The Chaser Report - Adam Bandt Tells Us To Google It | Adam Bandt

Episode Date: May 13, 2022

Leader of The Greens, Adam Bandt, becomes the first party leader to sit and have a chat with Charles and Dom about the election. Adam gets grilled on his policies by Charles and Dom, but will he tell them to "Google it"? Plus it's the PM's birthday and Gabbi Bolt has a beautiful serenade prepared. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In an election that will determine the fate of the entire universe, there's only one podcast holding politicians accountable. Scott Morrison, Anthony Albanese, who will move? Find out on The Chaser Report, election edition. Hello and welcome to the election edition of The Chaser Report. It is Friday the 13th of May, and that's eight days. is till the election and I'm Dom Night and Charles Firth is in tears. What did you do? I've been really mean to everyone.

Everyone? Yes, I've been really mean to everyone. I've been going around calling them all shitheads and fuckwits and fuck tarts. I mean, you've been mean to me for many, many decades. Yeah, and now people are criticising me for it. Well, isn't that fair enough? And so I'm really upset. Isn't that your past actions coming home to Ruth, so to speak?

Yes, yes. Well, it's so unfair. Why should I be criticised for being a fuck-it to everyone? Charles, is there a parallel here? Ooh. I think we might be doing this segment, might we? Deaves dropping. That's right.

Catherine Deaves appeared in the Herald this morning crying. Because... Remorse. Why... Surely it was remorse, that the pain her comments caused. people who'd already suffered greatly. No, I think it was the opposite of that, which is she's crying because she's been really horrible to trans kids. Oh, hang on.

Oh, is she the victim? And she's the victim because people are being mean to her about the fact that she's being horrible to trans kids and lying about them all the time. Right. Do these people include her colleagues from the Liberal Party who've distanced themselves from her, including the MPs from the neighbouring seats, like Trent Zimmerman? who doesn't, or Josh Frydenberg. And even Matt Keane. Matt Keane.

Friend of the show. Yes, indeed. Yeah. So, um, so there you go. I mean, does it work? No, I think, I think it works. Like, were you convinced by me crying? Did you suddenly feel sorry for me and you suddenly go, actually, Charles, you can keep being mean to everyone.

I, yeah. Look, I really thought you, you were the suffering person. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, do you think it's possible that people who'd been described as mutants? Young people by Catherine Deaves. Might they have shed tears, do you think? Well, I think they definitely would have, yes.

But we didn't get to see those tears on the front of the Sydney Morning Herald. No, no, that is strange. Because they keep on calling her controversial. Yeah. Yeah, right. Which actually Grace Tame pointed out yesterday, they're not controversial. They're just lies. Her views are not controversial at all.

She's just lying about trans kids. I'm looking forward to Sunday. Charles, Sunday the 22nd of May when I think we'll never ever be discussing Catherine Deves ever again Imagine the tears of joy we'll shed on that day as Catherine Deves is dispatched to electoral oblivion Charles I don't want to shock you but we've actually got a party leader on the podcast today

Oh really? Yes Is it Clubbama? No Is it I don't know who's the head of the sex party What's it called now? I can't believe they've changed the day The reason.

The only good thing. It was the one cut-through aspect of their platform was that they were this ex parte. Oh, it's the fast train to the Australia party. Is that the party? No, no. What is it? Which one?

Well, it's not Scott Morrison or Anthony Albanese. I'm afraid to say. We just got out in Bant of the Greens. Oh, okay. Well, that's coming up. I mean, it's a leader. Yeah. Great.

And also, a very special day for the Prime Minister, and he'll be so glad Catherine Davis on the front cover of the Herald. It's his birthday. Friday the 13th, an unlucky birthday for a very lucky man, the Prime Minister. And Gabby Bolt has a bit of a birthday present for him. Oh gosh, stick around for that one. It's all going to happen after Charles's daily rap.

This is the wrap for Friday the 13th of May. Labor has revealed that its Federal Integrity Commission would look into dodgy deals dating back years if it wins government. This contrasts with the Liberal Party's model, which wouldn't look at any retrospective corruption, because they'll never set it up. I've seen it destroy people's reputations and careers before it's even made a finding,

and I don't think that's good process. In unrelated news, Angus Taylor has ordered a whole new set of brown underpants this morning. Scott Morrison has claimed he was not responsible for selling the Port of Darwin to a Chinese company, even though as treasurer he paid $18.5 million of taxpayers' money to the Northern Territory to make them complete the deal. You allowed it to happen?

