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Amid the sometimes raucous scenes of question time in federal parliament this week, Andrew Hastie maintained a dignified silence.

The Liberal frontbencher barely spoke, even as his colleagues pursued Labor over Australia’s newly minted $1tn national debt, controversial caps on veterans’ healthcare funding, and rising rental prices around the country.

So evident was Hastie’s silence, day after day, that even Anthony Albanese motioned to the shadow minister for industry and sovereign capability at one point, asking what was going on.

“When are you going to get a question? It’s been six months,” the prime minister was heard to say across the chamber to Hastie. The former soldier sits just behind the opposition leader – and his putative leadership rival – Angus Taylor.

But, despite his silence in question time, Hastie has a bit going on.

He has spoken regularly about the threat of Pauline Hanson’s surging popularity to the Liberal party, and will be closely watching the results in the upcoming byelection in the Western Australian state seat of Secret Harbour.

One Nation wants to win the seat from Labor next weekend, and then come for Hastie’s own federal electorate of Canning, which shares much of the same territory.

There is little love lost between Hanson’s supporters and Hastie, who some hate because he gave evidence against the Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith in a mammoth defamation trial against Nine newspapers.

Hanson and her billionaire benefactor Gina Rinehart have publicly supported Roberts-Smith and are using their money and political muscle in WA to go after Hastie as a result. It’s always hard to understand internecine power dynamics in Perth from the east coast, but the current turf war, including in local media coverage, is particularly bitter.

Hastie has talked about the many threats made by others to his safety and the moves by the home affairs minister, Tony Burke, to offer additional security for his home and electorate office. In interviews with News24, formerly Sky News, this week, Hastie said he and his wife were shielding their young family from online abuse and vitriol, and even revealed an unnamed One Nation official had told him he should prepare for a deluge of personal attacks after campaigning in the Farrer byelection earlier this year.

In another interview, Hastie said Hanson’s closest adviser and One Nation strategist, James Ashby, was “coming for me”. Hastie insisted he would run at the 2028 election, and hold Canning for the Liberals.

Unlike many of his colleagues, Hastie has correctly identified a weakness in One Nation’s political offering.

He said this week that Hanson’s problem “is that she is Maga first”, even when Australian voters suffer the economic consequences from the US president Donald Trump’s backwards and misguided political project. Just like Labor successfully hung Trump around Peter Dutton’s neck at the last election, painting Hanson as the unpopular president’s best friend in Australia could be a smart strategy to dent her support.

The result of all this – and Hastie’s position as likely alternative if Taylor cannot turn around dire opposition polling in time for the next election – means he hasn’t been used well by the Liberals.

Hastie surely would have done a better job pursuing the veterans’ affairs minister, Matt Keogh, over the government’s cap on allied health services costs and anger from ex-servicemen and women who accused Keogh of disrespecting them in a meeting, even claiming he rolled his eyes at one point.

Liberal Phil Thompson overreached in question time on Thursday when he told Albanese that one Afghanistan veteran had said he would prefer to deal with the Taliban than talk with Keogh. The prime minister might have pointed out the Taliban are fundamentalist thugs and backers of international terrorism, determined to ruin lives and destroy personal liberties.

Hastie is a thoughtful and policy-oriented MP. This week, alongside colleagues Aaron Violi and Jonno Duniam, he helped secure support from Labor for the creation of a new standing committee on artificial intelligence.

Hastie wants the joint House and Senate panel to consider the effect AI is set to bring to Australia’s national security, political system and institutions. He identified the race for control of AI as a key part of a fight for dominance between the US and China, but also a fight over quality of life in Australia’s suburbs and towns.

As well as the energy, planning and security ramifications, Hastie argued in a speech that Australia’s education system needed to quickly plan for success in an AI-led world.

He said Australian students needed to be better equipped to build future AI models, not be “slaves” to those developed overseas. That starts with improving reading and writing competencies, lifting Naplan scores and better fostering curiosity in young minds.

“Policymakers have a moral obligation to hammer out a new political and economic settlement that ensures that AI serves all Australians, not just a few,” Hastie said. “We can’t let Big Tech reshape our nation without democratic oversight and accountability.”

Politically too, Hastie might be ahead of some of his Liberal colleagues. He risked attracting the ire of the WA branch in an interview with the Australian Financial Review on Tuesday, criticising the Liberals’ campaign activities and messaging in Secret Harbour under the state leader, Basil Zempilas.

“If you’re on the ground in a byelection, then you run to win, not to help someone else win the seat,” Hastie said, in a reference to One Nation. “We should never, ever indicate to voters that we are not fully committed to the fight.”

Labor’s strong political position and Hanson’s surge in support will likely mean things will remain tough for the Liberals for some time yet, but sidelining serious assets like Hastie won’t help matters at all.

• Tom McIlroy is Guardian Australia’s political editor