The Chaser Report - ASIO Confirmed They're Monitoring Us

Episode Date: March 20, 2024

For whatever reason, Charles has been legitimately contracted by Australia's security service for a task. Dom tries to help Charles plan how to succeed in his new position. Plus Charles confirms that ASIO is monitoring The Chaser, because we're such a security threat. 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. Hello, Charles. Now, let's be clear, it's not a joke, it's not an ironic thing. We're not going to reverse this in five seconds like we did yesterday. No royals. No royals in today's episode, none whatsoever.

Instead, we're going to have something far less sinister. Charles, what is it you need to talk about? Well, I need help because I'm doing. This is absolutely true. I'm doing a lecture for the National Security College, which is the peak educational institutions attached to the ANU for spies. For spies? Yes.

So it's where you go. Say you're a spy and you want to do further learning. Like get a masters of spying. Yeah, exactly. You go to the National Security College. Well, Charles, I can see one problem already. You know they're spies. You're not supposed to know.

Yes. This is ridiculous. Their cover's been blown. And you were the least trustworthy. But you will blurt anything out. You have absolutely no confidentiality at all. Unless you're a spy, and this is a ruse, you've been maintaining a strategy of about 13 when I met you. Yeah, yeah.

Where you just blurt everything out. Yeah, the best cover for a spy is to hide in plain sight. Give their phone number out regularly on the podcast. Okay, so they will try and structure some thoughts for you about what spies need to know, A. Yes. And B, the things you're qualified to tell them about. I think that's a very important disclaimer. But also, I think that what we should do is also think of a few pieces of misinformation

or disinformation that we can slip into my lecture to put the spies off track. Do you see what I mean? Like, although, or do we want to help the spot? I don't think we want to help the deep state. Are you getting paid for this? Because if you are, getting paid, you're getting paid good money. Are you supposed to help? Or maybe.

Is the military industrial complex? I know what you should do. I've got around here for you after this. Okay, so the obvious thing. to do now, not having given the talk yet, is to put an account offer to China and see if they'll pay you more. Oh, what a great idea! To cede misinformation.

Yeah, who would I contact to see whether I, you know, who's got good contacts with the Chinese? I think any senior politician knows how to get in touch with it. Even, not saying they're in the pocket to them, just saying they would have an email address or a phone number. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or you could just say it on a podcast, which you'll get archived immediately and probably

scanned by some AI in China. I should just email anyone I know in Hong Kong. Yes, or just anyone you know, anywhere and they'll get into it. Yeah. Or just post something on TikTok. Yep. That'll do it. So as soon as this episode goes live, you'll get an email. That's good. So that's a start. So you can trade them off against each other. Charles, I think the first thing you need to start with is it's always good in a lecture if you're going to communicate a bunch of information. Yes. Is you need to agree on what Donald Rumsfeld would call the known knowns. Right. So you need to work out, you need to tell them who you are

and what your qualifications are to be speaking to them. That's the first thing. Right. That's a bit difficult. That's where I'm stuck. Yeah. So we'll get on to that. That's probably less than a whole slide. Yeah. And then you've got to make some assumptions about some operating assumptions. And that's going to be your chance to make fun of them.

Yes. What a great idea. Okay. So your qualifications. I'm making noting this down because I have to give the lecture tomorrow. Yeah. So your qualifications. Who am I?

And then who are you? Yeah. What are the operating assumptions about how things work? Well, they're the deep state, aren't they? Yeah. So let's start with who. And then we can get up into the actual content. What can you tell them that's likely to be.

helpful. Again, it'll be a very short slide. This could be five minutes, Charles. It's like, how long is it meant to be? It's supposed to be an hour. But I do know something you can tell them about, which is infiltrating public events. Yes. And so that would be useful. And then my hypothesis, Charles, is that what I, if I was in charge of a spying group, I would get you to talk through some of the public events that we've infiltrated in the past and how it went. And I would then, if I was ASIO or ACEs, I would hire someone like you as a distraction to do some stunt thing while the real spies just sort of sonder on in.

Oh, what a brilliant idea. That should be what we sell. That's how the Chaser can finally make money. Yes. It's become the distraction for the military industrial complex. Exactly. So every time they, so what sort of things are we talking? So recently, Alex says, you know, people will remember from the podcast.