No, we didn't. The federal government had absolutely no authority over that sale whatsoever. The deal raised concerns at the time and is now seen as a national security catastrophe. But luckily, Morrison had nothing to do with it because it's not his fault that the $18 million he gave to make the deal happen, made it happen. We cleared that up. And finally, Catherine Deves, the anti-trans candidate, who seems weirdly obsessed about the topic of kids' genitals, has said that it's not her fault if other liberal candidates lose their seats because of comments she's made in recent weeks.

She said that most Australians actually agree with her on the topic of kids' genitals, which polls show is categorically untrue, much like the rest of her comments in recent weeks. Only eight days to go. That's the wrap. We'll be back in a sec. Tracer Report. Election edition. During the whole campaign,

our team's been working around the clock to try and get leaders of the major parties on the podcast. Albo so far said no. Skomow said no. Clive Palmer, we haven't been out. We went to him and he still didn't actually talk to us. He just shut poor old Loughlin down. But Charles One has said yes.

Yes, that's right. One leader has so much time and is so confident of his chances in the election that he's decided to talk to us. It's Adam Ban of the Greens. Pretty cool. No. Have you met Adam Bass?

However, we'll talk to him. Adam Band is a member for Melbourne and he's the leader of the Federal Greens. Hello, Adam Bantz. Thanks for having me. Now, this election is turning out to be a bit of a cost of living election. So I do have a bit of a gotcha question to start off this interview, which is how much is the cost of a litre of oat milk? Of oat milk.

It's organic or non-organic? I know it's more about this than you, Charles. I'm going to have to Google it. Organic and virtuous, if that's possible. Cruelty-free oatmeal. You don't want those poor oats suffering. Yeah, well, it depends whether the oats have been grown in Fitzroy or imported from elsewhere.

I can send you a spreadsheet. I'm just wondering, Adam, we're very grateful that you're here. Can I just say, I've just Googled it, $47 a liter? Is that true? It cannot be true. Oh, no, that's, yeah, that's for like 12 leaders. Okay. Sorry, go on.

I'm just wondering, Adam. I'm very grateful that you're here, but why did you join the Chase reporter? Your advisor's very confident about the election. Isn't this where the elections decided? That's what they told me. Yes. Yes, that's definitely true. Yeah, and there's no opportunity for you to stuff up and go backwards.

Well, there's still time. When they tried the gotcha. question on you, Adam. You've now famously said, Google it. Why would you support a multinational evil corporation like Google? Haven't you just given them more customers? Yes. You think Bing it, mate, rolls off the tongue better? I'm not quite... Duck, duck, go it? Yeah, well, plenty of alternatives. I now say go to your search engine of choice. So, especially when I'm on the ABC. Look, the big policy that you've launched in the last couple of weeks that I have, that I have been completely activated by and frankly is the reason why you're on this podcast is this whole

artist wage policy that you've got where you're going to just pay artists to to create right now the question i have is okay that's good like i like i like the idea i like the idea that you know dom's brother is an artist like he'll get to sort of get some money and you know won't have to be sale to sale but what about really bad artists like does that like how do you distinguish? How does Centrelink sort of you bring around some of your artwork and they judge you? Like, how do you get rid of really bad artists? You don't want to be funding them. I think, you know, I don't know that I want the government to be the arbiter of what's good and bad art. And, you know, I reckon my taste might even be a little bit better than Scott

Morrison's when it comes to that. But even so, even so, I think you've got to leave that in, hands of those who are no best. I don't know. I disagree because, no, because my 11 year old thinks he's a fucking genius when it comes to art and he's not. There's no concept of how to properly create perspective and things like that. And you're going, no fucking wait. Like, he doesn't deserve a dime. Well, I hear you with a five and six year olds who bring home their amazing masterpieces every day. I know you. I understand. I feel, I feel, I feel all that pain but we're probably going to limit this to people who are finished primary school at the very least all right well you know your other son charles could do it Adam does this

notion of a wage for artists does it apply to washed up satirists who used to be on the government teed at the ABC can we get back on that sweet public money here at the chase of we we are we are talking about minimum wage here so I'll leave it up to you to work out whether what that means It's a huge increase for us. That's a good increase for you. That's not unattractive. You don't realize we're doing a podcast at it. Yeah, no, you're promising $88 a day, I think, is a minimum.

