The Chaser Report - Car Parks For All (Marginal Electorates) | Katy Gallagher

Episode Date: July 20, 2021

Troubling rort or impressive example of government efficiency? Labor Senator Katy Gallagher talks us through the biggest scandal in Canberra that doesn't involve vaccines. Plus, the potential war with China, we almost forget Adelaide, and other dispatches from around our wintry, worn-out, wine-swilling nation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of The Chaser Report is sponsored by Wine O'Clock. In this lockdown, every hour is Wynne o'clock. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report for Wednesday the 31st of July 2021. Charles, I got some good news for you. Oh, really? Genuinely good news. Not depressing.

Oh. Exciting. And just a testament to how well the Australian government is handling the public health of this nation. Oh, great. The health minister Greg Hunt got up yesterday and informed the nation that we have so far achieved zero deaths from influenza in 2021. Right. Nobody has died of the flu. In a normal year, Charles, we would have had a.

157 deaths at this point. So, hey, so Dom, um, I think you've, I think you've misspoken. Um, you said influenza.

Yes. Yeah. There have been no deaths from influenza in 2021. Congratulations, Minister Hunt and the Australian government. But, um, but, but the COVID,

like, what about, it's not about influenza. Like, isn't it? What? Isn't that fucking obvious? Isn't that fucking obvious?

Charles, there have been no lives lost to the flu. Who fucking gives a fucking shit? We are safe. Nobody gives a fucking shit. And we are well. The government is looking after our needs. This is so fucked. Right.

We found the way. For years, we've been looking for the way to stop influenza ravaging us every winter. And in the past, we've tried, you know, vaccination rollouts, and that's worked quite well. But extreme mandatory social distancing where you get potentially arrested if you leave your house, that's done it. We've gone and solved the flu, Charles. We need never have the flu again in any winter. Right, by just never, ever interacting with each other ever again.

Yes. That's inevitable at this point, isn't it? There's no end to this lockdown. This is not ending ever, Charles. It's never fucking ending. We're stuck inside. for fucking ever! I can't fucking stand it! Coming up on the show, we're going to talk about Talisman Sabre,

which is the war games off the coast of Queensland, which started yesterday. Hold me. And we're talking to Katie Gallagher, the senator who uncovered the car parks roared in the Senate yesterday. What does it matter? But first of all, let's go to Rebecca Dana Minow with the Chaser News headlines. We're all doom. The Australian government has today launched its most ambitious plan to stop the spread of COVID yet,

with the government offering the virus a job as an Australia post-delivery driver in order to slow down its spread. The move has instantly seen infection rates drop, with a backlog of thousands of prospective infections now finding their delivery pushed back weeks, with many recipients cancelling their COVID delivery entirely out of frustration. Overnight, Irish athletes moving into the Olympic Village have clarified that, that the cardboard beds are not sex-proof. One athlete was heard saying they were excited to put the fucking into this fucking mess of an Olympics. When questioned on these comments,

the Olympic Committee said they were committed to the games being screwed wherever possible. South Australians have let out a sigh of relief today after Adelaide entered a hurried state of lockdown. While the Premier of South Australia urged everyone to stay at home, the city enthusiastically stayed inside as they no longer had to pretend there's anything interesting to do in their state.

That's the latest news you can probably trust a bit more than Channel 7. I'm Rebecca Deunamuno. The Chaser Report is sponsored by Wine o'clock. Ride this lockdown through the Merlows and the Moskaitos. Now, while the nation's attention has been focused on the COVID-Panagan and the vaccine rollout or lack thereof. Other things have been happening in Canberra involving not just one, but two separate sets of wroughts.

To talk us through this, a woman who's been involved in investigating all this from the other side of politics, Senator Katie Galaher of the ACT. Katie, welcome to the podcast. Thanks very much for having me on. So two different sets of wroughts. How did this whole thing unfold? What was the first? Well, to follow the story, you have to go back to September 2018.

So not long after Scott Morrison became Prime Minister, there's basically a two funds set up, one called the Urban Congestion Fund and one called the Commuted Car Park Fund. And they had a lot of money put into them, almost over $4 billion. And then there was a scheme set up, which was basically without telling anyone.