Yeah, he went into Pine Gap. We haven't talked about that. Yeah, we probably should. But also when he was working for us, he went to the arms conference, right? So I thought at the time that was sort of a brilliant stunt that was filling the nose of the military industrial complex. But what if it was actually part of the military industrial complex? Yes. And it was a sideshow designed to, I don't know, that another manufacturer infiltrate or something or foreign government steals some secrets.

Yes, that's probably what it was. So what would the distraction? Well, it was probably to distract from something that they were doing somewhere else. Yeah, or somewhere else. Like vaccinating everyone to try and make them healthy. Here's the best bit, Charles. With 5G chips. Yes, you're putting 5G chips in people.

Exactly right. Then what you would do is you do the double cross and the loud idiot who's made the giant fuss and he's very obvious would actually be the main spy after all. Oh. And that's the Donald Trump play, isn't it? Yes, that's right, exactly right. He's the actual Russian agent. So let's go back to the start. Okay.

Because I'm already confused. So we're starting with who you are. Who am I? Who are you are and what you're qualified to teach them about. Okay. You have a Bachelor of Political Science, like, or something, yeah, yeah, I did, yeah. So that's your qualification. Yeah.

And then beyond that, you have, what have you done since that? That was, I was, I was, I was, I was in the same class. Right, that was 1998. Wrote jokes. Right jokes. I've written jokes. And more jokes. Perform jokes.

You've performed jokes, you've started small businesses that remain small. Jokes. Well, maybe this is the whole thing. Maybe the National Security College has realized that national security in Australia is a joke. That's what it is. It's all the comments about submarines. And so they're going, well, you can't write this stuff. You know, like, you know how we often say, you know, the comedy just right itself. It does write itself, yeah. And they're looking at us going, wow, how do they keep scriptwriting all the stuff that we do in national security? Well, this is what you should do. I think

this is what's going on. Okay, so this is a really important beat for the, for the conference. Yeah. Because you need to teach them how to make fun of walkers. Because that's what they're going to need to do to establish their cover. Right. If an Australian spy walks into a conference and immediately starts hanging shit on Orcas, which is basically just, at this point, just discussing August. Just discussing the factual details of Orcas. So talk them through a bit of that as a way of establishing cover, as a kind of person who would never work for a spy agency because you think it's all bullshit.

So you're well qualified for that. Collins class submarines is a long history. You could put up some slides of previous shows of headlines. There are about five of them, I think. Oh, God. On the Collins class submarines. What else? I mean, everything in the whole of the military industrial complex.

But I think also they sort of think of national security is also things like climate change. Oh, yes. You know, like we're all going to drown. And, you know, there'll be half a dozen Pacific Islands that sink in the next few years. And the Australian government's got a comprehensive plan to allow 30 of the people who are sinking to come here each year. It may actually be three. The zero might be a time. Oh, yeah.

Sorry, that was a bit of an exaggeration. So there's also, you could talk about AP. You weren't directly involved in APA. No. But that was when the chase had penetrated, I think it was. Hundreds of millions of dollars of worth of national security Well, this is my, I wonder

whether I should go in saying, look, you all think you're pretty important spies. We're actually more secret than you. Just in the room in camera, where the real operates. Yeah, in the authority, you know how in authoritarian structures, you can never tell, like, if somebody comes in and just pulls rank on you,

you've got a decision to make about whether you trust that they are actually, you know, more senior than you or they're just bluffing. And if you get it wrong, you can be gunned to death with anti-aircraft. Yeah, exactly. Guns in North Korea.

In North Korea or, you know, like that's one of the whole problems with authoritarian structures is you never really know who is more senior than you. Maybe I'd just go in and just say the chaser has always been... Has always been deep cover. Like the most important,

deepest deep cover. I think that. I think that makes it a degree of sense. And that in some ways, the apex stunt was nothing more than a test of... Oh, a test of the... The national security agencies, and they failed. Yeah, it was a false flag. It was a false flag operation.

Yeah. And I think that's absolutely right. But which does, if you think about it, explain why the chaser is still going, because there's no other reason. Yes, there's no... Because otherwise how else would it get funding. Yes, exactly. Unless it was a hidden in plain sight, arm of the intelligence state.

