Andrew Hastie, the Liberal MP for Canning and Opposition Shadow Defence Minister, has received security upgrades at his home and electorate office after One Nation launched a campaign against him. The trigger was his position on Ben Roberts-Smith, the former SAS soldier who lost a defamation case in 2023.

According to reporting by the Sydney Morning Herald, the move reflects a real threat assessment—not routine precaution. Physical security hardening of a parliamentarian's home and office is only authorised when the Australian Federal Police and Parliamentary Security Service determine the threat meets a meaningful threshold. That Hastie's situation has crossed that bar is significant on its own.

Hastie, himself a former SAS soldier, has not backed down. News.com.au reports he characterised his response as one of non-surrender.

What's the Roberts-Smith issue?

The Roberts-Smith question splits the veterans' community in ways that don't fit neatly into the usual left-right split. For One Nation, supporting Roberts-Smith signals to supporters that the defamation case and the Afghanistan inquiry were a government stitching-up of a decorated soldier. Hastie, who served in Afghanistan with the SAS and has spoken publicly about accountability within the special forces, rejects that framing. His credibility here matters precisely because he served alongside Roberts-Smith.

The campaign is real.

Canning, in Perth's outer south, has been closely contested at past elections, though Hastie has held it securely since winning a by-election in 2015. One Nation running an active campaign against him in his own seat means real resources—corflutes, doorknocking, possibly a well-resourced candidate. That is not just noise on social media. Whether it erodes Hastie's primary vote at the next election is a separate question, but the fact that his office sought security upgrades suggests they're not treating the pressure as purely words.

The broader political backdrop matters.

Hastie is regularly named in Liberal Party leadership discussions, and he's been active on the House floor. Since the Budget, he's contributed to several major parliamentary debates: the Appropriation Bill debate on 28 May, discussion of the High Seas Biodiversity Bill (the legislation needed for Australia to ratify an international ocean treaty) on an unspecified date, cyber security for small business during the Budget debate on 4 June, and remarks on the Repacholi matter on 3 June. That workload sits with someone building a record across defence, the environment, and economic policy.

On the US alliance question, Hastie has also made a mark. In April 2025, he warned publicly that Australia's military alliance with the United States faced genuine uncertainty under the Trump administration—a position that diverged from the more reassuring line other Coalition figures preferred at the time. That willingness to call it as he sees it, whatever the internal blowback, is the common thread running through his Roberts-Smith stance, his US alliance commentary, and his response to One Nation.

Where this sits in Australian politics.

The hardening of Hastie's security while a minor party campaigns to unseat him is an unusual combination, and it tells you something about the temperature in the outer-suburban and regional electorates where One Nation competes. A former SAS soldier facing pressure from supporters of another former SAS soldier gives this particular contest a charge that generic political rivalries don't carry. The same credentials that give Hastie credibility on Afghanistan accountability are the ones that make his stance read as a betrayal to Roberts-Smith supporters.

Whether One Nation can translate the campaign into votes in Canning at the next election is the real test. Everything else—the security upgrades, the public positioning, the internal leadership buzz—is just pressure.