The Chaser Report - Bruce Lehrmann Sues White Powder For Defamation

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

Bruce Lehmann has been filmed in his own home at a party with some unnamed white powder. In thematically unrelated news, mass amounts of cocaine has been seized in Sydney by police. Plus the Tasmanian Premier has a $12 million plan to stay in power. 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 a scandalous episode of The Chaser Report. Oh, Charles, breaking news here. Look, this is just broken now. By the time you hear this, it's probably will have exploded all over the internet. But we had to record a second episode back to back because something explosive just happened involving Bruce Lammon, the person who... It'd be fair to say sued a lot of people for defamation, Charles, so we should be somewhat careful.

The fine upstanding gentleman, Bruce Lehman, who was seen on a video, and I quote this in Morning Herald, as a friend chops white powder at a dinner party. So we'll talk about that. We should also talk about, in unrelated news, Charles, cocaine in Sydney. Oh, yeah. The police have seized $22 million worth of cocaine with some quite unfortunate branding on us.

And the Tasmanian Premier, I want to see if you can guess what Jeremy Rockcliff's committed to do for $12 million. if re-elected. $12 million. Well, it's not a stadium then. I don't know about the stadium. Forget the stadium.

This is much bigger. It's going to get all the tourists coming to Tassie. He says it's going to be the most exciting thing since Mona, which I reckon is one of the most amazing things. And it only got $12 million. Yeah, pretty cool idea. Maybe we should gazump him in Sydney. Anyway, those stories after this.

Let's start with Bruce Lehman. Now, the nine newspapers have just released this scandalous video. And I don't know. Can you see how it was leaked? Charles is it's a video of a video of. dinner party at Bruce Lehman's house, which is the one that's paid for by the Channel 7 network for free, this is free house. So do you think Channel 7's been secretly videoing?

Do you think he's in the Big Brother house and he doesn't realize? That would be getting some good value for money, wouldn't they? How does anyone come by private footage in one's own house? Because that's a massive violation of privacy. I mean, unless I suppose someone just filmed it during the dinner and just posted it to social media. What? Of racking up white powder. What? Really?

That's what appears to it. So the Herald's saying here, as of Monday afternoon, the short video clip captioned Bruce's famous speech was post or Instagram by a friend of Liam. Charles, I think that friend's going to get sued. I think there's going to be defamation suit number six or seven from Bruce. I wasn't

in the vicinity of that white powder. So there's white powder clearly being chopped up. Charles, that's an unusual way, isn't it, to do table salt? It is an amazingly common way to do table salt, though. Let's have a little listen to the salt that's being shared around at this fancy digs. Nadia, honestly, I love Nadia. I'm constantly concerned for Nadia's welfare.

That's how young liberals joke, by the way. That was Bruce Lehman speaking there. Do we know who Nadia is, or is that just somebody who was at the dinner? I don't know who Nalia is. and I don't know who's chopping up the salt. I think we should just, you know, preface pretty much every word using the word allegedly. Allegedly. Yeah.

Does say here that Lehmann's studying law, which could come in useful. Yeah. I don't mean for the white powder. I mean for all the defamation cases he's going to launch. Now, look, I've seen this footage now, and the thing that really concerns me, first of all, nice dinner party. Yeah, I've been to a dinner party like that in ages.

Very weird. Like, I mean, I'm a man that. the world, Dom. You are. But it's very casual to just chop up some salt, right? You know, like, in front of your dinner get? Like, you know, how we're doing about how London in the 1990s, you know, Coke was like an after dinner mint.

This is like a during dinner mint. I mean, and we were talking about how, you know, there was cocaine on the toilet just down the road, just down the corridor from where Princess Kate gave birth to the royal babies, they found cocaine on the toilet seat. Yes. But, I mean, the fact that this is shocked you, Someone who on this podcast regularly asks people to email him at podcast at jason.com.com. If they've got cocaine to give away.

In jest, of course. In jest. Yeah. You seem shocked that just at a dinner party someone would be chopping up salt like this. Well, the actual thing that really shocks me is I am pretty sure in the foreground that bottle. There's a bottle of wine. Is ALDI branded wine.

Which, I mean, it's hard to tell. For the cost of living crisis, 2024. Well, no, but not amongst young libs. You can't bring a, somebody's, I reckon somebody, and this is the big allegation, this is what we're going to really go down for. Oh, the defamation. Is it the drinking out of your wine? Somebody has brought Aldi and tried to pass, you know how it's always branded as like

normal wine? Yeah, they've got a name that's slightly like the real brand. Like Le Bampain or something. Or Pondfields. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So, and I reckon that's what's happened there. Somebody's brought Aldi to a young lib.

Do you think it's possible that the salt comes from Audi as well? Can you get, can you get, knock off, knock off, narcotics? Yeah, it would be, what would it be? It would be. Cucone. And it would make you feel just slightly. Yeah, it would be nothing like the real sensation. Yeah.

