The Chaser Report - Big Bash Budget | Craig Reucassel

Episode Date: October 26, 2022

Craig, Dom, and Charles all didn't watch the budget and know nothing about it. Here's the budget coverage according to News.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigall Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is the Chaser Report. Hello, we're on Gatigal Land as we bring you the Budget Report special edition of the Chaser Report. I'm Charles Firth. And with me today is Dr Craig Roocastle? Yes, Doctor of Economics. Noted economist and Domite. Hang on, I'm a fucking doctor.

Give me a title. Are you actually are a doctor? I am. I'm not sure. Yeah, yeah. Of creative writing. A doctor of creative writing. Which, frankly, they could have used on budget night.

Yeah, exactly. I just have to admit, now, guys, you know how you sent me down to Canberra specifically for the budget lockup? Yes, yes, that was great. So I would be able to cover this in depth, right? Okay, so I went to Canberra and I went into the room and got locked up for the time and I took my phone out and all that kind of stuff. You're not allowed to take your phone and I'm like that kind of stuff. So the problem was I went to the wrong room. Oh.

So whilst I was, you know, like. It wasn't, it wasn't the prayer room, was it? A lot of people were touching me. And a lot of people were locked up. Yes. Oh, shit. My God. I had them.

Anyway, so I had the best sexual experience in my lifetime. But because I didn't have my phone, um, that people constantly text me going, Craig, that's not the budget lock up. Oh, right. And don't let that liberal member do that to you. I didn't get the text. Literally a liberal member. Yeah, so I have no insight into the budget, unfortunately.

Well, I've got insight. I've actually got a hot take, actually. Thank goodness. Someone has one of those on budget day. Isn't it a hot take the opposite of insight? Oh, yeah, probably. Let's find out. The point is, if you're the Labor Party, you've got to have trust, right?

They've just faced an election. You've got to, you know, you've got to limit the number of promises you break. That seems to break what my understanding of politics is, but sure, go with this. It's a radical idea. So you're not meant to just immediately ignore all the things you campaigned on. Well, this is the thing that Anthony Albanesey has been saying. For the first 100 days, he was saying, no, no, no, we've got to maintain trust with the electorate. We don't want to break promises, right?

And so it's good to see that the only, I can see, they didn't break the promise around stage three tax cuts. You know, like everyone's been saying they give only tax cuts to really rich people. It's going to cost billions of dollars. A quarter of a trillion dollars over the next. 10 years to the budget, they didn't break their promise, which is good. Like, you know, they didn't, sort of thing. The only one that I can see that they've actually genuinely broken is the one where people will get a wage rise.

Remember that promise? They said, if you vote Labor, you're going to get a wage rise. And now in the budget, they've said, oh, no, no, no, nobody should expect a wage rise to at least 2025. Well, they didn't say when they were going to give you a wage rise. Oh, I see. And they didn't say they were going to actually give you one. They said they were in favour of wage rise.

Rage rises. Oh, okay. But surely you're in favour of the interns that the chase have been paid. That's right. That's no guarantee. Are we clear on who the wage rises are for? Because Anthony Albanese, he's had a huge wage rise. Everyone is now a minister.

They've had a massive way. They're really well. And if you're very rich, in some ways you're getting a wage rise through those tax cuts because you're getting an extra $9,500 per year every year. I still hope that that's not going to happen. going to happen. But as a moment, as this moment, is still going to happen. If you're a good Labor government, what you do is you deliver tax cuts to millionaires, but you don't have any wage rises. Well, can I say on the upside as well, it's good to see that they are still

subsidising fossil fuels as well. That was reaching to the tune of billions of dollars. No, but actually in fairness to Labor, they are much better on the environment than the libs. Because did you see in their budget, they announced a promise that they would plant one tree for every coal mine they approve, which means there's going to be dozens of trees planted in Queensland alone just this year. So I guess the question with the stage three tax cuts, which promise is it that they're going to break? Because they kind of, like, either they break the promise and cancel the tax cuts, or they

break their promise to actually be a non-insane government. I mean, this is, which pitch are they? Oh, I see, yes. There was an overall pitch wasn't there. I mean, Albao never actually said this. We will make sensible decisions that don't completely. destroy the economy. It's what they call the trust promise. I've

had a church and wealthy donors and they rather that they kept the promise about keeping stage three tax cuts. Oh really? Yeah. And be an insane government. Okay. And remember, like the stage three tax cuts work very well for people who are in Parliament because they will all

benefit from it. That's true. I must admit though, I was out, I missed the budget, I missed the budget talk and I haven't really caught up on it. So I don't really know a great deal of what's happening in the budget, so I cannot give any great updates. Yeah, I must say, I decided not to watch the budget last. I mean, I sat down.

