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Transcripts
June 3, 2026
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SHARRI MAKRSON: Okay, we've got some big breaking news now on what's behind this downgrade in the submarines and for more, Shadow Defence Minister James Paterson joins me live from Canberra. James, you've just been in Senate estimates, and you've had some big news about why exactly we're getting used and not new submarines. Tell us what you've learnt.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: That's right Sharri, so I've just been questioning the Director-General of the Australian Submarine Agency, Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead, and he just disclosed that the Australian Government had been lobbying the US administration for 18 months for Australia to get three what they call “in-service” but as you say used submarines from the United States rather than two in-service submarines and one new submarine straight off the production line. Admiral Mead said that it has always been our preference that we have this, and we've been having what he called “intense discussions” with the United States for 18 months to try and persuade them to give them to us. Now there are plausible reasons why you would prefer to have three of the same type of Virginia Class submarine that had all been in service and were being transferred as a mature platform to Australia. But the problem is that the Albanese government has been telling us for the last three years that their previous plan to get those two in service and one new submarine was the “optimal pathway”. Well, it can't be the optimal pathway if, actually, we would have preferred all this time to have had three in-service because of all the benefits of that.
MARKSON: There's also a lack of transparency over this. I mean, you've had to come at this information through what I assume was rigorous interrogation through a Senate estimates process. This entire time, we thought we were being dudded by America. But in fact, it's been Australia that's pushed for this.
PATERSON: This is the heart of the problem, Sharri, and the Albanese government is not earning social licence for AUKUS, which is a critically important project which I support, by failing to be transparent and open and to make the case to their own supporters and the Australian people as to why we need AUKUS and why it's in the national interest. And when they play tricky games, like pretending that we have an optimal pathway when really it isn't optimal from Australia's point of view, springing a major change on the Australian people in a one-sentence statement over the weekend with the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, and the UK Secretary of Defence, and then failing to follow up until it is dragged out of them, it just breeds cynicism. It breeds distrust. And we can't afford that on a multi-generational project that we have to sustain political support for for decades.
MARKSON: Your opposite number, Defence Minister Richard Marles, is now also claiming that rhetoric on migration is somehow making our nation less safe. Here's what he had to say.
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THE HON RICHARD MARLES MP: But for those who are tempted to walk down a path of xenophobia, it not only undermines our social cohesion, it fundamentally makes us less safe.
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MARKSON: Your response to this, James?
PATERSON: Well, if Australia genuinely had a racist or xenophobic immigration policy, or if the Coalition, who I assume he might have been talking about, was advocating for one, then that could be a problem. But Australia doesn't have that, and we are not advocating for that. We are very clear. We do not want to, and we're not proposing to introduce, a discriminatory immigration policy on the basis of race or religion or any other irrelevant characteristic. What we are saying is that immigration under the Labor Party has been completely unsustainable, it has been out of control, the numbers have been too high, and the standards have been low, and we will be much more discerning about the people that we allow to come to our country, and we will bring them in in much more sustainable numbers. There is nothing xenophobic about that, there is nothing racist about that. It is an immigration policy in Australia's national interest, and every country pursues an immigration policy in their own national interest. Japan has an immigration policy which it judges is in its national interests. So does Singapore, so does Malaysia, so does Indonesia, so do all of our partners and friends in the region. And they wouldn't begrudge us being able to set our migration settings just as they choose their own for themselves.
MARKSON: There seems to be this confusion at the upper echelons of the Albanese government about which nations are our allies and which are our, well, aggressors or potentially enemies or nations to be concerned about. And we see that with Foreign Minister Penny Wong very clearly. She frequently attacks the President of the United States, frequently criticises Israel, very soft on China. And yet we learn that China has sanctioned some politicians in New Zealand for daring to visit Taiwan. Are you concerned about this?
PATERSON: Sharri, this is an absolutely extraordinary, breaking news story this evening from New Zealand. A number of New Zealand MPs went on a bipartisan delegation to Taiwan. As MPs from New Zealand and Australia, myself included, have been doing for years. It is perfectly consistent with New Zealand's One China policy and Australia's One China policy. And the PRC has now taken the extraordinary step of sanctioning New Zealand elected members of parliament for doing what is standard operating business. I think it shows how paranoid and sensitive the PRC can be when it comes to Taiwan. And the only appropriate response for a democracy is to say that we are allowed to determine our interactions with other jurisdictions, Taiwan included, around the world on our own terms, and we won't be dictated to by the PRC or anyone else.
MARKSON: Does this make you want to test this or exercise your right to visit Taiwan by having a parliamentary delegation there?
PATERSON: Well, the good news is, Sharri, a parliamentary delegation, a bipartisan parliamentary delegation, actually just returned from Taiwan, it included some of my colleagues in the Coalition, including Dan Tehan and Jason Wood, and Labor colleagues as well. That's entirely appropriate, and I would hope that the Chinese government doesn't choose to sanction any of my colleagues, whether they're Labor or Liberal, for that. And I think they should seriously reconsider what they have done to New Zealand. It is both wrong in principle, and frankly, I also would assess, not in their interests. I think it will only damage the standing of the Chinese government in the region. And they should rethink what they've done.
MARKSON: I mean, if that did happen to Australian politicians, I would genuinely be interested to see if Penny Wong and Anthony Albanese managed to find tough words to speak out against it.
PATERSON: Well, I would really hope that they would. It would be my expectation that they would stand up for Australia, and our national interest, and our ability to determine our own foreign relations.
MARKSON: Because we've seen in the past, you know, when there was that incident with the Virgin pilot who managed to detect that there was a military exercise off our coast, very soft words from the Prime Minister then. And that was a live fire exercise off the Tasman coast, so weak language in the past. James Paterson, really appreciate your time. Thank you very much.
ENDS