The Chaser Report - Cancel culture strikes Commonwealth Games!

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

Dictator Dan has shot down the beloved Commonwealth Games. Dom and Charles, who were eagerly awaiting the 2026 Games to be on home soil are heartbroken. Has Dan Andrews gone too far this time by cancelling the entire commonwealth? 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 The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles on this momentous day. How can you sound so chipper at the very moment when we're supposed to be enjoying the FIFA Women's World Cup, which starts in a couple of days' time, the eyes of the world are on Australia as a sporting capital, and the sheer embarrassment. Yes. The sheer embarrassment of Dictator, Dan, with no accountability to anybody just cancelling the 2026 Commonwealth Games.

Where will the Commonwealth Games go after this? Can we even have a Commonwealth Games? Is this the end of the games? Is this the end of enjoyment, or is the thing? How can I enjoy anything? My lunch tasted like ashes. Thanks for nothing, Dictator, Dan. Yesterday, Daniel Andrews banned the pokies.

Today, he's banning the Commonwealth Games. For fuck's sake, Dan. You could have paid for the Commonwealth Games with pokies. Do you ever if you learn nothing? Next, he's going to ban horses being whipped during the Melbourne Cup. Like, where does it end? Oh, no, he wouldn't ban that. No, not a chance.

Not in Melbourne. Come on. Come on, not a chance. I have lived a long life. 47 years, Dom. That's a lot of Commonwealth games. And the idea that an Australian politician would do anything not in the interests of sport is just... Do you think it's because...

It was also in the interests of regional Victoria. And so, you know... I think a lot of things, Charles. Let's get to them in a moment. You've hit on one of the most fascinating things about this. So I was looking back at the announcement just over a year ago when Dan Andrews rode it in on his white, I don't know, dangerous staircase horse and said that Victoria was going to save the games

because they needed a host at the last minute. No one else wanted to do it for obvious reasons. It's a Commonwealth Games, hello. And the concept that they had was that they would have it in, I think, four different regional hubs in Victoria. Yes. So whereas the Olympics, some of the most exciting times of my life, I love the two weeks they were on in Sydney. The whole city came to life. Their concept was to spread the enjoyment across a bunch of regional victorious and centres, Geelong and then three places no one's heard of.

Yes. And that was what they were going to do. They were going to put all this money into venues for those. So you get, I don't know, a water polo stadium in Geelong or something. think? Well, I agree with this because it harkens back to the days of Gough Whitlam, doesn't it? It's called regionalisation. The idea that you would have world-class things not in the centre where everyone can access them, but instead somewhere really inconvenient. Becomes a destination, doesn't it? If you wanted to go to, I mean, I should know the names of the other regional Victorian places,

but I don't. Well, probably Bendigo or Ballarat or something. I mean, the notion is you want to go to the best netball facility in the country. You've got to go to Ballarat. Is Adelaide a regional Victorian town? No, no, no. It's not even, Adelaide's not on the radar for this. It's too small. So here's the bizarre thing. Dan Andrews says it's blown out, the budget's blown out hugely. We can't afford it. It's going to cost $6 billion and we just don't want to pay that money. But here's the thing. He's still building the sporting facilities.

Oh, what? Yes, he's still building the sporting facilities. What? They're not having the games, but every cent that's being spent on those regional community for Pork Barley, which I think is $2 billion, he's still spending. I'm not making this up. This is true. It's sort of the best of all world, isn't it? You get your regionalisation, you get your world-class facilities across Victoria,

and you don't have to watch the Commonwealth Games. That's right. And you don't have to bill it anybody. It was, yeah, it was Ballarat, Bendigo and Shepperton. What was the other $4 billion going to cost? What was the other cost? Oh, they're probably going to have to build a games village, I'm not sure. But what they're doing instead is they're upgrading Ballarat Stadium.

So Ballarat's going to have, I don't know, a second MCG for no reason, because there's not going to be an event to justify it. Like normally you have, I don't know, one event, like all those World Cup stadiums built in Qatar or even in Brazil where they built. There was one World Cup stadium they built in Brazil in the middle of the rainforest. It was absolutely no point at being there. It had two games or something and then no one's ever used it against. Mothballed.

Yes. And now they're still going to build the stadium for what, the Ballarat AFL team or something? VFL team, it's going to be bizarre. So he's still doing the pork barreling, but with none of the joy of the event, Jubies, though it may be. So it's a strange decision in that sense. I want to save all of the money and fuck over regional. He's still going to win the next election.

