The Chaser Report - Australian Made (In China)

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

After getting spooked about the incoming war with China, Andrew Hansen puts together a list of his luxuries that he and Dom will need to prepare to go without. Stock your mushrooms now, folks. 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. Andrew, I heard you object to the fact that you never did the intro. So why don't you do the intro? Well, I did, yeah. Although Charles Firth surprised me the other day by just sitting there at the start of the episode and saying nothing. So I had to do the intro. I had to do the intro to the Chaser Report.

Mind you, if you're listening, if you'd like to record your own intro, you can just record one on your phone an email it to us and we... What a good idea. We could just have an intro from you. Yes. Because we'd love to hear that. That'd be great. I love it.

I'm sick as saying it. Charles used to take great delight in it with his bassy voice. No, I'm done. So you just podcast at chaser.com. You send this introduction and we'll use it from someone else. Yeah, it's a chore. That's very Tony and Ryan of us, but how, what the hell? It's a chore.

Yeah. We don't want to have to do it. Let's outsource it. And if you have a topic, you want us to address, mention that as well. But Andrew, today you have a thought experiment for us About what would... Hang on, we haven't done the intro. We haven't done the intro.

What am I doing? We're in the intro. And Domi, welcome to the Chaser Report. We're with your hosts today, who happened to be Dominic Knight. Hey. Podcasting from Sydney and me, Andrew Hanson, podcasting from Melbourne.

All very lovely, all very cozy, isn't this nice? And, you know, it's good. We're Australia-wide. Because the thought experiment we're going to do is what the hell are we going to do if we go to war with China. front of mind really for many of us. Let's point of that.

And then also we should take a moment to farewell nine entertainment boss Mike Sneesby. He's been a CEO there for three and a half years. He's called this year the most challenging year of his career. Look, at least Peter Costello didn't tackle him to the ground, even if that's kind of what's happened metaphorically. This is one of the few journalists who's escaped from the Costello tackle. I just can't help but smile every time I hear the name Mike Sneesby, which is not often.

often hear his name, but... I thought you bet smile, you don't often smile, but... No, it's true. I don't often smile. I mean, it's straight out of Charles Dickens, isn't it? You know, Mike Sneesby, right? He sounds like some miserly old fellow counting his coins in a dark office. I just want to quote this from this any morning, Herald,

about some of the reasons why it might have been a fairly challenging year for Mike Sneeby. This is quoting the Herald. Sneesby was criticised, Andrew, for being pictured carrying the Olympic torch in the lead up to the strike. You know, when the Fairfax Geno's went on strike. Which came shortly after... 9 announced 200 staff redundancies, including up to 90 in the publishing division. He later defended the move.

The move. The move. Or carrying the torch? Carrying the torch? Probably both. But I guess the confluence of both things, which are... It's not optimal. Look, everyone was carrying that bloody Olympic torch.

They were. Snoop Dog was carrying. Snoop Dogg, if he can carry it around, then Sneezebee can as well, I reckon. There's nothing wrong with a Charles Dickens character carrying the torch. No matter how many people he's fired. Well, he should have torched the journales. That's what he should. He should have actually had synergy

and put them atop a pyre, perhaps of old newspapers that it must have lying around somewhere, unread copies of the City Morning Herald at everyone's gym. And then just used the Olympic torch to just woof. Woof up the journals. That would have been symbolic, wouldn't it? That's a redundancy, isn't it? That would have been a good use of the Olympic torch.

