‘I wouldn’t call him a traitor’: WA One Nation leader distances self from Hanson cartoon

September 10, 2026 — 1:58pmOne Nation’s West Australian leader Rod Caddies disagrees with his party’s labelling of Liberal MP Andrew Hastie as a traitor and wanker, as the SAS veteran escalates his attacks on Pauline Hanson for her refusal to apologise for or delete the insults.Hastie and Hanson have been engaged in a war of words this week over cartoons posted to Hanson’s social media attacking Hastie’s involvement in media articles about Ben Robert-Smith’s war crimes and his subsequent testimony during Robert-Smith’s unsuccessful defamation case against Nine Publishing, the owner of this masthead.WA One Nation leader Rod Caddies.Hamish HastieBut on Thursday, Caddies struck a more conciliatory tone than his federal leader, saying he wouldn’t call Hastie a traitor, but he defended the satirical nature of the cartoon.“I’m not going to condone calling anyone a traitor that served our country, that’s not something I would do,” he said.“But again, the only thing I’ve seen on that [cartoon] is its satirical, whether people think that’s appropriate or not. I leave that to individuals.“I don’t think some things are funny. Other people do. If you go to a comedy night, there are a lot of awful things that are said there that would offend a lot of people.”Liberal Andrew Hastie, left, will have to contend with One Nation supporters backing not only Pauline Hanson but also Ben Roberts-Smith.Aresna VillanuevaWhen asked what he thought of Hanson calling Hastie a “wanker”, he said he didn’t use that language.“Again, I don’t use that language. You’ll never hear me ... I don’t swear. Even if you ask my wife, my family, I don’t swear,” Caddies said.When asked whether he thought Hastie was a wanker he said he’d only met him twice.“I don’t have anything negative or anything to say about him,” he said.Caddies said he wanted all political parties to bring the temperature down on political debate, including his own.Caddies has in the past talked up the independence Hanson has given him to run the party in WA and said he hadn’t raised the issue of the temperature of the political debate with her.“I hardly speak to Pauline. I only speak to her if there’s any major issues that she’s speaking about,” he said.“She leaves me to run WA, and that’s what I do, I run WA the way I believe WA should be run, and I believe we set a standard here that is, I believe at a good standard.”Caddies is fresh off a stunning victory in WA where One Nation candidate Luke Herdegen ousted Labor from its formerly safe seat Secret Harbour with a primary vote of nearly 40 per cent at a recent byelection.The state seat overlaps with Hastie’s federal electorate of Canning.One Nation candidate Luke Herdegen.AAPIMAGEOne Nation has already identified Hastie as a target at the 2028 federal election, partly because of backlash for his role in the Roberts-Smith case, but also because outer suburban electorates like Canning are proving ripe hunting grounds for the Hanson-led party, as the Secret Harbour result confirmed.Caddies denied Hastie’s seat was being targeted because of his involvement in the Roberts-Smith saga and said that hadn’t been raised with him as much as his voting for the controversial hate speech laws earlier this year.“The Ben Roberts-Smith stuff hasn’t actually been brought up to me anywhere near the amount of times the stuff about their freedoms being taken away,” he said.Hastie’s increasing public attacks on One Nation engulfed his own party during the Secret Harbour byelection when he publicly lamented the lack of effort he said the WA Liberals put into the campaign, and its willingness to work with One Nation.On Thursday WA Liberal leader Basil Zempilas offered a defence for Hastie.“I don’t like the fact that he or anyone, for that matter, but I don’t like that he’s been called a traitor. That’s not right. It’s inappropriate,” he said.Zempilas said his relationship with Hastie had not gotten worse since the byelection.“I’ve always had great respect for Andrew. That hasn’t changed,” he said.“Just to be clear, it’s not as though state MPs and federal MPs are in daily dialogue. That just doesn’t happen.“My point of contact is with Michaelia Cash. She is the most senior Liberal in our federal team, and so when any dialogue is required, I go through Michaelia, and/or if required, directly to Angus Taylor.”From our partners