He doesn't need those votes. Well, it's a humiliating back down, isn't it? That's what the John Pursuto, who's the Victorian opposition leader, came out and said this morning. It was embarrassing. What was staggeringly embarrassing? I must say, for a Victorian liberal to call you staggeringly embarrassing, is pretty tough these days, because that's what they know well.

Well, I think actually in that same press conference, John Pursudo offered Dan Andrews an honorary Liberal Party membership. I think he probably would have. They'd love to have Dan. Yeah, that's right. If you're going to be staggeringly embarrassing, like... Well, John Pesudo won't be there any years' time. They never are.

They're there for a bad time, not a long time. But this is the strange thing. So they're still building the things. They're still giving the money. And they've cancelled. As supposedly, the sporting capital was cancelled. We've got to work out where the... other four billion dollars was going to be spent on because my understanding of putting on,

you know, I'm a bit of an expert. I put on events all the time. And, you know, if I was sort of budgeting for putting on the Commonwealth Games, the main line item would be the stadiums, wouldn't it? You think so. Sure, you can build a village out of two by four plywood. Get a bunch of caravans. They're Commonwealth Games athletes.

They don't deserve good facilities. Get the people who built all those. apartment blocks out at Homebush. Oh, yes. That'd be fantastic. Very cheap. Very cheap. And that lasts for the two weeks of the games and no longer.

Yeah, exactly. But also, I mean, Victoria's very compact. They could stay in the middle of nowhere. They could stay in Dalesford in a caravan and still coming. So they looked at moving it all into Melbourne where there are sporting facilities already. There's already the MCG, which was going to, by the way, host the opening ceremony. They were going to have it at the MCG.

And they've said, look, it's too busy. There's other stuff going on at that time. We don't want it. The comedy festival's on. Yes. And you wouldn't want to interrupt the comedy. festival with a hilariously shit sporting festival at the same time. Well, one of the things that Daniel Andrews said is if we hosted in Melbourne, all the hotel

rooms would be full up with athletes and there would be no space anywhere for spectators to stay in Melbourne. Yes, because they weren't going to build a village. How did Sydney put on the Olympic Games? Surely that's a solvable problem. We built a whole suburb, if you remember, to do it, now called Newington, because we wanted to give it a wanky name. But it was the Games Village was quite clever.

They built a bunch of houses with Lenlease or something, because everything's done by Lenlees. And then they sold them off, presumably Lenleys made the money, not the government. Yeah. And they've got a whole new suburb out of it. But why doesn't Victoria do that and solve the housing crisis at the same time? Well, they've only got three years.

I mean, in Singapore they could do. Why doesn't Singapore host the Commonwealth Games? They could build enough stuff in time. You know who should take over? Who? Qatar. They would. They'd do, wouldn't they do a good job?

They could, all the stadiums, they shipped overseas, they could get back. And all the stadiums in guitar were built by slave labourers from Commonwealth countries. Yeah. So it sort of, it would be fitting. Yeah, absolutely, it would be absolutely fine. You could actually have a second games for slaves, for the slaves who were forced to live. Many of them from Commonwealth countries. So here's the thing, Charles.

Yeah. This morning, when the news came out, or yesterday morning, as you're listening, there was a lot of enthusiasm for other states picking up the, ton, so to speak. Yes. It was suggested that Sydney could, you know, use the facilities that were built for the Olympics, which are not that old, but Commonwealth homes stand as they're modern. I wonder whether all the Newington homes that got sold off by Lenleys have some sort of

claws in the contract. They probably do. You've got to accept athletes if you're ever visiting. If needed, for sure. Well, I mean, I interviewed some of the Royal East to show people who may go down and sleep in the barns with the animals for the. for the two weeks of the rest. The athletes could sleep in a bar

and they wouldn't write a bit of straw. Anyway, the point being, the facilities are all there, but Chris Minns, the Premier of New South Wales has turned down the chance to stick one up to Victoria. Wouldn't that be the best fuck you

to Victoria ever? Say, oh yeah, we could do that. We could make money out of it. It was fine. We'll just do it. Just have it. And my theory is you could actually make money out of the Sydney Commonwealth Games.

All you do is you just have a lot of cricket. You just forget the rest of the event. You don't really know in athletics or whatever, lawn bowls. You just make it a mini cricket World Cup. Yes. Everyone comes down from the subcontinent. You have a little Hong Kong seven style thing, rugby sevens. Yes.

And all the rich idiots come and pay to go there. That makes money. Get rid of all the stupid equestrianities. Oh, definitely no. I mean, you know Princess Anne or something. Yeah. Prancing around on a horse. No, just stuff people like.

