The Chaser Report - Barnaby Unmasked

Episode Date: June 29, 2021

A Deputy PM gets busted by the cops, and we fill the blanks in a police minister's unintentionally hilarious isolation diary. Plus, National Cabinet does something about the vaccine rollout, kinda. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello, welcome to The Chaser Report for Wednesday, the 30th of June, the last day of this financial year. And this is the Delta variant of the podcast still for this next week, meaning that my co-host is the wonderful Dan Illich of the Irrational Fear podcast. Hello, Dan. Hello, Dom. I just want to let people know if they do want to give an end of financial year donation to the Chaser, they can by go. to the chaser.com today. Well, we constantly ask for money. You guys have masked the art of clipping the ticket at every place,

people you greet. And we're starting to do that on a rational fear too. So if you want to give a donation, head to my Patreon. Okay, should we get on with the actual content here because it has been a very, very rich day? Sure. In the annals of Australian comedy history, with our brand new deputy prime minister

getting into, you know, a little bit of hot water with the fuzz. It's very exciting, yes. Barter be Joyce got busted by filling up at a petrol station in Armadale without a month. Here's what he said on the Alan Jones program on Sky News. I was going to the airport. I forgot to get fuel for Biggie.

Fill the car up with fuel. Went in 30 seconds later, 200 bucks. It cost me because I didn't wear one of these. But that's life. Good on you, Barnaby. Good on you, Barnaby. You're disobeying the law during a pandemic. Good on you, Barnaby, continuing on being a criminal.

Excellent work, Barnaby. I love that Alan Jones is trying to get, clearly trying to get rid of him, like at the start of that. Michael McCormack tried that for years. You can't get rid of the men. I don't think you can get rid of nationals anyway. I think the liberal part had been trying to get rid of nationals for years. So, Dan, he was only in the petrol station very briefly. He says, how on earth did he get busted?

This is the best part about the story is Bartowice was dobed in by a member of the public who called crime stoppers on 1,800, triple three, double zero. If you want to see, if you want to see justice served, but you don't need to call triple zero, this is called crime stoppers. I think that is amazing. I think that's fantastic. I think that's better than neighbourhood watch. That is making sure our leaders are held accountable

because quite frankly, they can't be held accountable any other way. I love that he's in the Sky Studio waving the disposable mask around. Now I know what he still wasn't on his face, though, was it, Dan? That's true. It wasn't on his face because he's too busy talking. He was probably talking about the benefits of the fossil fuel industry to the attendant at the service station. He's probably talking up gas.

In fact, gas is the whole reason why he's in this problem in the first place. true. I did do some snooping around on this, and I did text somebody who lives in Barnaby Joyce's electorate, and I asked him if he dobed in Barnaby Joyce. I texted Tony Windsor. Tony Windsor replied saying, not guilty, Dan, with a thumbs up emoji. There we go. I can see the text on the screen, although I'll tell you what, motive is certainly there, isn't it? We've got heaps on the show today. Barnaby Joyce isn't the only coalition politician who's been doing slightly dubious slash funny things this week. The New South Wales Police Minister, David Elliott,

in charge of the organisation that process, that sanction, has been writing a deeply weird isolation diary for everyone to read. We've got excerpts from it coming up. Yeah, it's like QAnon, but it's not an on. Not nearly enough. And I've got some tips for Charles Firth to deal with his kids while stuck in lockdown

with them on school holidays. And finally, Dan, you're not going to believe this, but the Prime Minister on Monday night actually came up with changes to the vaccination. rollout to make it a rollout. Hang on, do you mean just check this out? He's actually doing something? Well, they don't have the vaccine in their arms yet,

but he says he might, and that's a huge improvement. Well done, Scott Morrison. I just feel like the only time he does things is when he comes back from an overseas holiday or there's a national crisis at hand. You've nailed it again, but first let's go to Rebecca Day and Amuno in the Chaser Newsroom. After his first week on the job, colleagues of Barnaby Joyce have begun to think they may have fucked up

by promoting him to Deputy PM. In the span of seven days, Joyce has already had a rental income scandal, caused a COVID scare in Parliament, gone on record saying he doesn't give a shit about Melbourne and been fined by police for breaking lockdown rules. Commentators speculate that if he keeps up this pace, he might get elected as PM before the weekend. Victorian Premier and part-time dictator Dan Gulag Andrews has today resumed his reign of terror after successfully taking Sky News's advice to grow a backbone. The Melbourne Monster used his first press conference since a spinal injury to laugh maniacally for two hours straight before announcing the entire nation would immediately be plunged into lockdown. In local news, a pair of North Sydney private school parents

have exhausted all conversation topics with their disappointing child only 48 hours into the school holiday lockdown. After revisiting the usual topics of school grades and if they'll go into law or medicine, the parents have begun researching how hard it is to put a pre-owned 11-year-old up for adoption. That's the latest news from the Chaser's work from home news desk. I'm Rebecca Dayunamuno.

