The 28th Prime Minister of Australia, Tony Abbott, AC joined the Executive Director of the Institute of Public Affairs, John Roskam, in a new three-part podcast series to discuss the future of the Australian way of life.
“The Australian way of life – hard work, free enterprise, home-ownership, egalitarianism and love of country – is special. But it is currently under pressure from the political, media, corporate, and academic elites who are hostile to mainstream Australian values,” said Mr Roskam.
The series brings together two of the most important voices on the Australian centre-right to address a theme that is increasingly vital in light of recent events like the COVID-19 pandemic and the protest movements around the Western world.
“The ongoing public health and economic crisis caused by the coronavirus and the growing iconoclasm in Australia and similar countries together pose a novel danger to Australia’s unique way of life,” said Mr Roskam.
“Australians are in danger of losing touch with the values that have made Australia so successful due to an oversized government and an academy and media class that is contemptuous of Australian values and history.”
“Australia is a wonderful country because it has always been a place where everyone who works hard and plays by the rules has the opportunity to get ahead, make the most of themselves, and build something for their families and communities,” said Mr Roskam.
In the first podcast released today, Mr Abbott said, “We’ve got to get back to the fundamentals always, and governments don’t create wealth. They can foster its creation, they can hinder its creation, but in the end, wealth is created by the people who do things, who make things, business, individuals getting on with it, exercising their freedom in the economic sphere.”
Later in the series, Mr Abbott said, “This idea that there is something fundamentally wrong, something fundamentally illegitimate, something fundamentally racist about Australia in particular, but Western culture in general, it just does not stand up to serious scrutiny.”
The first podcast in the series was released today and can be found here.
The second and third episodes will be released over the next two weeks.
