One year on from the 2025 election wipeout, James Paterson has a blunt message for colleagues still smarting from the electoral drubbing: the Coalition didn’t deserve to win.
“I don’t think we did the intellectual heavy lifting, the policy development or the personal development,” he says.
“I think it’s fair to say we were collectively impatient to return to government. We thought it could or should be easier, that we deserved to be back in government and, particularly after the success in the Voice referendum, we thought we were on track.”
The Liberal senator and Coalition defence spokesman, who has been awarded the 2026 McKinnon Prize for political leader of the year, says he’s discovered he can make a much bigger impact on policy fighting for reforms from opposition than he ever managed as a Morrison government backbencher.
“Our country is not being as well run as it could be and that’s because parliament is not running as well as it should be, and part of that is that we need to be a better opposition,” Paterson says, obliquely acknowledging the chaos in his own ranks since the defeat of Peter Dutton.
The annual prize recognises political leaders who have demonstrated courage, integrity and a commitment to the national interest. Paterson is respected across the political divide for his willingness to contest some of the pointiest debates of our time, from security threats to hate speech to climate.
He regularly appears in public pushing the Coalition’s cause, and will accept invitations from various media outlets to do it.
Now he is on the frontline in the fight against One Nation, which is trying to cannibalise the Coalition’s vote and win over its supporters, and he is exasperated by Liberal and National party colleagues talking openly about preference deals and coalition agreements with the populist party.
“I understand why the Labor Party wants to talk about it [preferences], it drives the Liberal vote down and One Nation up,” Paterson says.
“And I understand why One Nation wants to talk about it. But those of us who want to drive the Liberal vote up should not be engaging in this debate because we can’t answer the question this far out.
“They are a very high-risk potential dance partner because of their policies and failure to adequately vet candidates. They are not a party I want to formally associate with this far out from the election.”
The son of left-wing Melbourne academics, Paterson joined the Liberal Party at 17 and has proved a stalwart member of the right faction. Already a political veteran at just 39, Paterson entered the Senate in 2016 at the age of 28 on a casual vacancy after Michael Ronaldson’s retirement, and took to the Senate’s at times arcane committee system with aplomb.
He backed Dutton against Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison in the Liberal leadership spills, and then picked up the junior shadow cybersecurity role in opposition after the 2022 election, where he swiftly proved able to both grab a headline and prosecute a case, forcing the government to audit and then replace Chinese-made security cameras throughout parliament, before proving ruthlessly effective as Home Affairs spokesman during the High Court detainee crises.
“Some of my colleagues who were ministers in government found the transition [to opposition] much harder than I did. I didn’t have the impact of losing a department and staff, I just embraced the opportunity to do things [once on the frontbench],” he says.
Paterson battled through the 2025 election campaign as the party’s official spokesman, fronting up and taking questions about an error-riddled campaign that unravelled in real time as the opposition leader and members of his team, such as Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, made unforced errors and regularly created unnecessary distractions. His plainspoken performance over 76 brutal interviews – far more than anyone save Dutton on the campaign trail – proved he could think on his feet under attack.
That 2025 loss cleaned out the opposition benches – including Dutton and conservative faction leader Michael Sukkar – and paved the way for a new generation of conservatives, led by Paterson, to take over its leadership.
Further underscoring the importance of Paterson within the Coalition as a stabilising influence, opposition leader Sussan Ley dropped him from the leadership group in the initial months of her time as opposition leader, but quickly reversed the decision.
Though an ally of Angus Taylor and fellow conservative Andrew Hastie, Paterson initially stuck with Ley to play the role of honest broker. But a critical moment in Ley’s downfall was his decision to broker the meeting between Taylor and Hastie to find a path forward.
Some in the party have suggested that Paterson should be drafted to stand for a lower house seat, but the senator is having none of it: he enjoys his role as a powerbroker and dealmaker.
“Menzies has this great quote in one of his books that opposition must be regarded as a great constructive period in the life of a party, properly considered, not a period in the wilderness, but a period of preparation for the higher responsibilities which you hope will come.”
This article is part of a content partnership between the Herald, The Age and McKinnon, an independent, non-partisan, not-for-profit that focuses on the importance of democracy and good government.
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.
James Massola is chief political commentator. He was previously national affairs editor and South-East Asia correspondent. He has won Quill and Kennedy awards and been a Walkley finalist. Connect securely on Signal @jamesmassola.01Connect via X or email.
