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August 6, 2026
PETER STEFANOVIC: Joining us live now is the Shadow Defence Minister, Victorian Senator James Paterson, for his thoughts on this and more. So again, the speech will happen at some point, probably the next fortnight or so, James, but what are your thoughts on this delay?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Well, let's be really clear about what happened here. Tony Burke arrogantly booked in a National Press Club address to announce a new policy, which he had not yet got cabinet approval for. He took it to cabinet on Monday. He got rolled at cabinet by his colleagues, who forced him to cancel his speech on Thursday in a public humiliation of the Minister for Home Affairs because he hadn't done the work and it wasn't yet ready to be publicly announced. For a very senior cabinet minister and a very seriously experienced politician like Tony Burke, this is about as embarrassing as it gets. And I really start to question whether the government even has a plan to follow through on their announcement that they want to reduce migration, from the budget nearly four months ago now. Because this is what this is about, this is about achieving the targets they have failed to meet every other financial year.
STEFANOVIC: Do you think this is about migration? Do you think this is about votes? Or do you think this is about One Nation?
PATERSON: Well, it's definitely about politics. This is a government that was very happy to bring in one and a half million people over the first few years of their time in office. But now that it has become a political problem for them, they're desperately running around looking for a solution. And the kind of things that Tony Burke apparently proposed to Cabinet, which his colleagues have pushed back on, are the kind things that the Labor Party has criticised conservative governments for contemplating doing in the past, including restricting the appeal rights in the asylum system, including forcing people offshore to make applications, including really cracking down on appeals and applications. I mean, these are the kind of things that no one joins the Labor Party to do. If they are contemplating doing them the only reason can be because of politics. They don't sincerely believe in these kinds of tough changes.
STEFANOVIC: Yeah, there's a fair bit of speculation all across the board today about what he was going to say, but I'll start with this one because The Guardian is reporting today that the changes may not reduce net overseas migration below the existing targets, but could better prioritise parts of the system to tighten up working holiday rules, family visa applications, or limit some appeal rights for overseas migrants. If that's true, how much of an effect would that have?
PATERSON: Well, the important thing about these reforms is they're designed to achieve the targets that Labor has been missing. Labor has promised to bring down migration every single year, and every single year they fail to meet the targets they set for themselves in the budget because the policy settings that they have presided over are not sufficient to get the numbers down, and so I agree with that Guardian report, I doubt it will bring it down below the target NOM. But maybe for the first time, if Labor is able to legislate these things, in five years they will achieve their own targeted NOM. But there's a lot of water to go under the bridge yet because I'm not sure Tony Burke can even get this through Cabinet or his caucus, let alone legislate it.
STEFANOVIC: Okay, just some other topics this morning that involve the Senate. Are you going to reach a deal with Labor over the NDIS legislation?
PATERSON: Well, we offered to support passage of the NDIS legislation six weeks ago when the parliament last sat. The only thing we asked in exchange from Labor was that they allow us to have a proper Senate inquiry into their incredibly complex and now very messy tax changes. Perhaps if they had agreed with us, we wouldn't have had this widows' tax disaster, which is affecting allegedly domestic violence victims right now. But they preferred to do a deal with the Greens, they chose to do a deal with the Greens, allowing them to rush through their flawed tax legislation and to kick the can down the road on the NDIS, costing the public billions of dollars more in wastage and fraud. So, yes, we stand ready to work with the government to pass these bills. We could have passed them six weeks ago. It's on the government that we didn't.
STEFANOVIC: And just finally, I mean, we've seen a fair bit of testimony this week at the Senate inquiry into the gambling legislation, gambling reforms. I mean off the back of that, what changes might you now be seeking regarding the government's legislation?
PATERSON: Look, this is something we've got to discuss at our shadow cabinet, which I'm sure we'll do next week, and our shadow minister responsible, Sarah Henderson, I'm sure, will bring forward amendments for us to consider. I think a sensible balance can be struck here. Gambling is part of the Australian way of life. It is a healthy pastime for many people, but it is a problem for some, and we need sensible restrictions on that to make sure that it doesn't continue to be a serious issue for society, and I think a sensible balance can be struck.
STEFANOVIC: All right, James Paterson, we'll leave it there. Good to chat though. We'll talk to you again soon.
ENDS