The Chaser Report - Australia Is At WAR! (And We're The ONLY Outlet Reporting On It?)

Episode Date: July 11, 2023

In a sad day for journalism Charles and Dom become the only journalists in the country who are reporting actual news. Australia is sending troops to help Ukraine, find out why nobody else is talking about it in this episode of The Chaser Report! 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, and Dom, Australia is at war. What? Nobody mentioned this. Shouldn't it have been breaking news on various news services? Shouldn't Anthony Almanesey of stood in Parliament and said, we're at war? And here's why. I mean, isn't it the traditional approach to this, actually, if I recall Charles. The United Kingdom is at war. And therefore, Australia, is it war as well?

Is the UK at war with someone? Well, no, no, I think nowadays it should be, you know, the United States are in war. Oh, of course. And so therefore we're at war. Hang on a second. You talk about the voice where large sections of the community seem to be at war with indigenous people,

with First Australia, just basically making on them. No, that would be non-Australians are at war. Oh, okay, fine. No, no, Australia has sent 100 troops to the Ukraine. Wait, what? And... So, 100 Australian troops? troops have been sent to Ukraine, the place where troops go to die.

Yes. And it's very odd because none of the press is reporting it as such. I'm just looking through my breaking news updates. Yeah. City Morning Herald. Oh, there's some stuff about Sydney property. Yes. Infrastructure, crickets.

Well, there's a bad apartment block apparently. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, I want to find out more about this after this. There's nothing about us sending troops to Ukraine. Are you sure, Charles? You've known for your outlandish theories. Is this actually happening? This is not a theory.

This is true. This is, as reported by the ABC this morning and nine newspapers. I can't trust the ABC. But it's literally buried. Like the lead is buried about like after 15, you know, 28 day workout plan according to your age ads, which sort of shows how targeted these ads. It points out that Australia, so Albo's over in. Europe at the moment. Yes. He's announced that they're going to, they're all in with NATO.

They're going to send a, this time an E7A wedge tail, which I assume is some sort of plane, to Ukraine. And withered, the Australian Air Force would deploy about 100 personnel to support NATO for six months, helping protect multinational logistics hubs supplying critical support to Ukraine. So they're going to be in Ukraine where Russia is, mounting airstrikes. What happens if an airstrike, Charles, kills 100 Australian troops on the ground? Well, I think to be fair,

they're going to be based outside of Ukraine, like in Germany and Poland and places like that, and then flying in to Ukraine to supply those hubs. So, yes, they will be in Ukraine, but they'll be based. Oh, Charles, you've misunderstood. You've misunderstood the rules of this conflict. The way that it works is that the West,

supplies billions and billions of dollars of aid, lots of weapons, tanks, fighter jets, apparently now cluster munitions, the thing that it's banned by national conventions, the US is now sending to Ukraine. We give them all this stuff, and they use it to fight Russia. That doesn't mean we're at war with Russia. So we're not at war with Russia. No, because if we were at war with Russia, the US would have to rush to our defense. I think New Zealand as well under Anzis would have to, and the Europeans would have to go.

I mean, if NATO was at war with Russia, this would be World War III. We would be having World War III, where the Eastern bloc, let's say, took on the Western bloc in a massive fight between nuclear powers. We wouldn't want that. No. Therefore, Australia is not at war and cannot be at war because that would be catastrophic. Instead, we're merely sending troops into a war zone to fight. Right.

So the thing, Dom, is that, do you remember the Vietnam War? I wasn't around, but remember when we did history and... Yeah, we didn't look at that bit of history. It's a bit awkward for Australia. We did the ones where Australians were glorious. Oh, yeah, the World War, yeah. No, no, but the whole way Australia got into Vietnam was not by sending troops to invade Vietnam. In fact, I'm not sure we ever invaded Vietnam.

Well, then we would have been at war. Yeah, it was sort of support troops, and it was training troops, and it was people to help out the local Vietnamese people. Boy Scouts, we sent over, basically, all the way with LBJ. It was, from what I understand. Charles, it was a scouting jamboree. They wore woggles. And they did lots of, they did, dip, dip, dib, dob, dob, dob, dob, let's basically kill North Vietnamese. But that did end up being at war with Vietnam.

I mean, if you want to characterize it as that. I dispute your characterization that the Vietnam War was a war. From what I understand, it was an internal conflict where Australia was providing logistic support and also corpses. So maybe what we should be calling this is like a special operation. Well, that's what Russia's calling it. So that, yeah, Russia is not at war even with Ukraine. No.