They put them in the budget, so it was all appropriated. And then without telling anyone, they decided that only the top 20 marginal seatholders in the coalition could apply for this money either to get a car park or some other fund

there would be no assessment no merit-based tracking no value for money no paperwork nothing and at the end of the day when all the money was allocated so for the car parks it was hundreds of millions of dollars

about $600 million $77% of the money went to coalition seats they were trying to hold and 10% went to seats they wanted to win So it was a pretty nifty way of making sure they took all the money that had been set up in this fund. I bet there was a lot of congestion in terms of applications coming in at the last minute.

I don't know how much congestion because there was only 20 and then a few others were allowed in. So we had the treasurer was allowed to put some applications in. Minister Tudge was managing it. The same staffer in the Prime Minister's office that managed sports rorts was involved. And then we had other people like Angus Taylor, Tim Wilson, they all benefited. Actually, Tim Wilson got the most car parks. He got six car parks in his electorate.

But this money was appropriated for the whole of Australia, but it seemed to concentrate itself very heavily in those seats they wanted to win, and predominantly in Victoria where they were under a bit of stress. So wait a minute. Can I just stop here? Was it as explicit as actually saying these of the top marginal seats, right, what can we do to use its government money for the margin? Did they actually use the term marginal seats?

Yeah, they had a document, like a to-do list, the auditors general found, that its title was top 20 marginals. And then there was spreadsheets, and then there was maps as well. So there was maps of Australia with money allocated from the bigger fund, the urban congestion fund, and that would notionally allocate money without any projects because they didn't have any projects at that time about how much was going where and what seats it was going to.

But we literally write satirical articles about, you know, oh yeah, vaccine rollout will only go to the top marginal seats and things like that. But that's actually how government actually works now, is it? Well, it looks like it certainly in this case. I mean, I think this is the worst example I've seen, but it's about $4 billion worth of public funds that has been allocated this way.

And I guess the other thing we learnt yesterday was that they're not going to stop doing it. They've got about a billion dollars that's unallocated. And I asked whether they were going to make some changes and make it merit-based, for example, or share it around the country. And the answer was no. They're just going to continue on like this. But, Senator, what percentage of Tim Wilson's electorate of Goldstein is not currently car park? Because surely more are needed to get up to that 100%.

We certainly needed six in the election campaign. as to how many of them actually get built because as it turned out, nobody had done any work so nobody knew if a car park could be built where they said it was going to be built and they also allocated just rough sums of money because no one had done any cost analysis so every car park was either 10 million or 15 million

and of course now that they're going through the process they're working out in most cases they either can't build them or they're going to cost a lot more or they're not value for money. Are you suggesting this government has problems with delivering rollouts of things? Well, there is a very efficient rollout of this, certainly, particularly on the eve of an election,

it seems they can be very efficient in allocating money. We know the problems they've got in allocating and rolling out other things like vaccine and quarantine, but certainly there's no problem, very efficient in rolling out money on the eve of an election. But did I hear you correctly that, like it was brought to you by the same team who did the sports route thing? Yes.

Like, are they the same people involved, is it? That's right. So in the Prime Minister's Office, so a lot of spreadsheets bounce between the Minister and the Prime Minister's Office. And when asked who in the Prime Minister's Office was dealing with, was it the same person that made decisions around sports rorts, the answer was, yes, it was the same staff member, same unit. So it looks like there's a sort of a professional raorting unit established in the Prime Minister's

office that determines where all of these public funds go and no surprises. Most of it goes to either seats they hold, seats they're in trouble or seats they want to win. That's very impressive that we've clearly found the most efficient part of the Australian government. I mean, if it wasn't so terrible and outrageous, you would laugh at this. But it is very efficient when they want to be. But there's usually no process, no paperwork, no fairness, and it is usually rorting when they're this efficient. So, Katie, I've got to propose it. Why don't we tell the federal government that the vaccine rollout is a rort

and get the people who are really good at the rorting thing to be in charge of the vaccine rollout? A vaccine wrought out, if you will. A vaccine wrought out. We rename it a vaccine wrought out. And then they'll all be happy because it's a wrought. And then they'll get all their most efficient people on the job and we'll all be vaccinated in no time. What do you reckon? Well, this staff is clearly a gun.

