Media
|
Transcripts
March 10, 2026
ALI MOORE: Let's go to the announcement by the government that Australia is deploying to the Middle East air-to-air missiles, 85 personnel, and a surveillance plane to help defend states under attack from Iranian drones and missiles. The government says it is defensive, not offensive. Senator James Paterson is the Shadow Minister for Defence and a Senator for Victoria. Senator Paterson, welcome to Drive.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Thank you for having me.
ALI MOORE: Before I get to the Middle East, James Paterson, can I just ask for your reaction to David Littleproud's decision to resign as leader of the Nationals after four years in that job? Can we just have a little listen to him explaining his decision?
[CLIP START]
HON DAVID LITTLEPROUD MP: I'm buggered, mate. I'm out on my feet. You've got to be honest with yourself. You've got to get yourself up when you're the leader, and you've got to want to go and drive and get to that next place and go and fight. And I had the greatest and the most fun I've ever had before the last election and during the last election. I had a passion and a pride in what I was representing. And I'm just buggered. And you get buggered in this place. And that's the nature of the business.
[CLIP END]
ALI MOORE: I'm sure he speaks the truth, Senator.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Yes, it was a characteristically direct and honest explanation from David as to why he's stepping down, and I think it is what it says on the tin. I know not all of your listeners will have great sympathy for politicians, and we sign up for this life, so we should not be complaining about the conditions of our service, but to lead a major political party as David Littleproud does is an exhausting thing. It's an incredibly all-consuming thing for you and your family, and no one can do those jobs forever, so I understand and respect his decision, and I wish him and his family the best.
ALI MOORE: It is, of course, it's been a very difficult time with the Coalition splitting not once but twice. Do you share his confidence that the Coalition is back on track?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: I do. Any of us who have been through the experience of the last nine months since the election is pretty determined not to repeat some of the unedifying displays that I concede we have put on over that time, after our worst ever election defeat. I think there's a new resolve and a new determination to work together as a Coalition, as we have done successfully for 80 years, and to represent the Australian people faithfully, to hold the government to account, but also develop a compelling alternative policy agenda to take to the next election that will give them trust and confidence that if we win the election we're ready to govern in the national interest.
ALI MOORE: Well, you are here as Shadow Minister for Defence, talking about that deployment that the government announced this morning to the Middle East. Have you been briefed by Defence on that?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Yes, I have this morning.
ALI MOORE: Air-to-air missiles, 85 personnel and one surveillance plane, all on the grounds of offensive capability, sorry, defensive capability, not offensive capability. Are you comfortable with that distinction?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Yes, I was satisfied by the briefing I received. For your listeners, an E-7A Wedgetail is a surveillance and command plane. It basically circles above a region and identifies incoming rocket fire and drone fire and communicates the location, and coordinates, and direction of that fire so that other planes, other assets, can take them out of the air and stop them from hitting civilian areas. Now we've been asked to do this principally by the United Arab Emirates, but also other Gulf states, who are not themselves party to this conflict, but who have been on the receiving end of indiscriminate rocket and drone attacks by Iran since it started. And those drone attacks have hit civilian infrastructure, including hotels, roads and airports. And so it really strictly is a defensive deployment and one that the Coalition supports.
ALI MOORE: You said we were asked by other Gulf states, do we have a sort of long-standing defence relationship with the Gulf states?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: We do particularly with the United Arab Emirates. There's a base that many of your listeners may not have heard of called Al Minhad in the UAE, which is where Australian Defence Force personnel have operated out of in the Middle East for decades. For example, when we conducted the evacuation of Afghanistan, both Australian citizens, but also people who had worked for the Australian Embassy, for example, as a translator during the war in Afghanistan. When we evacuated them, we did so out of the Al Minhad base in the United Arab Emirates. So they have been very generous to us in providing that on their soil for decades. And when this request from them came to us, I think we should consider it favourably as we've done. But even if you weren't sympathetic to that argument, it's also just in Australia's national interest that the waterways in the Gulf, particularly the Strait of Hormuz, and the airspace above the Gulf are reopened, and they will only be able to reopen once these Iranian missile and drone attacks have been stopped, and this deployment will contribute to that.
ALI MOORE: Where would this particular plane be if it wasn't being sent to the Middle East?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: So we have several of these planes. We've previously deployed one of them to Poland as part of our support for Ukraine after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It has performed a similar function in support of Ukraine as it will in support of the Gulf states, identifying Russian drone and missile attacks towards Ukraine, particularly their civilian infrastructure, like power plants. And it's identified them and communicated it to Ukrainian defenders so they can take those missiles and drones out of the air before they strike civilian targets, particularly in Ukraine. So it performs this function around the world very competently. The next most likely place it would be deployed is in the Indo-Pacific, but it's not the only one of these planes that we have, and we have other surveillance planes that can perform those functions.
ALI MOORE: We are talking to the Shadow Minister for Defence, Senator James Paterson, we're talking about the government's announcement of this deployment to the Middle East. So that's the plane, and I guess a plane can't operate without people on board, so that's the 85 personnel. Senator Paterson, what about the air-to-air missiles? Who fires them? Who controls them?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: So they will be given to Gulf States, so that they can use them to shoot down incoming missiles and drones. So that is effectively the extra assistance we are providing to the UAE and others. They would fire that from a fast jet, for example, an [F-15] or an F-35, depending on what platform each country flies.
