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October 6, 2025
LAURA JAYES: Welcome back. You're watching AM Agenda. On Friday, Andrew Hastie sensationally quit the Liberal Party frontbench, saying that he couldn't work under the circumstances, essentially. Joining me live now is Shadow Finance Minister James Paterson. James, thanks so much for your time. Andrew Hastie is a big loss to your party. He should be on the frontbench but he's now on the backbench. Why?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Well, Laura, I agree with you. He's a loss and I would rather that he be on our frontbench. But Andrew has been very open and honest about his motivations here. He had a disagreement with the Leader about our direction, and the responsible and appropriate thing to do, if you believe in the Westminster conventions, as Andrew does and I do, is to go to the backbench in those circumstances. And Andrew himself has said he wants to provide Sussan with clear air and the opportunity to make her leadership a success, and that's what I want to do too, and that's what I'm working towards.
LAURA JAYES: Providing Sussan with clear air by quitting her team does quite the opposite of that. I mean, you and I have been around for quite some time; I've seen this playbook before. He is spoken about as a likely future leader. For him not to be in the frontbench and to be on the backbench, he can be way more outspoken. That becomes a problem for any leader, doesn't it? How is this not a problem for Sussan Ley?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Well, Laura, think about what the alternative here is. Andrew is a person of sincere convictions and he has a fundamental disagreement about policy and direction. Would it be better that he remain in the shadow cabinet and contradict the leader on those issues?
LAURA JAYES: Well, why did it have to come to that, James? Why did it have to come to that? We're not even six months past, well, we're about six months past the election. You've got two and a half years to the next election. Voters are disengaged, and that's good for you at the moment, I would say, because you really need to get it together before the next election and form these policies. Why does it have to be a rush? Why shouldn't he stay in the tent and work with her? Nothing's been decided, has it?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Because Andrew is a person of sincere conviction...
LAURA JAYES: ...No, but you haven't even had the election review... But what's Sussan Ley saying? Is she really disagreeing with his fundamental position here, or is it just because it's not been nailed down yet?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Laura, I'm very happy to front up and to directly answer your questions, but at least give me a chance to answer them before you ask the next one. Andrew has a sincere conviction and he is a person of integrity, and he wouldn't want to be complicit in an agenda or direction that he didn't agree with, and the two options available there are stay on the frontbench and be a source of discontent and undermine the leader, which he did not want to do, or go to the backbench, as any Liberal is entitled to do, where you can prosecute your issues based concerns and agenda freely. I agree with your broader point though that as a party we do need to have these big debates after a big election defeat. We do need to have some of the searching questions asked about us and our position that we didn't ask last term. But this is not a process that can go on indefinitely because as we get closer to the next election, if we're seen to be indulgent and focus on ourselves and not the electorate, then I think we'll be harshly punished for that.
LAURA JAYES: It just seems to me a little bit premature. Do you see where I'm coming from there? Because again, we're six months from the election, you haven't even had the review completed yet. He's disagreeing with a policy that, well, you don't even seem to have a policy right now. You have a broader outline of one. He's just agreeing with a policy that you don't even have.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Laura, Andrew's my very good friend, but I'm not his spokesman, and he has addressed these issues himself in his press conference on Saturday, where I thought he was open and transparent about his motivations.
LAURA JAYES: OK, so where to from here, do you think, because there's reviews, there's net zero; that seems to be quite a flash point here. Migration, obviously another one. When do you think Sussan Ley and your team needs to bed down these policy areas so, you know, people can stop freelancing and then you do get on the same page and head towards the next election?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: In the immediate aftermath of the loss, which I think we're still in, it is important to have these debates and it's necessarily that some of those debates will be in the public domain and involve our supporters in the community and commentators who have their views, and that's a process that we're going through now. That's the phase we're in. But I want to see in reasonable time us achieve consensus on those issues, settle those policy issues so we can move to the next phase, which is holding the government to account for its failings and its inability to deliver on its promises and developing our own compelling alternative policy agenda, which we can release closer to the next election that has the capability of earning the trust and support of the Australian people and which demonstrates we're ready to govern. That's something that we were not successful, very clearly, at doing in the last term and we are all determined to get that right this term, and what Sussan and her team are focused on at the start of this term is embedding the processes that will allow us to make those decisions in a way that we can all sign up to.