Bring the cricket. Bring cricket. A bit of shooting. And Dan Andrews would be on every target, I'd imagine it, the shooting. Darts. Oh, darts. Actually, anything you can do with a siggy. Yeah, darts and lawn bowls or a beer.

Shooting. Shooting, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that would do well. And my theory is that every Victorian competitor has to pay extra. Yes. To turn up. But also, my other idea is you have origin. State of origin.

You have rugby league being one of the competitions. Definitely. And Queensland and New South Wales are allowed to compete separately as separate countries, like the way the England does. Yeah, love it. People would pay to see that. Yeah, definitely. That would be fantastic.

And then my favourite idea is having Aussie rules. The other countries, you've got three years to learn the rules of Aussie rules. Yeah. And imagine the gold medal game. Imagine the Tongans playing. That's right. That's do it very well. Yeah.

Imagine the MCG's never had a gold medal game of AFL. And so suddenly, Australia, the Olympic stadium is like, best AFL ground in the country. Imagine how angry the Melbourneans would be if we're like, yeah, look, this is the biggest game of AFEL and hit the history of the game. For all the sort of events where nobody wants to go to them, what I reckon we should You know, like you can't sell enough tickets. Yeah. We get Taylor Swift to appear at them.

Oh, what a good. That's the way to fix the whole thing. We've got Taylor to play the opening ceremony. Yes. Ed Sheeran to play the closing ceremony. It makes so much money. Oh, man. We should the chaser take over the right.

Yes, the chaser should bid. Because as I understand it, nobody in the world wants it. So, yeah. The word went around. I mean, even Western Australia said no. They said no. And they're loaded. They don't even have money.

And they've got a brand new. stadium, sitting in the Optus Stadium. Tazzi said, look, we wish we could, but come on, we're Tasmania. Yeah, and we've only got two stadiums in progress. Yeah, and Albao hasn't built that stadium yet. So the reason why this happened, by the way, is because Albo didn't give them any money in the budget for it. So the federal government was supposed to give Victoria rule this money to host the Commonwealth

Games. They went, no. Like a Labor government to Labor government. So the whole idea that, you know, wall to all labor, everything's going to work very efficiently, not so much of the Commonwealth Games. Well, I think this is the end of elbow, isn't it? Oh, it's got to be. I mean, he's misread the nation on this one.

Yes, because for a politician, for two politicians to go against, to make a decision not in the interests of sporting bodies, it's just, I mean, this is, I'm pretty sure it would be unconstitutional. Like, I think, actually, we don't need a referendum on indigenous rights. We need a referendum to protect sporting bodies from interference by political, like, they respect the independence of the Reserve Bank, why don't they respect the independence of sporting codes? You could cancel

the Reserve Bank renovation and fund the Commonwealth Games. Or just have the Commonwealth Games. I love a lot of the events in the Reserve Bank headquarters and finally have a use for the building. But here's the thing. I mean, you can imagine ordinary Australians reading the news today. To the headlines on all of our smartphones, Commonwealth games

cancelled. The nation just goes, well, we host in the Commonwealth? Really? That's the thing. Oh, okay. And then the anger at Albo not funding it, at Dan Andrew is pulling the pin on it because the one thing that we love most of all in this country, it's gold medals and particularly soft gold medals

because Australia almost always wins the medal I can't remember the last time that maybe won in England and England won but it's almost always Australia that wins the most gold that doesn't happen in any legitimate sporting contest right? That doesn't happen at the Olympics. It doesn't even happen at the Asian Games, right? But for the Commonwealth Games, that's our...

We're turning down soft gold medals. Do you remember Hayley Lewis? Yes. Ali Lewis became the darling of Australia for all the gold medals she won at the Commonwealth Games. I don't think she won many Olympics, if any. I think actually I've worked out why the underlying real reason. What's going on?

What this happened? Which is, the economy has become a bit sluggie, right? Because of all the interest trade rises. They looked at the economy. They went, the reason must be that everyone's saving up to buy tickets to the 26th. That's what it is. It's the unmissable thing. Games, Commonwealth Games, what we have to do is if we cancel the games, then people will just be free to spend all that money they've been saving up on other things.

Pump prime, the economy. That seems very foolish. It's going to be a bump. There's going to be a, it's going to be the cancellation bump. Because, okay, sure. I'm going to spend, I've had like thousands of dollars set aside for the Ballarat Aquatic Centre events. Forget, imagine Ballarat Pool. I see international swimming.

