The Chaser Report - Barnaby Wins The Price Isn't Right

Episode Date: April 3, 2022

Barnaby Joyce has his say on the housing market. Meanwhile our lawyers have allowed us to talk about Ben Roberts-Smith. Plus America have a brand new forensic science technique that works like magic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chase of Report. Well, that's all we have time for, for Monday, the 4th of April. I'm Charles Firth, and with me are Alexa, Gabby and John. Hold on, what do we have time for? We've just started. No, but it's just, I've been told my intros are to sort of upbeat and convention. They're the same every day. And so I just thought, why don't we just start with a farewell?

Well, it's definitely different. Yeah, exactly. And also, I just imagine everyone in their podcast thing immediately skipping. Oh, that's the end of the last episode. Smart. You get them to skip the rest of the episode. That's great. Does that mean we don't have to do the rest of the record then?

Unfortunately, we do. Oh, that's all right. Including some comments that Barnaby made last week, Gabi. Yeah, Barnaby got on a good old Q&A as we all. They're still running that thing? Fuck, I hope it was Q&A. otherwise. It's just another show with red and blue panel lights. But I, yeah, so he was on there with Jackie Lambie and some other people that I didn't

bother learning the names of. And I, they were talking about housing crisis and how it just keeps getting more crisisy. That old chestnut. Yeah. And basically, Jackie was sort of expressing that it's really hard for people to buy a house and like renters should be taken care of because the majority of the population is renting. I don't know what kind of world we're living in where Jackie Lambe keeps making more and more sense every single time I hear a talk. But yeah, and then Bartaby, he chimed in with, oh, well, this is a bullshit argument because, well, I bought my first house

with a, guess how much he said, to make it more relatable for everyone else? He was able to save. $2 million? $5? Well, no, he lives in the regions. Like, nobody wants to live in Armadale. Right. So I reckon, his house would probably have been, what, $400,000 or $500,000.

Really? Okay. I reckon it would be that cheap. Yeah, that is pretty cheap. So probably, like a deposit, he probably only needed, what, 40 grand, doesn't he? Oh no, probably 80 grand. Oh, no, but this, he's talking about outright. No, outright. He purchased.

Oh, he brought the whole house. Of course he did. Wait, too. Let's play. Can't pay rent and save. Okay, you just can't do that. We all know that. Not on minimum wages. It's just unrealistic. I disagree with that. First house I bought cost from $67,000.

Now, Ed. She's, Barnaby. I don't know what planning you're on, but you're looking at 600,000 bucks now, and that's on a good day for your income. It's good news, everybody, because Barnaby, He bought a cheap house a long time ago. It's great. Oh, my God, $67,000. How out of touch.

He paid through the nose. But where? Where do you get out? Like, even back in the day, is that even a... He actually bought a Wombat's house. He's not that old. Like, he's not old enough to pay $67,000. Maybe he was drunk when he bought it, which, I mean, you know, good odds.

Yeah. And he thought it was $67,000. It's $670,000? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, maybe he bought it. it off of Angus Taylor as kind of like, I give you 70 million for the water. Give me the house for 67,000.

Then the house wouldn't exist. True. Yeah. Well, maybe he bought it off Josh Frydenberg and we finally found out where that's 60 billion. Coming up on the show, we're talking about the Ben Robert Smith

defamation trial, which is going really well for him. We can't talk about that, can we? Well, it's a big defamation trial. Big scary word. Yeah, but I think that, I think we can now safely say that Ben Robert Smith is too busy losing other defamation cases to bring one against us, yeah. And also, John has a story about cops.

Yeah, in America they have a brand new forensics technique that works like magic. Oh, okay. Well, all that and more coming up. But first of all, let's go to Rebecca Day and Muno in the Chaser Newsroom. Polls are revealed that the ALP is set to win the federal election on the back of a massive swing toward Labor from disgruntled liberal politics. politicians. History says the LMP politician demographic has traditionally been a strong one for the Libs, but less so if everyone in the coalition hates their leader with a burning passion.

