Media
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Transcripts
July 15, 2025
ROD HENSHAW: Senator James Paterson, the Shadow Minister for Finance, he's with us on the line now for our federal election, or federal politics, I should say. I scared the hell out of you there, James, didn't I, federal election? Not a good start.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: I'm relieved to hear we are not back there already.
ROD HENSHAW: Please no, please no. Okay, this is going to be an interesting day, and it sounds like Albanese is going to dig his heels in over the Port of Darwin.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Well, if he does, he'll have the opposition's unqualified bipartisan support because it is in Australia's national interest that the Port of Darwin return to the control of an Australian Government-approved operator, ideally an Australian operator. It has never been in our national interest to have a company, which is a private company but linked to the Chinese government, control such a strategically important port.
ROD HENSHAW: Yeah, well, technically, of course, Peter Dutton ahead of the last election, he came out basically first up on that one, but I think with a little bit of funny business going on at the time when I think it got leaked and then Albanese tried to jump the gun with it. But at the same time, you're both on the same page. That's the main thing.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Look, it was messy from the Prime Minister during the election campaign. He was clearly panicked and rushed into making an announcement that he wasn't ready to make, and he didn't have any of the details about how this would work, and frankly, we are still none the wiser as to how the Prime Minister plans to do this. He hasn't been clear about how this is going to happen, but the important thing is that it must happen. It should not continue in the control of the Landbridge company for any longer, and we expect the Prime Minister to resolve this promptly and not to back down in any way, shape or form during his visit to China.
ROD HENSHAW: You can't help wondering, James, what cost it's going to be.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: It's possible there will be a cost, but it's also possible this could be resolved on a strictly commercial basis. This is an asset which has commercial value; there are private buyers that have already expressed interest in taking control of the lease, who would buy the lease from Landbridge, and that could be executed on a commercial basis. If, however, Landbridge fails to sell on a commercial basis, then the Commonwealth has to consider using all of its legal powers, including the power to compulsorily acquire the lease over the Port, under just terms under the Constitution.
ROD HENSHAW: So that would take special legislation?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: It may do. The constitution is very clear. It allows the Federal government to acquire property. It just requires the owners of those property to be fairly compensated. Special legislation might be necessary for Landbridge specifically. But either way, the government could be assured of passage through the Parliament from the opposition to ensure that happens.
ROD HENSHAW: Now, as far as you know, Senator, what about the likely buyers or the prospective buyers? Are they here in Australia, or I think one of the caveats was either Australian interests or Australian-friendly interests, which would seem to imply that China is nothing but friendly.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: There is one consortium which has been publicly reported in the media which has a number of parties in it but is led by an American firm and they would be in my view highly likely to receive the approval of the Foreign Investment Review Board as someone that would operate the port consistent with Australia's national interest. But of course, it's also possible that an Australian operator or purchaser emerges through this process and that would be very welcome too.
ROD HENSHAW: I would imagine there's some American pressure, if you like, certainly implied pressure or subtle pressure to go ahead with this because the Americans got a bit of an interest in this too, haven't they, as far as the port is concerned.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Well, it's certainly been the case that American administrations, back to the Obama administration, have been unhappy with this lease to the Landbridge group. President Obama infamously expressed his displeasure to the former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull about this lease arrangement and yes, America has a very strong interest in the national security of the northern part of Australia particularly around Darwin because through there we have the U.S. Marine Rotational Force which is a regular deployment of U.S. Marines for training in Darwin. We also have the RAAF Base Tindal, which includes very significant American investments and presence.
