The Chaser Report - A Heartfelt Reunion | Charles and Dom

Episode Date: September 9, 2024

Charles and Dom enjoy a heartfelt reunion as they record together for the first time in months. Dom updates Charles on the Coalition's argument that Jetstar should be sold-off by the government. Plus Charles shares where on earth he's been. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Again, we're back. We are both reunited after, well, really, you're gallivanting. Then I got busy and Andrew very kindly stepped in quite a bit. But no, it is. It's back to us.

Yes. Once again, we finally have been unable to avoid being in the same room. Lockland, could you put some sort of lovely kind of reunited emotional music under this to kind of wallpaper over the shallow husks that are our personalities? Wonderful. No, it's very nice to see. It looks so well. You look healthy and incredibly fulfilled?

I'm tanned from the sunny moors of Edinburgh. Of Edinburgh. Yeah. All right. Look, you've just come back off long flights. I know that Jet Star is one of your favourite subjects, as it is one of my favourite subjects. and coming back, crashing back to Earth, really, in the Southern Hemisphere. Jet Star has been in the news today.

We'll talk about that. We'll also get a bit of a sense of what you've been up to. And your excuses for going away. And then at some point this week, we'll catch up on the presidential debate because it's going to be absolutely fascinating. Oh, yeah, that's going to be great. But before we do any of that, let's do this. Now, Dom, before we get into Jetstar,

I can't wait. Can I just ask you, what did you think of the Apple launch event this morning? Oh, yeah, yeah, the Apple launch event this morning. Well, how about them iPhones? Yeah, yeah, geez. And the Apple Watch, what, Series 10? I'll tell you what. You know, but I just think, you know, has Apple lost its ferv?

Has it lost its mojo? I mean, I would say yes, in a way, but also in another way, no, there's still as good as they ever work. I think in some ways, it just looks sensational. But in other ways, I don't know, I think I might skip this round. Might skip this round, but I'll probably go and buy it anyway. Yes. Okay, well, let's got that out of the way.

We might do an actual episode on the new Apple stuff when it actually drops rather than the night before. But today, Charles, Jet Star has been absolutely fascinating vis-à-vis the Coalition's policy. But I know, we'll cover off on you briefly first. I don't know this story, Don, the Jetsar story. Something was dangled in front of the Australian people today

and then snatched away. I've got to guess what it is about Jet Star. All right, well, let's defer you telling us about your adventures till later because they'll be able to get this. We can devote a whole episode to it. Let's do the Jets Star. We've discovered that the podcast rates better when it's more news. Yeah, okay.

So let's do that. So can I guess, like, so just from first principles here, Peter Dutton, a bit of a populist, going for really striking populist policies at the moment. And that means he doesn't really care about what side of the political spectrum it comes from, just as long as it sort of, you know, is attention-grabbing, he'll say it. And so my guess is everyone in the world hates Jetstar more than they hate the mortal enemy. And so did he call for the immediate closure of Jetstar? Is that what he did?

Because I kind of think that would be an election-winning ploy. I mean, this is the interesting thing about Peter Dunn. If you make the next election about whether Jetstar should exist or not, like it's a referendum on Jet Star. I mean, vote no. If you don't know, vote no. But we do know. Everyone knows.

Everyone knows. Should we run for the Senate on the just. On the no Jet Star. Close Jet Star down. Give Jet Star the Rex treatment. Yeah, just basically every time JetStar cancels a flight, the penalty is $1 million. Just make it happen. Yeah, we can have a sort of emotional baggage handling fee.

Yes, what a great idea. The pain and suffering that it causes. Yeah, and look, the whole user pays thing. That's right. Just bill them for their passengers wasted time. Yes. Even at like a dollar a minute. Which, frankly, if you're flying jet,

start, that probably is the value of your time. Yeah, yeah, that's right. A dollar an hour, it's sort of like, oh. Yeah, but you can do it even at minimum wage, right? And they'd still go bankrupt within a week, I think. No, it's a bit more pathetic than that. I mean, it seemed like it was going to be quite a bold bit of policymaking from the coalition.

