September 10, 2026 — 11:54amIndependent senator Jacqui Lambie has backed fellow veteran Andrew Hastie as his stoush with Pauline Hanson escalates, labelling the minor party leader “disgusting” and urging former defence personnel not to vote for her.Lambie demanded Hanson take down an episode of One Nation’s Please Explain cartoon that the party leader has posted on social media. The cartoon labels Hastie a traitor for testifying in Ben Roberts-Smith’s failed defamation action against this masthead.Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie attacked Pauline Hanson.Alex EllinghausenHastie has branded Hanson a “lying coward” and accused her of politicising the saga to the point of risking a fair trial as Roberts-Smith faces war crimes charges.Hanson said she did not think Hastie was a traitor, but refused to take the animation down, insisting it was satire.Lambie, who served in the army for more than a decade, said on Thursday Hanson was the “lowest bit of life” for attacking a veteran.“What [Hanson’s] doing in those cartoons is absolutely disgusting. They are full of bloody violence. I mean, how people can watch that rubbish is beyond me,” Lambie told ABC radio.“That woman is nothing less than a bloody coward. She always has been, and she always will be. She wouldn’t last one day in that goddamn uniform. Leave our veterans alone.”Lambie urged veterans not to vote for Hanson.“Don’t you forget she held us off for that royal commission for months,” she said.“Her true colour’s starting to shine now ... any veteran out there thinking about voting for One Nation or standing for them, I tell you what, you had better think twice.”The federal police have upgraded Hastie’s security at his home and office over threats to his safety amid an online campaign after he told a Federal Court in 2022 that it was a “fairly well-established rumour” that Roberts-Smith had kicked an unarmed person off a cliff in Afghanistan, and had a reputation as a bully among the ranks.As the Coalition grapples with how to combat Hanson’s rise, Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said on Thursday the cartoon should be taken down.“Andrew Hastie served this country with distinction as a member of the special forces of the SAS ... I think [the cartoon is] wrong,” he said.Hastie said on Thursday Hanson’s argument that she had never called him a traitor was “BS”.“She posted it and pinned it on her X account, and she authorised it,” he said. “So to play dumb is just ridiculous.”Hastie said Hanson was not fit to be prime minister, and that the minor party’s fiery exchange on News24 (formerly Sky News) on Wednesday was evidence she was not leadership material.“She showed herself to be brittle. She’s happy to make cartoons that are highly defamatory of other people, and then as soon as she gets a bit of pushback she goes to water,” Hastie said.“She talks up [a] big game about being prime minister of this country. Yet I think she showed herself yesterday to be weak, glass-jawed and unable to take responsibility for her actions.”Hanson shouted over News24’s Chris Kenny on Wednesday as he quizzed her over her criticism of Hastie, and as she defended the minor party’s Victorian leader, who admitted this week to using illegal drugs in the past.“It is a satirical cartoon, for Christ’s sake,” she said. “Barnaby Joyce was classified as a beetroot.”Hastie told Radio National he would not be pursuing legal action because Hanson was backed by mining billionaire Gina Rinehart – a staunch defender of Roberts-Smith.“Why would I walk into a fight that I can’t win financially? But yes, I’m going to impose costs politically.”Asked how much he believed One Nation’s attacks in him were driven by Rinehart’s influence, Hastie said: “That’s a question for Pauline Hanson. Suffice to say, she enjoys a good time with Gina Rinehart.”He said he was speaking up now after enduring “five months of abuse from these people” and after it became clear he was unlikely to be called as a witness in Roberts-Smith’s coming war crimes trial.Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.From our partners