That is much better than most of the podcasting industry. Yeah, that is. Won't we become a nation of podcasters on your watch? Maybe we need a podcast as union. Imagine how long those conversations would be. Well, actually, talking of unions, the Fair Work Commission is going to have a wage case just shortly after the election. Yesterday, Anthony Albanese got into all sorts of trouble saying that workers shouldn't

go backwards. Do you commit, under a Greens government, to make workers go backwards and not get proper wage rises so we can keep the inflation genie shut? Yeah, I've got to say, I think that was pretty astounding, the sort of the apoplectic response to the idea that wages should. should rise faster than what you spend your wages on and that people shouldn't have a wage cut. Like, that's the ferocious response to that, I think, just shows, like, in many ways,

how broken the debate is. So we... So what's your policy? We should lift wages even further, is then the... than is being proposed higher than inflation. Lift them, what they do in the UK, peg the minimum wage to the average wage, so that 60% of the average wage. and that way you reduce inequality

and you start to lift wages from the bottom up. So that would be taking it to about $23 an hour. Let the Fair Work Commission work out the time frame to phase that in over. But that's more than what's being proposed at the moment. But we have a situation in Australia where you can be working on minimum wage and especially if you've got kids,

you'd still be working full-time on minimum wage and living below the recognised poverty line, and that's just wrong. So we've got a really strong platform to lift minimum wages, lift it from the bottom up, lift income support from the bottom up, and that's how you tackle in part at cost of living, but also tackle rising inequality. You want to reduce inequality. Doesn't that mean that the amazing wealth that trickles down from the nation's billionaires

will stop? What are we going to do without that sweet trickle down, Adam? I know, and all the donations to the, the IPA and all of those other amazing non-government organisations will might dry up as well. But, I mean, I think the rise in wealth of billionaires in Australia is phenomenal. During the pandemic, billionaires grew their wealth faster than billionaires in any other country, which, you know, when you think about how Jeff Bezos and Amazon would have done during the pandemic, like for Australian billionaires to be increasing their wealth at a fast,

a rate than billionaires from any other country is pretty astounding. And the mining billionaires more than doubled their wealth during the course of the pandemic. And we're campaigning pretty heavily on a billionaires tax this election. And Joe Biden is even talking about that now in the US. And it would fund a lot of policies. There's a problem with the billionaires text. Because aren't there sort of goody billionaires and bady billionaires?

Like what about – so are you including like Mike Cannon Brooks and things like that? Or do you just give him a free pass and say, oh, it's all right, you can still be a billionaire? Well, the thing with our across the board tax proposal applies to everyone, no favourites here, but it's like there'll still be billionaires afterwards. We're talking about a 6% tax on their wealth. What's the point of a 6%? Surely, why don't they, what, no, that's a terrible idea. Why don't you just get rid of billionaires?

Just take all their billions. Well, we say that plus also make them pay a Bernie Sanders-style levy on the profiteering that they did during the pandemic. So make them pay back half their profits that they raised during the pandemic. That would be a fair approach. And then do that and you start to raise some serious money to fund things like dental and to Medicare. So we think if we especially find ourselves in a minority parliament situation, we can't see why a new government would, be prepared to put a tax on billionaires. Like, it's not really going to affect, I don't know,

I don't know if it's going to affect you. It's probably not going to affect most people who vote unless you're a billionaire. It will affect Craig. The chase, it'll only affect crime. Isn't there a risk, though, Adam, that if you go around taxing your billionaires, some of them are only going to be multi, multi-millionaires. Some of them might only have 900 mil after this tax come down. Aren't you supposed to be about protecting things, Adam?