Russia is at special military operation with Ukraine. Very different to each other. Okay, good. So that's good. So Alba's really buddied up to NATO. To Paul Keating's absolute horror. Yes. Right.

So Paul, Paul reckons, no, no, no, we shouldn't be buddying up to NATO because NATO only has America's interest at heart. Oh, as opposed to Australian foreign policy. Yeah. Well, and he's saying that actually NATO. sort of expanding into Asia and using Japan and Australia as the sort of, I suppose, almost like the Ukraine of Asia, where we're at the front line having to sort of go up against China and it's America who wants to hate China and is not actually in our interest because China are a huge trading partner to us. So why are we sort of kowtowing in doing everything

that America says? Look, I don't want to disrespect to Paul Keating, who as we know has very strong opinions on many things. Mostly, I don't want to just disagree with him because I don't want him to shout at me, which is what he tends to do these days. But hasn't it always worked that way? I mean, isn't Australian foreign policy all about appeasing America so that if we get invaded, they'll help us? But also, has you not heard of the quad?

The quad is literally America plus India, Japan and Australia, projecting American force, and indeed us as well, as a containment block for China in the region. NATO coming to the party is belated, if anything. This is already happening, Paul. Don't you think that the history of Australia is to actually play off certain superpowers against each other and therefore come out with their own vaguely independent thing? Like, you know, we had England and America, and we sort of kowtowed to both of them in different ways and then ended up saying, well, we'll take over the Pacific for you.

That can be our realm. You can be the staging point. And... But build your bases. Do your nuclear tests at Maryland. linger, Britain. Go ahead. No one will suffer from that except for a bunch of local Aboriginal people who'll die. Whereas now, it's a very uni-axis sort of relationship we have, which is we're buddying up to England, whereas our largest trading partner is China, or one of our largest

trading partner is China. Why wouldn't we sort of play them off a bit against each other? Well, that's what we were doing for a very long time. Certainly, kind of before the current tensions, I don't know if Keating's aware that China basically dumped Australia as a trading partner. And we're basically trying to repair that at the moment. But isn't that kind of what Australia's always done, at least in the past 20 years or so, it's like, for instance, the Iraq war, right? We were part of that conflict. We gave it legitimacy.

Yes. But it seemed as though the deal, do you remember, when John Howard was prime minister? Yes. Australians tended not to die in that conflict. Tiny numbers of Australians die. We were there in the multinational force, but the deal was we'll make it look like it's multinational, but actually Americans are with the ones who die. We were part of a fig leaf to give it legitimacy.

And that's what this is as well, isn't it? And in actual fact, I once talked to somebody who went to Iraq, who actually had several tours of duty in Iraq as an Australian troop. And he said it was hilarious because they were based in Iraq, but not actually in Iraq. They were based about several kilometers offshore protecting an oil pipeline. They were given, I think it was, I don't know, correct me if I'm wrong, but his bag room on some sort of coast somewhere. I'm not sure, but yeah, baguorm was where the Australians were among.

because other places, Tandahar and so on. But their whole job was to just go in and make sure the oil kept on getting out of Iraq even while everyone else was being murdered. So the cynics who said that the war was all about oil, we didn't disprove that with our military actions. That's good to know. No, but the thing is, like, there weren't that many sort of IEDs along the roadside a kilometre off shore.

Of sure. Well, that's very sensible. We were very safe. But I assumed that was how, as the gosh, chatting attack it, was like, all the way, with GWB, George W Bush, as long as we don't know and dies. It was actually not a bad deal.

Okay, so I'll just complicate this a little bit. Please. By saying the other thing that has happened in the last 48 hours. Why am I getting my news from you, Charles? Yeah. This is bizarre. No, because there is no fucking press in Australia anymore. Why are we the only people talking about this on some two-bit podcast?

Australia is sending troops to Ukraine. Yes. This is massive. Yes. But then the other thing is, Germany is sending soldiers here. We're being invaded by Germany. Hang on a second.

Two hundred and forty German soldiers, including 170 paratroopers and 40 marines, will come to Australia between July 22nd and August the 4th. We're being invaded by Germany. When have Germans ever done anything bad when their soldiers have visited another country after 1946? Admittedly, before that, for many centuries, it was a bit awkward. But put 1946, all they'll do is, is just buy beers and have a good, clean fun. And they do tend to ultimately lose.

