Pauline Hanson declared in a recent News24 (formerly Sky News) documentary: “I don’t back down”.

This week Hanson and her party followed through, in two high-risk demonstrations of heels firmly dug in.

In the face of demands from Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie, Hanson refused to withdraw one of her Please Explain animated cartoons that depicts (in multiple mentions) the decorated former soldier as a “traitor”.

On a very different front, One Nation is toughing out a controversy around Warren Pickering, its leader for the November Victorian election, after his admissions – following allegations from his former partner – of extensive drug use as a young man.

The battle with Hastie is highly consequential not only for One Nation, but also for the Liberal Party.

Hanson’s animated cartoons, edgy and popular, have been among One Nation’s savviest political tactics.

This one, however, not only went over the top, but poked a political bear who, given his background in the SAS, defaults to fight not flight when his reputation is impugned.

Hastie began on Wednesday by calling Hanson (and One Nation’s treasury spokesman Barnaby Joyce) “lying cowards”. By Thursday he was describing her as “weak and glass-jawed”.

Hanson and Hastie have been targeting each other for months, with One Nation chasing Hastie’s Western Australian seat of Canning.

The party’s recent win in the WA state byelection for Secret Harbour, which is mainly inside Canning, only intensified things.

One Nation’s antagonism towards Hastie is particularly driven by his giving evidence against Victoria Cross winner Ben Roberts-Smith in the latter’s failed defamation case.

He’ll probably have to do so again in the coming trial of Roberts-Smith, accused of war crimes in........

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