Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie has said "people I trusted have walked away from me" after he gave evidence at Ben Roberts-Smith's defamation trial against Nine, and has hit out at One Nation over its efforts to unseat him in his Western Australian seat of Canning. In a letter to supporters, Hastie said he would no longer tolerate "slander" from the party, warning its director James Ashby that any attempt to remove him would prove a "very costly exercise in time, money and political capital". The row matters because it exposes a rift within conservative politics over the handling of alleged war crimes and highlights a growing electoral threat from One Nation in WA.

Hastie's outburst followed a Sunday Times headline suggesting One Nation would target him next, after the party won the state seat of Secret Harbour, which overlaps with Canning. He noted he had testified alongside more than 20 other combat veterans and SAS witnesses, and said Federal Court Justice Anthony Besanko had found him to be a "straightforward witness", despite being labelled a "rat" and "traitor" by critics. Hastie accused One Nation of not believing in the rule of law or high standards of military conduct, but when asked about the threat on ABC's Afternoon Briefing, he played it down, pointing to his 11 years living in the electorate and his record securing infrastructure such as a new train station for Secret Harbour.