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Former soldier and senior Labor figure Mike Kelly has hit back at WA Liberal candidate Andrew Hastie over his remark that the former Labor government did not fully support Australian troops in Afghanistan.
In a weekend speech to the WA Liberals, Mr Hastie, a former SAS officer and now Liberal candidate for the Canning byelection, said that "in Afghanistan, I did not feel that the then Labor government had our backs".
Mr Hastie served three tours of Afghanistan.
Dr Kelly, a former soldier who became a Labor MP and eventually defence materiel minister, has written in the ALP newsletter the Labor Herald that the military needed to avoid political partisanship.
He wrote that he had no doubt that Mr Hastie had "entered the fray with open eyes and good intentions" but "many in the defence community were disappointed by this comment".
"In my 20 years' service under Labor and Coalition governments, serving on many deployments, I believe all parties and leaders had our welfare very much in consideration and with equal conviction," he wrote.
Dr Kelly is now an adviser to Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and plans to recontest the NSW seat of Eden Monaro, which he lost in 2013 by a narrow margin.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who is campaigning with Mr Hastie in the Perth-based seat, said the remarks were reasonable given Labor had cut $16 billion from the Defence budget.
"Andrew Hastie is reflecting views expressed to me by other defence personnel," she said. "What message did Labor think it was sending to our troops as it went on a reckless spending spree on pink batts, school halls and green car loans while slashing the defence budget?
"Mike Kelly is the last person who should criticise our troops given he was part of a government that cut defence spending as a percentage of GDP to the lowest level since 1938."
Fairfax Media reported at the weekend that Mr Hastie had commanded an SAS troop under which a soldier or soldiers cut the hands off dead Taliban fighters in Afghanistan for the purpose of identifying them by fingerprints. Mr Hastie was not present when the incident happened, but was overhead in a helicopter.
Mr Hastie has since said he was cleared by a Defence investigation and reported the incident up the chain of command as soon as he became aware of it.
Defence Minister Kevin Andrews declined on Thursday to comment on or endorse Mr Hastie's remark about Labor.
"Look, Mr Hastie is a very distinguished, decorated former member of the SAS. He will make comments based on his own experiences. I'll leave his comments to him," he said.
While Labor cut deeply from the Defence budget and former defence minister Stephen Smith was unpopular with serving personnel, it has never been suggested that Labor did not provide fully for Australians deployed in Afghanistan or anywhere else overseas.
Mr Hastie could not be reached for comment on Thursday.