Actually, I'd love to know where they were going to have the swimming because I'll bet there's nowhere. I would have it, how can you not have it at Howard Holt Poole, the perfect venue? The contenders keep going missing. It'd be very dramatic. It'd be like a true crime podcast. The Chaser Report, now with extra whispers. But Charles, they haven't factored in, Dan Andrews in his mouth,

hasn't factored in the massive economic boom of tourists coming to Victoria for the Commonwealth Games. They would have had tens, tens of people. You would have had the relatives. of the people competing in the Commonwealth games. Nobody else. But the cousins are turned up, wouldn't you? Or if your brother was competing?

I guess, you know what? Like, my dad lives in regional Victoria. So I probably would have used it as an excuse to go and visit him. I mean, I've got to be honest. I'm always a very easy sell on Melbourne. I've been to, because we toured back in the day, we toured to Ballarat and Geelong and Bendigo. I mean, I'm not in a rush to go.

Particularly if it's a Commonwealth. If the Olympics was there, if the Olympics was in Ballarat, sure. Because is Ballarat, that's where it's Sovereign Hill, isn't it? I don't know. We went in for one day into the show and got out of there as fast as we could. It's like the Gold Rush Town. It's like the old Sydney town of Gold Rush. Yeah, where you have to pay like $86 to go and see some unimpressive actors.

Actually, you know what, Charles, if they built this giant new stadium in Ballarat, they'll probably find gold enough to pay for the whole thing. See, Charles, but what they need is new events that generate money. Like, what if, I think that's right. I think we just rewrite the whole schedule for the Commonwealth Games. When the chaser bids and takes over. Yeah. The first event I want to add in is mining.

Competitive mining. You'll get Twiggy Forest and... It held in Ballarat. Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And get competitive mining. You've got to find oil. You've got to find any of the...

Cobalt, whatever it is that we need, nickel. Yes. And the money that you make from the fine goes immediately to the Commonwealth Games organises. A rare metals event. Yes. In different categories. Uranium, be exciting.

Instead of... With your bare hands. Instead of, like, we're in, you know, gold, silver bronze, it'd be like you win lithium, viridium. Barillium, yeah. Boron, carbon, yeah. And you get, you know, I see where you're going with that, the medals. And you get, if you, if you mind the uranium, you also get cancer.

That's the award that you get with that. So that would make money. That would make money. Yep. Look, I think competitive baristering. Oh, my God. Actually, how have they not done that in Melbourne? If you had combined with the World Baristic Championships,

it would just totally, like, I'd go down. You would. Yeah. You would. What about crypto? Why don't they release a Commonwealth Games coin? That'd solve it. Yeah.

Wow. Actually, I can see why Dan Andrews has done this now. But it is embarrassing for Australia. They need to launch a social media app based on the Commonwealth Games. Yes. Well, we've had threads. Threads could sponsor it. Yeah.

Actually, you know what? But just as a sidebar, you know how I was saying before that the difference between threads and Twitter was that threads didn't have any topical news? Yes. So when Twitter was absolutely going nuts over the Commonwealth Games being cancelled and having a lot of fun and Casey Briggard from the ABC suggested we hold the whole whole thing on teams, which is a very good idea, to imagine the whole world going, connecting, connecting, buffering. But anyway.

Work at home games. That's right. It would be cheaper. But as against that, I went over to threads, right? Remember how I mentioned that it's just not topical at all, that it just curates it like Instagram just randomly. On threads, the Commonwealth Games hadn't been cancelled. No one mentioned it.

There were no posts about it at all. Like, it's several hours after the news came through. Threads were just not aware at all. That is very surprising to me because, to me, they're woke over at threes. Sure. And, you know, if there's one thing that woke people are good at, it's cancel culture. And cancel culture has now come to the Commonwealth Games. Opening threads again here.

I see the chases wait in with that headline. Cancer Culture Strikes Commonwealth Games. But that's the only mention of it in my feed at all. Because threads is where you go and you just don't want any reality at all. So look, what do we do? This is in Paris. Australia said we'd do this. We said we'd take one for the team, literally for all the teams.

Yes. And now we're saying we won't. Does the Commonwealth Games have any future after? I mean, you know. Well, where's it scheduled to go next? I thought it was going to go to Brisbane in 2030. That's the Olympics. So, that's the Olympics.

To me, that was the obvious thing. Oh, we've got the Olympics. But Palishay is like, oh, we're not going to host it. We've got the Olympics, guys. Remember we've got the Olympics? To me, it's a warmer. No, I didn't remember. To me, to me, it's a chance to see what Brisbane would look like with crowds in it for the first time ever.

