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April 23, 2025
LUKE GRANT:
The Labor Party has defended a candidate who accused the late Pope of providing ongoing support for paedophiles, quote unquote, on the grounds she counselled child sex abuse victims. Housing Minister Clare O'Neil and Liberal frontbencher Jane Hume have clashed over the issue on Channel Seven, amid calls for Helen Madell to be disendorsed. When questioned about the candidate, I mean, this is a person who's counselled child sexual abuse victims, O'Neil said. She's seen firsthand some of the damage that's been done to families and communities, and she's made some intemperate excepts five years ago. And I think if we're counting anyone who's ever said anything intemperate, most people in Australia will never be eligible to sit for Parliament. I don't think anyone's trying to excuse her. I think this is a person who's counselled child sex abuse victims. The Liberals have accused the ALP of double standards after the PM savaged to Liberal candidate for saying women were not suitable for combat roles. He was later disendorsed. Senator Hume repeatedly called on her to condemn the comments. Ms. O'Neil said the comments were not appropriate. Well, really, respectfully to you, Jane, these things are things that she wrote on Twitter five years ago. These are not things that she said yesterday. When the world's in mourning for someone who's been a very important leader for the Catholic Church. The other situation is this is a person who wrote some things that she now regrets. Senator Hume shot back, I don't accuse people of being paedophiles. James Paterson, the Senator, is the Shadow Home Affairs Minister. He's the Coalition spokesman during the campaign. He's on the line. James, I hope you are well.
JAMES PATERSON:
Good morning. I certainly am.
LUKE GRANT:
What do you think of this?
JAMES PATERSON:
Well, yet more and more hypocrisy from the Labor Party. It's one standard for themselves and a different standard for others. They are the first to call for other candidates to be disendorsed for frankly, conduct nowhere near as bad as this. And the same day that the Prime Minister is out there speaking in moving and glowing terms about late Pope, his own candidate has made these shocking tweets that the Labor party stands by and defends. I mean, the only suitable course of action is to disendorse their candidate for Flynn today. And it's a test of the Prime Minister's leadership.
LUKE GRANT:
Well, before a candidate becomes accepted and ends up on the ballot paper, surely he says, I wonder what they've put on Twitter over the last couple of years, or five years or ten years. And suggesting that there might be some connection between the Papacy and paedophiles, even though you've been through the most difficult time of counselling affected people. Gosh, it just doesn't pass, does it?
JAMES PATERSON:
I don't think it does, Luke. And the Labor Party are the first to go and trawl through the social media histories of other candidates and leak that to the media, and try and create controversy about them and call for them to be disendorsed. So I would assume that they would have done their own due diligence on their own candidate here and found this material. Obviously, they didn't think it was bad enough to warrant not endorsing her in the first place, but now that it's out there, I think action must be taken. I mean, if the Prime Minister takes no action here, then he's saying that there's nothing wrong with this conduct. That he tolerates this conduct. That he's happy to have a member of his team who speaks about religious leaders in this way.
LUKE GRANT:
I guess you'd say that Peter Dutton won the debate last night? I've heard a lot of people, James, say that it was boring. I genuinely and, I'm sure you don't, switch to a debate between leaders to be entertained. Trouble is, it's somewhat repetitive. And I think that's what's concerning people.
JAMES PATERSON:
Look, entertainment is probably the last thing you should be looking for in politics and political debates. But hopefully you got some substance, and hopefully you got a sense of the differing visions between the Prime Minister and Peter Dutton. I thought Peter performed exceptionally well. I think it was his strongest debate performance so far and his clearest win over the Prime Minister, particularly when he called out the lies that the Prime Minister has been telling in this campaign, for example, over the costing of our nuclear plan. I mean, Anthony Albanese had no response to that; he was confronted by the facts, confronted by the reality, and he didn't even try and defend it.
LUKE GRANT:
You know what? He didn't mention 600 billion. He mentioned hundreds of billions. So he's aware of it, and their campaign is aware of it. And I just wonder if that doesn't indicate, at least in part, that the claims of lies are being received by Australians, perhaps in focus groups, not well received. The other thing they have done, which I think is absolutely abominable, and that's to say that the Coalition is closing down urgent care clinics. And they still repeated it. That Murray Watt, who is a serial offender. Fair dinkum, if he was attached to one of those lie detectors, it would be like he's using a hula-hoop there would be so many electric charges. This bloke is just unbelievable. But how do they keep saying that? You're going to close the urgent care clinics when you've announced you're not?
