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June 3, 2026
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KIERAN GILBERT: Welcome back to Newsday. Let's bring in the Shadow Defence Minister, James Paterson. Thanks for your time. Yesterday, you called on the Deputy Prime Minister to haul in Ed Husic and pull him into line over the comments he made on this program yesterday, saying AUKUS needed a rethink. His comments last night, Mr Marles, were emphatic. He says the debate's been had. We are pushing full steam ahead. Does that placate you at all?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: But, look, Richard Marles has said what you would expect a Defence Minister to say. He's very supportive of AUKUS. That's good. There is no surprises there. And, obviously, the government has sent out Pat Conroy this morning to try and quell this. But until we know what Ed Husic's ongoing position is, whether he's going to continue to agitate this, and until, frankly, it's resolved whether Josh Wilson, an assistant minister, supports AUKUS or does not support AUKUS, then I think this is going to continue. And it really is incumbent - Minister McAllister in the Senate estimates yesterday was telling me backbenchers are free to have their opinion, but everyone in the Ministry must support AUKUS. Well, the only comments we have on the public record from Josh Wilson is he is opposed to AUKUS, and he is an Assistant Minister. So until he clarifies it and comes out and says he supports AUKUS, I think we're entitled to assume he remains opposed to it.
GILBERT: Given the position that Ed Husic articulated and some on the back bench, as Jenny McAllister says, do you accept that that is fine as a principle, that they should be allowed to articulate that? But Mr Marles said everyone needs to take a deep breath. This is the right thing in terms of what our country needs, and it's a massive endeavour.
PATERSON: Well, I agree with him that it's the right thing for our country, and we strongly support AUKUS, and we offer whatever bipartisan support the government needs to deliver AUKUS. But this government has also boasted about the fact that they speak with one voice when it comes to foreign policy and defence. Now, either they all speak with one voice on things like AUKUS, the signature defence program of the Australian government, or Ed Husic gets to have his own foreign policy and his own defence policy.
GILBERT: He's not a minister, though.
PATERSON: Or Josh Wilson gets to have his foreign policy, and his own defence policy. Josh Wilson can't have it both ways and say to his electorate, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, I'm anti-AUKUS, but be a minister of the government and support the government's policies. He has to be honest here and honest back home and say what his actual view on AUKUS is. Does he now support it?
GILBERT: On the visit by the Solomon's Prime Minister, the new Prime Minister Wale, do you welcome that relationship? Looks like it's taking a different turn?
PATERSON: I do. It's very encouraging that the Prime Minister has chosen to visit Australia so soon after he came into government that he's brought a delegation of senior ministers with him, and that it sounds like from the press conference that they had a very constructive engagement with Australia. This is a really important relationship for Australia. We want it to, you know, be on a strong footing. And I think there's a real opportunity here with the new government to address some of the issues in the past in the relationship. And we offer the government again all of our bipartisan support for that success.
GILBERT: A senior government source said to me earlier in the day that this is our best chance since that pact was signed between the former Solomon's leadership and China. So the best chance to win back a bit more influence there. Do you see it that way?
PATERSON: I agree with that, and I don't want to make the government's task any harder by needlessly publicly speculating about it, but I certainly encourage them to seize the opportunity to make the most of it because it is in Australia's national interest. And from Opposition we're on Team Australia, we want them to succeed in the Pacific, it's so critical for our national security.
GILBERT: On Team Australia, I know you've been in Senate estimates and scrutinising the spending, certainly the submarines, the focus on that as well. What is your assessment as we sit here this afternoon off the back of that questioning in the context of what Pete Hegseth said in Singapore last weekend, where he praised Australia for stepping up?
PATERSON: Unfortunately, Kieran, I want to be more enthusiastic than this, but when it comes to defence spending in this government, it is less than meets the eye. They claim a lot, and they deliver much less. And so the Secretary of Defence, new Secretary of the Defence Department, just gave evidence earlier that the 25 year average for Australian government spending on defence as a proportion of the economy is about 2% of GDP, and right now we're spending about 2%.
GILBERT: Or 2.8%, according to the NATO definition?
PATERSON: Which just includes things like military pensions, superannuation, veteran welfare, and even spending on things like the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, who oversees our intelligence agencies. That's not real defence capability. And changing the goalposts by measuring things we've always spent differently doesn't increase our defence capability or make us any safer.
GILBERT: But given we're judged on the same metrics as other countries, why wouldn't you do that?
PATERSON: I don't have an in-principle opposition to comparing apples with apples, but it shouldn't be used to obscure what's actually happening, which is that there's going to be a cut of defence spending between this year and next financial year, about a $600 million cut, according to evidence given just this morning in Senate estimates.
GILBERT: And on the submarines, the fact that we're getting three used subs, are you relaxed with that?
PATERSON: The government has an argument that it is preferable to get three in-service submarines. They're saying that it will be easier to manage, you know, just the same block of submarines and that there will be reduced costs. The problem that the government has is that for the last three years, they've been telling us that the optimal pathway is two in-service and one new submarine, and all of a sudden they're now telling us, actually, we always would have preferred to have three in-service. And they're also using arguments that they could have made over those last three years, that it's cheaper, that it is easier, that they never did make. And they are refusing to explain how much cheaper it is. It's like pulling hen's teeth to try and get answers out of the government on how much they're going to save. The government says it's a significant saving. Officials in Senate estimates haven't been able to provide any detail about that.
GILBERT: Finally, the Sky News Pulse confirms, we've been reporting this for weeks now, One Nation ahead of Labor in its primary vote. And on working class voters, it's up six points on the working class primary vote among that cohort, Labor down five. It's two years out to the next election, but I guess it's part of the challenge that you'll have to take on the government, everyone, in terms of this One Nation threat to say push them on detail, push them on policy and so on, because right now what they're saying is resonating with many Australians.
PATERSON: There's two things I'll say about that Kerian. First of all, I don't know who advised the Prime Minister that a time of unprecedented distrust in the political system and the major parties was a good time to break election commitments. I don't know who he thought the beneficiary would be other than a populist party who is challenging the incumbent system. That was always going to play out that way. I'm not surprised they're benefiting. Secondly, though, as you say, we're two years away from the election. I think Australians are angry and frustrated about the direction of this country. They're registering their disapproval with both major parties very clearly in the polls. But at the next election, they will have to make a choice about the future of the country and who they want to run the country. And I believe as they contemplate whether One Nation is ready or not to govern Australia, to provide a full ministry, including a Treasurer, a Finance Minister, a Defence Minister, a Foreign Affairs Minister, I think that scrutiny will diminish One Nation's support. It won't eliminate it altogether. There are some Australians who are just so angry with the system they don't care about the consequences. But I think most Australians will very carefully evaluate what would a One Nation government mean for Australia, and are they actually ready to run the country? And I think they'll decide that, no, they're not.
GILBERT: James Paterson, I appreciate it. Thank you.
ENDS