THE Wangaratta-born federal Liberal MP Andrew Hastie feels someone with the “traditional views” of his party should be chosen to fight Cathy McGowan in Indi.
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The ex-SAS soldier spoke at the first Border Leadership Forum on Saturday night in Albury and addressed Indi Liberal Party members at Benalla on Sunday.
Asked by The Border Mail what the Liberal Party needed to do regain Indi he said: “A great candidate with a strong connection to the area who espouses traditional Liberal views I reckon would go pretty well.”
Mr Hastie declined to comment on Ms McGowan’s performance as an MP, but said she had noted his roots.
“Cathy wrote me a letter straight after my maiden speech, she saw that I was a Wang boy, so she’s been very kind and generous to me in the parliament,” he said.
Mr Hastie, who spent his first 3½ years in Wangaratta while his father Peter led the local Presbyterian Church, said former Liberal Indi MP Ewen Cameron was a role model for voter bonding.
“I don’t want to get caught up in social media, it’s a bit of a false dawn for people, just because somebody likes your stuff doesn’t mean that you’ve connected with someone locally,” he said.
“I always come back to Ewen Cameron’s model of doing the house call, I want to actually connect with people on a personal level.”
The West Australian MP told about 100 at the forum at Albury football club that his key qualities for leadership were courage, boldness, intellect and perseverance.
Mr Hastie spoke of having a bomb explode during a mission in Afghanistan, doing SAS dive training in dark shark-infested waters and letting down his “tribe” by missing a troop photo.
He was joined by North East CFA incident controller Graham Healy who reflected on managing fires.
He recalled directing a Black Saturday strike team to be put back on their bus because they wanted to tackle a “hotter part” of the fire than they had been assigned.
Border Leadership Forum chairman Steve Martin said he expected his group, which is supported by Liberal Party branches, would have two to three events per year with high-profile speakers.