LAURA JAYES: Nine newspapers suggest there has been a leak from this review that's ongoing at the moment, suggesting that Peter Dutton said Andrew Hastie had some of the blame. Now, we haven't seen direct quotes, I would caution our viewers. We have seen, you know, partial sentiments about what Peter Dutton said in blaming Andrew Hastie in part for the election loss, but we don't see all the context of Peter Dutton's submission. Would it be fair that Andrew Hastie would shoulder some of the blame like the rest of you have.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: I don't believe that any individual should be singled out for our loss. When you have a loss of this magnitude, it is not down to just one person or one policy agenda or one issue. It is a comprehensive defeat which we all bear collective responsibility for. Peter has taken responsibility as that as our former leader. I and other senior frontbenches have taken responsibility for our part in that. I don't think we gain anything by singling anyone out. And I am very disappointed, Laura, that we are reading about confidential submissions to our internal party review through the media. This is the most important election review in the Liberal Party's history, in our eighty years. It cannot be weaponised for internal purposes, and if it is weaponised for internal purposes, then it will not land with the authority and the credibility that it needs to help us reform our party, to put us in a place to compete at the next election. So, I think it's critical that there are no further leaks like this from that process.
LAURA JAYES: Do you have criticism for Peter Dutton this morning, though, because he certainly hasn't proven to be a miserable ghost like some other former leaders?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: No, I don't have any criticism for Peter because I haven't read his submission. As you point out, I'm not even sure the reporter has read his submission - they are quoting third party sources who claim to have read parts of his submission. This is a review process which is not finished, these are submissions which have not yet been released. So, I'm not prepared to judge anything based on the media reports today, except that it is not good that it is being discussed publicly and we need to make sure there is no more of that.
LAURA JAYES: James, in terms of the broader direction of the party, I just wanted to make some observations which I want you to disagree with or agree with if you like. I mean, Peter Dutton was someone who held the party together. He's seen as a conservative. You didn't have, you seem to have so much cohesion when he was leader, notwithstanding the big loss, but certainly the team was as one. He was conservative. He did... he did make some allowances, the other side for the moderates as well. Now, when, you know, you're wrestling for the soul of the Liberal Party, do you need to go more left or more right, do you think?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: I don't think it's a question of being left or right. I think the balance that we have to find, the strike between is, on the one hand, unity and discipline, of which we had plenty in our last term and which is critically important in modern politics. And having the genuine, robust contests of ideas and policy debates, which is also important. It would be a mistake to say that unity and discipline are out of fashion and not necessary. We do need that, particularly as we get closer to the next election. But I think we all agree, with hindsight, the last term did not have those sufficient debates about the Liberal Party and its purpose and its policy agenda, and that caused problems for us later in the term. So, we have to find the right balance between those two important imperatives.
LAURA JAYES: What does the Liberal Party in this modern era stand for?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: I don't think there's anything defective about the Liberal Party's fundamental values, which are set out in the "We Believe" statement and go to the individual freedoms and dignity of Australians that we want to safeguard and protect, whether that's freedom of speech, or freedom of thought or religion, or whether that is enterprise, and opportunity, and entrepreneurship that we want to support and encourage. I think the way in which we have let ourselves down sometimes in the past is that our policies haven't always reflected our values and that has confused the electorate who understand that the Liberal Party, for example, is the party of lower taxes and stronger budgets. But if we don't offer that to them in our policies, they become confused about what we stand for. So, we need to do a better job in the future of aligning our policies with our values so that we are recognisable both to our supporters and also to swing voters who ultimately vote Liberal because they think they will be personally better off under a Liberal government, and our country will be stronger.
LAURA JAYES: Just one final question on this and we'll be talking about this at another time, I'm sure: it's net zero. There is a lot of consternation about this in the Liberal Party. Those who are against it are much louder than those that are for it, and there are a lot of people who are for it within the Liberal Party at the moment. Do you agree that if you are going to get rid of net zero, you need to offer inner city electorates something?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Laura, I've not publicly canvassed my views on this issue because as a member of the Shadow Cabinet I have the opportunity to have my say internally. What I would say is that I think we have a good chance of settling a consensus position within the Liberal and National parties that puts our national interest first, that is economically sustainable, and that is politically viable. And yes, we have to compete in not just the inner cities but in the middle suburbs of our major cities in seats in Victoria, where I come from, like Deakin and Aston and Menzies and Chisholm, where they are concerned about rising power prices and they do question the way the government is managing this transition, but they also care about the environment and emissions reduction. I think there is a landing point that we can achieve on that.
LAURA JAYES: James, always good to talk to you. Sorry for the interruptions.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: All good, thanks.
LAURA JAYES: I'll see you soon.
ENDS