Andrew Hastie’s accusation that an online hate campaign has been orchestrated by One Nation has been dismissed by the party as a “bizarre conspiracy”.
The high-profile Western Australian Liberal MP recently revealed he had been provided with additional security following a wave of online personal attacks.
And in an interview with Sky News Australia on Thursday, Mr Hastie said he had been warned by a senior One Nation operative in April that the campaign was coming.
One Nation Senator Sean Bell dismissed Mr Hastie’s accusation, claiming the party was focused on going after the government.
“I’m not sure what Mr Hastie is talking about,” Mr Bell told Sky News on Friday.
“What I do know is in parliament this week One Nation went after the government; we went after the government on its massive failures to keep energy prices under control, which has led to skyrocketing grocery prices.
“So it is very strange to watch as Andrew Hastie appears to be turning into Hillary Clinton before our eyes.”
The One Nation Senator said Mr Hastie was simply receiving blowback for criticising One Nation.
“No one in One Nation is particularly focused on Mr Hastie,” Senator Bell said.
“Mr Hastie appears to have received a lot of negative feedback for some of his positions, and instead of reflecting on the things he may have said or done, he’s decided to blame some kind of bizarre conspiracy of international influence.
“If you go around and you attack and you criticise One Nation or people’s politics, and then you’re going to get a response.
“My advice to him would be, go outside, touch grass and stop engaging with what appears to be a coordinated misinformation campaign with the Labor Party to go after One Nation.
“It is truly bizarre, because what the people of Australia really want is politicians who, like One Nation is doing, stand up against the Albanese Labor government… not (politicians who) go around spreading strange conspiracies.”
The Liberal MP for Canning said he believed that the online hate he was receiving was part of an orchestrated campaign with money behind it.
“I think there is something orchestrated online in the background. I think that there’s money behind it. I don’t know about the source of that money,” Mr Hastie told Sky News host Andrew Bolt on Thursday.
“I knew this was coming though. I had a call from a senior One Nation official, who I won’t name for legal reasons, in the middle of April, who effectively told me that this was going to happen.
“And sure enough a deluge of personal attacks followed online. So this wasn’t a surprise to me, but there are consequences to this.”
The Liberal MP said he was not attacking One Nation voters, who have “legitimate concerns”, before suggesting there could be foreign interference involved in the online campaign against him.
“There were reports earlier this week that a lot of these One Nation-associated pages are actually originating out of Indonesia,” he said.
“Now I’m not saying that they’re Indonesians behind those pages, but only recently the ASIO Director General at his annual threat assessment mentioned state actors conducting psychological operations online to divide countries.”
Last week, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) Director-General Mike Burgess said the nation faced a more volatile security environment marked by rising social tensions, foreign interference, espionage, terrorism and politically motivated violence.