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March 24, 2025
JACQUI FELGATE: James Paterson is the Shadow Minister for Home Affairs. He's on the line now. Good afternoon, thanks for coming on the program.
JAMES PATERSON: Great to be with you, Jacqui.
FELGATE: Okay. So you've come out already today and been really strongly in condemning what's occurred here. Do you think politics is just becoming a more and more dirty game?
PATERSON: Well, it really shouldn't be. And we should expect more from members of parliament and their spouses, and particularly one that ran on a platform of integrity and honesty and doing politics differently. I didn't realise when the Teals said doing politics differently, that they meant that they would engage in vigilante sign theft, enforcing council bylaws. If you're unhappy about the placement of a sign, call your local council and they will deal with it.
FELGATE: Did you want Monique Ryan, do you think she deserves to come out or should come out and the public deserve an explanation today?
PATERSON: Yes. I think she should step up and explain whether or not this is the first time that her husband has been involved in an instance of sign theft or whether he's done it on other occasions, because dozens and dozens of Amelia Hamer signs have gone missing in recent weeks and others have been very badly vandalised. And I think it's important to understand whether Monique’s volunteers were involved in this any way, shape or form.
FELGATE: What's the law here, James?
PATERSON: Well, it's theft to steal someone else's property. And so that's very clear. And people are allowed to participate in the election by putting a sign on their front fence, and if it is within their property boundaries then they're entitled to do so.
FELGATE: Those who live in glass houses though, like, can you guarantee that the Liberal Party will run a very clean campaign, and you won't have to deal with any of these types of issues, however broad?
PATERSON: Absolutely. That's our intention as well. I want a clean contest in Kooyong. I want Amelia Hamer to have the chance to put forward her case to her constituents and Monique Ryan a chance to put forward hers. And if any Liberal Party member engaged in behaviour like this, they will be very harshly dealt with. We have very high expectations of our volunteers, and that is that they conduct themselves with integrity at all times.
FELGATE: It's been a bit of a day for politics, really, because there's an issue going on within the Labor Party as well. The Sydney Morning Herald has published this article showing a man wearing a t-shirt that's based on a t-shirt that's clearly racist. And in fact, this t-shirt, and play on words about, we love Medicare. It's actually in Museums Victoria as an artefact of Australian racism. I guess when we're looking at social media in the way we run a campaign, do things like this happen to slip through the cracks, could there be any sort of excuse for how this has occurred?
PATERSON: Well, in this instance, the Labor Party appears to be drawing inspiration from a white supremacist who promoted a racist t-shirt as part of their campaign to try and scare Australians about Medicare. And I think that just shows how desperate they have become. But it's a particularly reckless thing to do with the levels of social cohesion we have in our country in recent times. The last thing we need is the Labor party engaging in this. And I'd like the Prime Minister to explain whether or not he endorses this, whether he thinks this is an appropriate way to speak and behave about politics.
FELGATE: I will certainly be asking him. He's coming on the program later. Can I ask you on immigration numbers, which I also intend to ask the PM about? But why are politicians and political parties so wary on immigration right now?
PATERSON: Well, I think Australians feel like it's just out of whack. In the last couple of years, the Labor Party brought in over a million people, and they're built a fraction of the housing and the infrastructure and the services that you need to cope with numbers like that. They didn't plan for this increase, and Australians are paying the price for it with higher rents and higher house prices and more congested roads and reduced services. And we've got to have a well-planned migration system. We think migration is a critically important part of our country. It's built this country. But it has to be sustainable, and it hasn't been on this government's watch.
FELGATE: When will you give the voters more information about your immigration policy?
PATERSON: We've already said that we will reduce the permanent migration numbers down to 140,000 in our first year in office, rising to 160,000 by the end of our first term in office, if we're successful. But we'll have more to announce in the coming days and weeks about the policy measures that we will put in place to do that. But it's very clear that an important part of this is bringing international student numbers down to sustainable style levels. They have exploded on Labor's watch. That's put massive pressure on particularly rental markets in our cities.
FELGATE: There's been a lot of criticism of the way the Labor Party has dealt with the US president, Donald Trump. You have previously been critical of him. Have you changed your mind?
PATERSON: Yeah, so that was a tweet that I sent 13 years ago as a university student, when Donald Trump was a private citizen, and I was disagreeing with the then private citizen Trump on trade policy. And I still disagree with him on trade policy. I don't think the sanctions, the tariffs that he has placed on Australian products are justified. And I think it's disappointing and I think it's harmful to our relationship. But we'll be dealing with the Trump administration from a position of strength from a prime minister in Peter Dutton, if we are successful, who will stand up for Australia no matter who we're dealing with.
FELGATE: I bet you can't wait for this campaign to start like we already feel like we're over it. It hasn't even begun.
PATERSON: Yes, I think the Prime Minister is waiting out the clock. He's waiting for the last possible moment here. But we're ready to go.
FELGATE: James. Thank you. That is James Paterson, the Shadow Minister for Home Affairs. Always appreciate your time.
ENDS