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John Anderson and the recently cancelled Karl Stefanovic just published a podcast discussing Australia’s decline.

For 44 minutes, Stefanovic and the former Deputy Prime Minister dug into at least 6 major weaknesses in need of fixing to future-proof Australia.

On that list were Cultural Marxism, youth, the ailing Labor-era economy, farming, Net Zero, defence, the housing crisis, NDIS rorts, and the bloated bureaucracy.

Surprisingly, Stefanovic declared himself to be a fan of Anderson’s “clear thinking” post-parliament media work, adding that he’s rarely missed a podcast.

From there, the dialogue shifts to audience reach and the significance of Anderson’s presence in the media world.

“I fell into it,” he told Stefanovic.

The concept came out of a 2017 interview with Jordan Peterson. Someone Anderson wasn’t familiar with, despite Peterson’s new fame.

Anderson said, “We actually launched with [the Peterson interview], and that put us on the map overnight.”

Cultural Marxism and the Battle for Young Minds

On Cultural Marxism (CM), the topic tied into the pair’s conversation about youth prospects and influences passed onto them through the universities.

Noting Herbert Marcuse’s 1968 proclamation that “economic Marxism had failed,” Anderson explained that Marcuse rebranded the revolution Cultural Marxism.

“It’s their term. It’s not just invented by people who don’t like the left.”

The basic concept of CM, Anderson said, was this: “the workers aren’t going to revolt. So, Marxists decided to work their way through the culture; the long march through the institutions.”

Giving an example of how this has dealt a blow to Australians, he drew attention to teachers coming out of university with no “grounding in the core beliefs and values that gave us democracy.”

That’s left, Anderson remarked, “young people surprisingly at sea. If they’re given a creed, it’s all about you.”

“You can be God over your life. You can be an island.”

While he’d defend the idea of the individual, if you carry the idea of hyper-individualism, saying “I’m about me to the exclusion of all others, that’s pretty meaningless.”

To the credit of Australia’s youth, many of them are asking, “Hang on, we need to find something to ground ourselves in that’s a bit more substantial.”

Net Zero, Farming and the Cost of Food Security

Talking about fuel, food, and economic instability, Stefanovic asked Anderson for his thoughts on how the zealotry of the Net Zero nanny-state was messing with food security.

Speaking as a farmer, Anderson replied with “it’s serious.”

“Our profitability is just blown to bits by diesel and fertiliser prices.”

Albanese didn’t prepare for both hits, which was “pretty humiliating,” he added.

“So, we go with a begging bowl to countries which have much more trouble feeding themselves, more than we do.”

There’s also a “moral problem with it”.

We’re “demonising the very things that feed us. I have to say I meet people who the country will have immense difficulty pulling out of this.”

Defence, Energy and the Leadership Australia Needs

Responding to Stefanovic stating that he longed for the economic management of the Howard-era Coalition, Anderson estimated that “it would take four years to reverse one year of bad policy.”

Although Aussies are worried, and make their concerns blatantly known, he said, we “need to be careful we don’t overlook the good people who are there [in politics], who can make a difference.”

Without mentioning names, Anderson said, “They need our support to get themselves into power, and then they’ll need our support through the tough medicine the country is going to have to take.”

That is, “if we’re to give our kids the future we took for granted.”

“If you made me dictator for a day,’ Anderson asserted, “I would be signing off on serious money for missile defence capabilities and stealth bombers to fill [the submarine] gap.”

The second policy move would be “absolutely turbocharging the search for oil reserves here and the business of getting some refining capacity going again.”

This would “cost infinitely” less than the pursuit of renewables.

Anderson then linked Chris Bowen’s bludgeoning of energy security to the next point, stating that this would involve “the long and laborious business of trimming almost every other government program you can think of.”

The two titans of Australian conservatism agreed the trajectory for the country wasn’t good.

In effect, Anderson correctly slammed Labor for celebrating policies that make people poorer.

“On current trends, [we’re looking at] further economic decline. The one possible exception (with significant caveats) is investment in AI and data centres.”

Not against “reducing our reliance on fossil fuels,” Anderson explained, “but not at the cost of impoverishing ourselves.”

“More importantly, [not at the cost of] exposing ourselves to the dangers of not being able to feed ourselves.”

“Nobody,” he exclaimed, “will care much for the environment if we suddenly find our supermarket shelves empty.”

Tying this back into poor Labor policy, Anderson stated, “Albanese does not understand that there are times when Prime Ministers have to shake the nation, and they have to lead.”

Moving through concerns about mismanagement, he said, “We’re all shaking our heads saying, ‘where is the leadership?’”

In between talking about the Nationals, future guests on the podcast and how Australians are using One Nation to send a strong message, Anderson concluded,

“We deserve better policies than we are getting at the moment.”