It would probably be healthier, actually. Yeah. I mean, actually, it's probably Alka-Seltzer or something. I mean, Charles, let me just, let me just express in the interest of our financial future. Why did they? shock that he must have felt that someone did that without his consent or authorisation. Can I just, I'm reading the nine newspapers article, why do they use inverted commas around the term white powder?

I mean, it clearly is white powder. Well, it's a black and white video. So it could be yellow. It could be turmeric. Maybe they're making a salad. Maybe they're so far gone, some of these people, Charles. But the only way they know, like they don't use mortars and pebbles anymore in the young lives, they just use credit cards.

That's the way you distribute in... To rack up your turmeric. It could just be oregano for the past. No, no, it's not an origano. It's white. It's white. It is very white. Okay, so that's what's going on with Bruce Lammon. I mean, I can't believe he's sort of trapped in some sort of controversy, Charles. Bruce Lamon.

He's such an ordinary life. Yeah. So he's still at the home that's being bankrupt by Stokes, isn't it? Well, I mean, I think it's just paid off for them, isn't it? No, but it says here that the 12-month deal is about to expire. Right. So he's going to have to find a place to live after that. Imagine having to pay your own way in society.

I know what, Charles. Just sitting here in our podcast studio, it's not used very much. Oh, yeah, that's true. Bruce, if you need a place to crash, we could put down a mattress. We're new and ALDI here. Never mind all the video cameras. Just ignore the cameras. Yeah, ignore the cameras.

We're friends of yours. We would never post incriminating. And all this recording equipment. That's right. That's running. It's nothing. And look, if you've got some friends who want to come over, there's a table over there,

we could supply some credit cards. They're probably over the limit. I think I've got to mirror something. Just for selfies, yeah, just to make up and so on. Yeah. Yeah, feel free. Like me, Casas, Sue Casas, Bruce, that's young liberal for Come on Over. You're most welcome.

All I'm going to say is you might find Charles turns up to your dinner parties. There are more stories after this. The Chaser Report, news a few days after it happens. Now, in an unrelated story, Charles, this is just complete coincidence. And I don't want to imply anything with the link. Police have seized $22 million worth of cocaine. Oh, no, not again. In Sydney, this keeps happening.

The last one, I think, was worth about a billion dollars. This is only a small amount by Sydney standards. Yeah, but this always inflates the price, doesn't it? Because when the police resell it, you know, in a few weeks' time, they'll demand a markup for it. Yes. But Charles, the thing that comes is, gets me about this is, you know, it's increasingly

common, from what I understand. You know how ecstasy pills used to have, like, a logo on them that made it sort of distinguished. You'd get, I don't know, the Mitsubishi's or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They've started doing that with cocaine, I'm told. Really? So that you, the bag, or the bricks or whatever. So you can have a brand name. Brand name, cocaine.

Yeah, there's images on them to sort of distinguish where it comes from. Well, on the bags? It says here on, it's sort of like a brick. Yeah, but who's buying bricks of cocaine? I don't know what it is. Yeah, bricks. Fourteen identical bricks each weighing more than a kilo. So there's quite a lot of...

Quite a lot. There's like $300,000 each. So there's 14 kilos it says here. They thought it was only worth $22 million. Yeah, it said $300,000 per bit. Okay, there you go. Yeah, yeah. The logo that was on the brick makes me worry for the education levels, frankly, of our

drug dealers and drug producers. The picture on them, can you guess what it was? It was an really ironic image of a well-known movie figure. I bet you, it was at Barbie or something. Barbie, or Oppenheimer, Ovenheimer. Oppenheimer, get bombed. No, Charles, it was Scarface. Have you seen the movie Scarface?

Well, that's not the greatest representation of drug dealing. No, it's not a good ad. No. I mean, my recollection is the Starface ends up being gunned down by his mob opponents and falling ironically into his own pool, suing pool, after having just killed his brother-in-law and his sister. He sort of goes... Head first, then he sort of topples into the water. Yeah, and it's a...

It's a tale of pride fueled by lots of cocaine. Yes, it drives him mad, basically. Yes. So I just not sure that they've thought the branding through. I just don't think it's... I mean, how would you... You're a marketing genius. What would you put on the logo of cocaine?

No, but see, what you don't understand, Dom, is there's this new form of marketing, which is called unhinged. It's true. This is true, I've been reading about it this morning. We should get into that business. That'd be great. Yeah, which is...

So, and I know that this is taking... a bit of a left-hand turn at this point. But duolingo is the perfect example of the unhinged method of marketing. Yeah. So apparently a few months ago, they decided to get on TikTok. And whenever anyone confused duolingo or confused, you know, various, you know, pronunciations of different types of languages or whatever, the duoingo owl would intervene into people's discussions. But you'd just go to them. And, yeah, and just sort of, and be a bit unhinged and a bit weird about the whole thing.

I mean, that's more interesting than my experience of geo-lingo. I could use it being more unhinged. So would you buy cocaine with Juolingo owl on it? No. No, I don't think I would. I would fear that it would rope me into some sort of highly addictive, you know, sort of I'm addicted to duolingo, yeah. I'm on like 1,300 days or something like a year in a row.

