The Chaser Report - Citizenship-Test Cheat Sheets | Ivan Aristeguieta

Episode Date: May 8, 2023

Ivan Aristeguieta joins Charles and Dom on The Chaser Report! Ivan shares what it's like to become an Australian citizen, and how many people have no idea who the governor general is. Tickets to Ivan's Show 'Citizen' can be found here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal 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. Hello, Charles. Hello. And we've got another comedian who's performing at the Sydney Comedy Festival and has just come out of a run in Melbourne, I believe. Ivan Aristigietta. Ivan, welcome back.

Hello, Dom. How are you guys? Hello, Charles. And look, welcome to Citizenship. Your show is called Citizen. you've signed up for ongoing Australianess. What the hell were you thinking, Yvonne? What a terrible idea.

Oh, have you heard about my country, Venezuela? I think it's a great idea to become an Australia citizen. Because you guys, I'm not much into politics, but I want to talk to you because I know you guys love politics. One thing that I'm doing in this show, I ask the audience the name of the current governor general. Oh, fuck. And no one knows the name of the Governor General. And that's why I want to live in Australia. I want to live in a country where no one knows the names of the politicians.

Because when you know the names of all the politicians, you know your country is going really, it's fucked. Okay. So I can't remember that I don't know the names of the politicians in Venezuela. That's how good Australia is. I'm doing. The Governor General is the most powerful politician in the country. and no one knows the name of that person. It's some boring military guy.

It's, um, it's, uh, I want to say David Sheridan. It was David Hurley. David Hurley. It's not anymore though, I don't think. It's still is. It still is. Oh my God, I got it. Oh, David Hurley.

You got it. Is it really? But isn't he the corrupt guy who awarded all those ministers? That's very Venezuelan. He's the guy who, oh, all the special fellowships. Who gave five ministries to Scott Morrison secretly. And then he got 20. And then he got $25 million donated to his charity.

Corruption is very Venezuelan, but it's not very Venezuelan. It's people not knowing the names of the corrupt. Also, he's not likely to, there's not likely to be a knock on the door in the middle of the night from David Hurley. If anything, there'll just be a slightly suss cash grant, and maybe you'll be signed into more ministries than you should have. I mean, that's all he's doing. He's not taking people away, is he? Yeah, just a bit of money. Just a little bit of cash.

Just a little bit of cash. So who's in power in Venezuela at the moment? What's going on? How is Venezuela going? Oh, it's doing terrible, man, terribly, terribly. We still have Maduro. But now they're doing this thing. The people from their own government are being so corrupt that they cannot,

they're fighting against each other inside the government. Ah, yes. So they're putting a lot of people in jail. And because I think governments like this, they're all very. in an enemy and I think the original enemy is no longer there because it's been destroyed after years and years so they have to create another enemy so they're they now they are taking big companies and and enterprises that are all being made with with a lot of corruption money and they were not they not invited the regional

politicians to be part of the corruption so they're they're attacking them So they're all part of the same. They're just creating another enemy. It is a good question. Why hasn't Anthony Albanesey just summarily thrown Peter Dutton in jail? Yes. And most of the front bench. I mean, maybe Julian Lisa he left.

Anyone who wants to vote no, he could just lock them all up. I mean, that would be with his powers, probably, wouldn't it? He could declare a state of emergency or something. Is that even possible in Australia? Well, is that what happens in Venezuela or do they just all, do they lock them up or do they just get rid of them? They're being locked up, and already one guy died in jail. It's on the news. Oh.

Was that an inverted commas accident, was it? Yeah, it's like, like a, we make it look like an accident. You know what we should do is we should do a sort of, not prisoner swap, but citizen swap. Like, we've got a van here. So we send Peter Dutton over there as a sort of like, you know. As an exchange. Yeah, as an exchange. That's not fair.

We get Yvonne, who's lovely, and they have Peter done. What's he going to? I know. I mean, any boats that are in Venezuela right now, he'll be trying to stop. The entire kind of maritime industry will be shut down within weeks of him arriving. I kind of feel like, because there's a new New South Wales government here. And, Ivan, I don't know whether you know much about New South Wales. You're based in Victoria.

I don't know much about Australian politics at all. That's why I wanted to live in this country. And I just figured out that that joke about David Hurley in my show is because of people want to know about the citizenship test. And I explained that part of the citizenship test is to understand the political structure of Australia. And I've never heard of, because in Venezuela we don't have that character, the Governor General or the head of state.