Yeah. This person's brilliant. Well, I reckon we could, they could have done with some spreadsheets and maps, that's for sure, for the vaccine rollout. And certainly they know how to use them, particularly colour-coded ones and ones that target, as I said, those seats they want to hold.

And maybe we could also do it with hotel quarantine. Like, if we could turn it into one massive wrought, maybe then, you know, that actually... Yes, they could put them on the carparks. Just put the tents on the car park. in the open air, I think, could work. Well, except didn't you say, Senator, though, that they announced all of these things

but they haven't actually built them? Yeah, that's the other side. So they were all announced in the election campaign, about 44 different car parks, and as of today, too, have been built. Well, who's in charge of the announcements? Because let's drill down into this. I think the announcing things

is really what this government is nailing at the moment. Yes. Well, I don't know. Well, yeah. So the Prime Minister would have announced them all. In fact, he did announce them, and he signed them off the night before caretaker. As in the delivery, that's been a little bit more problematic. Well, how has this been defended?

Because I think I heard someone saying at one point that the Australian people had signed off on this because they had elected the coalition government, not realizing that it was all in the marginal seats. How does the process work? Like, have we all signed off on this now? Well, that's just, you know, it's a hopeless defence from a government in trouble. But no, no one signed off on it, and nobody knew. When you look at what the government announced before the budget, they said they were going to ease congestion in all our capital cities

and we're going to build car parks. But the truth is a story, which they didn't say, was we're only going to build them in the top 20 marginals and in the seats that we want to build them in. So, yeah, announcement and delivery, a massive gap. And, you know, dodgy as anything I've seen in public life. Actually, massive coincidence. Sorry, I just got this information here,

which is so they've built two car parks since the last election. They've also vaccinated two people since the pandemic started. Isn't that an amazing coincidence? Although on the bright side, on the bright side here, you've got to hand it to the government. They've found an extraordinary way to reduce congestion. I mean, here in Sydney, the streets are empty. Same for Adelaide, same for Melbourne.

If their mission was to make sure that the commuter travel was cut down, they've really nailed it, I think, at this point. So I have full credit to them. That's lucky for people in Sydney because you didn't get very many of them. Most of the car parks are in Melbourne. Well, I now oppose it. I now oppose this rule. Although it is a nice change to have the government accused of being nicer to Melbourne than Sydney.

Yeah, it could have been something to do with the seats they wanted to hold. They were helping Josh and Tim and all their other mates down there keep their seats with all these car parks that still haven't been built. And just finally, can you just remind us the cost of the cost. of this car park scheme versus what it would have cost to say yes to Pfizer last year and get enough vaccine for everybody? Well, we're not allowed to know how much the vaccine costs. That's a secret amount of money, although I've been trying to get that. But you could buy a lot of vaccine for $660 million and you could buy a lot more of the

vaccine for $4 billion, which is what's been involved in these funds and allocated, you know, in a way that favours the government. Yeah, but where would you park them all? You'd know where to park them if you don't have the car parks. Well, look, it's very good to know that the opposition is doing what they're supposed to do and bringing all this to light. Thank you very much for talking us through at all. Thanks so much for having me on.

The Chaser Report is brought to you by a whine o'clock. It's five o'clock somewhere. And yet I can't help but feel that time is meaningless. And in the grand scope of the universe, I am but a tiny clump of carbon that can't actually wait until then. So I'm going to drink now. Dom and Gabby, I don't want to alarm you, but I've got some pretty bad news. Oh, you're dying. What's Gladys done now?

Do I get your inheritance? No, it's not Gladys. It's not COVID. It's nothing to do with COVID. I think we're about to go to war with China. Oh, we're terrible at wars. Yeah. You know, Gallipoli's our finest moment.