So that's who you are. That's who I am. So you've got a lot of credentials. Yeah, so I'm coming in as essentially the chief spy. Yes. Yes, okay. Well, look, the other chief spy has been out there recently embarrassing various politicians. So pretty clear that's not the real chief spy.

It's actually you. Oh, yeah, yeah. No, he's just this sort of comedian patsy that we send out. He's the court jester. Yeah, exactly. Okay. So then the next point was, who are you? Who are you?

What assumptions are you making about them? So the interesting thing is I said, oh, can I get a sense of who the audience is going to be? And they sent me a list of all. the spies that are going to be there, right? Are you sure you should be mentioning that on this podcast? I thought it was very sort of... But then, I mean, it's been the most extraordinary process to go through to do this thing. How did you pass the security clearances or are they just none anymore?

Well, I've been, I've been cleared for years, Don. Well, I mean, you are the brother of Verity Firth. Yeah, exactly. It's extremely senior. I presume, yeah, I presume... Well, you don't need to be cleared to tell people things. Okay, all right. Do you?

I don't know. Ask Sam Dastiari. He would know. Anyway, so you put that in your CV that you were a friend of Sam Dastiaris. At one point, I was on this email chain, and then somebody else joined the email chain halfway through. Right. And they've clearly been listening into the email chain without being attached to the email chain. Easy.

What? It's easy to do that. Yeah. Microsoft. Everyone's using Outlook. Yeah, right. It's just the easiest thing in the world. But then they actually said, by the...

the way, the fact that this person has just joined in the conversation doesn't mean that you're being monitored. Of course. It was just that conversation that was being monitored. Just put in a sneaky knee-how and see if you get one back. But then they also said, but it doesn't mean you're not being monitored. Wow. Who's the satirist in this

in this area? I know. All right. I feel like... So your operating assumptions are that everything's bugged. But that... Well, it is. But it's just TikTok. Like, it's just... Like, isn't the whole point that spy agencies are a bit redundant now.

Well, it's fine. Because we all record our lives for them. That's right. And post it to social media. Like, what, maybe that's why the, I've got it now. So the spy business are trying to get into comedy to turn a dime because they've been made redundant. You know, maybe what you're being asked.

That's why they want to be, they want to, no, they've found that we've gone viral on TikTok and they want to know how to get into that game. They want you to do propaganda. They were official state propaganda. for Australia. Yes. On TikTok, using your skills. Using my skills.

Hey, hey, what's up? Orcus is cool, man. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Can I say, oh, o' course? Oh, cuss. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

See if you can get them doing that in the room, that'd be good. Yeah. Great. And then, and then, because what are other security concerns to we have? More after this. The Chaser report. More news. Less often.

What are this? Well, China. China's one. Should I mention China? But that's not the biggest one. The biggest one is pretty obvious. Trump. Donald Trump.

And we're talking about this on the day where Kevin Rudd has... Well, what's Kevin Rudd? Oh, he's in massive trouble, really, as ambassador. Because, I mean, foreseeably, very foreseeably, when he was appointed ambassador, the comments he'd made a short while before about Trump being a traitor to the West and deeply incompetent, all the things that he said,

which views which most Australians, I suspect, would agree with in terms of just how out there he was. And I think he said he was the worst U.S. president ever or something. That sort of thing, I can't like the quotes. Right. So just very uncontroversial. Yeah. And to be clear, I can't quote exactly because there were Kevin Rudd's words and therefore too boring to remember. But these words have basically, they were put to Donald Trump in an interview yesterday by of all people, Nigel Farage, the UK, the UK, Mr Brexit. And here's what Donald Trump said.

I mean, he has said the most horrible things, you were a destructive, you were a destructive president, a traitor to the West. and he's now Australia's ambassador in Washington. Yeah, well, I don't know. Would you take a phone call from him? He won't be there longer if that's the case. I don't know much about him. I heard he was a little bit nasty. I hear he's not the brightest bulb,

but I don't know much about him. But if he's at all hostile, he will not be there long. Now, it's very clear in that clip that he has no clue who Kevin Rudd is. No, he doesn't know. He's never heard of Kevin Rudd. And my favourite bit later in the interview is when Farage says, yes, but you were quite close to Joe Hockey, weren't you? You know, the stories about hockey being a Trump whisper and them playing golf.

