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May 21, 2025
GRAEME GOODINGS: Senator, good morning to you.
JAMES PATERSON: Good morning. Thank you for having me.
GRAEME GOODINGS: You heard what Mark Riley has had to say. Where does Liberal Party go from here? Is the Coalition dead and buried?
JAMES PATERSON: No, I don't think it is. And it's my ambition that we can solve this issue and re-form the Coalition in this term of Parliament and go to the next election as a joint Coalition again, because it's not in the Liberal Party's interest for us to be fighting the National Party. We already have to fight the Labor Party, the Greens, and the Teals, we are not looking for any other political opponents. It's not in the National Party's interest to find any new political opponents. They already have to fight the Labor party and Climate 200 financed Teals in their communities. And most importantly, it's not in the interests of the people we represent, whether they're in urban Australia or regional Australia. The small business people, the families, the forgotten people of Australia do not benefit when the two centre right parties of Australia are fighting each other.
GRAEME GOODINGS: I mean, and this is the thing, isn't it? I mean, you're coming out of a devastating result. Labor has been returned resoundingly, and then you've got the Liberal-National Party coalition dissolving. So you know, what sort of opposition are you going to provide over the next three years?
JAMES PATERSON: Well, I can assure your listeners that we will provide a very robust opposition to this government, no matter what happens. We will hold them to account for the promises that they made, that they must deliver on and for any mistakes that they make, and we will also develop a compelling alternative policy agenda that I hope can earn the support of the Australian people at the next election. But our task in doing so will be much easier if we have the full resources of the Coalition united, and we're focused on our principal political opponents in the Labor party, not on each other.
GRAEME GOODINGS: So you're suggesting the Coalition will resume before the next election?
JAMES PATERSON: I think that has to be our ambition. And I don't think the issues that have been publicly canvassed are insurmountable. Certainly, the four policy areas that have been identified as priorities to the National Party by David Littleproud, I think we can find a mutually beneficial landing on all of those that are satisfactory to both parties, if we're allowed the time to do so and allow the proper processes to work through those things. So I don't think there is an insurmountable issue. The only issue that I've seen reported in the media, which I think is a big challenge, if it is accurate, because I wasn't involved in the negotiations directly. But it has been reported that the National Party wanted it to be exempt from the conventions of cabinet solidarity. That is not be bound by the decisions of cabinet. I mean, that would be overturning centuries old Westminster traditions and principles that we couldn't do. We couldn't provide a stable alternative government in that scenario. But if we can resolve that issue, then I think we can re-form a Coalition, and we should.
GRAEME GOODINGS: Senator James Patterson, thanks so much for your time.
ENDS