Transcript | Sky News First Edition | 15 October 2025

Wednesday, 15 October 2025 

Topics: Tom Hughes Oration speech, future of the Liberal Party, nuclear energy 

E&OE………………………………………………………………………………………….. 

PETE STEFANOVIC: James joins us live from Sydney this morning. Has the in-fighting ended now James? Have you hit the bottom yet do you think?

SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Well Pete, what I'm arguing is it's perfectly normal and healthy after the Liberal Party's worst defeat in our 81 year history for there to be a period of public debate and discussion about the future direction of the party and that's happening right now and I've made my contribution to it last night. But what I've also said is that this can't continue for the rest of the term because if we are still debating the future and the purpose of the Liberal Party and what we believe in at the end of the term, rather than the start, then it will send a message to the Australian people that we're focused on ourselves instead of being focused on them. So there's a time limit to these things. Colleagues should make their contributions now, not at the end of that term.

PETE STEFANOVIC: What do you believe in?

SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: I think it's very clear what the Liberal Party believes in. It's set out very clearly in our We Believe statement. It is in the fundamental freedoms of the individual, the right to speak, the right to think, the right to believe. It is in the principles of free enterprise, about aspiration and entrepreneurship. It's in the principles of the family as the most fundamental unit of society. It's in the fundamental institutions of our Westminster system of democracy, in our cultural icons like the flag and Australia Day and the Constitution. These are things which virtually every Liberal would agree on and which we should be able to unite behind. I'm advocating that we continue the classical liberal-conservative fusion which has served us so well for 81 years, rather than abandoning it for what I think are very false choices. 

PETE STEFANOVIC: So, is that to keep culture wars alive? 

SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Well this term culture wars is used in a lazy way to shut down debate on issues where actually the Australian people largely agree with us. Most Australians support Australia Day. Most Australians support the ANZAC tradition. Most Australians support our flag. Most Australians support our constitution. We are on the right side of that issue. And those who advocate the Liberal Party become a free market version of the Teals and we stop fighting so-called culture wars are really just advocating that we surrender in those culture wars, that we allow the left to dictate the terms of social and cultural and identity issues. I don't think we should. Of course, the economy should be at the heart of our offering, but it cannot only be about the economy, otherwise I think we'd become quite a hollow and soulless party that only speaks to people's material aspirations, not their other aspirations.

PETE STEFANOVIC: When you run through those core beliefs, James, freedoms, free enterprise, aspiration, family, flags, et cetera, how different do you think all of that is to what the Labor Party's offering? 

SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: I think it's quite different, actually. I think there's a pretty fundamental philosophical difference between Labor and the Coalition. But to be candid, we haven't always reflected our values in our policies, and so I understand why there are supporters of the Liberal Party out there who say, we don't recognise the difference between Labor or Liberal. There's fundamental philosophical differences, but when our policies converge, it confuses the electorate, and some tactical mistakes were made last term, where, for example, we supported higher taxes, which is totally against what the Liberal Party and its values stand for. So we need to be clear about our values and we need to make sure our policies are always consistent with them. 

PETE STEFANOVIC: Well, but also matching spending, which is getting out of control. 

SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: It's very clear with spending at 40 year highs outside the pandemic that that is the reason why Labor has plunged us back into deficit again and plans for a decade of deficits going forward... 

PETE STEFANOVIC: Yeah, you were going to support that for the last election is my point. 

SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Well, over the four-year forward estimates, we actually did offer a better budget bottom line. But there was a lot of spending that we matched from Labor in the last term. And it is now clear what the consequences and costs of Labor's decisions are, because revenue is actually at 25 years high. And the last time revenue was this high was when Peter Costello was Treasurer, and he was delivering huge budget surpluses, and soon after, offered really big income tax cuts. We are not going to have big budget surpluses under Jim Chalmers, nor are we going to have big tax cuts, Australians are paying more to support this government and they're poorer for it. 

PETE STEFANOVIC: You also mentioned James in your speech that you want to push out against Farage-style populism, who's that directed at? I think there's a lot of folks who could take a guess, but who's that directed at? 

SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: To be really clear, it is no one within the parliamentary Liberal Party, which has been speculated about in some of the coverage. It's actually voices outside the parliamentary Liberal Party who don't have our best interests at heart, who are giving us very bad advice, who are telling us to follow the Reform UK model, which is a matter for the UK if they want to go down that path, but which includes the nationalisation of the steel industry, of utilities, which includes significant increases in public spending. The Liberal Party was founded to oppose nationalisation. That was one of the reasons why Menzies built the Liberal Party to defeat the Chifley government's attempt to nationalise banks. We cannot be following the path of others from overseas into a populist economic conservatism which would leave Australians worse off, not better off. 

PETE STEFANOVIC: Right, so that wasn't a shot at Andrew Hastie or Jacinta Price? 

SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: No, Andrew and Jacinta are two of my closest friends in the Federal Parliament. Andrew and I, particularly back to 2017, bonded over our mutual stand against the China extradition treaty. We were banned together from China in 2019. And there's not a single strategic question, which is the biggest question facing Australia, which he and I disagree on. 

PETE STEFANOVIC: Just a final point James, Erica Kirk speaking now in the US, but I just want to ask you about nuclear because you mentioned it in your speech and given there's this global return to it now because of AI demands but it was rebuked by the electorate for the most part in May, how realistic is that now in Australia? 

SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: I think what was rebuked by the electorate was the particular approach we took to nuclear power in the last term. We proposed that it would be publicly owned, publicly built and publicly managed and I'm not sure that was consistent with Liberal values of market-based solutions and limited government. We haven't settled exactly the details of our policy for the next election but something that would be consistent with Liberal values would be lifting the moratorium on nuclear power and allowing private industry, the energy industry and the market to decide whether or not nuclear is viable or not. I suspect there will be a very good business case for it in the future if we want to participate in the AI revolution which is occurring. Unless we're content to sit on the sidelines and we don't think we need the power to make sure that industry can exist in Australia, then I think it will be an option which industry will want to take up as they are in the United States and elsewhere in the world.

PETE STEFANOVIC: We'll see. James, good to have you with us. Thank you, as always.

ENDS

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