Again, clearly no idea who he is. I don't know whether that's indifference or dementia or just his personality. I don't know what it. Like, you probably can't remember things, not directed himself. But the bottom line is, if he is a president again, how can Rudd stay in the job? Well, he can't. He can't. Because, I mean, at one level, you go, Australia should have the sovereign right to appoint its own ambassador.

Yeah. But at the same time, you go. But it's only Kevin Rudd. I mean, it would be quite a new idea for Australia to behave towards the United States involving autonomy. And our sovereign decision is to be the lap dog of the US. Yes, in our interests. And in fact, I think it was actually official government policy for a while that we would be the deputy sheriff for the US. Well, it was.

That was John Howard. That was his term. But, of course, that wasn't the case. That was a complete mischaracterization of the relationship. Oh, right. What we really were with the deputy, deputy, deputy, deputy. Deputy Sheriff. If anything, the UK is the deputy sheriff.

But no, so who would we appoint as ambassador? That's one question you should ask, because they need to start recruiting the next US ambassador as an... Do you think maybe this is like a soft job interview for me? It is a soft job interview for you. You could be a very... I mean, you know Albo. But also, I'd be a Trump-style ambassador, wouldn't I?

You would. You'd have bombast. I'd have bombast. I'd don't... Speak shit all the time. Not know what I'm talking about. You'd have no sense of subtlety. couldn't remember anyone's name. You'd be actually really good.

Yeah. He'd make a lot of sound and fury. Yeah. There'd be a lot of fuss, a lot of stunts. Yeah. And also paying off lots of porn stars and prostitutes. I mean, presumably. P-takes.

Wouldn't that be funded by the, by DFAT? Isn't there a DFAT? Yeah, yeah, that would be all. It'd be tax deductible, I imagine. So this is what's being, so you're being recruited. This is what this is. It's not actually electrical. This is a recruitment tool.

I don't think you need to prepare. I think you just need to get down there. down there and just be recruited. I mean, just get some money. Just go, show me the money. Show me the money. And what should my price be? Like, everyone's got a price.

Everyone's got a price. I reckon, yours is not high. 20 bucks, maybe. I could pay you an avocado pool toys. You'd probably be happy. It's a good question. No, look, don't tell yourself at 20 bucks. You've got to try and aim big.

Yeah, yeah. What's minimum wage? It's about 25 bucks now, though. Oh, yeah, yeah. So that could be good. Yeah. So go for a bit. And look, if you can just get the rest of us on that sweet spy teeth, that would be good.

Yeah, that will be my negotiating position. Okay, I'll do it. Yeah. But only if Dom gets to be. I think the whole of the chaser, we've talked about, yeah. Yeah, and what agency should we replace? I think probably... That's the pitch you should make.

Medicare. Yeah, that's right. What about the NDIS? Just get rid of... Sorry disabled children, a bunch of idiots is in charge. I'm just trying to think. It needs to be... government department, which has quite a lot of resources.

Like, you don't want to take no department of veterans affairs or something because it's undefunded. No, that's actually important. You want to take one of the big ones. You want to take education, housing. Oh, they don't do anything. No, submarines. Defense.

Defense. Defense material. Yeah, that's right. Either that. In fact, probably better of all. Yes. But we could take over the DSD. That's the defense signals director.

Yes, it's just a very secretive kind of. surveillance. But we work in the media, right? We could use their gear to put out viral comedy sketches on TikTok. That would be great. That would be great. No, except I thought DSD was about listening to people, not transmitting. Well, it is now, but we would have a broad vision. Oh, yeah, we'd just flip the switch. I think that's what you should pitch as well. Is that rather than becoming a list, just a listener, we need to become a producer. And this is something that George Orwell understood, right? The telescreen, right, in 1984, it was a listening device, but it was also a screen. You've got to put the comment.

content out there. Yeah, okay. So you need to get viral stuff. I mean, SNLs just copied one of your videos, Charles. Yeah. Perfect time. Contact Tracy's. Contact Tracy's.

They did a worse version of it. But imagine if you did contact tracies, but with an Australian political agenda, pushing the Australian party in August is great. Wouldn't you just end up wanting to kill yourself if you're... You'd be being paid too much. And you'd have, you'd be able to negative gear and stuff. You would. You'd be able to afford an investment property.