Because, I mean, it's not a huge event, but it would be a good test six years out. Can Brisbane cope with the Commonwealth Games without completely fucking everything up? And then they won't be able to. They'll have six years to fix it for the Olympics. They should host the Commonwealth Games in. Byron Bay. Oh, fantastic. To annoy the local.

Oh, they'd hate it. They can have it with Splendor. They'd have mud wrestling. I was pushing for Launceston, actually. A community that would really appreciate it. They're into some little blip in Tasmania. Or Dubbo. Dubbo would enjoy the Commonwealth games, wouldn't it?

Having it Western Plains? The gun events would be a bit awkward. Yeah. Somewhere's got to step up. Yeah, somebody's got to step. But surely another country. What about England? England, a fucking disaster at the moment.

They can't afford it. They're more broke than Victoria. You know what the thing is as well. This is the first Commonwealth games with the new king's reign, isn't it? Yes. Oh, so that's what I was. This is the risk is that you get a royal visit. They took it on when they thought they were going to see Queen Elizabeth the 2nd.

That's what it is. You figured it out. And then Charles gets in and says, oh, fuck. I think Sydney should do it, even though the king would come and no one wants him here. Yeah. Even despite that, I think they should still say yes. Sydney should say, no. Chris Miners has misread the movie.

And you know, what we do, we fund it by inviting money launderers from around the world to use our pokies. Oh, fantastic. In fact, what you do is that entry to any venue is via a pokey. Pokey VIP lounge. You've got to go through a VIP lounge. Because you know how these days there's a little computer at the gate of the stadium and you've got to show your QR code.

I'm envisaging a little pokey in all those screens and you win or lose. And if you win, you get the cost of your ticket back. Yes. And maybe even some free, some free merch in there. That would be hugely popular. And that would be the events. That would pay for it. Queen of the Nile.

That could be an event. Actually, that's true. Why is they not? I've never seen a tournament of pokies. World competitive pokey tournament. Yeah, that'd be fantastic. Chris Minns could open that. Yes, exactly.

And as people lost their homes, as the athletes around the world. And then all the people who lose their homes, they can house the athletes. Just before they have to give their houses over. Yeah, and the great thing is Chris Minns could then say to them, look, I know you've lost your house, that's awful. But we're having a trial into 500 cashless gaming pokies. We'll get back to you, see if it works. Don't know if it's going to work.

We did a whole episode on that, by the way, if you want to hear more thoughts on that. So it is sad for Australia. We got some comments about that claiming that actually there are VIP people in Perth. Yes, actually, I saw that as well on Twitter. Yeah, although it was not VIP. P's. It was VIPs, wasn't it? Oh, really? Yeah, very important Bogans. Which makes me think

that Perth is really ultimately the place that should have the Commonwealth Games. I think Perth's the right place. Well, if you think of Perth, you think gold, gold, gold, gold. You do. And also gold, gold, gold, you also think lots of mining, and I don't really want to go there. So I think... I think...

Yeah, because then the accommodation problem is not a problem, because it doesn't matter that the athletes will take up every single hotel room. It's fine. I was going to want to go there anyway. It's very far. I think that's good. I think W.A. should step up.

Yes. But we can't let the Commonwealth Games fade. If the Commonwealth Games dies, then your children, my children. If they display moderate talent in sport, not good enough for the Olympics. Yes. Where are they supposed to go to win soft gold medals? We need for future mediocre athletes from Australia to win gold at future Commonwealth. We can't let this go.

When you see your second child, he's not quite. quite as fast as your first child. Who tries? And you go, it's all right, son. Maybe one day you can win gold in the Commonwealth Games. But also, Charles, if this is, and I love that Victoria appointed not only a Minister for the Commonwealth Games, but a Minister for the Commonwealth Games legacy. It was a separate portfolio looking at how, like, to make sure that the investment paid

off in terms of a long legacy. That person's legacy now is, I killed the Commonwealth Games. And furthermore, without the Commonwealth Games, the Commonwealth Games, the Commonwealth Games, the The Commonwealth literally has no reason to exist. This isn't just the end of the Commonwealth games. This is the end of the Commonwealth. Which makes you think, Dan, Andrews, you've done a really good thing today. That's great.

Yeah. Yeah, this is good news today. Well, done, Dad. Let's see why Victorians love you so much. Our Gehry was from Road, we're part of the iconic class network. And we won't catch you at the Commonwealth Games. See you tomorrow.