Here's the thing, and I have to confess, I got this wrong when I first read it. I missed the detail. So, Bridget McKenzie wrote for the Financial Review, an article, and she suggested that a competition review that's going on at the moment would fail, would fall, would fall short if it didn't look at divestiture. And this is the interesting thing that was sort of dangled. So I thought they were saying Qantas should sell Jetstar. They weren't.

What they were saying was that the government should get the power to make Qantas sell Jetstar if it doesn't do a good job, i.e. If it's Jetstar. So this is what was being mooted was the notion of Jets Star actually having to be a proper budget airline competing against Qantas rather than being used essentially as a defensive ploy that charges 95% usually of whatever Qantas charges for 2% of the experience. And the clever thing about Jet Star is what it allows it to do is in any route where Virgin is actually competitive, Jet Star can undercut Virgin.

So there's just no possible way that Virgin can ever out-compete. Yes, that's right. Pinser movement of Qantas and Jet Star. And, I mean, Virgin will try to do this with Tiger, but of course that didn't work either. So there's a long history to all this. So, yeah, it's not a proper budget airline. It's a slightly cheaper and much worse airline. Every time I fly Jet Star, there's that moment just before you bored when some incredibly annoying person comes around with the scales and weighs your hand luggage to the kilo and sends you to the naughty surcharge corner if you're, you know, 7.1 kilograms.

And it's at that point. I'm like, this is just not worth the money. Yes. It's treated like a schoolboy who's, you know, smuggling lollies into class or something. Well, especially is. And I don't want to sound as if I'm sort of unsound here or politically incorrect. But you look at a Jetstar line and you're going, the weight of the luggage is not the problem.

Put it that way. Oh, you're fat-shaming the Jet Star audio. No, I didn't say that at all. But this is the thing. The strange thing about it is, okay, so if you checked it in the baggage, in the hold, they still be fucking carrying the same amount of weight. It's just that they're like, it's just a way to search hard you. They're still carrying.

But why are you surprised by that? I'm not. It's run by quantus. It's awful. Yeah. But so this all went out there. And a couple of hours later, David Littlepowered came out and said, well, the coalition hasn't endorsed this idea. We haven't signed off on the idea of the government getting the power to divest yet staff from Qantas.

So they were looking populist. It was part of this big, we get the cost of living stuff, we're on the side of the little guy. We feel your pain. But then very soon it was like, no, you're freelancing McKenzie, dial it back, which she did at 1145 a.m. Oh, God. How pathetic is Australian politics? So you can't even, as a government or as an opposition, propose something that wouldn't lead to any consequence, but might lead just to Qantas being slightly questioned.

And this is the point, right? I talked to someone about it today who knows about this stuff. And he was saying, no, it's, they wouldn't do it. Highly likely. They'd just leave it sitting there to improve Jet Stars. As a stick, yeah. As a stick, that's right. But then also, Charles, wouldn't you think that any, you know, given that we're the country

of Juopolis, and particularly in airlines, there have always been Geopolis pretty much. Whenever there's more than two, they kind of die. It's like the Sith Lords. Yes. The whole idea of at least competition regulator or someone having the power to force divestiture. But wouldn't that just be what a competition regulator would be able to do in any sensible market? Yeah, yeah. I'm surprised that the ACHOCC doesn't already have that power.

Maybe they do and Bridget McKenzie doesn't realize. I don't know. But I mean, it's a fair point, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, call me a Marxist. Sure. But a fat shaming Marxist.

A fat shaming Marxist. But I think that, like, it's time to just go to give up on this whole capitalism. Oh, really? Yeah, I think so. I think the whole point is, you know, like, we sold it. We used to own Qantas, right? Sure. And TIA, the TIA.

