WESTERN Australian MP Andrew Hastie is being talked up as a possible deputy to Liberal leadership front-runner Peter Dutton.
The former Australian SAS officer is being seriously considered among influential Party members as an alternative to the media-fancied Sussan Ley.
- Andrew Hastie is both highly competent and uniquely appealing.
- His opponent, Sussan Ley ticks the ‘woman’ box, but carries Turnbull’s baggage.
- Her climate extremism over the reef has threatened Australian sovereignty.
“It’s not about being a woman,” according to a senior Party insider. “It’s about being competent and attracting female support.
“Hastie is both highly competent and uniquely appealing.”
THROWBACK
Former environment minister Sussan Ley, however, is seen as a throwback to the failed Left-of-centre Turnbull and Morrison governments.
Mr Hastie won his WA seat in 2015 on the back of enthusiastic support from then PM Tony Abbott and, although now residing in the west, he was raised in Sydney and has strong political ties to members of NSW’s powerful Warringah electorate.
Ms Ley, on the other hand, has led the Liberal Party to the Left and has caused huge financial implications by her sloppy handling of global warming politics surrounding Queenland’s Great Barrier Reef.
As Mr Morrison’s environment minister, Ms Ley constantly pushed the climate emergency button over the reef – thereby forcing a UN move to have the World Heritage-listed wonder placed on its “in danger” list.
If successful, Australia would have been obliged to waste billions of tax payer dollars on a reef considered by marine experts to be in pristine condition.
Given Ms Ley’s unceasing alarmism, however, there was no other conclusion the UN could logically deliver.
“Climate change is real and is the biggest threat facing the reef,” Ms Ley said in an article in The Australian at the time.
“Global climate change threatens landscapes, biodiversity, nature and people…,” she continued on.
IMPRESSIVE
Meanwhile, as Assistant Defence Minister, Mr Hastie has been one of parliament’s most impressive performers.
With Australian national security in mind, he called in 2021 for the nation to consider a return to national service.
Discussing the Australia/China relationship during an online address to the influential Northern Forum group in 2021, the former SAS officer said espionage activity within Australia had already exceeded Cold War levels.
“When I say national service I don’t mean conscription,” the WA member for Canning said.
“We have a gap year at the moment and young Australians can join the ADF – whether it be Army, Navy or Air Force – for one year to learn some basic soldiering skills.
“But I don’t think it really ticks the box.”
Mr Hastie said a longer commitment was now more appropriate.
“I think two years minimum, which is what it used to be when we had National Service.
“You can generate a level of competence in a rifleman, an airman or a sailor over a two year period.” PC
BREAKING NEWS: Peter Dutton was elected leader of the Liberal Party on May 30 and Sussan Ley his deputy. Both were unopposed.
Hastie as Deputy Leader — ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC!
Howard’s Battlers and Abbott’s Tradies do not accept or understand woke.
Back to basics please, government for the real people.
If the Libs fail to make an immediate right turn they will languish and be replaced by actual conservatives.
Surely WA, SA and now the Federal elections are sounding a klaxxon loud enough for any Liberal to hear? We do NOT want pseudo-lefty Liberals and will choose almost anyone else.
Wouldn’t that be a relief. The Liberal Party is finally back on track.