May 29, 2025
SALLY SARA: Well, to Federal politics now, and it's been a very dramatic couple of weeks for the Coalition. First, there was the Opposition's disastrous result in the election, and then the spectacular collapse of the decades-long partnership, only for it to be patched up in the following week. Now, there is a new Shadow Cabinet in place, including a new-look Finance team. It includes James Paterson as the new Shadow Finance Minister. And Shadow Minister for the Public Service. James Paterson joins me now. Welcome back to Radio National Breakfast.
JAMES PATERSON: It's good to be with you.
SALLY SARA: You've been handed the job that previously belonged to your fellow Victorian Senator Jane Hume, who's been dropped from the ministry altogether. Why was she pushed out?
JAMES PATERSON: Look, Jane's not just a colleague, she's a friend and someone I really admire. She's a great communicator for our party, and she's a tough person. She fronts up not just on the easy days, but the hard days too, to answer questions on behalf of the party. And this is very disappointing for her, and understandably, but my observation is that political careers are not linear anymore. There are often sidesteps on the journey, and I'm very confident that Jane will be back in a senior role in due course.
SALLY SARA: Did you feel uncomfortable about being allocated her previous role?
JAMES PATERSON: It is always a bit awkward in politics. There always is a transition and a handover, often from someone who didn't want to leave their portfolio or is expecting to do a different role. All I can do, though, is work constructively with Jane to continue the good work that she did with her team in the portfolio, and now to hold Labor to account for their performance in this area. I mean, they boast a lot about the surpluses that they delivered at the start of their first term, but they've turned those surpluses into seriously large deficits for the next decade, and we're now going to rack up $1.2 trillion of debt.
SALLY SARA: Former Education Minister Sarah Henderson is out of Cabinet. Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has been given a less prominent position as Shadow Minister for Defence Industry and Personnel. Last night, she told Sky News that she was disappointed not to be in Cabinet and that the decisions were not based on merit. What do you think?
JAMES PATERSON: Well, I'm disappointed on behalf of Sarah, in particular, who did a great job in her portfolio and is a valued colleague as well, and Jacinta, understandably, would have preferred to be in Shadow Cabinet. We would all like to be in Shadow Cabinet, but she has been given a significant and senior role. Merit is the most important consideration in a reshuffle, but I'd be lying if I said merit is the only consideration. This is a political process and leaders have to balance states, they have to balance the House of Representatives with the Senate, they have to balance gender, they have to balance the philosophical composition of their party rooms. And that's no different for Labor or Liberal and it is a messy process sometimes. But I think Sussan's put together a really great team and I'm really excited about some of the new colleagues that are stepping up into significant roles, whether that's Tim Wilson in an economic role or Andrew Bragg, or the strong national security team we've got with Angus Taylor, Michaelia Cash and Andrew Hastie.
SALLY SARA: Let's talk about gender. Women in Shadow Cabinet has dropped from eleven to eight. Are the Liberals going backwards in promoting gender equality?
JAMES PATERSON: Well, it would be obvious to you, Sally, but I should repeat it - we have the first female leader of the Liberal Party in Sussan Ley, and I think that's a really important and significant development. And yes, the numbers of women in Shadow Cabinet and the Shadow Ministry will ebb and flow from time to time. But there are also new women coming forward into roles, like my friend Zoe McKenzie, the member for Flinders here in Victoria, who gets her first opportunity in the Shadow Ministry. And hopefully, Gisele Kapterian, if the count goes our way in Bradfield, will be starting in a brand new role in the Shadow Ministry as well. So we've got a challenge to bring more women into the party. We know that. We want them in safer seats, and we want them in senior roles.
SALLY SARA: So if there's a female leader of the Liberal Party, is it acceptable in your view that Shadow Cabinet has dropped from eleven women to eight?
JAMES PATERSON: Well, I think it is a really significant and positive development that for the first time in our 80-year history, we have a federal leader of the Liberal Party who is a woman. And yes, the numbers of women in Shadow Cabinet will go up and down from time to time. It's not going to be a static process. But there are new, younger, outstandingly talented women who are coming forward, who in time will be well-placed to serve in future shadow cabinets. And I suspect those numbers will go up again.
SALLY SARA: It's the conservative women in particular who have lost out in this reshuffle. Is that the best approach to help unify the party?