Anyway, let's take a little break and see if we can sell more ads than, frankly, nine has in the past year. I reckon we can If you didn't hear an ad there We failed If you did hear an ad Then yay for us and whoever that was

Thank you for your one Okay Andrew Let's leave Mike Sneeby behind We barely knew him I can't tell you much about him Except that his name's funny That's it That's my only fact really about Sneeze

So you're ahead of most of us Domi, you're ahead of most of us I don't think there are too many Sneezeby experts in the world Sneezebeologists But I wish I wish Sneeze be all the best For his next Dickensian adventure

whether it be in an orphanage or the back streets of a London Square or whatever it might be. Perhaps the French Revolution he could be involved in. Yeah, exactly, maybe a revolution or a trip to one of the colonies perhaps. Yes, you know, Gruel. America. I think producing gruel or industrial. Scar, which is similar really to the job of running night entertainment, just doling out gruel to all unsundry.

Speaking of gruel, Domney, you know, if we don't watch out here in Australia and in most Western countries. Well, gruel's about the best we can expect because I'm a little bit panicked about this. There's a think piece that I've read by this defence guy. He's a guy called William Stoltz, who's a defence expert, and he's written this very alarming bit on the conversation about what a possible war with China could look like.

You know, what happens? I mean, he thinks we need to be ready. He thinks there's a bit of a problem that not a single Australian person government seems to have considered what we should actually do. Yeah. They don't want to cause. panic, he says. Thank goodness. Thank goodness that this issue is being

ventilated in the conversation of all places, the place where university academics go to slightly boost their research output rating. That's really the formount of our defence planning, I presume. Forget your ASEO, your AIS, forget your National Security Committee. If an academics have a bit of a think piece in the conversation, I think we're good and ready. Andrew, I think we're ready right now. Well, that's enough. And I hope he's enjoying his extra a little bit of money from doing this think piece. As panicked as it is. He reckons we should at least have a 90-day plan, Dommy.

And he's worried about big things. For example, he's worried that we're going to run out of fuel. He's pointed out that Australia, apparently we've got this obligation internationally. We're supposed to have 90 days worth of fuel just in case. Just in case everything collapses and, you know, China invades or something, some disaster happens. We're meant to have 90 days worth of fuel. I don't want to be negative. I know that in this sort of improvised comedy world, Andrew,

that yes and is the thing that you say. But can I just begin by querying the very first assumption in this entire conversation that we would in any way last 90 days against a country of one billion people who could presumably put out an army that is greater than the population of Australia? Yeah, it could, couldn't have from its smallest village.

Yeah, it would overwhelm us. In the language of the Lord of the Rings, you know, if you want us, come and claim us. You know, I'm not saying we'll fold automatically. I'm just saying the people's liberation army is going to make short work of us, aren't they? You reckon they'll do it in less than 90 days? Look, I think you could be right, Tommy. I think you could be right, you know, but, I mean, unless they're concentrating on something else first, you know.

I mean, maybe they'll sort of leave us to stew for a bit while they swarm well over the rest of the world. I don't know. I'm just looking. I'm not sure. The active personnel of the PLA, two million troops, just over two million troops. With another half a million in reserve, their budget is $293 billion US dollars. I'm not sure how much planning is going to help us. To be honest.

How many days do you think we'd last then, Dommy? 90 seconds. Hours? Hours. It's also, aren't there nuclear power? I think that could be another issue. That could be another issue. No, we should talk more about the plans we should make in case we get into a war with China.

Well, I think you needed to write a piece on the conversation about this, Donnie, and address the thing that he's missed here, which is we're not going to last bloody 90 days anyway. No, let's pretend that for some reason they decided to attack us with underwhelming force. What would we do? What would happen? They might decide to go easy on us because we're cute and, you know, small. And we're friendly.

Yeah. Yeah. We're an affable nation, you know. We are. And we, you know, we school a lot of their kids at our universities and things, don't we? I mean, they might go easy on us. We've decided that that's about a. idea, and we don't want the money of all these paying customers now, apparently.