This episode of The Chaser Report is brought to you by the National Party, celebrating almost one day without a scandal. So lockdown has been affecting us all in different ways. And the New South Wales Police Minister, David Elliott, the man in charge of enforcing the lockdown restrictions across New South Wales has been writing a diary on LinkedIn, of all places, that weird corporate social network. You might as well because LinkedIn is there to tell people

that you're ready for a new job. And clearly, David's had enough and he's trying to signal to as many people as possible, yet, hey, guys, soon I'm going to be on the market ready for a new job because clearly our government messed up and we're going to be in opposition soon, which means a new job's going to come my way, preferably in lobbying. I'm thinking also potentially a patient, to be honest,

of some high-priced because there is some issues here now. Gabby Bolt's been reading the diary. Sorry, we put you through this, Gabby. And we're going to play a little game. Don't be sorry. It has been an honour. I feel like I found my new favourite novel series.

Can I just ask how many entries has David Elliott made of this kind of novella on LinkedIn? Not many. I feel like he's here for a good time, not a long time, but every single one that he's made, it's ever since he went into isolation, you see.

So his coping mechanism in isolation has been to write these diary entries. So I thought I'd give you guys a bit of a bit of a game. Please, I would love, I would love to hear some of these David Elliott Diaries. I thought we'd play a game of just fill in the blanks because I'm a fan of a simple method with high output. So all you have to do, I'm going to read a sentence from these diary excerpts, and I cannot stress this enough. I know that this is a satire podcast.

Yeah. These are real. Okay. All right. Dan, let's get ourselves into the mindset of an isolated, middle-aged police minister in the state of New South Wales. I think I'm there. All right. I'm ready. Let's do it. Right. Right. Right.

Okay. First excerpt. I just hope I get the pretty Indian nurse instead of that work experience kid I got last time. He put the stick so far up my blanket, it took an hour to retrieve. Us. That good? What about you, Tom? I got to go with pretty sure it's nose, but it could also be throat. Ding, ding, ding. Nose is correct. Dan, get your head out of the COVID gutter. All right. Next excerpt.

Fuller went deathly silent. What is it about politicians and blank? Bags of money. Massively fucking up in public. Oh, you're close. Actually, they're both kind of similar. It's nudie runs. What is it about politicians and nudie runs?

That's not correct. I want more context on that one, police minister. Oh, well, context is not something I'm going to give you today. The next excerpt. Hazard called yesterday. Some bugger briefed him up that I'd compared him to blank on Facebook and he threatened to get Kerry Chant to extend my ISO for another

fortnight if I did it again. Mark Latham. Politicians, liberal politicians get angry when they're compared to potatoes, don't they? You are close. Both of those guesses very, very close. It was Boy George. Boy George. Boy George. Boy George.

Why would you be upset about being compared to Boy George? These diary entries go through so many twists and turns. Who needs movies anymore? I mean, David, Elliot is a calmer chameleon, I'm thinking. Yesterday, I binged on blank. Love that show. It inspired me to rummage through Nicole's glory box

where I found a silver bell and took to ring it every time I wanted something. Oh, Downton Abbey. Chase is war on everything. Well done. Downton Abbey is correct. More on everything. So this next excerpt is three blanks,

all apart of the same kind of paragraph. So I'll go one at a time, but just know that the next three sentences are all related. Run on blanks. I'm ready. All right. Ex-girlfriend reached out via Tinder yesterday. She heard I was in ISO and asked if I needed anything.

I said I could do with a big bunch of blank in a handwritten card. Well, judging is the police minister and maybe wants to blow off some steam. Maybe he's after a big bunch of blanks to put in a gun and just fire. I'm going to go for blanks. Oh, you're close. It was carnations. Carnations. I could do with a big bunch of carnations in a handwritten card.

All right. What kind of police minister wants carnations? Well, keep holding on to that question, Dan, because it keeps going. Haven't so much has seen a pedal. A bit stingy given I used to take her flowers every time there had been a blank at Rockwood. Funeral. Well done. And we told him. He grabbed flowers off the grave.

