One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has doubled down over a controversial cartoon video mocking Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie, as the RSL labelled it “an attack on every veteran’s service”.

The nine-minute animation, titled Don’t be a Hastie, features the former SAS soldier complaining to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese that people are calling him a traitor online.

“All I did was testify against Ben Roberts-Smith and support your evil hate speech legislation,” the cartoon Hastie says.

One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce apologised on Thursday for “the great umbrage” it had caused Hastie – “even though it’s a cartoon” – but party leader Hanson has refused to follow suit.

The video remains pinned to the top of her X account, which on Friday morning also featured a new post with other episodes from the Please Explain animation series.

“Thanks to Andrew Hastie the cartoons have made the news again!” declared the caption.

Thanks to Andrew Hastie the cartoons have made the news again!

So while we have your attention, here are the ten best episodes, hand-picked by the creators. pic.twitter.com/CI9eHzAbL9

— Pauline Hanson 🇦🇺 (@PaulineHansonOz) September 10, 2026

Hanson has repeatedly denied calling Hastie a traitor, insisting the animation is satirical. But the Western Australian PM claims there is “no ambiguity”, with the video calling him a traitor eight times.

“When you start calling me a traitor to my own country, then we have a big, big problem,” he said earlier this week.

Hastie told The Guardian on Friday he accepted Joyce’s explanation that he didn’t know about the cartoon, adding: “I called him a lying coward because I thought he was protecting Pauline Hanson. I now know that she is the only lying coward.”

The RSL has also weighed in on the furore, saying that what may have begun as a political dispute between Hanson and Hastie had been escalated by the use of the word “traitor”.

“When a person’s military service is used as the punchline, when the word ‘traitor’ is thrown at someone who has worn the uniform and deployed on operations, that stops being politics and starts being an attack on every veteran’s service,” it said in a statement.

“Calling a veteran a traitor is a slur, and it deserves to be treated as one regardless of who it’s aimed at or how it’s dressed up.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by RSL Australia (@rsl_australia)

The tension between Hastie and Hanson stems from him testifying during the defamation trial of now-accused war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith, who Hastie served with in the SAS.

Politicians of all stripes have closed ranks around Hastie since the cartoon furore erupted.

Defence Minister Richard Marles said the One Nation video was tasteless and Hanson needed to clarify why the comments were made.

“It is utterly tasteless, and no one should be using that word in respect of any veteran,” he told ABC TV on Friday.

“(Traitor’s) not a word which should be associated with people who undertake that service. It’s an insult to all veterans.”

Labor minister Madeleine King and Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie have also condemned the video, with army veteran Lambie labelling Hanson “a bloody coward”.

In response, Hanson posted a photo on Thursday night of herself and Lambie in the senate, accompanied by the caption: “I think everyone just needs to take a chill pill.”

I think everyone just needs to take a chill pill pic.twitter.com/mCvw4jliJH

— Pauline Hanson 🇦🇺 (@PaulineHansonOz) September 10, 2026

One Nation Senator Sean Bell said the party stood by the cartoon.

“I don’t think the party has anything to apologise for. I think people should go and watch the cartoon because I think in it there’s a lot of very insightful things,” he told News24.

“That cartoon has been out for a very long time. He has simply chosen this week to come into parliament, to do the rounds on media, to make things not about veterans but himself.”

–with AAP