Foreign Minister Julie Bishop blasts ALP for 'appalling' Andrew Hastie retweets

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has called on Opposition Leader Bill Shorten to "show leadership" after Western Australian Labor politicians retweeted "appalling" jokes about former SAS soldier and Liberal Party candidate Andrew Hastie.

Mr Hastie, the Liberal candidate for the Canning by-election, commanded soldiers in Afghanistan who allegedly removed the hands of dead Taliban fighters.

He was not on the scene at the time and revealed on Saturday that he has been cleared of any wrongdoing by the Defence Force. One officer is still under investigation over the incident.

On Saturday, Western Australian Labor politician Darren West retweeted a tweet saying :"A chopper with Bronny in comes in to land & here's Hastie's chopper, to chop off your hand!".

He retweeted another tweet suggesting "Hands off Canning" as an election slogan.

Chris Tallentire, Western Australian Labor's environment spokesman, retweeted a tweet saying:

Ms Bishop, the Western Australian Liberal Party's most senior federal MP, said Mr Hastie was one of the most outstanding candidates she had seen from either party.

"What are the troops meant to think when Labor MPs make jokes about a serving soldier who's under investigation?" she told the ABC's Insiders.

"Now, again, Bill Shorten ought to pull these people into line, show some leadership and tell them that this is just not on."

She said earlier: "As Andrew Hastie pointed out, this is a very serious incident."

"He called for an investigation into it. A number of soldiers were cleared of any wrongdoing. There is one currently serving SAS soldier under investigation. And 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."

Asked if Prime Minister Tony Abbott would lose the Liberal leadership if the party loses in Canning, a traditionally safe seat, she said she was confident Mr Hastie would win.

Ms Bishop said she questioned the motivation of Fairfax Media for putting the story on the front page of The Saturday Age.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said the story was presented in a "disgraceful" way and that the editors responsible should "hang their heads in shame."

"It was a shameful front page," Mr Cormann said on The Bolt Report.

"Andrew Hastie provided distinguished service for Australia overseas. He put his life on the line on behalf of Australia. He put himself in harm's way. He doesn't deserve that sort of treatment from a newspaper in Australia."

The Age's editor-in-chief Andrew Holden said he stood by the story.

"Now that Andrew Hastie is a political candidate, he and his party should expect his background to be scrutinised," he said. "The Liberal Party should have been fully expecting questions of this nature."

Mr Holden said The Age runs challenging stories about figures from all sides of politics, including recent stories about controversial deals struck when Opposition Leader Bill Shorten was a union leader.

Mr Shorten said on Saturday: "I'm certainly not going to start denigrating the Liberal candidate, not at all. If people want me to start bagging out the local Liberal candidate I am not going to do that."

Asked about the retweets on Sunday, Labor workplace relations spokesman Brendan O'Connor said: "No-one should be trying to reflect adversely on a soldier who has defended his nation."

Mr O'Connor said the investigation into the incident should not be "politicised" and the focus in Canning would be employment, health and education.