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Transcripts
June 25, 2026
MICHAEL MCLAREN: My next guest, Senator James Paterson, was awarded Federal Political Leader of the Year. That was for, as they said in the citation, his disciplined, substantive contributions across national security, foreign interference, cyber security and democratic integrity. When you look at the news headlines today about returning ISIS brides and Iran and the whole shebang. They're the sort of areas and qualities that this nation needs at the top more than ever. And I'm very glad to say Senator Paterson is with me. Nice to speak again, James, and congratulations.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Thank you, Michael, great to be with you.
MCLAREN: Well deserved. Let me ask, because you've now been given this honour and I think it's very fitting, all those years ago when you decided as a younger man to put your hand up and run for the Senate in Victoria for the Liberal Party, what was the catalyst? Why did you want to go down that path? Why didn't you want be a highly paid barrister or whatever else you could have been?
PATERSON: That's a really good question, Michael. I was always interested in public policy, I cared about our country, and I was working then for a free market think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs, which would be known to you and some of your listeners. And the great thing about a think tank like the IPA is you're adjacent to politics, you get a influence on public policy, but you don't have all the sacrifices and costs of political life, which are significant. But a casual vacancy arose in the Senate unexpectedly after the change of Prime Ministership from Tony Abbott to Malcolm Turnbull. A minister at the time, Michael Ronaldson, was a Senator and was not included in the new ministry of Malcolm Turnbull and after 20 years of public life, he decided to call it time. I was only 28 years old, and I was married to my wife Lydia, but we didn't yet have children, and it was perhaps a bit audacious to think I was ready to serve in the Senate, but I thought I would regret it if I didn't have a go. So I put my hand up, and here I am.
MCLAREN: Well, I think the nation is glad that you did. I mean I know there's that saying that with age comes wisdom but we've all seen in the Senate for example, plenty of examples that might be exceptions to the rule. So I think having some young but tenacious people in there does not hurt. It's a dirty game, though. I think you and your wife would have spoken about that a fair bit I think before you put your hand up and said now listen, you know, they play the man as much as they play the ball.
PATERSON: Yeah, I would say there are two things I don't like about modern politics. One is the personal nature of it, which I think is getting increasingly common, and the other is the performative nature of it. Speaking really candidly, we do a lot of, you know, bullshit behaviour that are stunts for social media to try and get clicks and likes, and some MPs are willing to degrade themselves in almost any way to try to get an extra view on their social media reels. If ever political success requires me to dance in a TikTok video, I would rather lose an election than degrade myself and the parliamentary system like that, because, actually, frankly, when Australians are struggling to pay their electricity bills or their mortgage, I'm not sure they really want to see highly paid politicians in Canberra dancing around like they are social media influencers. This is a serious business, it requires serious decisions in the national interest and, I don't think we do our political system any favours by behaving like that.
MCLAREN: You know, just on that, I wasn't going to ask you this, but you raised that issue. I was reading a piece by Kathy Lette yesterday, and it was to do with the downfall of Sir Keir Starmer in the United Kingdom, now look I don't think it would be a great shock to say that Cathy would vote more left than right, but she was saying essentially the headline, and she wouldn't have written the headline but it did come from the article, that he just was so boring, I think she said if he was any more boring he would have struck oil. Okay, it's a nice line, but have we got to the point where we now want entertainers rather than people that are capable of making our lives safer, wealthier and better?
PATERSON: My sense of the community is really what they want is delivery. They want a political system and political parties and politicians who make their lives better, who help deal with the economic crisis that this country is facing, which is living standards going backwards, people working harder but getting less, and social mobility evaporating for young people. I don't think they want performative TikTok videos, and I don't think that's what's going to inspire them to vote for a political party. But we're also in an attention economy where you do have to cut through, and you do want to grab attention, and sometimes the theatrical behaviour with no substance is what cuts through, is what's rewarded by the social media algorithms. I think that's to the detriment in the long term of the political system and the people who engage in it, but I do understand why some people are tempted by it.
MCLAREN: Mind you, you've done right on social media. You've got quite the following there, including Katie Gallagher I believe. Mind you she features probably unpaid quite strongly in your videos, but nonetheless.
PATERSON: I would say the social media content that I post that gets the most cut through is Senate estimates hearings when I'm asking questions of government ministers and officials and when they can't provide good answers or refuse to provide good answers when they know better. That's what generates the most interest and attention, and it's deeply serious. It's scrutiny and it is core business to a Senator to [unintelligable] from a government and I think coming back to the award this is really an important statement about good government requires a strong opposition. And one of the reasons why our country is off track right now is we have a bad government and a bad government will get worse unless it has a good strong opposition holding them to account and that's what I'm here to do.
MCLAREN: Did we get a bad government because we had a bad opposition, did we?
PATERSON: Look, I think we were not at our best in the last Parliamentary term, I think we have been, and we should be candid about that. We let people down who were hoping that we would change the government at the last election. And I think a bad government got away with lies, blatant lies, about their commitments on tax and other things. And we're very determined to turn that around because Australians don't really care what side of the house I'm sitting on. They do care what I can deliver for them and what my party can deliver for them, and the Liberal Party needs to demonstrate we are here to fight for Australians, to fight for our country and to hold this government to account and get rid of it if we can.