Of course, we've, well, we've cut that off. The Albanyi government's cutting it right back. I can't believe they're not here now, invading the middle of this podcast. Absolutely. So look, tell me, Andrew, the, and look, I've had a lot to do with international students from China over the years in various capacities. Delightful to a fault, may I say. But, but Andrew, hypothetically, if this very unlikely thing that we would absolutely lose in

one second were to happen, what does this expert say is the kind of the, what's the first thing that's going to be a problem. Well, look, he thinks the fuel may be a problem, because although we're meant to keep 90 days worth of fuel, Domi, can you tell me the last decade in which Australia actually did have 90 days worth of fuel? I'm going to say the 1950s, which I'm going to say because I'm just imagining the sort of, what was it, the FJ Holdens that we had back then. They probably only had about 10 cars in the country, so we probably had 90 days worth

of fuel for the 10 cars. That's a pretty good guess. I like your logic there. I like your logic there. Well, look, he says that we've probably never, ever, in any decade, ever had 90 days worth of fuel. So there is no decade where we had 90 days. It looks like we never have done and perhaps never will unless we, you know, follow his advice on the conversation. I don't know if the Prime Minister is reading it right now. Although I'm sure he's listening to the podcast.

So there's a bit of a problem there. There's a bit of a problem we're going to lose our smart devices as well. because, you know, they're all made in China. But I'm more concerned about some of the other nice things, the things that we like, Domi, which haven't not been mentioned by this academic. You know, some of the things that are made in China that I'm really going to miss.

And, you know, some of them you don't really think of. You don't really think, oh, gosh, that is made in China. I don't know if you're a fan of little little mushrooms at all, are you, Domi? Little champignore. Oh, not too bad, you know, the little Frenchly named button. You're talking about the vegetable mushroom? Yeah, yeah, yeah, not nuclear mushrooms. rooms from the Chinese nuclear war, but tiny little champignons, which I imagined came from

a lovely little village in province or something where they would grow the champignans. Not true, of course. All the champignons that we get in a can in Australia, they're all made in China. Are they? And yeah, we're going to have to give them up. It's guttered me. And a lot of French things that we enjoy here are made in China. Like, Chanel is another one.

Oh, really? We're going to have to do without them because a hell of a lot of them are made in China. Really? Yeah, it's a pity. And I don't know, Domney, if you're a fan of those little fruit jelly cups that you buy the supermarket. I love that the Andrew Hansen list of all the products, bearing in mind that the vast majority of every conceivable product is made in China. And you go straight to champignon, like button mushrooms going to tin or tin or tin or tin.

That's the first thing that we're going to miss out on is no more tinned mushrooms or jelly cups. No, exactly. These are the small pleasures of life, Tommy. Your consumption is very strained. The meals at the Hanson household. What are we having? Okay, we've got tinned mushrooms and then jelly cups. Is that how you're eating?

That's terrible for your insight. That's great Tucker right there, and we're going to have to forsake it if we're at war with China. We're not going to have that on the table anymore. I don't know what we are going to eat because I can't think of anything else much. Well, presumably not Chinese takeaway. Well, it's no Chinese takeaway. We're not going to get that. There's going to be precious few dumplings and things.

So we'll have to forage kind of locovore style. the food near bar. I'd have to be pretentious and have the stuff growing within 50 kilometres of where we live, like organic vegetables and whatever. Look, that's like that's again for the northern suburbs of Melbourne, I suppose. They already do that. I'll be eating bark.

And we're not going to be able to have a table to eat off anyway. No. Because Ikea. Oh, yes. So many IKEA products, they're made in China too. Slightly more relevant. I mean, what about all the Chinese-made cars that we have now? The electric vehicles, B-Y-D.

Can't drive to the shop. No. You can't drive to buy our champigniors anyway. It's terrible. And we won't be able to be entertained either because toys. There's going to be no more toys. I mean... Now this is getting more relevant to my family.

No more toys, yeah. No, there's no Barbies. There's no Thomas the Tankings. There's no hot wheels, all of which were being made in Chinese factories under appalling conditions according to one particular piece in the Guardian from a few years back. No hot wheels. You know, imagine life without hot wheels. I mean, if you were...

