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December 17, 2025
SHARRI MARKSON: Well, shortly after Josh's speech, I spoke with Liberal Senator James Paterson. He says Australia needs to draw a firmer line when it comes to extremism, and he's urging governments to use every power available to protect social cohesion and public safety. Here's James Paterson.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: I think that is going to be one of the defining political speeches of our era. When the history of this time is written, I think they will say that was a turning point. That was an electric performance from Josh Frydenberg. It was him at his best. It was powerful. It was moral. It was clear. It is everything that we haven't seen, frankly, from our government over the last three and a half years. And it's a question of what could have been, and hopefully what still can be. He's someone who's got a big contribution to make to the future of our country.
SHARRI MARKSON: He's got to come back.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: We would love to have him back. I've missed him dearly since we've had him out of the parliament for the last three and a half years, but he's someone who's still contributing to the future of our country from outside the parliament, and if he wants to run again, well, he would be enthusiastically embraced by his former colleagues.
SHARRI MARKSON: What do you think needs to be done about this radicalisation?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: One of the least surprising pieces of news since Sunday night is that Naveed Akram, the alleged 24-year-old shooter here on Sunday, was associated with Al Madina Dawah Centre because this has been a factory of hate in our country for years. Some of the worst vilification of Jews in this country since the 7th October happened in their centre, happened at their pulpits, happened to their audiences. If you ever heard a Jew being called a monkey or a pig or saying that they should be spat on, odds are it happened at the Al Madina Dawah Centre and Wisam Haddad himself was successfully sued in the courts by the Jewish community for his vilification of Jews. And yet despite that, despite that one consequence, otherwise he's got off, and his organisation has got off, scot free. And as a society, we have to stop tolerating the intolerable. We cannot allow people to use what is best about our free societies against us. They don't believe in our values, they don't believe in our freedoms, but they do want to use our freedoms to tear away the freedoms of others, and that has to stop.
SHARRI MARKSON: Just finally, do you think this has been the wake-up call that none of us wanted, that we are dealing with a deadly enemy within our own borders?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: We shouldn't have needed it, Shari, because there's been so many other wake-up calls. I mean, let's think about the Adass Israel firebombing, which we now know was an act of state-sponsored terror by the Iranian regime, but carried out by people within our country. That should have been a sufficient wake-up call. Thank God no one died in that incident, but now we've sadly lost 15 innocent souls, including a Holocaust survivor, including two rabbis, including a 10-year-old. I mean this must be the final moment that Australians say enough is enough, and our government says enough is enough.
SHARRI MARKSON: Thank you so much.
ENDS