What kind of man is this? This is the police minister, Dom, stealing flowers from rookwood graves to give to Tinder dates. All right. So we've had carnations, then funerals. This is how it keeps going. This is the end of this paragraph. still haven't seen that blank. WAP.

Close. Pussy. Oh, both very commendable answers, but the direct answer was steak and kidney pie, gentlemen, steak and kidney pie. That gets a no from me. All right. I feel like this guy is like clearly ridiculous,

but kind of find myself liking a liberal hardline police minister. What's going wrong with you? I kind of want to share a beer with this man. I feel like that is... If nothing else to work out the inner workings of how these diary entries are formulated. I feel like that's kind of the... theme of this podcast this episode. Usually we hate on cops, but today I feel like we are praising

cops for all sorts of things. Diary entries, arresting Barnaby Joyce, all kinds of things. Yeah, you've heard of ACAB, but what about all cops are formulating diary entries on LinkedIn? Yeah. Yeah. Look, I look forward to having a beer with this man and finding out more about the any working of his mind. As soon as he gets a more suitable job, any other job. This episode is brought to you by the National Party, whether it's sending a the terrorist squad to arrest comedians, pork barreling sports fields, getting fine for not wearing a mask,

moving mice to the inner city, or just saying you don't give a shit about Melbourne. We're focused on the things that really matter during a pandemic. It's time for another one of these. COVID watch. We're just going to do this segment every day, I think, Dan, because there is so much COVID news around in the community.

Queensland has just unleashed a three-day lockdown. It started at 6pm last night. You know, going hard and fast, showing useful is up again. But, yeah, southeast Queensland, and even Magnetic Island, for some reason, included in the lockdown. So don't think you can go and get the boat out to that. Not going to happen. No, lockdown three days.

It's a very tough situation in Queensland. I feel like they waited just until they lost so badly to New South Wales and state of origin that they were like, you know, now that we're lost, we're going to kick everyone out. I think that's a smart idea. Of course, actually, that's true. they should have started the lockdown from last week before Sunday night. That would have been very, very pretty.

Yeah, that way they wouldn't lose. They could cancel it. The funny thing is, Dan, the person who was infected here was moving around the community was something like 10 days. That whole time, the government's focus was on keeping people from New South Wales out and then W.A.

And then NT and then everywhere else. And they're like, wait, we've got the border. Oh, wait. One of them slipped in 10 days ago. Yeah, yeah. Slipped in through the back door, aka Northern Territory. It's very strange.

I feel sorry for Queensland because they've been trying to do everything right. And this guy who got it in Queensland, he got it not out of being kind of malicious or kind of trying to or flouting the rules or not being cautious. He got it while he was in transit in a quarantine hotel. It's such a weird bummer for Queensland.

Like it's really easy to hate on the New South Wales limo driver because he was driving to and from the airport without being vaccinated or without being cautious. But it's really hard. to blame someone who thinks they're safe in a quarantine hotel. Although at this point, Dan, does anyone in a quarantine hotel actually think, well, there's not going to be any Delta variant in here? Those gaps are plugged.

No, if you don't have Delta variant, that's where you go to get it. Yeah, the quarantine hotel. It's pretty much a stop and shop for COVID variants now. On that, Dan, National Cabinet met on Monday night, and they actually made some changes. Don't fall off your chair. Hang on. What are they doing? They've actually decided that people involved in hotel quarantine

need to be vaccinated and that should be mandatory, including people working in transport. What would it take for Scott Morrison to actually fix the system? Well, a massive failure of it, apparently, or at least maybe the third or fourth or fifth. Who would have thought that 18 months after the pandemic started? Scott Morrison would start to do something. It's very strange for him.

Now, Dom, I don't know if you remember this, but about a year ago, we had something called the National COVID-19 Coordination Commission. Do you remember that? This were a group of prominent businesses, leaders from executives from banking and mining fossil fields and they were tasked with coming up with a solution to help with COVID-19. Dom, do you remember what the COVID-19 Coordination Commission's number one recommendation was? I'm going to guess keep things open so that business doesn't suffer.