Air to the News Corp throne, Lachlan Murdoch, has slammed the ABC for being media elites who don't relate to everyday Australians. The Australian who lives in America additionally stated it is impossible to compete with the ABC when News Corp only owns 70% of national media publications. Crowds have descended on Parliament in celebration after witnessing Scott Morrison bungle his 1,000th national disaster since coming to power. Asked how he will be celebrating the milestone,

Representatives said that there is no time for festivities. With all the disasters happening, Morrison is incredibly busy, flights overseas. Those are the latest headlines for The Chaser Report. I'm the one and only Rebecca Deunamuno. Now, with this next story, we need to tread a little carefully, guys, because we're talking about Ben Robert Smith, and he's currently suing Channel 9 for defamation.

Yes. So he's somebody who sues people for defamation. Oh, that's, I thought we were scared because he's going to keep. us off at cliff. No, defamation, okay. Defamation, defamation. Thank God we cleared that one out. And to be clear, he denies any wrongdoing. Um, so let's just, anyway, let's just, he said he's not an evil war criminal. Okay. And I just want to, let's just focus. Sorry, redacted, redacted, redacted. Yeah, yeah. And, and remember, you know, like,

we are not a reliable news source. So, you know, like, our credibility. And some people aren't reliable. And if you're looking for a reliable news. news source. Maybe we point you in the direction of Channel 9. Channel 7 actually. Yeah. The one new source we should all trust in this is obviously Channel 7 who Ben Robert Smith is a boss at and they give you great

information about his abs. Yeah. A few days ago Channel 9 brought into the trial a guy who can't be identified, he's codenamed Person 66. He was a former SAS soldier he worked with Ben Robert

Smith over in Afghanistan. There's a of allegations swirling around, and last year, the Inspector General actually did a report which showed that, and they found that there was credible information that 39 people were unlawfully killed in Afghanistan during this period. Just 39. Attributed to Ben or just? Just general, just divide. It's giving Chernobyl.

Well, I think this is part of what, you know, is that issue in the case is, you know, was it Ben sort of telling everyone to kill these people or not. Anyway, point is, what Channel 9 wanted to ask this guy is, did Ben Robert Smith order you to kill this innocent guy who was actually under they'd already captured the guy and it's completely, it's a war crime to then just shoot them in the back of the head. This person 66 guy doesn't want to testify, right? And the reason is, he goes, this might be used in evidence against.

means to me, right? I don't want to incriminate myself, right? Nothing sounds more guilty. So then the court turns around and goes, okay, we'll give you this certificate that allows you to testify and that testimony cannot be used in an Australian court of law. It's a license to kill. Yeah. It's so cool. Yeah, well, it's a license to be able to admit you.

Number 007. Yep. And then the guy turns around and goes, yeah, yeah, thanks for that certificate. it, but what about the ICC? Like, what about the international... You wouldn't send a war criminal to an international court, would you? Come on, give me some documents. They might listen in...

This is what his lawyer honestly said. They might be listening into this testimony. I don't want to testify because, you know, there's places in the Hague that might be interested in the tale that I've got to spin, right? The yarn that I have. And then on Friday, the judge went, oh, okay, Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, you don't have to testify anymore.

And Channel 9 has gone, if we got this testimony, they reckon that would just seal the deal that their defence, that basically they're telling the truth about Ren Robert Spith, you know, allegations which he completely denies. You know, it was fait accompli. But instead, because of the fucking ICC,

chasing up all these war criminals and the risk that this, Person 66 might become involved, we can't hear the fucking juice. You can't spill the tea. Oh, you're sad because you want the goss. I want the goss on the... But also, it's sort of like my crimes are so heinous. Like, the argument was procedurally my crimes are so heinous

that I can't possibly, you know... divulge them. And the judge just went... Fair enough. Fair enough. Oh, that whole tell the truth, nothing about the truth. That's all just a bit of fun. That's all just a bit of fun.

To be fair, I think that's like a really, really refreshing episode in the whole Ben Robert Smith saga because the thing that annoyed me so much is that he became this poster boy for war crimes. Like, he's what's wrong with the Australian army in Afghanistan? I'm just like, well, no, the whole thing is a massive crime. It's a bit bad. It's nice to know that there's other people who allegedly maybe also did horrible stuff.

