Liberal provocateur Andrew Hastie acts tough – but there’s one personal question that never fails to rattle this Scots College old boy. He hasn’t been asked it in years, so I will: PVO

Inside the mind of a Liberal crusader

Plenty of Liberals are trying to understand why Andrew Hastie is doing what he’s doing right now.

Declaring that his position on the frontbench is untenable if the Opposition supports net zero. Calling for a drastic reduction in immigration. Using social media to promote the notion that Australia should return to building ‘complex things’ like cars.

He has even tried to start an esoteric discussion about Western values and the need to return to them – whatever that means.

Hastie has never concealed his desire to lead the Liberal Party one day, which undoubtedly fuels speculation that his main game is undermining Sussan Ley in a bid to take her job.

While Hastie has labelled such claims as mischievous rubbish, of course he is undermining Ley. I don’t think it’s deliberate on his part – he simply doesn’t care that his public musings are damaging her authority.

Hastie is a values-driven politician. He says what he thinks – mostly – and is prepared to enunciate positions that won’t necessarily endear him to swinging voters.

The conservative former SAS officer is what some like to call a conviction politician, an increasingly rare phenomenon in modern politics.

John Howard was a conviction politician, but he also learned the art of compromise in his long journey before becoming PM. During his time in office, he mixed the two.

But Hastie is no Howard – who attended a public school, grew up in south-west Sydney, and was once an outsider in the blue-blooded Liberal Party, back when its cultural heart was still firmly rooted in Melbourne’s establishment.

Hastie attended Scots College – as did I, so no judgement – and his background more closely resembles Tony Abbott‘s, who went to Riverview. Like Abbott, Hastie is deeply religious, though he doesn’t share Abbott’s Oxford pedigree, or his PPE degree.

Howard is a quiet conservative who merely dabbled in religion and the culture wars. Hastie defines himself according to such matters – although when he first entered parliament a decade ago, he was coy about some of his Biblical opinions.

He was famously asked eight times if he was, like his Presbyterian pastor father Reverend Peter Hastie, a creationist – someone who believes life and the universe were created by God no more than 10,000 years ago, rather than through natural processes like evolution or the Big Bang.

The soon-to-be member for Canning declined to answer then, labelling the questions irrelevant. Perhaps he was right. But, like it or not, if Hastie really does want to be leader, such probing will only accelerate in the coming months and years.

Will mainstream Australia accept a man who possibly views the world through such a literal Biblical lens? The census tells us that fewer Australians regard themselves as religious – much less Christian – than a decade ago when Hastie entered parliament.

This is perhaps one of his concerns about the direction modern Australia is heading. Strong religious conviction might even be an important undercurrent in Hastie’s concerns about high levels of immigration.

While Hastie no doubt appeals to large swathes of the Liberal Party base – alongside admirers of his military service and his willingness to cut the spin – in our compulsory voting system, he needs to appeal more broadly than that.

The trick he’ll need to learn is how to do that without selling out – because Hastie seems like the last sort of person to sell out.

He’ll need to learn to deal with hostile interviewers, too. So far, he has largely limited his appearance to friendly outlets like Sky News, especially after dark.

You just know that when he hits the mainstream, he’ll get questions he won’t like – and he won’t be able to stonewall these reporters, talkback hosts and breakfast TV presenters the way a backbencher or largely unknown frontbencher sometimes can.

Leaders are fair game, and their beliefs and values get picked over. This is especially true for conservative leaders, because – let’s face it – most journalists working in Australia probably vote Green or Labor. Regrettably, many of them also struggle to conceptualise that a smart person can hold spiritual views.

It’s a classic representation of elite arrogance – but someone like Hastie will need to learn how to navigate such questioning. If he has his eyes on the prize, will he continue to ignore basic questions about, say, the age of the Earth?

While I query a lot that Hastie advocates for, and I don’t share his religious worldview, I also don’t think it’s unreasonable for him to try to spark public debate about some of the issues he has recently raised.

In fact, there is no better time to do so than right now, as the Opposition tries to work out what it really stands for in the aftermath of a debilitating election defeat.

I’m not convinced that Hastie is any more electable than Abbott was, perhaps even less so a decade on as the face of Australia keeps changing. But don’t forget: Abbott won a landslide victory in 2013, and never lost a general election as leader after that.

It was his colleagues who took away his job before the teals sealed his parliamentary fate in his electorate.

The point is that circumstances can conspire to render seemingly fringe-dwelling leaders electable – if the times suit them.

UN-fair

Giving every country an equal say doesn’t produce fairness – it’s just a farce. Why entertain the clown show?

At the UN General Assembly, despots with blood on their hands lecture liberal democracies about human rights while enjoying the same vote as nations that always foot the bill. It’s sheer lunacy.

The structure is rigged: a bankrupt dictatorship gets the same clout in the General Assembly as the United States, Japan or Australia does.

Tinpot regimes team up to push anti-Western resolutions while living off our aid. And the Security Council is little better in our polarised world: taking lectures from Russia or China as they suppress their populations is galling.

The veto means that nothing ever gets done anyway.

Endless committees, reports and talking points don’t amount to a hill of beans.

Australia continues to donate millions to the UN’s bloated bureaucracy, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is talking about spending even more in the coming years.

Why should taxpayers subsidise a talkfest that puts dictators and democrats on the same pedestal? All so that the PM and Foreign Minister Penny Wong can feel more important on the world stage?

Democracies shouldn’t outsource moral authority to a club where North Korea and Venezuela get the same vote as Australia does.

It’s a soapbox for autocrats, a closed shop for career diplomats, and a drain on Australian dollars that would be better spent at home fixing real problems.

No wonder Donald Trump is so contemptuous of the ailing institution given the amount of money the United States has wasted propping it up over the years.

Albo appears to be making the same mistake so many democratic leaders before him made when they spent too much time abroad. They get swayed by the spectacle of it all and decide that it’s a stage on which they wish to strut their stuff.

But unlike the dictators in attendance, democrats need popular support at home.

Albo should remember that, because if the Opposition ever gets its act together, his absences will start to matter.

PvO’s grand final prediction

Tonight Penrith travel to Queensland to square off against the Broncos in a replay of the 2023 grand final.

The reward is another appearance at the big show next weekend.

For Penrith, that’s a chance to win five straight premierships, locking them in as the greatest team of the modern era.

For the Broncos, this is a shot at redemption. They never should have lost two years ago: leading 24-8 with just 18 minutes to play, Brisbane choked on their own hubris.

Pat Carrigan has rightly been suspended after his high tackle two weeks ago, but star fullback Reece Walsh will be on the field despite his deliberate headbutt against Canberra.

It was a disgraceful money-driven decision by the NRL not to rub him out (a fine was deemed penalty enough), but we at least now get to see if Walsh is capable of excelling against the game’s greatest current player, Nathan Cleary.

My kiss-of-death prediction goes to the Broncos winning, playing at home after a fortnight’s rest, which would bring an end to the Panthers dynasty.

Tipping against an outfit as accomplished as Penrith might seem foolhardy – what with the roster it has while Brisbane are missing key players (Carrigan and Billy Walters) and with returning stars such as Adam Reynolds and Ezra Mam underdone.

But with a piggyback from the NRL, a Walsh-led win looks likely. His form is just too good to ignore.