I've been thinking for a while of things couldn't possibly get worse. But yes, they could. We could go to war with China, a country of more than a billion people. which has a terrifyingly large military. All right. So the talisman sabre war games kicked off yesterday. Do you know about these? I know that you didn't know the name.

Did you mean the Infinity War war games? They're being held. As far as I can tell, they're being held in Queensland, off the coast of Queensland. Essentially, on the Great Barrier Reef. Perfect. It's happening at the same time that Australia has brought a delegation of people from UNESCO

to prove that they're not doing anything, you know, bad to the Great Barrier Reef. and it should maintain its World Heritage Listing. And if it doesn't, they've got a missile directly trained at them. No, but the point is they're sort of saying, look, we've got this wonderful pristine reef. Oh, we're doing some war games on them at the moment. But, you know, never mind.

They're fine. They're just like brand new. Anyway, point is that China, who is not invited to these war games, they're between Australia and America, right? Given their role as potential adversary, that seems sensible. Yeah, China's sent not one warship. to observe and, like, spy on the war games. But two, which they've never done before.

Like, this is a real escalation of China just going, we're going to fucking fuck you. Maybe it's not that. Maybe it's that they just can't decide who to go for. And so they've sent one of each to team up with both countries and decide through, like, civil means who the underdog is. Sort of state against state, mate against maid. Yeah, if nothing else, it's mediation.

Yes. I have a different view. I think that the thing is, For all this stoutish and the tension, tourism with the Great Barrier Reef was incredibly popular in China. So they probably just said, look, it's a glass spot on warship. Come along and see the reef. It's not actually a warship.

It's a tourist ship. Yes. And you don't have to pay all the sort of dodgy operators in cans and everything, you know, their exorbitant fee. Yeah, no hotel quarantine. Yeah, just bring your warship down there. Have a good look. And knowing China, they'll probably build a few artificial islands on the Great Barrier Reef while

they're there. No, but you're wrong. You're all wrong. I think actually if you've got kids, you should be preparing them for war. I think you should be stocking up on toilet paper. Essentially, you've just got to enter complete panic mode, bunker down in your house, because, you know, it's not just me saying that this is a real problem. The whole of the defence industry is sort of going, hang on,

this is really weird that China is sending so many warships down to Australia. And the way we know this is, I was listening to the radio yesterday, and you know how defence people always lie? It's standard operating procedures to say the exact opposite of what you mean. Well, listen to what Australia's chief military strategist, Hugh White, had to say on the radio about China's presence at the war games. Kind of thing we should expect to see happen and expect to see increasingly happen as the Asia Pacific, the Indo-Pacific becomes increasingly a theatre of strategic rivalry as it is.

See, he is downplaying the significance of China being at the war games, which obviously means that it's a complete disaster and we should all panic because it's the opposite of what he means. Forget Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It's Sinker Sailor Soldier Die. It's a disaster. Can I just interject briefly and remind you both that the point of the Chaser Report is a lighthearted spin on the day's news. No!

A bit of humour. No! A little bit of enjoyment in an otherwise bleak world. No! I think it's good podcast advertising that if this is a lot. one of the first reports of us going to war people worldwide. We'll have to find out where the first report came from. We broke the story. This podcast. It started life maybe as a lighthearted satirical look at the world. But it is now the leading source of war news. And I'm

sorry, like, I don't know whether you've noticed, Dom, but this podcast has become incredibly depressing for weeks now. The world is going to shit. We're all going to die. And you heard it first here on the Chase report. It doesn't have to be. that way, Charles. I'm here to tell you as an advocate of Xi Jinping thought that a bright future lies ahead of Australia as part of the one country three systems approach that I'm endorsing. Welcome, our Chinese overlords. Just don't forget, I'm the one that wants you here, not Charles or Gabby. Well, as a millennial, Charles, I will say, I don't know where all this worry is coming from, because when you grew up from my era, we've just accepted that we're going to die awfully

somehow. It's just a game of how it's going to happen. Climate change, COVID-19. Screw it. a war game bring it on well a few weeks ago richard branson a virgin flew into space today it is the turn of jeff bezos the CEO of amazon and in a huge exclusive for the chaser report one of our team alexa managed to speak to the billionaire CEO just before he left the earth's atmosphere okay i think we got him on the line now so now geoffrey uh your flight into space comes just nine days after fellow billionaire richard branson went up and Elon musk plans to fly up soon after So what prompted this sudden competition? Oh, it's not a competition.