Yeah, and then we sold it off. It didn't really work for us. Like, it's not, like, it's just, they've just managed to trash the whole enterprise. Well, surely it's time for the government to just go, no, come on, give it back here. We'll look after it. And you just sort of get it back under government control. But didn't the days of Qoniston, TAA where there wasn't real... I mean, there was Anset, but wasn't that time, and it was like, even back then, $400

to fly to Melbourne? Like, it was even more expensive then than it was now. I don't you just need... I mean, sure, have a government-owned flag carrier. I see the point of that. Singapore Airlines is incredibly successful and owned by the Singaporean government. And Cathay, I think, is partly owned by... And Qatar?

Yeah, I mean, a lot of countries do this. Maybe what we should become is an authoritarian state. Yes. That has a sort of almost slave-like relationship with the immigrant workers. Yes, we need to find oil and become a petro dollar country. Yes, I like that. And then we run a really efficient, lovely airline as a government. Well, this is part of the problem, Charles, is that Qantas, as, you know, privatised Qantas, running by the rules of the market is competing against other airlines that don't have to.

So it's living in a little fantasy world where it can be like a proper business. They're competing against all these basically sovereign wealth fund airlines. And so it's only by gouging us that they're profitable. So it's a losing game. I've always thought the way to really get a fast train happening from Sydney to Melbourne. Yeah. Is to give Qantas one of the carriages. Right.

So that it can start selling. So it doesn't see a downside. Yes, of course. A chairman's lounge. Yeah. If they put the chairman's lounge every fast train, they'd be on board with that. Exactly. That's a very good idea.

Well, I mean, you know why the Sydney Metro is so good. So since you've been away, the Sydney Metro is open. Oh, yeah. Been in it yet, but this is, it is, it's one of the rare things where you kind of go, how is this in Australia? Like, it's absolutely beautiful. The strange thing about it is that there are absolutely no ads. You walk into the metro and then all the way through and out again.

You'll see the odd thing on a screen advertising like, you know, just stuff to do the metro, like public information. But no ads. The trains aren't covered in like advertising decals. You don't see anything. And there's public art everywhere. It's really, really beautiful. What happened?

I don't know how this happened. It seems like an accident. But then I got off the metro and I noticed on the side. the logo of the MTR, which is the Hong Kong subway, basically, and the Hong Kong train company. So it's run by, you know, part of the Chinese government, ultimately. Right. So there you go.

So we've got, it's actually really efficient and works quickly and is driverless. Right. So maybe this whole thing of the Chinese are taking over is not necessarily a bad thing. I could be good. Yeah. And, I mean. And, you know, like, okay, so we don't get democracy, but we do get transatlantic on time. Yes.

And they, the great thing about it, too, is that there are no workers to go on strike. So they're driverless trains. What's going to happen? I mean, maybe the person in the control room can go on strike. Yes. But before long, AI will do all of that. Yeah, and also, wouldn't that be cool having Chet GPT running the train? Running the train.

Very safe. And there's also cameras everywhere throughout the Sydney Metro. So you feel very safe slash incredibly surveilled. So all we need is some AI on that, just keeping an eye on dissidents. Yes, that's right. And for all we know, that already goes to the MTR headquarters in Hong Kong. I don't know where that data goes. Do you think this is, like, do you think Chris Minzer's government,

government, the premier of New South Wales, do you think they're doing that? Do you think they're collecting all the face data and, you know, like, do you think that's what's happening? Or do you think he's going straight to China? I don't know. Well, put it this way, if it's going straight to the New South Wales government,

you can guarantee nothing will happen. Because at the same time... It'll just leak our data onto the dark web. At the same time as the Metro is running beautifully and efficiently today. Sorry, this is very Sydney, but the whole of Sydney's train system went down today, like every single line, because one rail had a crack in it.

one rail and it was a really deep crack it took them a couple of hours to weld it out and weld another one in like I don't know what happened to it but one rail is all it takes it's it would be the easiest like I don't want to give any terrorists any ideas but any rail sort of in the central media and all the lines because they all sort of are interdependent

they all go out must say why didn't they just risk it I think they should just risk it a little bit of tarp yeah a little bit of cardboard or something put a board over it that's what they normally do yeah exactly all right so so where have we gotten to Well, look, we'll take a moment now. Take a break.