This is class warfare. Well, yes, I think, again, it just shows how far things have drifted in this country that when you're talking about attacks on billionaires, that it sort of strikes this court of fear amongst some who's saying, oh, you can't do that. It's like, well, hang on, you know, they're making obscene and enormous amounts of money, and it's time that I paid some of it back. I was looking at the Greens website the other day, just on this point, Adam. And look, there's lots of things that are free in your plan, things like education. education, health, and even dentistry. I don't know how anyone can afford to pay for dentistry, not even you. And then there was a link to us a page that said,

our plan to pay for this, and the link was broken. Is that fixed now? Send it through. I'll have to Google it. I don't know. We'd be very, very clear about paying for it by making big corporations and billionaires pay their fair share of tax. There's a significant amount of money to be paid, to be made.

made just by closing loopholes. I mean, we're giving $10 billion a year, for example, like anyone who pays taxes is contributing to getting $10 billion a year to the fossil fuel industry to do things like buy cheap diesel fuel. Now, I would much rather that Clive Palmer pay the same tax on his petrol that everyone else pays and that we use it to fund getting dental into Medicare. So we've run the ruler over it, got it costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office, and you can fund things like getting dental into Medicare

by stopping the handouts to the big corporations and billionaires and making them pay tax. I mean, like, we're in a situation where one in three, big corporations in Australia pays no tax at all, right? And pays no tax at all, and that's wrong. And they're the kind of loopholes we want to close. But they're the companies that keep Australia going at it. Like, why do you hate Australia?

Well, in many instances, there are these massive multinationals who send their profits offshore tax-free. I mean, to take the gas industry, for example, there's 27 companies that in one year bought in $78 billion of income and paid no tax. Shell bought in $5 billion. Exxon bought in $12 billion. But weren't these companies go offshore if we start taxing? This is my point, is that there, in many... No, but they'll just shut up shop. You won't have any wealth creation in Australia at all.

I think you will find that the minerals and the resources will still be under the ground, under Australia's or under the Australian oceans, and there'll probably still be an appetite to get it out. And we're saying, look, make them pay for it and make them pay a fair rate for what they suck out of the ground and their tax before they send the profits overseas. Okay, well, let's go to the other side of this equation, which is then, okay, if you do all this tax, then you get a whole lot of free things. Now, one of those free things is free uni, free education, right?

Now, isn't there a risk that people will just abuse that privilege to learn stuff for free and then just learn a whole of the stuff that they don't actually need to know? Yeah, you're sounding very much like the Liberal Minister for Education at the moment, like that, you know, they routinely get up and they read out topics of, ARC grants that they don't like or PhD topics that they think are offensive and then say therefore you shouldn't fund it. I mean, I just think, you know, we should be a society that values people getting education and if you make a good income out of it, then you pay it back through a higher progressive tax rate. Like the more money you earn, the higher the tax rate

should be that you pay. It's called a progressive tax system and you could use it to fund things like free education. But if Albao had it had to pay for his. economics degree. And don't you think it's more likely he'd know the unemployment, right? Yes, he'd value it more. I don't know, you have to talk to people who are going through education at the moment, with it being user pays where they're paying through the nose for it and ask whether they think they're getting a better quality of education as a result.

Half of our interns are at uni, and they're hungry for work. They've got to work here. They're so desperate. Yeah, like they need every dollar they can get. this is good. This is, you know, a good system. I don't eat properly, I don't think.

Election news you can't trust. The Chaser Report. You've also got a plan to build one million homes, I see here. Won't the boomers just negative gear, 999,000 of them on day one? Yes. Well, the element of our plan is that the government retains ownership of these so the boomers won't be able to get their hands on them i'm afraid

basically communism it's well it's when i was explaining our policy to one journalist the other day said look we're going to we want over the next 20 years um government to build a million homes that it can uh people could rent for 25 percent of their income or you could buy and two for three hundred thousand and then sell back to the government you know a big public build of affordable homes. The journalist said to me, you mean like Menzies did. And it's the first time that I've ever been compared with Menzies or Apollosys being compared with Menzies. But again, it's like this used to be something that we did in this country. And I don't think people, as far as I'm aware, Australia wasn't ever run by a communist Menzies government. Like this used to be something

that was fairly straightforward. I think that's why Menzies wanted to get rid of the communists, was because it was competition to steal their policy. They do this in Singapore, I think, Adam. But isn't it true that Singapore is a socialist utopia where there are no rich people? Aren't you going to turn us into Singapore with this plan of yours? I don't know. It's some very unique lines of attack