So, you know, we've got that going for us. But they're the largest drills between, they're for drills, right? For drills, yeah. But they're the largest... Actually, German drills are very reliable. If you're getting a drill, buy a German drill. High quality. They're the largest drills held between Australia and the US,

and so Germany's going to get involved in the last two years, which is not actually that a long time. I mean, Paul Keating's point is, always the same in this. His point is always China is not an expansionist military power. It has never been in its history. But given that it's so fucking massive, the last thing they need is more population to administer. And I can see their point. If anything China could do with fewer, which is why they probably should have been more welcoming of the population drop. But anyway, can I tell you what the Germans are going to train in during that two weeks in Australia?

They're going to train in jungle warfare. What the fuck is going on? There's no jungles in Germany. Oh, I think you'd be surprised. I can't work out why that would be needed. And landing operations. Is there going to be another Vietnam war? Landing operations drills going into Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, France and Britain. For the coming Pacific War. I can understand why Germany would want to know how to do landing operations in France and Britain.

You think that already know that one? Where's the institutional memory? But no, look, the jungle, there must be another Vietnam War on the way. Is that what this is? Is there a Pacific War? happening sometimes soon. Well, it'll be, but we're on Japan's side. It'll be Taiwan, right not.

But is there jungle in time? I don't know. We don't know. We have nowhere near enough knowledge to do this podcast. Spratling. But we're the only ones. We're the only news source in Australia. What the fuck?

They're also sending, Berlin is also sending 13 military aircraft to Australia during that period. Or Charles. And a war ship. I mean, we're being fucking invaded by Germany. And what's the Herald talking about? They're doing about fucking apartment blocks in, mascot. Actually, you know what, if the German troops can spend a couple of weeks just doing

defect repairs in Sydney apartment blocks, they'll make themselves very welcome. The Chaser Report, news you can't trust. But Charles, this is nothing new. We've been mates with the Japanese military, sorry, self-defense force for a very long time now. Why did the Japanese have to rename their army to the self-defense force, by the way? And Germany was just allowed to still have a German army. Why did Japan have to do that? Yeah. A bit racist. It's a bit racist. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean... That's because they were the relentless orientals in the views of the Western. Whereas the Germans were relentless white. Anyway, that was then. We're all friends now, Charles. We're in the quad. We're in NATO.

We send backpackers to each other's countries. We have working holiday, mate. You know what we should do to repel the Germans who come here? Ban... We should send... Ban small goods? Oh, yeah. Ban sausages.

They were nothing to eat. There's nothing to... Only fresh food. Nothing killed. No, I'm thinking just set Paul Keating on them. That would work. Yeah. What is the deal with Keating in China?

I mean, I don't want to have some sort of conspiracy theory. Does he have business interests in China? Because his message seems to be, China's great. None of you are giving it the respect that deserves. There are friends and should be our business partners. It's always the same argument from Keating. It's always treat China better. Yeah, he probably does have lots of interest.

He's very rich. Sure. And I'm sure a lot of it. comes from China but and you know like there's got all that sort of genocide stuff going on in China but he's taking he's taking a longer view sure well I mean it's certainly not a longer view of the Uighur people for instance but a longer view of of Hanization but also this is a country that is it is annexing little islands throughout the Pacific and turning them into massive fuck-off military bases Keating is very welcome to say look this is not traditionally been

an expansionist power except in fucking Tibet Paul by the way but it's building bases All over the Pacific, every little blip on the map that they can, they're putting massive runways on for a coming conflict. So, of course, we should muscle up and get ready, shouldn't we? I mean, that's the best way to prevent a conflict, isn't it? In this day and age of mechanised war, if everyone's massively armed to the hilt, you don't have a hot war. Or hang on, that's not two anymore because of Ukraine, is it?

Yeah, isn't the point that we've just got to go down to Hobby Coe and buy half a dozen drones from, you know, their sort of hobby section? Actually, I wonder if there's a drone that Alba will deploy to silence Keating because this is getting embarrassing. He's had to slap him down again for the second time in the past few months. Is he not going to get invited to the ALP conference? The ultimate sanction. Got imagine his relief.

I'm not having to turn up. But look, this is troubling. Do we want boots on the ground in Ukraine? I don't think out the answer to, you don't fight fire with fire. We're a middle power, Dom. We're never going to be able to. But also aren't we a small power that calls itself a middle power optimistically? Like, isn't the middle power like Britain?