And when we come back, just to give us a bit of a snapshot of what you've been doing. Oh, yeah, yeah. But just to summarize, the Jetstar side of things, nothing's going to change, it seems. Alan Fels has chipped in and saying that the Aved Triple C should have a divestment power. But or that a court of law should be involved in the process as well. That's not going to happen. No, it's more likely to have communism. Do you think someone rang up, Bridget McIndy and said,

how's your chairman's lounge account going on here, Bridgett? That's what happened. Well, maybe we could divest control the Chairman's Lounge. All right, in a moment, Charles's trip. The Chaser report, more news, less often. So, Charles, do you have had the busiest and crazy? We wouldn't really been saying what you've been doing, but you've made a TV series and you bug it off,

and then you're over in the UK. You could have recorded from the UK. It would have been very late at night or early in the morning, but you could have. There is a 100% chance I would have been drunk during every recording. Mind you, that's true. here as well. What was the difference

to me? No, no. So, yeah, so I spent five weeks. The first five weeks that I was gone, I spent recording this TV show called Optics,

which now has been announced, which is for the ABC and ITV in the UK. Oh, that's good. I didn't know as the UK. Yeah. And it's me, Vic and Jenner,

you know, Vic Zerps and Jenna own. Yeah, yeah. The contact Tracy sketch. The contact Tracy sketch. Yes. Are they making you look old and past it?

It's about... It'll be very well. cast. It's about me. My character is trying to, wants to take over this PR. I think he's about to take over this crisis PR firm when the founder dies. But instead, they get, he gets replaced by these two whip smart 20 somethings who are all about TikTok and trending and influences and stuff like that. Yeah, so that's a long version of contact trace is good. Yeah. That's what the people want. Yes. And then, yeah, and then we headed, then the day,

and I've never shot a narrative comedy before. None of us had, have we? Yeah, no. So, and it's extraordinary. Like, can I just say, Chris did, yeah, yeah. Do not become an actor. Oh.

Do not become an actor. It is grueling stuff. Like, it sounds glamorous. And then you go, your call time is like 5.30 in the morning. You get home at 6.30 at night. And you just exhaust it. And you do that for five weeks. And when you get to work and the camera start rolling,

Whipsmart young women run rings around me. You make it look like an idiot. Yeah. So it's, yeah. That bit I'm looking forward to, I must say, the result of that. And so then you did Wankanomics over in the UK. You said we did wankanomics over in the UK. Now, not wanting to sort of frag at all, but every single show we did sold out.

I had to explain how you do that. You just take them all off sale and then it sold out. Is that what happened? No, no, no. Every ticket we put up for sale sold. Wow. So when are you moving to the UK to launch your comedy career at the new late 40s? We'll be touring.

second half of next year. There you go. But, yeah, no, so that was... And then we did a few shows in London, including in Leicester Square. Really? And the show that we did before... The show that was on before us

in Leicester Square Theatre was just this guy called Ricky Jervais. I don't know whether he've heard of him. Right. He was sort of like our support. Did he come along, did he do? Yeah, he came along and... All right, so enjoy Charles now.

It's taken him 40 years, but he's finally... Oh, once I made it, but you've... You're back on track, Charles. Well done. Back on track. Yeah. Very, very good.

All right. Well, we'll catch up about, we'll talk about the elections later in the week. I'm sure we'll catch up on all the Apple genius slash exactly the same stuff. And also, I do want to at some point this week tell you why Greenpeace is about to go bankrupt. Oh, thank goodness. Yeah. I know. Them and their meddling kids.

You finally got getting rid of them. Oh, look at least. Good things can still. We're often saying negative on this podcast. Yeah. Just leave with that happy thought. Green piece is about to go bankrupt. All right, our gears from road.

We're part of the Iconoclass Network. We'll catch you next time. There you.