have been coming on this policy. But it's the way out because, I mean, we do need to reform negative gearing. Our plan is to limit it to one investment property and to start to, withdraw all of those. Why not zero? Why should anyone own a house to make money out of it? Well, there's lots of people who've decided that their investment strategy for their retirement or whatever will be to own a unit or invest in a unit. And that's not where the bulk of the

subsidies are going. The bulk of the subsidies from negative gearing and capital gains tax are going to the very top income earners who often own multiple, multiple properties. Also known as the Federal Cabinet. Yeah, you've got to hurt a lot of parliamentarians with this plan of yours. Peter Dutton must hate you. He is about six. I know. There's some who've got a lot, and it may not be popular,

but it might go to some way to explaining why it hasn't been reformed so far. So you're on a parliamentary sort of, you're on a good parliamentary wage, you're the leader of the party, so you'd probably be on roughly similar to Peter Dutton. How do you afford six homes on Peter Dutton's wages? I've never understood how he managed to get all that money. Well, I don't know about him, but we're giving about $6 billion a year in handouts through negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts to the very wealthy and people who've got more than two homes, right?

So $6 billion a year is what it costs to basically push up the price of housing and subsidise people who've already got two homes to go and get their third or fourth or tenth. And the money overwhelmingly goes to the top, like goes to the top income earners. And our plan, like you said, a million homes over the next 20 years, that costs about a third of that, right? So for about a third of what we are currently paying every year in handouts to people who've got multiple. homes, you could build a million affordable homes instead. Now, you've got a plan to legalise cannabis, but I can't see in that plan any details about how you'll cope with the surge in the demand for convenience store snacks. The shelves will be wiped.

It will be like toilet paper all over again, Adam. What's the plan? Well, I think that's one area where the market will step up. I think you'll find very quickly. Well, no, I think you'll find that it didn't step up during the pandemic. You're going to, this is a logistical nightmare. Well, maybe we do need to put a bit of further thought into that. You raise a very good point.

What will the price of weed be under a Greens government? Can you commit to putting downward pressure on pot prices? How much will the 25 cost? Well, it's, there is, sadly, it is under our model, it's going to be regulated. So there will be the opportunity. for it to start to be taxed. So I can't give you the exact tax rate at the moment, but it's certainly going to be more available under our model.

And in the ACT, they've already taken steps towards decriminalising personal use and personal possession. And the world hasn't ended there. And as far as I'm aware, the 7-Elevens are still doing all right and have stepped up and filled that void that you're talking about. So I think it's working in the ACT. It'll probably work in the rest of the country as well.

Can you commit, though, to your artist wage being sufficient to afford pot? Yes. Minimum wage. It's minimum wage. And so I guess we don't like dictating how people want to spend their money. So if you can make ends meet, then go for it. Now, we should go, but there is one last policy that we should probably talk about. Oh, yeah.

Have you heard about this thing called the climate change? Yeah. I know the Greens. Do you have a policy about that? Heard a bit about it. It hasn't really cropped up much during the election campaign, which is pretty, pretty distressing. Are you a bit disturbed that the major parties have stolen your action on climate change brand? Well, you know, if only, that would be a pretty good scenario.

I mean, we spent most of last year saying, oddly that we found ourselves in agreement with Boris Johnson, which is, again, not a place I'd ever thought it'd be. But at least in the lead up to the climate summit, he was there saying we need to get out of coal. Joe Biden was going around trying to get the world to sign up to cut its gas usage. And there's just crickets from Liberal and Labor here.

And I mean, it's even worse, like they're now saying, we'll open up even more coal mines, more gas and more gas projects. And just the one gas project like the Betelieu Basin in the Northern Territory would increase Australia's pollution by 13%. So we're having this debate about these targets that are sort of too little too late from Liberal and Labor, and they're trying to bury the fact that they want to make it even worse by opening up more coal and gas.

And that, to me, in a climate crisis, is pretty distressing and we're doing our best to sort of get it on the agenda. You're against, you know, digging stuff out of the ground. That's the only stuff we do, Adam. But you're literally, I don't think you're, quite understand how Australia works. We don't have anything else. We talk for the world.