But do you sometimes buy, you can, the thing that I, I hate about Duolingo is if you do it and then you break your streak, you can buy cheap days to your street. Yeah, you can buy a streak freezers. I've never had to buy one. I've never had to buy one. I'm so addicted. If you're going to have an addictive app, don't sell something that stops the addiction.

Yeah, when would anyone ever sell a product that fueled an addiction? That's unprecedented. See, the thing I'd like to see, 1300 days, can you spend, what language do you, are you learning English? I started doing it. during the lockdown. Is it Latin? Can I guess?

Bonus. No, I started doing French. Oh, yeah. And then I remember that I speak French. Parle de Beau Francais? Yeah, so I stopped doing that. Oh, you're doing Hindi? And I started doing none.

I'm doing Japanese. Japanese. It's really very useful. Konichua. Connectiwa, exactly. So, anyway, so I'm doing that. I'm very addicted to do it. So I would buy a brookie cocaine if I thought it was going to give me a streak freeze.

So will it get us canceled for me to ask you to say something in Japanese? Onomaiwa, Dominiqueu Des. Dozo Yoroshku. Oh, okay. That's not very much. Just hello. Anyway, I would buy a brick of cocaine if it was actually accurate about the impact of cocaine. Like, if there was a picture of an advertising executive.

Oh, yes. To be going on about synergies. You know, they're kind of boring people who get you at parties when they're on Coke and just talk about, you know, the future of some shit business that they want you to invest in. And people just actually thinking that their point is more important than it actually is. Yeah. Yeah. A situation I remember being with many friends about 10, 20 years ago.

It's sort of like a gangster, like the gangster thing is the correct branding then. Because actually that's not like advertising is selling what it could be. It's glamorous. Something that isn't incredibly boring. Basically, you honestly say to yourself, I would rather this be a PowerPoint point. Imagine the branding being a Bruce Lehman dinner party for salt. Okay, final story I want to get at two, Charles, and I love this. What we're talking about, addictive substances, which would seem to be a theme,

at least in the second story, and not the first one. Charles, the Tasmanian Premier has promised to build a $12 million structure, state funding, if re-elected. Jeremy Rockcliff of the Liberals says this would be the greatest thing to happen to tourism in Tazi since Mona. And I think this is going to show you the dire state of Tasmanian tourism except for Mona. Can you guess what it is? What does you want to build? So it's building something.

It's the world's largest something. Oh, okay. Is it the world? So it's got to be Tasmanian themed. So what do I think of when I think of Tasmania? I think of, um, Mona. Mona, yeah. Oh, is it a building, is it a building of a model of Mona?

Like, is it a sort of replica of Mona? Yeah. No, that would be better than this idea. Oh, okay, okay. No, no, I think of apples. I don't think there's. Appling. I think of logging, a big, a big log.

A big logging, a big lumberjack. Yeah, like the big banana, but it's a log. No, it's not. It's a big chain saw. It is a very big something. A big. And it's addictive. And it comes from Tasmania.

But no one knows it comes from Tasmania because it's not in any way famous outside of Tasmania. Okay. And it's addictive. It's addictive. An edible substance. Edible. Okay. It's not cocaine.

It is. But it can be white. It is. And it's only from Tasmania? No, no. They happen to make. It's salt. It's salt, isn't it?

Is it salt? It's salt? It's so good. It would be so good for the structure of this episode if it was salt, but it's not. No, it's, but it is an edible food stuff, Charles. Okay. He wants to build the world's largest, all closer. It involves dairy.

Oh, um, some versions involve dairy. Um, some of, milk. Is it milk? Often involves milk. It's one of the varieties that it comes in. Um, it's some, what, what is it? It can be milk. It can be dark.

Oh, chocolate. It's a chocolate fountain, Charles. The Permanoo Tasmania wants to build the world's life. largest chocolate fountain in Tasmania. Oh my God. Because it's where the Cadbury factories. He went to the Cadbury factory on Sunday. That well-known Australian branch. Yeah, which no one's ever heard. Did you know it was near Hobart? I didn't. No. And he said, if, if I'm re-elected, I will build the world's largest chocolate fountain here in Tazzie. The poor man, he's going to lose, isn't he? But we're, but they don't grow chocolate in. No, that is make the like mass-produced Cadbury bars, apparently in Tassie. He wants a

Chocolate experience with a premium chocolate studio, a chocolate emporium, a cafe, a chocolate playground, and a make your own chocolate bar, Charles, where you can go and just choose a chocolate of your choice. And I must say, I would go and do that experience with Bruce Lehman's friends. Yeah, I would definitely. If they were available, if there was chocolate, you could snort. Yeah, nose candy. Our gear is from Road. We're part of the Oconocles Network.

Just to be clear, the chocolate thing is true. That's a thing that actually happened this week. The Bruce Lehman thing? I mean, who knows? He's definitely losing. So does that mean we'll be wall-to-wall labour? Or will it be the Greens? Like, who's going to win?

Because the thing is, he can't lose. If he loses, then it's wall-to-wall labour. That means every government in the country is labour. Oh, yes. But as against that, how delicious is chocolate. Go away.