You'd be able to, and you'd suddenly be in that class of people where suddenly that's what matters. But you would, that's right. But do you know what the best thing about this is, James? Oh, you'd be able to spy on Max Chandler-Mather. That's certainly part of it. Well, you'd probably take over the existing operation, I'd say. Yeah, yeah. But the great thing is, Charles, you can sell your soul to the government.

You can, it doesn't matter how deep you go. It doesn't matter. Like, it's Australia. It's going to be pissy. It's not actually going to matter. You could be part of the biggest conspiracy. the Australian government has ever concocted to change the world, and it would still be pissy.

It would still be pissy. And it wouldn't matter. So just get paid. And maybe we could, maybe what I should do in this lecture. I think I've got it now, which is China, we're never going to win against China. No. Pick a battle that you can win. Let's invade New Zealand.

And we just 20 year plan to turn. You know how Bismarck in the sort of turn to the 19th century and early 20th century in Germany? He sort of ruled, and Putin does the same thing, ruled by always focusing on an external enemy. Yes, it's called Garrison nationalism. You whip up a sort of flurry of nationalism by having an external enemy that you have to fear. And the problem is we can't even talk openly about our enemy because our biggest trading partner and a lot, like all our, like. The whole of our education establishment relies on students from there. And we quite like their culture.

It's quite a weird relationship, actually, isn't it? They make all their phones. They're not really our enemy. They're not our enemy, yeah. Charles, now that you're joining the intelligence community, it's time for me to reveal a secret to you. Oh, yeah. Just now that you're on the inside.

Oh, okay. So you're already on the internet. Yeah, I can reveal this to you now. There is no such a thing as New Zealand. It's not an independent country. Everyone knows this on the inside. Oh, so it's just, it's just not true. It's just part of Australia.

It always was another state of Australia. they think it's a real country. And it's just like... And that's where he put the lefties. That's why people like Russell Crow all come over here and crowded house and everything. Yeah. We take all the talented ones. Yes, and we just leave the rest.

We just leave the hippies over there. There's just a bunch of hippie beat Nicks. Yeah, right. And it was part of the long-term plan because you know how all the billionaires have bought property there? Yes. They're going to be working for Australia. We're actually the biggest player in geopolitics. Yeah, right.

Nobody knows it. The New Zealand trap. Yeah, it's the honey pot. The honey pot. With the Hobbit pot. The Hobbit pot. That's genius. Yeah, because it looks unassuming and pointless, New Zealand.

And actually. Who came up with this plan? Kevin Rudd. That's why he can't be saying to his ambassador. He's too important. He's too important. Oh, God. Good luck with your lecture, Charles.

I honestly can't think of what you will tell them. They will help them do what they do. I think I might just get checked GPT to write the lecture. I would be very entertained to watch you lecture a bunch of spies. I don't imagine you're going to come back from Canberra alive. So, look, if you want to be the next host of the Chaser report after Charles's disappearance, podcast at chaser.com.com. And we will give away the, it's the last chance.

What is it? $700 trillion. The entries have come in. Some of them are in the reviews on Apple Podcasts, too. You know, the terrible thing is I was looking last night for the $700 trillion. And I can't find it anywhere. I put it down. I showed it to my kids.

I put it down. And it is somewhere. I will find it over the weekend. Okay, do find it. There's just one more thing I want to mention, Charles, from the reviews on Apple Podcast, which we always enjoy reading. Oh, yeah, yeah. Worryer Queen has got a theory about how we're getting the $700 trillion.

Oh, yeah. I'm on to you, Lesser at the two siblings, Charles. Yeah. Hey, Verity. You plan to put $1 into an interest-bearing account, and you'll tell us to come back in 100,000 years to collect the $700 trillion. Well, I deserve that dollar because I've watched at least three episodes. with audio, they don't watch them.

Anyway, and giving you five stars, I doubt anyone has sucked up to you more than me. Thomas, when we hit 8 million downloads, we should do her idea. Yeah, I think that's a good one. Probably better than ours, actually. It's not, that's not the idea, by the way. You're going to get the cash.

You're going to get the cash immediate well. As soon as I find it, I'll send it straight to you. 100%. Aguress from Road. We're part of the Iconiclass Network. Catch you later.