We dig stuff out of the ground. We don't process it or improve it. Sell it off and then have a few billionaires, which you want to get rid of in tax. Like, you just don't know, like you just, I think you should go to New Zealand or something. I think it'd be much more successful over there. Yeah, well, you know, I've actually spent a bit of time this election campaign in, in the coal sort of areas in Hunter Valley and going to Rockhampton, going to Townsville, going to Gladstone. and our message has been actually there's Australia is pretty lucky.

We've got a stack of the minerals that are going to be needed for, you know, building batteries and electric vehicles and, you know, why not process the iron ore here instead of shipping it off and buying it back in as expensive steel? And we're getting a pretty good reception. I think that one of the one coal miner said to us in, when we're in the Hunter Valley, that it's just the worst kept secret in the valley. Everyone knows coal's got to use by a date, but no one's talking about it,

whereas at least we're going there to have the conversations. And I think, like, increasingly things are shifting, and people would be up for a national conversation, including people in the coal areas, about what a transition out of it looks like. Now, don't use the word transition. I was told very strictly by a Labor insider, you're not allowed to use the word transition

because it polls really badly in the coal areas. Yeah, well, it's because Labor doesn't want a transition. Like, Labor's going around saying we can still dig up coal in the 2050s, just like the Liberals are and still meet our climate targets. And it's just rubbish, right? People know that they're being lied to in these areas. And, like, there's a hunger there for a bit of a conversation about it. But you have to start, I guess, with the first, like,

the first point in the fork in the road is do you accept that coal and gas have a used-by date? And if you accept the climate science, the answer is yes. And so you've then got to have a conversation about what the pathway is out of it. But at the moment, neither the labourer or liberal are there. And that's one of the things we're trying to push. So look, final question from me, Adam. On the Greens website, there are an awful lot of policies, more so than usual. I'd say you've got them costed.

There's a lot of work that's gone into this. What are you going to do if Anthony Albertingy becomes Prime Minister relying on the Green's support? These are policies and targets. He's not going to commit to any of those, is he? I think there's some pretty popular things there. Like when we were in balance of power last time, we got dental into Medicare for kids, for example, and it's one of the things we would want to put on the table

and balance of power this time is getting dental into Medicare for everyone. Now, I don't think that the next government's going to lose votes because they agree with the Greens to put dental into Medicare and make Clive Palmer help pay for it with a billionaires tax. I think people would love that. I think their vote would go up. So I think the toughest one, the toughest thing that we'd have to have discussions around

would be around coal and gas. And what are we going to do about stopping, opening up new coal and gas projects? That's where I'd imagine we're going to find the most resistance. But the other things like getting dental and mental health into Medicare areas that I reckon would be pretty popular for any government. So you may not be able to protect the environment, but you will be able to protect our teeth. That's a start. We'll do both.

We'll do you both. Thanks for joining us, Adam. Yeah, thanks for having me. Rigging elections since before it was cool, the Chaser Report. Now, today is a special day, Friday the 13th. Ooh. It's Scott Morrison's birthday. Hello, Gabby.

And Gabby's coming to the studio. Sure have. She's got a guitar in her hand. Yep. And not my instrument, but. And you're standing up. Well, I have to because the guitar. car doesn't have a strap because I broke it a couple years ago.

So it's not often that we end the podcast with a live, kind of not even produced rock song, but today's that day, Gabby Bolt, what are you going to do? Ah, that's a classic. Is this sort of Marilyn Monroe sings heavy birthday to her president type moment? Sure. I hope you guys know it's, don't sing along there because I've changed the words kind of the bit. Anyway, happy birthday. Birthday, you prick, your policies make me sick.

You are a shit PM and such a massive cunt. Send that one to the lawyers. How long have you spent writing that? Well, I mean, I've been sitting in there for two hours, but I spent about two minutes writing this one. I tried writing a different song and it just didn't come together, so this is the song you get now. It's more original to Maryland's version, certainly.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, well, I was going to do a Maryland impression, but then I just decided that this was funnier. Our gears from road microphones are part of the outcast, creator network. And Gabby's... And have you? Any more tour dates to advertise Gabby? Thankfully, no. Not at all.

So if you hated that, that's fine. I just will never do it again.