It's a shame, because there's always a really thrilling viewing. Yeah, I sat down, but then I noticed that there was a World Cup match. I think it was like Amsterdam versus, you know, Peru or something. One of the crucial matches in the World Cup. And I thought, oh, no. The old country versus city matches. What? Peru's not a country. I do want to say, though, it is impressive seeing Labor getting so behind the arts, right?

I mean, we talked to the now minister, Tony Burke. Labor was all about the arts. He did all these events. And so it was interesting to see that on budget night, actually, they didn't do anything for the arts, is that? Thank God. Is that a mistake? I'm just looking at this here. So they're giving half a million dollars to...

Look at the feasibility of putting double J on FM. Yeah, yeah. That's the one thing. Yeah, they've restored funding to the ABC, but arts funding is very low. So clearly Tony Burke got my letter. It's all about being selfish, people. No, I'm kidding.

I'm kidding. I actually don't know. I don't know. I even followed it. But, I mean, presumably the rest of Australia has been following. the budget really closely. Yes. The mistake I made this morning was that I wanted to prepare for the budget.

Yes. I wanted, so I thought what I'll do is go to Australia's most popular news website. Ah, daily mail. No, no, news.com. com. And I would, I would, I would, the ABC is more popular. Just look at the top stories on news.com. And that would just give me a quick heads up of all the important budget stories.

Yes. Yeah. And can I guess that the top budget story is about how Megan might. Markle has destroyed Australia's budget or something. No. No. Because isn't that every story on news.com? Not quite because that would have actually mentioned the budget.

Whereas the top story, this is much more interesting. Did you know that the world's dirtiest man has died? Interestingly enough, I do know that. But that's a budget story. Hang on. At the age of 94. So he's Iranian. He just took his first shower in 67 years.

And he didn't live very long afterwards. No, but that's a bunch of story because Labor started washing the homeless and suddenly they're dying. Typical. Typically. Is that the news.com day you take on? It doesn't even mean. He despised soap and water and only ate uncooked porcupine roadkill. He drank dirty water from puddles out of a rusty oil can.

And that was fine. And he lived at like 90. And I like the fact that he was quite healthy too. Yeah. He was 94 years old. He was in great shape. For most of his life, he also liked smoking animal dung out of an old pipe and four cigarette. Who doesn't?

He was in very good shape. And then, of course, your lefty doodders had to come in and get him to take a shower. Villagers, villages took him to a bathroom to wash. His neighbours said, you might need to wash if you want to make friends or find a girlfriend. That was their advice. These meddling do-gooders.

Like all 94-year-old men, they're desperate for a girlfriend. The Chaser Report. More news. Less often. At one point in his life, he actually jumped from a moving car because men from his village forcibly picked him up and tried to throw him in the river to wash him and actually jumped out of the car to avoid being washed.

I mean, this is just a metaphor for laboured ruining the economy, isn't it? And he was also helping science, right? Scientists were quite interested in studying what kind of life forms might have taken up home on his point. So this is honestly the very top story, like the top of the page on news.com.com. But that's sort of understandable. Like, that's...

It's a good story. Where were you when you found out that the world's 30s fan that died? Like our generation's princess Diana moment. The worst part of this is that Charles has just discovered that he's not the world's 30s man. I was going, have I died? Actually, you could hold the title now. Charles, you know what you're going to do is eat more porcupine roadkill. Raw.

I mean, it does mean, yes, okay, they're not improving wages and they really aren't doing enough to help. I prefer the term porcupine tartare. And they're not giving any money to, you know, new stuff, they're not really doing very much for the poorest, when they could be giving them porcupine roadkill and helping them to lead to the age of 94. So what's the second top story, John?

What's the actual budget? I presume that that's budget. So this one's in Australia. Viewers of the block have been horrified by Scott Cam's Bogan house detail. Oh, really? And was that provided by Labor budget? He's very wealthy, so he's probably going to get the stage three tax cuts.

