BEEF industry identity Josie Angus has appeared on TV star Karl Stefanovic’s hit new podcast series, explaining why she is still optimistic for the country despite its growing list of challenges.

In a wide-ranging interview that has already amassed more than 50,000 views on YouTube, alongside other podcast channels including Spotify and Apply podcasts, the pair spoke about the family’s bumpy journey into meat processing, the growing urban and rural divide and how the Government should be dealing with the current fuel crisis.

Mr Stefanovic said he was on the train for change in the amount of bureaucracy Government imposes on Australian businesses.

Asked whether the creep of bureaucracy had her worried for the future, Mr Angus said the family had invested a lot into its next generation and that she was confident the current issues could be fixed.

“I am optimistic about our country, we have wonderful resources, our greatest asset is our people – Australians are awesome people,” she said.

“We just need to put a bit of a wrecking ball through the trajectory that successive Governments have taken us on over the past 30-40 years. But we will get it done.”

While optimistic about the future, Ms Angus said some sort of “seismic event” might be what it takes to get the Government moving in the right direction.

“You are already seeing some of the ideology around climate change, some of that is starting to break down,” he said.

“We need smaller Governments, we need Governments to wake up that there is not just fiscal policy – the biggest and most powerful leaver is regulation. The Reserve Bank might lift rates to supress demand, but the fuel bill is doing that. What we actually need is regulation.”

Need information on fuel

With the current fuel crisis caused by the war in the Middle East being the immediate challenge for Australian businesses. Ms Angus was asked what she would like Government to do to help businesses.

“We need information, I need to know a fair way in advance of the lights going out,” she said.

“As a business, you can always plan around something but you need to know where you are headed.”

Ms Angus said the processing plant had a 100,000L diesel tank that could power the plant for about 38 days and if that tank runs empty the lights will go out. She said more information from the Government would help plan for that scenario.

“It is the dumbing down of messages I think that gets people,”

“We are all relatively intelligent beings, at least the vast majority of us are. I listened to your podcast with the Queensland premier the other day and he kept saying ‘just give us the real information and we can help’.

“We can all put our shoulder to the wheel here to try and get to the solution, we don’t expect them to come up with every magic bullet”

Asked what type of information she would like to see from the Government, Ms Angus said knowing how big the deficit in fuel supplies was would be a big help.

“If we were all told ‘hey, there is a 25pc deficit here’, then each one of us goes ‘well, that is my number I am aiming at’.

“Knowing how many ships are on the water, what is the content of that – whether it is petrol or diesel.”