Imagine being a manufacturer of champignons in a factory in China, starving while packaging tinned mushrooms for the decadent Hansons in the West. The Chaser Report, more news, less often. Here's another problem, Domi, which didn't occur to me until I started looking into this. But I don't know how partial you are, Domi, to a bit of classical music. Oh, very. Lovely. You like a bit of classical, right?

You know, you play bass and you play double bass. Yeah, give me a nice octet or something. Well, you're going to have to do with that because if you want a cello or a viola that bears a brand name, a European brand name, like, for example, Andreas Eastman or Johannes Kor, or Andrew Schreuter, well, you're out of luck because all those instruments are made in China.

How funny. Schroiter. The Schroiter of the famous Schroiter's of Shanghai. The Shenzhen Schroiter factory is... I'm asking, you know the Derucci beds that had that signs of everyone, that very strange man? Oh, yes, he's, with that unhappy-looking fellow on the bullboards. The very unhappy bald man, apparently was a stock image. Oh, God, he looks like he hasn't had a good night's sleeping so long.

He looks like he badly needs a good bed. Someone did a big investigation into him, and apparently he had absolutely nothing to do with it. He did one photo shoot, and he was the complete Mr. Darucci. Oh, incredible. But anyway, it's from China. It has nothing to do with Italy at all, as I understand. Oh, really? So there you go.

I want to run just one last alarming thing past you, Domney. If we do go to war with China, just keeping up our Aussie patriotism, it's going to be very, very difficult. Because, of course, you know, every Australian flag is made in bloody China. We're not going to have any flags to salute and march behind. How is that going to work? I don't know. What are we going to do? We can't make flags ourselves.

We lack the skills. There's a flag making skills shortage in Australia. It must be. Albo's on about with this whole made in Australia program. I suppose what you do in that scenario is start with the Australian flag. But isn't it fabulous, I think, of all that merch, all the Australian flag flag cap merch that gets bandied about being made in the PRC. Yeah, well, it would be, along with all the gift shop stuff, you know,

you go to the souvenir shop and an Australian touristy spot and all the little plastic, you know, koalas and tea towels with the names of Bondi or Saint Kilda or whatever on them. They're all made in China too. We're not going to have them. We're going to have a complete absence of anything Australian because everything Australian is made in China. It's very worrying to me, Domi.

Well, I mean, the nice thing is that due to immigration, which I'm broadly very much favour of, many Australians were made in China. There's a comforting thought. There's a comforting thought to wrap it up in. I don't think that an article in the conversation is enough to prepare us for this conflict. We might need two articles in the conversation.

You reckon two? Maybe you should pen the second one, Dommy, and then we'll be ready and raring to go for this war with China. I mean, well, we could not. We could not have war with China. I'll be okay with that. This is the other alternative, I suppose. If you're going to cover all scenarios, covering all bases,

that's the other one, isn't it? I'm just worried that this research, researcher whoever it is, is going to somehow engineer a war with China. So that he can say, I told you so. No one was ready. If you'd read my article in the conversation, we'd be fine. But you didn't, and look at it now.

We're going to run out of petrol and mushrooms. And he's going to feel so good. He's going to feel so good when that moment comes. And he will broadcast his smugness at all of this using a device that was made in China. On a website called The Conversation. Yes. There you go. Thank you, Andrew.

That was, I mean, I only mildly xenophobic and frankly very informative. I now feel prepared. Yeah, I thought it was an informative dive. At the start of that, I didn't want war with China. And after the end of that, I still don't want war with China. But now with specific examples of the mushroom shortages that will ensue. Oh, not to mention the fruit jelly cups, the Chanel products, the Akea, the Barbies and the violins made by Andrew Schwerter. We don't want war with China, please.

No, let's not have it. Akeir is from Road. And we're part of the Aconi class network. And we'll catch you next time. Oh, somebody think of the mushrooms.