Yes, what is the... Which he's blowing on. This is the Bogan detail. Oh, my God. Has he got an avocado pool toy? Perfect millennials available at the Chaser store very soon. Coming soon at chaser.com. No, chaser shop.com.

Shut up. What he's done, he's so rich, Scott Cam, that he can afford to take his shed and put five skylights in the roof in the shape of the Southern Cross symbol. So we've seen Southern Cross tattoos before. This is a giant Southern Cross skylight. So how does this relate to the budget? It's one of the top stories and it must be,

have something to do with the budget. Okay, so this is possibly not linked to the budget, although this Southern Cross, yeah, no, okay, so what's the third top story? Is there still the building sector? I'm not sure. Now this is, this relates to the budget. Oh, this is related.

Okay, they were going to get to it in the end. Yeah. Apparently a girl who went to Taylor Swift's high school says she was hated at high school. Who was? Taylor Swift was. Yeah, Taylor Swift was. In much the same way that she hates the stage three text cuts? That's right.

Yeah, okay. Well, I suppose that most of Taylor Swift's songs are about broken promises. That's right. That's right. And so this is the question. If they made rich people pay more tax, wouldn't they? make it harder for the next Taylor Swift to come out of Australia and make amazing music like we have never produced a Taylor Swift. Yes, we haven't. The closest we got was John Farnham.

All right, what about the environment? Because our taxes are too high, clearly. We haven't talked about the environment. So, yeah, okay, so what's the fourth top story on news.com today? Actually, this is a bit of a sad one. Oh, is it? Yeah. A bit of a change of tone. The body of a missing grandmother has been found intact inside a mammoth python in Indonesia. A 54-year-old woman who was found. But the size of the snake is absolutely enormous. Well, you'd think so, Dom. It's huge and a granny.

I want people to note that's Charles's laugh. At no stage, did I laugh at this story? It's extremely sad. That's very sad. But again, it's a metaphor of what happened to the economy if Labor doesn't keep its promises on the tax cuts. All right, so let's move on to the fifth top story. Finally, when news.com.com.com.com got to the budget.

What was this story? They didn't get to the budget, but they did get to three straight stories about Gina Ritehart and Netball. And it's amazing to see Netball at the news. Well, it's on Gina Ryder. She's cut the funding and Netball's still getting more coverage in the news. So nothing, none of the top five stories covered the budget. I feel like for the fairness sake, can you go to ABC.comnet.

They, Dom, their news website and see what their top five stories. Did any of those touch on the budget? Yes. But surely news.com to EU has more of the pulse of Australia. I'm just scrolling down. I just want to see how far down I get till I see anything about the budget. It's under the national section. It's none of the stories there.

Obviously not world. Is it? Lifestyle. Nope. Is it? Okay. There is absolutely, I'm not making this up. There is no mention until we get to finance, which is about two thousand.

the way down the page. And it's always my go-to section on News.comcom. And the top story is shit show why the budget is terrifying. This is the most boring budget in the history of Australian politics, deliberately so. Well, it's absolutely that's an absolute success for Labor. Yeah, for Labor. Yeah. And then you have an easy.

If News. If News.com. You can't come up with a really attacking line on them and has to cover the world's dirtiest man dying. This is the greatest budget they've ever put out. And actually reading it, to Samantha Maiden, they're not even attacking charmers. They're saying, holy shit, the world economy's fucked. Tom, stop reading news.com.

Okay. Can we just go to ABC? I want to see if they actually come. I'm on ABC.com. I'm on ABC.net.com slash news. Yes. Top five stories. Top five stories.

Okay. Medibank data breach. 5 p.m. is the new 7 p.m. We're dining out earlier. What? Treasurer says Australia needs to get value for money for the NDIAS. So there's a little bit of value in there. Is that a budget thing?

It is a budget story. Oh, number three. That's number three. Do you know what the disgrace of this is? This is a disgrace. This reflects the appalling state of the Australian media. This is an absolute disgrace that the national broadcaster has not covered the death of the dirtiest man. I am disgusted.

Thank God the Labour Party's giving them more funny because how the fuck did they miss that story? Yes. There's a story here called What Causes Brain Fog and How Do You Know If You Have It? I think I'm going to click on this one. Our Gears from Road, we're part of the ACAS creator network. Catch you tomorrow. That's more interesting than the budget.