MCLAREN: Just on your, shall we say, your strong suits, and that was recognised last night in the award, substantive contributions across national security, foreign interference, cyber security, democratic integrity, certainly on those first three. You know, I think I'd be right in saying the majority of Australians have not supported the American engagement in Iran, and yet we've had our security services out there saying that Iran poses a very significant threat to Australia and the livelihoods of some Australians or the Iranian diaspora in Australia. We've obviously had to remove the Iranian ambassador from this country. We know what the Iranians were doing, or we're told what they were doing from afar in and around the Jewish community of Australia. Is there a disconnect in the average person's mind, do you think, between that regime, what it's capable of and what needs to be done to punish it?
PATERSON: I do understand why Australians feel conflicted about the war on Iran because it has had consequences for Australia in higher petrol and diesel prices in the middle of a cost of living crisis. And even though we're not direct participants, it's reverberated on us. But this is a malignant regime. The Islamic Republic of Iran is an evil regime, not just towards its own people, not just towards its own region, but towards Australia. And it is responsible for at least two terrorist attacks on our soil and is capable of doing even worse. And whatever we feel about whether or not the president and Israel took the right action towards Iran, no one should be defending that regime, which is really an evil regime.
MCLAREN: I guess the point is if they hadn't taken that action, they'd just be carrying on like normal in Tehran. The old Ayatollah would still, look I acknowledge it hasn't completely gone to plan and there is still work to be done but if nothing had happened it would have been business as usual. In essence, they would have got away with everything, wouldn't they?
PATERSON: I think that is a fair observation, and I think the world will be a better and safer place when that regime falls one day, and I have no doubt that it will fall, and I hope this has brought that day closer. The Iranian people deserve freedom and self-determination and Iran could be an amazing member of the international community if the Iranian people were allowed to decide its future not a extremist Islamist regime which has persecuted them for 50 years, which has terrorised the region for 50, and now we know has attacked Australia as well.
MCLAREN: Ok, just on the matter of Victoria Barracks, something that you and I are both passionate about. I've, as you know, got to speak with the Assistant Defence Minister Peter Khalil on Tuesday. I know you've listened to the interview, many people have. What did you make of it?
PATERSON: Well, firstly, I do give Peter credit for finally fronting up. I think if you are a government that wants to do something radical, like sell off our military heritage, the least you can do is front up and answer some questions about it. And he has finally now done that on your program, and that's a credit to him. But I wasn't convinced by any of the answers that he provided. I doubt you were either, and I suspect neither were your listeners. And I wonder, really, does Peter Khalil himself personally believe in this? Or is he just delivering something on behalf of the government? And really, is he delivering something on behalf of the bureaucracy? Some of this seems to be just done for the convenience of the Department of Defence, that it's become a chore for them to manage these heritage assets. But they're not just heritage assets, they've got ongoing contributions to make to our military capability, and I think this is very ill-advised, and I don't think anyone would have been persuaded by that interview.
MCLAREN: No, the feedback I got was that that is true, that they were not. Mind you, people have heard my opinion a lot, and so maybe they've taken that point on board. But nonetheless, if the argument is these are underutilised sites, they're expensive to maintain, it's expensive, particularly expensive, or onerous to put high security cabling or whatever through sandstone walls and heritage is a problem, I get all of that. But that logic, surely James Paterson would mean that we also divest Kirribilli House, Admiralty House, the Lodge. Most Governor residences across the country, because they are also all heritage listed. They are only occasionally occupied by the main occupant, very expensive to maintain. But there's no appetite to do that for some reason.
PATERSON: I just really think it's an unserious argument for a first world, wealthy country like Australia, that we are incapable of maintaining these critical pieces of our military history and also making them fit to deliver the military capability that we need in a modern age. Any serious nation would not talk about their military heritage like it is some inconvenience, like it is some line item on a spreadsheet. And as you and others have discussed, Defence Plaza in the Sydney CBD ain't cheap either, and I really wonder whether paying rent to whoever the landlord is over that property and fitting that out is not more expensive than making sure the defence facilities we have owned and are Commonwealth assets are fit the purpose.
MCLAREN: Yeah, just finally, news this morning, Tony Burke confirming it on the ABC that another Australian from Syria will be making her way with a daughter back to Australia. Apparently, every legal avenue was exhausted. Is that your understanding?
PATERSON: Well, I am disinclined to take Tony Burke at face value when he makes claims like this because I don't think the government has exhausted all the avenues leading up to now with this entire cohort. I think they've done things to assist this cohort to come home to Australia, and I'm not sure their heart has ever really been in it, keeping these people offshore. Let's remember that some of the ones who've returned already, who are allegedly affiliated with ISIS, have been charged with crimes against humanity, including human trafficking. They allegedly kept and traded slaves. I mean, these are not good people. These are not people we want in our country. And I want an Australian government that is going to do everything they can to prevent them from returning. And just not convinced this government ever really wanted to achieve that.
MCLAREN: In sort of 30 seconds, were there things they could have done that they haven't done?
PATERSON: I think one of the glaring issues is the decision to grant passports, to grant citizenship by descent to facilitate those applications. I think the Australian government actively facilitated that, and I don't think they should have.
MCLAREN: Because the British, after all, haven't allowed certain people back and we've got a system, a legal system, which of course piggybacks off theirs, but they've found a way, I guess.
PATERSON: And the opposition would provide bipartisan support if the government wanted to change the law to give themselves more power to protect Australians from this cohort. We don't want them here. We will always act in the national interest. If there are changes that need to be made, I'm sure we'll support them.
MCLAREN: Well, once again, congratulations on the award last night. I think it's very much deserved, as do my listeners. Thank you for your time, James.
PATERSON: Thanks, Michael.
ENDS