It was to build gas pipelines and to build a gas-wide power station that's going to operate a 2% capacity for most of the time. That was what the national COVID-19 coordination commission run by a whole bunch of fossil field executives said would solve COVID-19. Now, gas pipelines don't seem to be solving COVID-19. Well, presumably, given this government, they haven't even built the gas pipeline, quite apart from it, not helping. No, they've announced it, which is great, which is better than building it. You know, and they say, whenever you have a hammer, everything looks like a gas well. That's what happened. So the government also has announced that workers in aged care are going to have to be mandatorily vaccinated by

September. Just as long as we don't rush with this, Dan. What was it? The outbreak began in aged care in April last year. Don, we should remember that it's not a race. It's not a race. It's a marathon. It's a race to the bottom of the global vaccination rollout. Slowest in the OECD. So if it was a race, we would be dead last. Or if you look at the chart the other way around, we would be top of the list, but we're not. We're the bottom of the list. I did enjoy Joe Hockey tweeting how bad it was. prominent liberal leader of the past

saying how terrible we are going. I guess he was on the beers because he deleted it shortly after. And you saw that the location on that tweet, he was in France. I think he was out with Mattias Corman or something. Like, mate, just no. He was out with George Papadopoulos having a drink. Oh, I wouldn't be surprised.

And the final big change for National Cabinet, Dan, AstraZeneca now available for the under 60s. So it's been very, very strange. It was 50 plus, then it was 60 plus, and then almost as a thought bubble, they went, actually, this whole small risk of clotting thing is nothing compared to the massive, clear and present risk of getting the Delta. It's not exactly surprising there's some hesitancy and confusion in the community, Dan. No, that's true.

And I feel like there's a lot of millennials out there who are really keen to get a vaccination. But they might have to be pushed to get AstraZeneca because it's had really bad press. And I reckon if you've got a free major laser CD with every action, Extrazenica, then that could be something, or maybe a bit of signed merch from Flume, then that might get young people in. When I say young people, people under 40. Could they possibly make a vapable version of the AstraZeneca? Yeah, a vapable version.

If you got a free house deposit with every AstraZeneca... Just mix it up with the smashed Avo. Hey, there's enough smashed Ava to go around. Can we have a smashed Astra? A smashed Astra, that would do the job. Yep. Are you going to get it, Dan? You're under 40.

I really want to go get the AstraZeneca vaccine. So I think the first available opportunity that my local doctor has it, I'll pop pop down and get it. But I also want a freebie as well. So if I get an AstraZeneca vaccine with some Smashdava on the side, then I'm interested. After all, I do live in Bondi. You certainly do.

From the makers of Bridget Jones's diary comes the new Hollywood smash hit, David Elliott's diary. Up nice and early as I get to have my third COVID test this morning. I hope I get to get it. the pretty Indian nurse. Relive all the fun, all the magic, and all the segments that make you go,

wait, this guy is the police minister? The police minister actually wrote that? Hasn't called yesterday. Some bugger briefed him that I'd compared him to Boy George. Then I had an argument with Robbo about the definition of COVID kilo, but yesterday I binged on Mountain Abbey of that show.

A roller coaster ride from start to finish. The David Elliott Diaries is sure to have you rolling in your seat One minute and weeping for the state of modern politics the next. Ex-girlfriend reached up via Tinder yesterday. She'd heard I was in ISO and asked if I needed anything. I said I could do with a big bunch of carnations and a handwritten card. Haven't seen so much as a petal. David Elliott's Diary.

Coming this July to a political theater near you. The National Party. Looking out for the true everyday Australians. By Everyday Australians, I mean billionaire coal mine. as gas companies and mouse removalists does not include 75% of Australians living in major cities. Dom, I think there's one way we can get to the front of the queue. We are very good at building big things, big bananas, big worms, big sheep, big pineapple, big prawns.

Now, if only at someone at CSL could build a big giant syringe, or maybe even better, a big giant MRI strand, maybe, just maybe we can pump out enough vaccine to get vaccinated before September. It's not a bad idea. What else could we have? Big PPE for the aged care sector? Yeah, a gigantic mask just to cover each nursing home. That would be great.

One big nursing home. Each nursing home could be turned into a bubble. That's a great idea, an actual bubble. And maybe a big hat for Barnaby Joyce with a built-in mask. Yeah, something that Barnaby Joyce can compete with Pauline Hanson, who is always going to be wearing a burker in Parliament. Sounds like a good idea. If you want more news around the clock, chaser.com.

com is the place to go. Follow us on all the socials, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. And of course, TikTok. Don't forget Dan's A rational Fear. podcast comes out weekly as well. Our gears from road microphones and we are part of the ACAST Creator Network. Catch you tomorrow, Dan. See you tomorrow.

Bye.