JAMES PATERSON: Look, I think if you look across the party room, there are conservatives, people on the right of the party, who've got significant roles, like myself, like Angus Taylor, like Michaelia Cash, like Andrew Hastie, and there are people from the more moderate end of the party who are getting an opportunity, people like Dave Sharma and Maria Kovacic, who I know will do a really good job as well. I think it's a balanced team and I think Sussan's done a difficult job of picking from a range of talented people to give us the best opportunity to cohease as a team and to hold Labor to account.
SALLY SARA: The economic platform that the Coalition took to the election has been condemned by some within the Liberal Party as part of the reason for the catastrophic loss at the Federal Election. What will be your key areas of focus in the finance portfolio, a policy area that the Liberal Party has prided itself on?
JAMES PATERSON: You're right, the economy is traditionally a strong brand equity for the Liberal Party and if we are ever to return to government at the federal level, we must have a very strong lead over Labor on the economy, and that means better management of the economy overall, but better budget management as well. I think it's critically important that we make sure that our Liberal values, when it comes to the economy, are in line with our policies. We need to make sure that we are always the party of lower taxes and that we're always the party of stronger budgets.
SALLY SARA: One of the biggest policy questions facing the Coalition is net zero. Would you be comfortable if the party dumped the net zero target?
JAMES PATERSON: Look, I understand your interest and the interest of your listeners on this issue. I'm not going to express a personal view because we are now going through a policy review process following the election, and well before the next election, over the next three years, we'll outline all of our policies in this and other areas. But Sussan has signalled that emissions reduction is an important part of our agenda because she's appointed my colleague Dan Tehan as the Shadow Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, and it will continue to be an important priority.
SALLY SARA: You're listening to Radio National Breakfast and you're hearing from the new Shadow Finance Minister, James Paterson. If the Liberals decide to stick with net zero and the Nats want to abandon it, what happens to the Coalition?
JAMES PATERSON: Well, Sussan has very importantly secured a commitment from David Littleproud and the National Party that the principle of shadow cabinet solidarity will be upheld. That is, if we make decisions, we will all be bound by those decisions. Now, anyone who doesn't feel that they can uphold a decision of the Shadow Cabinet enjoys the freedom on our side of politics to go to the backbench to advocate for their point of view. But they can't remain in the Shadow Ministry if they don't support the positions of the Shadow Ministry.
SALLY SARA: How do you see the balance between having unity and discipline within the Coalition, but also having room for members of the party room to speak out if there are policies that don't look good that are going to take the Coalition where it doesn't want to go? Was that a problem in the previous Coalition that there was seemingly unity, but there were red flags that there was trouble and those issues weren't addressed?
JAMES PATERSON: Yes, I think you're right, candidly, I think you do have to get the balance right between unity and discipline and airing issues robustly and contesting ideas appropriately. And while you would never want to throw out that unity and discipline, which is critical in modern politics for clear communication, you also have to make sure ideas are robustly tested. And so I think we're going to have to lean more on contestability in this period and there may be a little bit of political messiness that comes out of that. But I hope that the outcome is a more robust policy agenda which has been through a process that will allow it to withstand public scrutiny and earn the trust and support of the Australian people.
SALLY SARA: For you personally, have you spoken to Peter Dutton since the election loss?
JAMES PATERSON: I have, yes.
SALLY SARA: On the issue of super, some of your Liberal colleagues are waging a campaign against Labor's plan to increase tax on earnings for super accounts worth more than $3 million. Do you think that people with that amount of super are paying enough tax currently?
JAMES PATERSON: I'm not worried about the personal circumstances of people who have that kind of money in superannuation, but I am worried about the principle of tax which is being breached here, which is that you can be taxed on a profit when you realise it in a capital gain, and you can taxed income like a dividend, but you should never be taxed on a paper profit, on a profit that might never actually materialise. And that's what Labor is doing. And it's a fundamental breach of how we've approached tax policy in this country. And it has made worse by the fact that they are refusing to index the threshold. So while it may only capture relatively well-off people today, over time it will capture millions of Australians, including younger people who are on average incomes now, will be captured by this in time if it's not indexed. So I think those are really two fundamental objections that we have and that's why we're fighting this very hard.
SALLY SARA: Senator James Paterson will need to leave it there. Thank you for your time this morning.
JAMES PATERSON: Thank you.
ENDS