The Coalition has been accused of toying with cut-and-paste Trumpism because it’s “desperate” and politically adrift.
Wed 1 Oct 2025 12.00
Photo: AAP Image/Lukas Coch
The Coalition has been accused of toying with cut-and-paste Trumpism because it’s “desperate” and politically adrift.
Crikey reporter-at-large Charlie Lewis questioned the reaction of Australian right-wing politicians to the assassination of US activist Charlie Kirk, calling it baffling during an appearance on the Australia Institute’s After America podcast.
“Andrew Hastie talking about Kirk in very explicitly biblical terms … there is that sense that the Liberal Party in Australia at the moment is such a mess and so thoroughly exhausted and discredited with the electorate and so without any kind of organic real-life base from which it can draw its energy, and its ideas, this is kind of all they’ve got.”
Shadow Minister for Home Affairs, Andrew Hastie, raised eyebrows over his response to comments on Instagram.
“This felt so genuinely desperate and grasping. Which I guess again, is just a real reflection on the state that conservative politics in this country really finds itself in at the moment.”
The Liberal Leader aspirant followed it up a week later with a claim Australians were starting to feel like “strangers” in their own country due to immigration.
“The constant carping about free speech or about trans ideology or about critical race theory, or all those sorts of things.
“They’re trying to pump up their tyres via these strange, ill-fitting culture wars,” said Mr Lewis.
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Australia’s last federal election showed limited appetite for the kind of Trump-style politics adopted by the then Leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton.
“I think that we can take from the last federal election result in Australia, that there isn’t a huge constituency for that kind of politics in Australia. In some ways, at least that election result was a repudiation of Trumpism,” said Dr Emma Shortis, host of the of the Australia Institute’s After America podcast.
Charlie Lewis pointed out Andrew Hastie could be playing the long game to boost his right-wing reputation.
“Where it’s like, if I continue to put myself out there as kind of like the last bastion of this type of conservatism… I might be the person we turn to when a change of leadership comes.”
Mr Lewis also called out the Coalition over its apparent obsession with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese securing a one-on-one meeting with President Trump, saying the PM must consider, “What guarantees do you think I could secure for us right now? We have to know that we are dealing with a very very erratic figure presiding over a country that is tearing itself apart on quite a few levels. We cannot rely on them for anything for the foreseeable future and we have to be realistic about that.”
And while the PM snagged a selfie and a brief discussion before they meet next month, Mr Lewis said it’s all just symbolism for show.
“So, we get that slightly desperate, rictus grin selfie that Albanese sort of seems to have collared Donald Trump into and you know, lovely to chat with my dear friend Donald caption.
“A pure appearance story that every party presumably has to know, has no real substance but everyone involved has to treat it like it does actually mean a great deal.”
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