It’s been less than a week since Andrew Hastie pulled out of the prospective battle over the Liberal Party’s leadership. So when he brought a copy of an ancient treatise on Chinese military strategy into question time on Wednesday, and placed it on top of his blue binder, all eyes were on the title.
Government MPs who are making hay from the opposition’s disarray leapt on it. “You might notice the member for Canning’s been reading a book during the course of question time today – some people with better eyesight than me have noticed a copy of The Art of War,” said Labor’s leader in the house, Tony Burke.
Playing up divisions in the opposition, he made reference to Hastie and other MPs as “the reader of The Art of War and his four followers”.
For Sussan Ley, whose handle on the party leadership was significantly undermined last week when Hastie and fellow contender Angus Taylor were photographed arriving at a home in Melbourne to discuss her future, the slim book on Hastie’s desk could not have been a comforting sight.
Because even if Hastie has hit pause on his leadership ambitions for now, the messages contained in Sun Tzu’s treatise are not reassuring. “In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity,” is one line.
“All warfare is based on deception,” is another.
“When we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”
And to ram home the point: “Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.” Or in other words: “Mystify, mislead and surprise the enemy.”
So was bringing the book into Wednesday’s session another provocation, or an innocent coincidence?
“I enjoy reading strategic thinkers, and I’m keen to deepen my understanding of Chinese thought,” Hastie said afterwards. “That’s all.”
It certainly aligns with his broader interests. Hastie described himself in his maiden speech as a keen student of history and often refers to classical literature in his writings.
Last year, he read Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace for a second time – and then analysed what it says about political leadership in a 3800-word Substack piece. Other material on his reading list included the short biography Margaret Thatcher by Iain Dale. There was A Time to Build by Yuval Levin, which argues for the importance of institutions in a polarised world, and Confessions, which traces Saint Augustine’s conversion to Christianity. Tzu’s Art of War fits neatly in that line-up.
Hastie, a former SAS commander, deploys the language of battle and war with gusto. These are regular motifs in his Instagram posts and emails to supporters – channels that have served to propel his message and cement his support base in the months since he resigned from the Liberal frontbench to speak his mind and consider the way forward for conservative politics.
He last month told his Instagram followers that: “Politics is not for everyone. It’s like war: things go wrong, and you often only get a choice between multiple bad options”.
After the Liberals dumped net zero, Hastie wrote about hitting “our first objective on the march to victory”.
“We are winning the psychological battle,” he wrote, “there will be more fights like this one.”
Lest Ley gets too concerned, Hastie has been clear about who the real enemy is. “The radical left are evil and will use violence to win,” he wrote after Charlie Kirk’s murder in the United States.
“In the contest ahead, we must be tough and alert … Now is not the time to take cover, even as bullets are fired at our friends … We all have a role to play in the fight ahead.”
It was a dictum that could have been at home in the pages of The Art of War.
Although there was one lesson Hastie might not have read yet. “Be extremely subtle even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious even to the point of soundlessness,” Tzu writes. He might keep his copy in his bag next time.
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