it to underwrite companies’ additional imports of fuel, fertiliser and other essential items. Albanese said:

These powers will be used to help acquire the additional supply that’s so valuable for Australia’s fuel security, where it would be cost prohibitive for private suppliers to source on commercial terms without government support.

It will give suppliers the confidence to secure additional and discretionary cargoes and use it to service uncontracted demand, including for regional and independent fuel suppliers. So, we want more fuel here, and we want to make sure it gets to the right place as well.

I want us to have the strongest possible plans, so we’re ready for what may come.