ROD HENSHAW: Okay, moving on, the Prime Minister won't commit to a Taiwan conflict as the Pentagon puts pressure on over AUKUS subs. We've been talking about this for a couple of days now, and it seems like they have been using weasel words that have been coming out like, our position on this is very clear, we retain a status quo, what the hell that means, I don't know. I mean, push comes to shove, we get the subs, right? America gives us the subs. We say thank you, Uncle Sam. Now, they say, yeah, well, look, you have those, they're yours, hell of a cost, but if the proverbial hits the fan in Taiwan, we expect you to side with us. That's basically it in a nutshell, isn't it?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: That's what the media reporting indicates. I do agree with the Prime Minister that Australia could never publicly pre-commit to a particular course of action in a particular conflict, which is hypothetical, for a couple of reasons. Most importantly, an Australian current government cannot bind the hands of a future Australian government, and no one should accept the assurances of a current Australian government about what a future government will do, because when and if this event occurs we don't know who will be in power or what their policy would be. So I think it's problematic from that point of view. I'd also point out that the United States government has their own policy since 1979 with the passage of the Taiwan Relations Act called strategic ambiguity where they deliberately withhold what they would do in the event of a Taiwan contingency. They leave open that they may possibly take military action in the defence of Taiwan, but they also leave open that they may not. And that's a carefully calibrated policy to maintain the peaceful status quo across the Taiwan Straits. So I wouldn't expect our American friends to ask us to make a commitment that they themselves have not been willing to make.
ROD HENSHAW: Yeah, I understand that, but there is such a thing as the alliance between the US and Australia. And there's a lot of pressure on that alliance at the present time, especially coming out from Elbridge Colby. He seems to want an answer for some reason.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: This is my broader concern. I think the state of bilateral relations between Australia and the United States are at a very low ebb. We're now more than 250 days since the President was elected and the Prime Minister has still not sat down with him face-to-face to have a meeting when other world leaders have met him on multiple occasions and done deals in their national interest and advocated for their national interest. We've not had that opportunity because our Prime Minister has not made that visit and I think it has set us a long way back. And this is probably playing out in the media because we don't have that close relationship between, at the leader level, between our elected representatives, and that's a deep problem.
ROD HENSHAW: Now, closer to home, and this is right on your doorstep, Treasury advice mistakenly published. I saw Jim Chalmers last night coming in, oh no, I'm quite relaxed about this, but it is quite embarrassing, isn't it?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Well the Treasurer should be embarrassed because Treasury has belled the cat in relation to a number of government policies. They've said that the budget which the Treasurer presided over in his first term is unsustainable. And it is unsustainable because the Treasurer has added significant recurrent spending without providing for how to pay for it and government spending in Australia is at a all-time high outside emergency pandemic periods. Secondly, Treasury has also said that the government's housing policies are failing and it will not meet its housing target. Now, an ambitious housing target is a good thing, but a ludicrous and delusional housing target doesn't help anyone and that's what we've got right now.
ROD HENSHAW: OK, look, I've got to ask you a question without notice here. And it's a very, very domestic one, it's very local, it's a homes and hearts thing here in Canberra with electric bikes, e-scooters. We dealt with this yesterday. And there's been a suggestion that the ACT government should investigate one of the suppliers, or one of people vying for the contract to introduce these E-scooters, saying, look, we don't like this particular one, because the complaint could be that they are listening devices for the Chinese. Now, I know that you're a tech nerd. I know you're right over this sort of thing. If you're riding an e-scooter along Lake Burley Griffin or the shores of Lake Burley Griffin, could the Chinese listen in?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: There certainly is challenges posed by Chinese technology companies and in my work in my previous portfolio in Home Affairs and Cyber Security, I led the charge against companies like Huawei and Hikvision, TikTok, all of which have the ability to surveil us in a way that's not in Australia's national interest and governments have taken action to limit that. I am not as familiar with these scooters. I have to say they're not at the highest on my level of concern. The reason why you'd be more concerned about a company like Huawei is because it is the backbone of our telecommunications network, or TikTok because it's on every single person's phone. So I'd say that we should be cautious about these things, but we shouldn't deny ourselves access to great technology that allows us to move around our cities easier. Every great global city has scooters like this that help people move around in a way that is very attractive.
ROD HENSHAW: I guess it's a case of striking the balance between being cautious and paranoia, isn't it, really?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Indeed.
ROD HENSHAW: Thanks, James, great to talk with you, and we'll catch up again sometime soon, I hope.
ENDS