What do you mean? Well, it's more collaborative. You see, all of us billionaires share the same problem. The world is suffering from poverty, disease, and climate catastrophe. The more money we make, the more people want to drag us into the town square and decapitate us. Well, I mean, that's understandable. You make billions and you don't even give your workers' toilet breaks. Exactly.

We took this as a sign that things. need to change. Billionaires have got to put their heads together and solve this problem once and for all. You're going to solve this by going to space? Yeah. We discovered that guillotines require gravity to work.

And up in space, we're safe to make as much money as we want, and keep our heads. That's the reason you're going to space. Well, it's also an exploratory mission. Right. So what are you entrepreneurs looking for up there? I mean, what does mankind always look for?

Since the first time our ancestors gazed up at the stars, we've all wondered one thing. Is there intelligent life up there? More importantly, do they ever need to pee? Because if they don't, they don't need toilet praise. I mean, that sounds ridiculous. Well, when you become a billionaire, maybe you can spend your money how you want. So you're saying it's your money and it's your choice? Actually, most of my funding is public, sir, it's your money.

But yes, it's my choice. Right. Okay, well, how will you be spending your time up there? Oh, I'll mainly just chill out, I think, stare at the Earth, grow some space hair. There's no such thing as space hair. Oh, sure, there he is. Low gravity loosens the hair follicles, I'm told. And your hair grows like crazy. Why do you think they called him Buzz Aldrin?

That dude couldn't stop shaving when he got back to Earth. His real name was Buzz Aldrin. Oh, was it? That was his name, yeah. Oh, right. Well, look, listen, I'm about to be the 571st person in space. I don't have time to argue with you about this. Okay, sure, Jeff.

Thanks for speaking with us. Thank you. See ya. Wish me luck. Good luck, Jeff. This episode of The Chaser Report brought to you by Wine o'clock. In lockdown, every hour is Wine o'clock, including the one. recorded this episode in.

Now, Charles, just before we go, I've got to acknowledge administrative error, failing to keep track of various bits of information. We have not as yet acknowledged that South Australia is also under lockdown. It is an important story that we do care deeply about. We just kind of forgot about it until this point in the program. Now, are you sure that they're locked down and it's not just that that's what Adelaide is like.

Yeah, it's a seven-day lockdown in South Australia. Really? And I commit hereby, for our South Australian listeners, that at some point in the next seven days, we will acknowledge that this is happening and perhaps even talk to someone from South Australia if we can find someone that we know. Do you know anyone who lives in Adelaide

who's not dead in a barrel? I think I know someone who's stopped over there once on the way to Perl. Yes. Well, I had a lovely time in Adelaide earlier this year. Oh, yeah. No, that's what they do. This is the thing. It's not that they don't go out. It's just that they only go out during the festival. So they have three huge weeks and then that's it for the year. And then they've got a sort of 49 week lockdown.

Yes. It's kind of like the winter that lasts for 49 weeks of the year. Okay, well, we'll get someone from Adelaide on the program. And look, you know, as long as we don't fall asleep during the interview, we'll bring it to you. Which sounds as though we're trivialising your pain and grief, but that hasn't happened yet. It's only happened at 6pm last night, and you probably went to bed at 8. Yeah, that's true, yeah.

We don't want to suggest that we don't care, really. It's just that compared to our own misery and grief, doesn't really register, frankly. Yeah, you're just doing it to feel included, aren't you? Welcome aboard South Australia. Remember, you got this. Yeah, you got this. We published news 247 at chaser.com.

And what we do at this point in the show usually is beg you for a five-star review. If you're from South Australia, feel free to tell us how much you disliked what we just had to say, but still leave us a five-star review because it does help. Thank you. Yes. And the code word for today is... Please, sir. Can I have a car park?

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