Well, I've been like following the story for ages because at least during the whole part when it was his side doing the evidence, which was the first six months of this case. it was like everything that that bring forward in his defence just made him look worse which was like like they were bringing in stuff that channel nine didn't know that were still also

war crimes and he was like no we didn't do that thing one of the things was like no when I crashed the car into the cliff that was because I was trying to shoot a stray dog yeah they were like that's also still bad

but we love I suppose it does make him look marginally better. And that's all you need in a court of law. Yeah, I always wonder, what's the logical limit? How bad can a defamation case get? Like, could he just go to jail after this? Or no, whatever happens in the case is. Well, there is actually a theory.

The reason, like, he's playing sort of 4D chess. And that actually, by getting it out in a trial where it's all based on balance probabilities. It's very, very hard to prove truth when you're defending a defamation case as churnalynes. Like, it may well be that despite all this testimony, they go, well, yeah, but it still was defamatory, right? Like, yeah, lots of this stuff was true, but, you know, the way you said it was still

defamatory, at which point, even if he only gets awarded one dollar, he can walk away and go, see, vindicated, and then that makes it less likely that he'll face it. other consequences. That's a theory. One of the things that happened recently was when he was like he argued the claim in one of the pieces that he was an accused. Sorry, sorry. Hey, shut up. Okay. Well, we'll talk to the lawyers and you'll hear a very edited version of this raid. report news you can't trust so john cops yeah so i was looking for new advances in science and so i went to the one place that's you do uh yeah so i was looking at the one place that's

always got the best news local news in america oh wow cool and so i found out just like how america loves to throw all their resources at the police luckily police in Tennessee have made a brand new technique for forensics. I am. They started using witchcraft. Oh, I cannot wait for CSI witches. More and order, SVO.

I've got the DNA from the scene. Oh, wait, wait, wait. What we need is pigs liver. I came as fast as I could. I have the eye of newt. Wizard cops. Sadly, it's less wizard's cops and more just regular old witchcraft.

It came out because a trainee police officer who was also learning about forensic stuff at university got confused when he said that he was handed dowsing rods during his training on how to find bodies. Wait, wait, wait, wait. They've got so many guns in the US. Are you sure he wasn't just handed two guns? It's exactly the same shape.

Well, don't worry. They'll give it, apparently the dowsing rods they're using the police in Tennessee have the grip of a gun. And they're just... Of course they do. Like a piece of plastic on the top of it. Now, are you absolutely sure that this wasn't a story that came out on, like, April Fool's Day last Friday?

Like, is this, are you sure this is true? Yeah, this was so, really, they're given rods, and the entire training team were like, oh, this is a joke. And then they started laughing, but then the police trainer got very annoyed that they were laughing and treating the witchcraft without their respect to deserves. And he turned them into frogs. So it's just the police in Tennessee? Yeah. Wait, where's Salem?

It's in New Hampshire, isn't it? Oh, no, Massachusetts. Yeah, so they're sort of using the opposite of Salem. They'd be using witchcraft. They love that shit. No, they, but no. This is like the opposite. So the big criticism that's come out from forensics groups is that apparently it's not scientific.

Luckily though, obviously Tennessee police have defended using witchcraft and pointed out that they have just gotten approval to use witching. as a piece of evidence in a murder trial in Georgia. Which means that legally in America, witchcraft is now considered scientific evidence in the court of law. I mean, I think that's awesome. That's like so much better than how they usually decide things with like racial profiling and stuff.

Witchcraft is like more of a science. Well, no, I think it's more that they have now got a bigger and better loophole to use racial profiling and call it witchcraft. Oh, I can't help, but the shock they're told me they're doing it. Like Trayvon Martin was trying to put a hex on me so I had to shoot him. Yeah, it's not going to be good. But also, the police trainer has put out a statement defending him.

Quote, you either find the body or you don't. You've got to wonder if they ever prove they can find a body with the dousing rods. Surely that just makes them more suspicious, right? Like, oh, it was the dowsing rods. I have no idea how this body got here. Turns out it was in my basement. What a crazy technology. The witches must have put it there to send a message.

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