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August 22, 2025
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KENNY HEATLEY: Well, let's get some reaction now from the Shadow Finance Minister James Paterson. James, thanks for your time this morning. What do you make of those comments from Benjamin Netanyahu?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Well, good morning, Kenny. The opposition has had our own criticism to the Prime Minister of his handling of the bilateral relationship with Israel, which he's taken to the worst point since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, and particularly of his handling of antisemitism here domestically, which has been totally inadequate and allowed it to flourish and get completely out of control. We don't need to rely on the criticism of a foreign leader, as strongly expressed as Benjamin Netanyahu's has been, to buttress or to endorse criticism that we've been making, frankly, for two years.
KENNY HEATLEY: Will we see further violence on our streets, though, as a result of recognising a state of Palestine, like the Israeli PM seems to believe?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Well I certainly hope not and I think it is incumbent on all parties to be very measured and calm with our language and a particularly egregious example of not doing that was the Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke on Radio National this week when he used incredibly inflammatory language to respond to Benjamin Netanyahu's criticism of our Prime Minister. Tony Burke is not only the Minister responsible for domestic national security, he's also responsible for social cohesion and at a time when we need the temperature turned down, he turned the temperature right up to 11. And it was so bad that even his fellow Labor colleague, Josh Burns, felt the need to publicly call him out for his language. That was reckless, that was irresponsible, and Tony Burke should apologise.
KENNY HEATLEY: To the Productivity Roundtable, it seems like the main idea out of the summit is to tax wealth to reduce income taxes for people on lower incomes and young people. After speaking with Ted O'Brien, is that your summary as well?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Look, I think the category of the ideas that came out of this fall into two buckets, there were generally good ideas with no specifics, like reducing red tape. We all agree with reducing red tape, but there's no plan to actually reduce red tape coming out of the summit. Or actually quite bad ideas that the government doesn't have a mandate for because they didn't take it to the Australian people at the election. And firmly in that category are the tax increases that Jim Chalmers has put on the table. You know, Anthony Albanese only said last week that the government would not make any tax changes that they didn't take to the election and yet Jim Chalmers wasn't able to make that same commitment at his press conference yesterday and is ominously talking about what sounds like quite significant tax changes to fix his spending problem. What we need in Canberra is some fiscal discipline and as my colleague Ted O'Brien has said, we need to reassert the fiscal rules that govern spending in Canberra. And you don't have to rely on the opposition for that, you know, eminent commentators like Philip Lowe, the former RBA Governor, and Ken Henry, the former Treasury Secretary, are also calling for that kind of fiscal discipline.
KENNY HEATLEY: Should we lower the company tax rate from 30% to 20% to make our companies more competitive and attract investment? Will you potentially take that idea to the election?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Well, the Turnbull Government reduced the company tax rate for small businesses to 25% and sought to reduce the company rate for large businesses down to 25%, but was unsuccessful in the Senate. I don't think the dynamics in the Senate have changed much since then, and many business leaders from the BCA on down have acknowledged that that's not a very likely political prospect. But what they've also said that I agree with is that we have a disastrously low level of business investment in this country, and it is contributing to the productivity problem we have, which is contributing to the lower living standards that Australians are experiencing right now. We went backwards by about a decade in Labor's first term in office. So we urgently need to find ways to encourage and incentivise business investment, and it doesn't appear like Jim Chalmers has any concrete ideas how to do that, even after spending three days locked in a room with some of the nation's best experts on this question.
KENNY HEATLEY: We'll leave it there, James Paterson. Thanks so much, we will talk again soon.
ENDS