News Club Interview: John Anderson

Why is John Anderson relevant to Newsmakers?

Between 1996 and 2007, John Howard was PM, Peter Costello was his Treasurer, and for a large part, John Anderson was leader of the Nationals, making him, under the Coalition agreement, the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia. 

I could tell you all about his politics at the time and give you plenty of reasons to make judgements about him before you’ve listened to this interview. For that reason, I won’t. 

I can tell you, though, that he is a sixth-generation farmer from western NSW, and importantly, he has, somewhat accidentally, built quite the media business. He now has a YouTube channel with 100s of millions of views and some 700,000 subscribers. Most are men. 

So, the reason I wanted to talk to him? Well, he's a Newsmaker, no doubt. But mostly, I’m curious about what he is doing/saying/producing to generate this much interest…

You can listen to the conversation here, tune in on YouTube - and hit subscribe while you’re at it - or scroll down for an edited transcript.

Interview Highlights

Highlight 1: The interview with Jordan Peterson started it all

John Anderson: A young person said to me, "Jordan Peterson's in town. Why don't you have a conversation with him?" I said, "Jordan, who?" He was really just starting out then. So, I watched him in action in front of about a thousand people, mostly young people. That was the important part. I was staggered as a former politician - how do you get an audience like this? They gave him a standing ovation. I'd never heard of him. Who is this guy? He's not a rock star. He's not a political leader. And yet, all these young people knew who he was. I thought, "Gee, this podcasting world is serious."

So, he agreed to have a conversation with me. We already had several episodes in the can, but we did one… and we put it up. I just watched the dial going over and over and over. It put us on the map overnight.

Highlight 2: Should politicians leave their religious views at the door?

Kate Watson: We're a secular society... A lot of leaders have been at pains to say, "Look, this is my religious view on something, but my politics, it doesn't influence my politics." How were you on that when you were a politician, and where are you on that now? And how much should religious views influence politics?

John Anderson: You can't separate them. See, this is a great lie. My personal view is that everyone’s religious. They all have something they bow before. They all have an ideal - often, it’s a selfish one. I actually think there’s such a thing as a sort of cult of environmentalism. Now, before people jump at me, I'm a farmer. I am deeply committed to the sound environmental stewardship of the land that I've looked after…

I would argue that’s a religious view, and I would argue that the very people who say you should leave your Christianity at the door when you go into the cabinet room never seem to say you should leave your environmental views when they are plainly sometimes quite religious.

Highlight 3: Is there hope?

Kate Watson: So, for those who agree with you that this isn’t a good period, that we’re on a structural decline… What is your solution? Is all hope lost?

John Anderson: No, there’s always hope. It’s got to be. Sometimes you’ve got to go through the valley of death before you can find life again. And we need to face the fact that we’re getting it wrong….It’s not working for our people. We’re not happy. We know that. All the indicators tell you—everyone’s stressed, anxiety levels are high, depression, self-harm, mental illness. So, we’re not doing it as well as we should.

In a young, vibrant country like Australia, the raw numbers tell you. On the economy, we’ve had eight quarters of declining per-individual wealth, per-GDP wealth in this country….People with assets have done better than ever, but people who haven’t -young people in particular - trying to get their first foot on the ladder, it’s really hard. That’s why there’s such a link between good economic outcomes and a healthy culture - and a healthy culture and good economic outcomes.

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