Transcript | ABC Radio Melbourne Drive | 26 May 2025

May 26, 2025

Monday 26 May 2025
Interview on ABC Radio Melbourne Drive
Topics: Reflection on the election, Coalition, shadow cabinet
E&OE…………………………………………………………………………….

ALI MOORE: After their very public and very messy split last week, the Liberals and the Nationals are apparently down to the detail when it comes to working out the terms of getting back together. That is according to James Paterson, he's the Liberal Senator for Victoria and he was the Coalition's official campaign spokesman for that disastrous election campaign. James Paterson, hello.

JAMES PATERSON: Thank you for having me.

ALI MOORE: Every time someone says you were the Coalition's official campaign spokesman, do you sort of get PTSD?

JAMES PATERSON: Slightly. It was a challenging professional experience, but I certainly learnt a lot, and we have heard the verdict of the Australian people loud and clear. It was an unambiguous verdict, and we must do much better next time, and we will.

ALI MOORE: And I want to look forward and not back, but I do have to ask you, as the face and the voice of the campaign, and you did numerous interviews including here on 774 Drive, as the chief seller of the policies, how do you feel about what happened and were you sort of sitting in campaign headquarters trying to change things?

JAMES PATERSON: I was deeply disappointed by the result and quite candidly shocked by it as well because our internal research, our polling, was painting a much rosier picture than the published opinion polling that was appearing in the newspapers. And although I knew that there were real challenges in the campaign, although I was concerned that it wouldn't be a good result, I did not foresee, and no one in campaign headquarters saw us going backwards as far as we have in this election. So some really serious soul-searching needs to happen, and not just about the polling, which is obviously, you know, badly wrong, but everything went a little bit wrong to contribute to this, including our policy agenda, which clearly did not inspire people. We didn't instill confidence and trust in them.

ALI MOORE: But didn't you know that? I mean, you were the one; you were doing way more interviews than others. You were there every day, hearing the feedback, hearing the talkback callers, hearing the tone of the interviewer's questions. Did you not go back into the campaign headquarters and say, guys, you know, this is not working?

JAMES PATERSON: Look, it certainly was heavy going at times and I certainly did ask some probing questions in the campaign, but I was given what I thought were reasonable and reassuring answers and it was only on election night that I realised how wrong they were and how off track we were and that's why this has to be such a soul searching exercise. Every aspect of the campaign went wrong in some degree, including the advertising, and the policy, and the research, and the communications. Me, and my remaining colleagues well and truly understand that and we're very determined to listen very clearly to the Australian people about the verdict that they've just delivered us and to do much better next time because they deserve, whether they voted for us or not, a good alternative government that will hold this government to account and will develop a much more compelling policy agenda at the next election.

ALI MOORE: How do you get so off track? How do so many people get so off track? Is it that you're all sort of, you know, in a bubble? What is it?

JAMES PATERSON: I think to be fair it was going relatively well based on the published opinion polling until really about January or February of this year and it looked like, not even relying on our own research but the research done for other media organisations that's been published, that we were ahead and that we were highly competitive. And I think the flaws in our campaign and our policy agenda became very apparent quite late in the campaign where it was difficult to do anything about it, and there certainly was the effect of the Trump administration, in particular the tariffs, which while on their own didn't cost us the election, certainly contributed to a much worse defeat than otherwise.

ALI MOORE: So, how, as you say, you've heard it loud and clear, you're having a good soul searching exercise, how confident are you that there will be real change? And I put two things to you. One, there was a really big review after 2022 that got left on the shelf to gather dust. And two, if you look at your current leader, who went up against Angus Taylor, and there were only four votes in it, and two of those votes will disappear in the middle of the year. It wasn't as if, and Angus Taylor being a very key part of your campaign, it wasn't as if the party itself said, let's try and get a clean sweep.

JAMES PATERSON: Well, to be fair, I think we did implement some but not all of the recommendations of the 2022 election review. And the first part of this review has to be an audit about what we did implement, what worked, and what didn't. But clearly, we've got a lot of work to do on things like candidate selection, on putting forward more women in winnable seats, on representing multicultural Australia better and connecting with them better, as well as the policy issues that came up. On the leadership of the Liberal Party, Sussan won the ballot and she's our leader. And I strongly support her. And I think she's navigated as well through a very difficult early period with the National Party and I appreciate this is more public and messier than we would have preferred. But I think we've landed in a good place and Susan stood up for some really critical principles in our relationship like the principle of Shadow Cabinet solidarity where we're all bound by the decisions that Shadow Cabinet makes and I think that's really important and I am proud that she's done that on our behalf and that's why I strongly support her.

