Pauline Hanson is a "bloody coward", according to one Tasmanian senator, after One Nation accused Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie of being a traitor.
Mr Hastie, a former special forces soldier, was featured in a cartoon video posted and pinned to the top of far-right Senator Pauline Hanson's X account. The video targeted the veteran after he was subpoenaed as a witness in the Ben Roberts-Smith defamation trial in 2022.
On Thursday, Mr Hastie labelled Senator Hanson "weak and glass-jawed" and said the cartoon cast a "massive slur" on veterans across the country.
Appearing on ABC Radio National, independent Senator Jacqui Lambie slammed Senator Hanson and demanded that she "leave our veterans alone".
A veteran herself, Senator Lambie said the Queensland senator needed to remove the cartoon immediately, arguing: "She wouldn't last one day in that goddamn uniform."
"What she's doing in those cartoons is absolutely disgusting," Senator Lambie said.
"Attacking Andrew Hastie, a veteran that has served in our Afghanistan war, or any other veteran, is the lowest ebb you can possibly do.
The outspoken senator added: "She's disgusting ... she's the lowest bit of life you can possibly come from with that woman."
"You watch this, the Australian people. Here we go, here comes coward Hanson," she said, arguing One Nation's true colours were beginning to show.
"Any veteran out there thinking about voting for One Nation or standing for them, I tell you what, you had better think twice."
Senator Hanson, who has openly defended Mr Roberts-Smith, who has been charged with war crimes and is currently on bail awaiting trial, has argued that Mr Hastie was "making a mountain out of a molehill" and defended the cartoon as satire.
She claimed she did not personally call Mr Hastie a coward, despite posting the video on her social media accounts. She told The Nightly newspaper on Wednesday that she would call him a "wanker" instead.
Mr Hastie told the ABC that Senator Hanson had "cast a massive slur on veterans around the country who think that Australian soldiers should hold high standards of conduct on the battlefield".
While saying he would continue to attack Senator Hanson politically, he ruled out taking legal action against her, "particularly when she's financed by Australia's richest person".
Mining magnate Gina Rinehart is a major supporter of Senator Hanson and a vocal defender of Mr Roberts-Smith.
However, Mr Hastie told ABC Radio Senator Hanson was "weak and glass-jawed".
"I gave the opportunity to either own her words publicly, or to take it down. She chose neither," he said.
"Rather than stepping up as a leader — she claims she could be prime minister — she actually retreated back into cartoons and memes. So I think we've seen what Pauline Hanson ultimately is about. She's not fit to govern this country."
Greens senator David Shoebridge said he disagreed with most of what Mr Hastie stood for politically, but came to the MP's defence.
"But for the life of me, I can't work out how any political party can stand by an attack on somebody because they go into court and they tell the truth as they understand it," he told News24.
"And doing it in circumstances where you're facing a whole bunch of pressure, and the idea that you make that your political attack on somebody ... I mean, it's actually pretty f***ing disgraceful to attack him for that."
Shadow Defence Minister James Paterson said Senator Hanson and campaign James Ashby "should be ashamed of themselves".
"Andrew Hastie signed up to the ADF after 9/11," Senator Paterson said.
"He signed up to fight Islamist terrorists as part of the global war on terror. He served on the front lines in Afghanistan over multiple tours. What service has anyone in One Nation given that compares in any way, shape or form to Andrew Hastie's service?"
With AAP