Well, isn't the point that, like... Or Germany, for that matter. There is not, like, there is no universe in which we could defend our coastline if anyone actually wanted some of our country, right? Oh, I think you'll find Scott Morrison stopped a lot of boats. He's got a little model boat that says, I stopped these. Couldn't he defend our coastline him and Peter Dutton in a tinny? Put him out there.

Put him out there with, um, I don't know. A loud haler. It costs $16 billion defend Australia off from 300 refugees. That's the sort of, that's the equation that we're talking here. Charles, you can't put a price on sovereign borders. Those borders are sovereign. So, what, it's a serious question, though.

But they did. They got rid of all the sovereign borders. Remember the actual law is now that we don't have any sovereign borders because they're all extinguished. Yeah, yeah. I think there's one toilet in Parliament House. If you get there, you're in the migration zone. We just sort of committed hurry, curry on our sovereignty.

Okay. So what is Australia's strategic interest? I'd love to actually talk to someone to someone who knows about this because is it just cozying up to the US? Go ahead. Is it just cozying up to the US and going, we need to make ourselves strategically indispensable to them so that they actually will fight for us if ever were invaded? Or is it trying to keep everyone happy all the time?

I mean, it's like my position as a beta male, right? In society, do I attach myself to someone strong and try and be their sidekick so that they'd have me around? Or do I try and please everybody? And at the same time, you know, if there's two alphas in conflict in a room, and this is a chaser meeting, a creative meeting, it's very hard to keep them all happy. Sometimes you've got to pick sides.

Look, I think you've got to go to modern psychology on this, Dom. Right. And you've got to know your own boundaries. Oh, that's what Joe DeHill would say. Let's get Joe to Hill on this. He's a guy who's great at exiting relationships. We'll just get him to draft the text messages to Joe Biden. Look, Joe, if you want to be in a relationship with Australia,

You have, here are my boundaries. If you want to put photos of yourself up on the internet, you can, but that will violate my boundaries. That's what we should do. Jonah, are you available for this invaluable service? I think the whole point is that what we should do is we should stop being assholes to all the Pacific countries and selling them out on climate change. And then instead of, like, we're much closer to the Pacific than China, we provide all the

sort of employment opportunities for Pacific Islanders who want to. actually engage in, you know, seasonal migration programs and things like that. So if we actually just pulled our weight in the Pacific somewhat and was actually nice to our neighbours, then everything else would sort itself out because they'd look at, you know, a deal with China and they go, well, we don't need a deal with China to fortify ourselves and put in aircraft carriers on the Solomon Islands, whatever, because actually we've got a good deal going with Australia where, you know, we're doing healthy trade and having good relationships with our nearest nobody. Instead, what we've had is for the last 10 years, a complete abrogation

of, you know, the Pacific and selling them out at every climate conference, you know, while they're literally drowning. Didn't Penny Wong, though, saw all that in about a week? Like, didn't she turn up? I don't know what she said to the Pacific Islands, but it seemed as though as soon as she became foreign minister, she went up there for a couple of weeks and calm the whole thing down. And Penny Wong broke a truce between Australia, the US and China. Can Penny Wong tap this thing down? The problem is that Australia, in the last climate, the UN climate thing, which was actually a couple of weeks ago, they had to do some deal on some treaty, Australia sided against

the Pacific nations with Saudi Arabia. Well, that's who are real strategic partners are in all this. That's the people you want to be in bed with. Particularly if you need any journals bumped off. And I'm surprised Kevin Rudd didn't think of this. Well, I don't think there are any genoes left. Don. Why, when Kevin Rudd wanted to try and put the heat on Murdoch, why didn't he get MBS involved? That is a guy who knows how to silence journalists. So if you don't want a particular

media company dominating your market, get MBS on board. And suddenly there'll be a lot fewer journalists than the way before. Forget cluster bombs. Forget, you know, aircraft carriers and whatever else we're sent, Bushmasters that were sending over Ukraine. All we need, a couple of bonesaws. A couple of, a couple of handy security blokes who know how to use and some plastic bags to dispose. Actually, do I want the News Corp journalists murdered? Not really. I mean, occasionally there are some who annoyed me, but...

I don't want them dismembered. We can dismember them with our rapier wit. I just wouldn't mind if occasionally... If Australia went to fucking war in Ukraine, they mentioned it. Yes! Somewhere in the news! Our Geer is from Road. We're part of the I-Climat-class network. And apparently, we're the only news source you need in 2023.

Thanks for listening.