ALI MOORE: I get that. I'm just trying to find out where you get your confidence that the party is going to have a really serious rethink. I mean, you obviously have a party that feels very strongly about a certain number of issues. It's what you went to the election with. Can you completely sort of dump everything that you've taken, feeling fundamentally that you believe in it just because you got a bad result? I mean, rebuilding is really hard if you want to stay true to whatever it is that has led you to where you are in the first place.

JAMES PATERSON: Well, we have no other option except to take this very seriously and to demonstrate that we've heard and we've listened and we'll change because there's nothing guaranteed about our future in politics. We have to earn it, and we have to earn it with people's trust and their vote and their confidence. And if we don't do that, we will be frankly out of business as a political party. So this is a very serious moment for the Liberal Party. It doesn't have to be an existential moment, but it will be depending on how we respond to it. And that's the test that me, and my colleagues have to meet, and we're very determined to do so.

ALI MOORE: Who's going to do that review?

JAMES PATERSON: That hasn't been appointed yet. It's a decision for the federal executive of the Liberal Party, so I'm not directly involved in choosing that person or people. Usually, it's a small group of people, a couple of people who do that, and that will be announced in the coming weeks.

ALI MOORE: What do you make of the National Party? And I was going to say the Coalition split, but that would be looking at what happened on your side. But what do you make of what happened last week? I mean, it was sort of pretty extraordinary, history making news on Tuesday that the Nationals are going to walk away. And then by Thursday, you're all back talking to each other. And as you said yourself, it was much more public and messy than you would like. But what do you make of it in terms of being able to go back together and carry on regardless? Has it fundamentally changed the future of the Coalition?

JAMES PATERSON: Well, it was very unfortunate because the reality is that neither of us can govern without the other. We will not win a majority of seats on our own, and the National Party won't be in government unless it's with the Liberal Party in coalition. So it was unedifying and I think unnecessary to have had the breach that we did. But I'm very pleased we've got it back on track very quickly because I didn't think any of the issues in the relationship were insurmountable other than the Shadow Cabinet solidarity issue which is a core issue in a Westminster democracy to delivering a stable coherent government. You have to have that and Sussan was right to take a stand on that. And I understand why the National Party who did relatively well at this election, retained most of their seats and most of their votes, you know, there were some commitments which were made during the campaign which were really important to them and I understand why they wanted to secure those. And a lot of Liberals agree with them on those issues, it's not an issue of distinction or diversion between us. So, it's very good that we've got it back on track. It's unfortunate it was public in the way it was, but we've three years now to really get our act together to train our sights on the government, hold them to account for their commitments, make sure they deliver on their commitments and any mistakes that they make over the next three years and then do that hard policy work on an agenda that I hope inspires people to think that if they vote Liberal and National at the next election, that their life will be better personally and that their country will be stronger.

ALI MOORE: Where do you think the party needs to go, more to the right or more to the middle?

JAMES PATERSON: I think that's a really false equivalence personally, there's not some neat left right spectrum that you can move one or two points to either. I think we have to be more true to ourselves, I think we have strong values that are well supported.

ALI MOORE: But when you say yourselves, what is yourselves?

JAMES PATERSON: Well, we have to be true to our values, right. I think the values of our parties are timeless. Things like reward for effort, individual freedom, strong families, strong national defence. Candidly our policies have not always reflected that. You know we pride ourselves of being the party of lower taxes but we got ourselves into a position at the election where we weren't arguing for lower taxes and that confused a lot of our natural supporters in the community and I think that was a mistake and one we should never make again. If you vote Liberal, you hope one of the things you get out of that is lower taxes, and we have to be able to deliver that.

ALI MOORE: James Paterson, will you keep a front bench role? I understand that the front bench will be announced soon. That seems to be what people are saying. You had Home Affairs, and Cyber Security before the election. Will you keep those?

JAMES PATERSON: Look, that's really a matter for Sussan Ley and I'll have those conversations with her directly and privately, but I've enjoyed my time in the Home Affairs portfolio. I'm very passionate about national security. I hope there's a contribution I can make. But in our party, it's the sole decision of the leader. Unlike the Labor party, we don't elect front benches, so it really is up to Sussan's judgement about who's best and where they can contribute.

ALI MOORE: Would you be the official campaign spokesman again?

JAMES PATERSON: If asked to do so, I will do whatever my party asks me to do.

ALI MOORE: James Paterson, really good to talk to you, thank you.

JAMES PATERSON: Thanks, Ali.

ENDS

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