page_title: Andrew Hastie (politician)
section_title: Political views
hierarchical_section_title: Andrew Hastie (politician) / Political views
caption_attribution_description: English: op takht
context_page_description: Andrew William Hastie is an Australian politician who serves as the Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. He became the Federal Member for Canning with the Liberal Party in 2015, having served as a troop commander in the Special Air Service Regiment. Known as a conservative he has made controversial statements on Australia's need to "preserve our sovereignty" and defy the "expansionist" Communist Party of China. These views have been condemned as "totally intemperate" and "inflammatory" by Australian corporate leaders, then praised as a matter of "strong public interest" even "necessary, and important" by security analysts Professor Clive Hamilton and Professor Rory Medcalf. His stance led to the Government of China blocking him and his colleague James Paterson from visiting China on a study tour, demanding that they "repent" from their views.
context_section_description: Hastie has been described as a "conservative", a "social conservative" and, at least by the official Chinese government media as "an arch-conservative." Critics see his foreign policy outlook as being "jingoistic" labelling the MP "a notorious hawk." Equally, libertarian and far-right groups such as those associated with Lyndon LaRouche are strong critics of his.   
  
  Hastie himself has said, "I am not a libertarian, but I am a Liberal, which is to say that I am committed to freedom." This would appear to be confirmed by his decision to join the Atlantic Council — a Classical liberal bi-partisan think tank formed for "defending democratic values." The invitation came via US Congressman Mike Gallagher, a conservative Republican and Tom Tugendhat, a British MP who describes himself as a "community conservative." His outlook, unsurprisingly, has been shaped by his experience of war:  
  
  I take my time in Afghanistan, especially in my first deployment, particularly my time with MRTF2 with the 1RAR battle group, as being very formative for me, doing Nation Building and realising the limitations of government to change people and their culture. We built bridges, we built a bazaar where we expected people to trade, we built schools and hospitals, we built all sorts of things, but fundamentally, we didn’t change the way the Afghan people lived. Respecting people’s sovereignty, and people’s freedom to live as they choose is something that I learned over there.  
   
  This experience seems to have made Hastie sceptical of Neoliberalism, saying, "I am now far more circumspect about the ability of military power to change people and societies, and far more aware of how resilient culture can be." By the same measure, Hastie is diffident towards Neoconservatism, especially in its Laissez-faire tendencies, which he finds unacceptable because, "despite the benefits of globalisation, there are always losers in the transfer of labour and capital offshore. Loss of identity through vocational irrelevance is a real anxiety in communities that prize skilled labour."  Hastie's high view of  sovereignty and his desire to protect local people and their industries from global forces would places him in the tradition of National liberalism. Recently Ben Pronk and Tim Curtis (both former SAS officers, Pronk had been Hastie's commanding officer) asked Hastie for his vision for Australia. His off the cuff answer was: 
  I hope to see a country where families are strong. Where we've incentivised families through the policies that we've legislated. I hope to see a strong defence force so that we can weather the challenges that will inevitably come. If you take history as a guide we will face inevitable security challenges. I hope that we are aware of our history, that we haven't cut the mooring that is our civilisation.
  This statement contains three threads that are seen in almost all of Hastie's writing and remarks. First, a passion "to defend the rule of law, democracy and the constituent freedoms". Second, a belief that "Sovereignty, where compromised, must be recovered and protected." Third, that community or local institutions "should define the character and activity of our nation from the ground up."
caption: Lieutenant Hastie distributing crayons to Afghan children in Oruzghan
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