Labor’s candidate Matt Keogh is slightly ahead on the two-party preferred basis – 50.1 per cent – with Mr Hastie on 49.9 per cent. The Liberal vote is significantly down on the result Mr Randall secured at the 2013 election, where he won the seat with 61.8 per cent of the two-party preferred vote.
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A new poll shows the Liberal party faces a tough battle to retain the Perth seat of Canning in next month’s byelection.
“They don’t want the prime minister around this Canning by-election”, he said.
“I believe with Andrew Hastie and with the kind of policies that we have on promoting jobs and growing the economy, that the people of Canning will make a decision that’s in their interests and I believe that will be to elect Andrew Hastie as their representative”. The iron rich state is Australia’s most conservative region.
“I believe the Defence Force has a duty of care to finalise its investigation more quickly”, Mr Hastie said.
“It is critical when you fight the Taliban that you gather evidence and do what you can to investigate the … identification of your enemy”, Mr Hastie said.
“For Labor MPs to now ridicule that soldier over the incident, because Andrew Hastie’s not involved, is simply appalling and Labor wonders why our troops question their commitment when they ridicule a serving SAS soldier, and when Labor cut $16 billion from the Defence budget”, she said. SAS units have been accused of committing war crimes, including massacring families during night-time raids. Bill Shorten, the opposition leader, informed the Labor caucus that by-elections is taking place because a Member of Parliament has died and that it swings away by only 2.5 percent.
Hastie was the commanding officer of a troop that chopped the hands of dead Taliban fighters in Afghanistan in 2013.
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The West Australian newspaper reported that in his pre-selection application to the Liberal Party, Hastie declared that his military service would be directly relevant to overcoming Australia’s political crisis, which he associated with “big spending” by governments and a threat to “Western cultural values”-a clear reference to Islam”. “Our nation is at a critical point in history…”