ALI MOORE: And can we have guarantees that they will be used for defensive, not offensive purposes?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Yeah, so these are air-to-air missiles, so they're only useful for striking other things in the air. The Iranian Air Force has already been effectively destroyed by Israel and the United States. These missiles are not useful for striking ground targets, and so yes, it is essentially a defensive weapon. It is only useful for stopping incoming rocket fire or incoming drone fire.
ALI MOORE: This is a particularly relevant question, I guess, given that Australia has now deployed. But do you have any understanding, or I guess any of your own assessment, on where this war is likely to go? You would have seen the many and varied comments from the U.S. President earlier today. Do you think it is a matter of being over soon, very soon, in the words of the U.S. President, or do you think it is something less certain?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: It's very dangerous to make predictions about the future of conflict. It will depend on a range of different factors, including the willingness of both the United States and Israel to sustain these operations at the high tempo that they have been doing them. The missile stocks that they are using, for example, to strike Iranian targets are not unlimited and cannot continue forever. But another factor they have to consider is the impact on the international economy and oil markets in particular, and the impact of each of our domestic economies from that. But it also depends on the resilience and the strength of the Iranian regime, how much longer can they continue to withstand these attacks. And finally, it depends on the willingness of the Iranian people to stand up against their regime. Now, it's very easy for us to opine about that from the safety of a radio studio tens of thousands of kilometres away, but it's a life or death decision for the Iranian people. So it's not something that I say lightly, but if they were to take charge of their own destiny and determine their own future, I think that would be a very good thing.
ALI MOORE: If I can just play you a little bit of what the Greens make of all of this, Senator James Paterson, clearly the Coalition is very much in support of what the government has decided. The Greens obviously have a different view, here's their defence spokesperson, David Shoebridge.
[CLIP START]
SENATOR DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: This is not a 'boys' home by Christmas'. This is a potentially lengthy deployment, and this is likely just the start of it. We start by deploying this military personnel, then when Donald Trump puts the heat on, we deploy more military personnel. What on earth is Australia doing? Sending our military personnel into a hot war zone where there's no identifiable national interest in this?
[CLIP END]
ALI MOORE: Do you have any sympathy for that view, that this is just the beginning and we are now, I mean, we're going to have an aeroplane, personnel, and missiles in a war zone, we're now part of the conflict.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Well, Australia makes sovereign choices when we make an assessment of our own national interests, and I think there's very compelling national interest reasons for this particular deployment, not least of which there are 115,000 Australians who are resident in the region who have themselves been under rocket fire and drone attacks from Iran. And being able to stop those attacks protects those Australians in the region. It will also help reopen international shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, and open the airspace above the Gulf states, which will allow Australians to leave and of course, oil to flow again and bring down prices of petrol and diesel, which Australians are paying right now. So I think that's a pretty compelling reason for Australia to be involved. The final consideration I think is, we've seen in Ukraine, and we've been reminded in Iran, that we are in an age of missiles and drones. Warfare is changing, and we need to learn from that, learn how it's changing and adapt to that. And deploying Australian defence force personnel to the region to learn and observe and understand how to combat this is something that is incredibly valuable to our own ability to defend ourselves in the future.
ALI MOORE: There's a text which poses an interesting question, Senator Paterson, and that is, what would the position be if Iran shoots the aircraft down?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: I think that's a relatively unlikely event, although there's always risk in conflict when you deploy. The reason why it's unlikely is that Iran's ballistic missile capabilities have been very significantly degraded by the Israeli and U.S. campaign, not just this year, but also the attacks on Iran last year. And in particular, their air defence has been effectively destroyed, as well as the Iranian Air Force has been effectively destroyed. So it would be a remarkable thing if they were able to threaten a surveillance aircraft like this. And given the way in which these surveillance aircraft operate, which is generally off-station in technical terms, not immediately above the battle space, means that it would not be a high priority target for Iran and not likely to be struck by Iran, but of course, you can never rule out any risk in a conflict zone.
ALI MOORE: Senator Paterson, just a final question. You have also today supported the decision by the government to give asylum effectively, to give humanitarian visas, to the five Iranian female soccer players. Does that have implications for others who may be on a humanitarian visa and the treatment that they also get?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Well, certainly no one from Iran who's in Australia right now should be sent back to Iran against their will, particularly if they have a pending asylum claim which is being assessed.
ALI MOORE: Do you know if there are many in that position?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Look, it's a matter of public record that there are people from Iran who've been in Australia for some period of time. Some of them have had their asylum claims assessed, though, and found not to be valid. But if there's anyone here who does not wish to return to Iran, who has made an application and that application is being assessed, of course, they shouldn't be sent home now. It's a war zone. It would be irresponsible to send someone back in those circumstances. My view is that the processes should be followed, that people's claims should be assessed, and if they meet the threshold for asylum, then asylum should be granted.
ALI MOORE: Senator James Paterson, thanks so much for joining us.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Thank you for having me.
ENDS