July 13, 2023
PETER STEFANOVIC: Joining us now is Shadow Home Affairs and Cyber Security Minister James Paterson. Good to see you. Thanks for your time this morning. We'll start off with our top story. We've got more Bushmasters going to Ukraine, another 30 of them. Does the Coalition support that?
JAMES PATERSON: Good morning, Pete. We certainly do, as we have with every other instance of package of support the government has provided Ukraine. We provided bipartisan support for this. Well, I have to say, it's not clear to me why it had to wait until now to be announced. It could have been announced in the budget. It could have been announced when the Prime Minister announced that other package of support about a fortnight ago. I hope the delay wasn't so the Prime Minister had an announcement to make when he was in Vilnius so he didn't turn up to...
STEFANOVIC: What would be wrong with that though? I mean that's obviously what happened.
PATERSON: Well, there would be something pretty profoundly wrong with that if that's the case, Pete, because these Ukrainians are fighting not just for their lives and for their cause, but for our freedom as well, we need them to succeed. And if we're holding back much
needed military assistance for a political announcement, for a photo opportunity, that will be a shocking indictment upon the government and the Prime Minister. I really hope that's not the case. I hope there was a good reason why it had to wait until the Prime Minister met Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Vilnius, Lithuania.
STEFANOVIC: Well, do you have any concerns, James, about what we might have left on the shelf to give?
PATERSON: I do, but only because the government has made a very strange and artificial policy choice, which is that everything that we have committed so far to the war in Ukraine has come from the Department of Defence budget and has not been topped up or replenished by the government. So they have said defence must pay for any assistance to Ukraine that won't come out of any wider budget measures. It won't come out of the budget surplus, it will come from defence. And what that means is no wonder when you ask Defence to go find things for Ukraine, they're rummaging around on the back of the couch to look for the least harmful things to get rid of because they are worried they will need it t themselves. And there is good reason to be concerned about Australia's need to defend ourselves. We've got a lot of work to do over the next couple of years to step up our ability to defend ourselves. So the government really needs to change its approach and stop making defence pay the price.
STEFANOVIC: Onto housing, James, the NAB chief as well as the RBA governor both had a shot at the government yesterday, more housing is needed to combat the high levels of migration. Is it doing enough in your view? Do you share those concerns?
PATERSON: Well, that's exactly what Liberal and National MP and Senators have been saying for months now, that the 1.5 million migrants that the government plans to invite to come to Australia over the next few years have to be housed somewhere, and the government appears to have no plan whatsoever to build the houses needed necessary to give them homes. It is a bizarre situation right now that after a dozen interest rate rises, house prices are still rising. Normally the most powerful indicator of house prices is interest rates. It requires a pretty powerful counter effect to overwhelm that. In this case, 1.5 million migrants is clearly pushing up house prices. It's pushing up rental prices and it's leading to real hardship to the community. And it's not okay for the government to choose to welcome that many people while not having a plan to house them and to build those houses...
STEFANOVIC: You could just support...
PATERSON: Well, I thought you were going to ask that...
STEFANOVIC: To support the housing fund. We've already had Labor on, and that's, you know, that's the argument they came up with. So, I mean if you supported that, would that not make things easier?
PATERSON: Sure, but how many of these migrants are going to live in public and social housing? I mean, the vast majority of Australians don't live in public and social housing. They buy their own home or they live in the private rental market. It's not going to make a difference for the vast majority of Australians. It's only going to help a very small cohort. Don't get me wrong, social and public is important. Our government invested in it too but it is not a solution to a housing affordability crisis. It's not a solution to rental affordability crisis. In fact, on those big problems, the government's doing absolutely nothing at all.
STEFANOVIC: Ok just finally here James. You've taken TikTok to task this week. That's not easy to say. TikTok to task. Where to from here?
PATERSON: Well, the committee will be handing a report to the Parliament very shortly. And I have to say it was very disappointing that TikTok wasn't able to be more upfront and honest to the very simple and basic questions I asked them, like, where is your company headquartered and where are your employees based? They said they didn't have answers to that, and they have to come back notice. I'll be watching very closely. Their answers are due by 5 pm on Friday. If they're not able to answer those questions they took on notice that would reflect very badly on the company.
PATERSON: Okay. Well, watch that timeline as well. James Paterson, appreciate it. We'll talk to you soon.
ENDS