JAMES PATERSON:
Well, I mean, that's just a blatant, outrageous lie. And Labor will do or say anything to scare Australians because they don't want to talk about their record over the last three years or their vision for the future, and I think the Prime Minister knows he is lying. In relation to the nuclear costing, it relies on a discredited partisan organisation called the Smart Energy Council, who have made political donations to the Labor Party, who employ former Anthony Albanese staffers and whose costing of nuclear power is five times more expensive than the independent CSIRO is costing. So the Prime Minister knows what he's doing. He just doesn't care because he's desperate to win.
LUKE GRANT:
Is this a Medicare election? I mean, there was no flashing of the Medicare card last night by the PM. But I think that's come very much from left field as a distraction. Going into this election, were you of the view that the biggest issue on people's minds was our health system? I thought it was always cost of living.
JAMES PATERSON:
The Prime Minister would like to make this a referendum on Medicare, but there's no partisan policy difference between the Coalition and Labor on Medicare. We're both committed to spending generously on Medicare. They committed $8.5 billion. In fact, we've committed $9 billion. And our record on Medicare is better than Labor's. When we left office, it was 88% the bulk billing rate. It has dropped to 77% on their watch. Going back as far as Peter Dutton's time as Health Minister, it was 84%. So the record is very clear. They're trying to scare people, and they are using lies to do so. But I think actually most Australians just want to know, who's going to help with the cost of living? Who's going to cut their petrol tax? Who's going to give people up to $1,200 back on their tax next financial year? And the answer to that question is the Coalition.
LUKE GRANT:
And they keep talking about how there was, I think, 80 billion cut from health and from education. When in fact, the Coalition, when in government put more money into both areas every year. And what was cut were the projections from the previous Labor government, if I've got that correct. So the idea that you've cut something is false, isn't it?
JAMES PATERSON:
Well, you're right, Luke, spending on health and education increased every year under the former Coalition government. It was greater every year than the year before, it was greater than it was under the Labor government that preceded us, and we've committed to guaranteeing those essential services under the next government. In fact, one of the first bills we will introduce when the Parliament sits, if we win the election, is a bill to guarantee funding for health and education.
LUKE GRANT:
What's the defence policy you've announced today? $21 billion. There is some work in The Daily Telegraph today about the attitudes of Gen Z around Anzac Day. And they also broadly, they've asked people, do we spend enough on defence? And I think most people will say we don't. So this is 21 billion over five years. And how will that be spent, James?
JAMES PATERSON:
Well, it's definitely not enough. Under Labor they're spending 2% of GDP. We've promised to take it to 2.5% of GDP in five years' time, and 3% of GDP in ten years' time. The reason why we need to do that is that our most sober minded national security and defence experts like Sir Angus Houston, the former Chief of Defence, say that we're in the most dangerous strategic environment since the end of World War II. And that the Australian Defence Force is not fit for purpose to defend our country, and defend our interests, and defend our values. So, Labor's failure to invest adequately in defence, I think, is one of the great stains on their legacy in this term of office, and we're determined to fix it.
LUKE GRANT:
I've only got a minute. I was concerned when I read that Russia are hoping to have a deal with Indonesia on defence, and it was shut down pretty quickly. And you asked for a briefing, which you're entitled to get, but nothing was forthcoming; they were suggesting that this is as credible as the Loch Ness Monster. I'm still worried about Russia having a defence deal with Indonesia. Should I be?
JAMES PATERSON:
Yes. All Australians should be concerned. Russia has very clear ambitions to establish a defence presence in our region. And why would the Prime Minister deny the opposition a briefing about this? The only reason is that he's got something to hide. Perhaps that briefing will contradict what he and his ministers have been publicly saying about this.
LUKE GRANT:
And finally, the Prime Minister is directing supporters in his seat of Grayndler to give their second preference to a Greens candidate who claims Israel is guilty of genocide and demands the Prime Minister blacklist the Jewish state and expel its ambassador. I mean, you shake your head. On one hand, he's claiming to be a champion of Australian Jews, and on the other hand, he's preferencing this person.
JAMES PATERSON:
And in the debate last night, he said if he fails to win a majority of seats, as most polls predict he will, that he will not do a deal with the Greens. And yet he's already done a deal with the Greens. He's preferencing them in 149 out of 150 lower house seats, and included among them are extremist nutjobs, antisemites, and racists. And they don't deserve the support of a major political party. But in almost every seat in the country, the Labor party has put them second on their how-to-vote cards.
LUKE GRANT:
Stay well, James. Thanks for your time.
JAMES PATERSON:
Thank you, Luke.
ENDS