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June 1, 2025
Shadow finance minister James Paterson has conceded the Coalition made serious strategic errors during the federal election campaign, including the decision to oppose tax cuts.
Mr Paterson, who served as the Coalition campaign spokesman, told Sky News Sunday Agenda that the party prized “unity” over “interrogating policy ideas”.
Mr Paterson was a close confidante and ally of former opposition leader Peter Dutton, who suffered one of the worst election defeats in decades.
“With the benefit of hindsight looking back at the last term, I should have spoken up more, I should’ve pushed back more, contested ideas more,” Mr Paterson said.
“Now unity and discipline in politics is a critical feature of a successful political party... but it should never come at the expense of really contesting those ideas.”
The Coalition’s campaign has come under heavy scrutiny following its election loss, including the decision to oppose tax cuts.
Mr Paterson admitted the Coalition should not have opposed the government’s “meagre and miserly” tax cuts, arguing that lower taxation is core to Liberal Party identity.
“Yes, I think it was (a mistake). I don't think we should have opposed the government's tax cuts. In the core of the Liberal Party's DNA is lower taxes,” he said.
“We should never oppose a tax cut. We should never allow the Labor Party, as audacious a claim as it was, to go to an election and claim to be the party of lower taxes.”
Another of the most contentious policies the Coalition took into the election was mandating the public service to return to the office, eliminating work from home privileges.
Mr Paterson acknowledged that he, himself, often has to work from home due to the nature of his job.
“A political job is a job that kind of is always on, you're never completely off. But yes, sometimes I work from home as well,” he said.
“We candidly admitted in the middle of the election campaign that we got that one wrong. We freely admitted that and we accept our responsibility for making the wrong call there.”
The Coalition’s bruising election defeat was largely unexpected, leading to questions about the accuracy polling data relied upon from Freshwater Strategy.
“Had we been told, had we known that (MPs) were in trouble... then we would have conducted ourselves differently during the campaign,” Mr Paterson said.
“We particularly would have spent our resources differently. We wouldn’t have had such an aggressive map going after safer Labor seats… had we known we needed to defend our own.”
Mr Paterson defended former opposition leader Peter Dutton's leadership and took shared responsibility for the result.
Former prime minister Scott Morrison recently broke his silence on federal election loss and urged the Liberal and National parties to return to their core values.
“It has always been the heritage of the Liberal and National parties to stand for lower tax,” he told Sky News on Wednesday.
“People want to have aspiration. They want to get ahead. They want to see defence and national security ensure that we can have a peaceful region.
“All of that depends on a strong economy. That always remains the core message, I think, of the Coalition.”
Mr Morrison praised newly appointed Liberal leader Susan Ley and Nationals leader David Littleproud, saying he remained confident in their ability to rebuild the Coalition.
“There's always tensions in the Coalition… but you work through them together. I think that's what Sussan in particular has done, and I commend her for doing it,” he said.
Ms Ley and Mr Littleproud have since reached a renewed Coalition agreement, following a temporary split.