That is not. This is an interesting thing. Sorry, just before you go on, does that mean that you have to get the name of the Governor General wrong to become an Australian citizen? Is that part of the... You know what it is. Not even wrong. Not even wrong. It's like, people go like, I don't know.

What I do... I don't know. Why are you asking me this stupid question? Don't you understand? No one knows that. I asked them to raise their hands if they know the name of the current Governor General. And this year, the average... audience number that I had was, I'm very happy, it was around 200, 250 average every night

and every night I had one to three hands out of 250 and a couple nights no one raised the hand. Yeah. And that was the night that the Governor General came in, I presume, but Hurley was in the audience. I've no clue who this is. Mrs. Hurley's like, don't ask me. Just on a side distraction, Yvonne, I don't know. The one thing I know about the Governor General, my favorite fact, now that it comes back to me, and we talked about this on the podcast before, is Mrs. Hurley's habit of singing at events. I've heard about that. I don't know whether at your, when you're citizenship ceremony, did she turn up and

singing. You are the sunshine of my life. Essentially, kind of like a kindergarten teacher who had any training in music beaten out of her with, with, you know, heavy weapons. I've heard about that. I have a friend from Canberra who came to see my show. He loves the comedy festival and he comes to Melbourne. to watch a bunch of shows and

he works in parliament and like he's not a politician he works in all the stuff and I'm like do you know the name of the governor general is like man I've really forgot the name but I remember

his wife sings in every single thing so you're right that's so silly but I would sort of trade credible corruption of Venezuela to not have someone as embarrassing as the Governor General's wife. Couldn't you just pay her not to sing in that system?

I mean, that's, we don't have that option. Or lock her up. But that singing thing, it's a good sign of corruption. It's like, hey, I am the Governor General. You've got to let my wife sing. That's very corrupt. Like, let my wife sing. It's like, you know that movie that I'm a Merrill strip.

I was on about a singer that was really, really terrible, but she was actually very, oh, she was a minute, you know, I know who you mean, Florence Foster Jenkins or something like that? Yeah, it's a very funny movie. She had a very rich husband who just thought she was wonderful, and so I kept paying for her to have these concerts, and she was awful. Oh, yeah, I think it's Florence Foster Jenkins. Yeah, and she played Carnegie Hall.

Yeah, he's booked out Carnegie Hall, and I think the husband was tone deaf. And it was like a giant joke. Yes, yeah. Well, it's a fair point. Like, someone should just interrupt one of the concerts and say, I'm sorry, was there a merit-based recruiting process for this position? If people are going to do bad singing at a public event, they should advertise the position. But what else is in the citizenship test? Oh, yes.

What else have you had to learn? Because my wife did this as well. And I must say, I didn't get everything right. Okay. One thing that I've learned. So if you want to, if you want to check it out, there is a podcast by the Immigration Department called Australian Citizens. Test, our common bond, and it's four episodes. Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.

I don't want you cross-promoting a podcast as entertaining, sounding as that. You're going to just eviscerate our numbers. But also, surely, at the point where you figure out how to... So go on the website and don't listen to the podcast, download a PDF. Can I just say, Ivan, at the point where, I presume the first episode begins with, okay, you've managed to download this podcast about our common bond. The secret code to avoid the test is like, Canberra, type that into the browser and you're fine, this is all you need.

Who's listening to this thing? So there's a few things, for example, the things that I've learned. I didn't know that if you're not a citizen, you cannot work in the public for the Australian Public Service or the Australian Defence Forces. I didn't know that. Only citizens can do that. So what I do is just prepare you for your new rights.

Like I said, you're going to be a citizen now. You can work for the public service or the Defense Forces. But I did some Googling, and I learned, and this is also studying that the head of state, is king charles king charles is the head of the australian state and also the commander in chief of the australian defense forces thank god king charles is not an australian citizen oh so these foreigners they come here they take our jobs fucking bullshit mate the irony the irony about immigrants and foreigners doing the job of australians and you have king charles being the

commander in chief of the australian defense forces well now that you're just I was going to leave back there. You could be the next king. I mean, why not you? What is the... You live here. You're miles ahead in terms of eligibility as far as I can tell. Yeah.

I'm a citizen. I can't... Another thing that I've learned about King Charles, he doesn't have a passport. Oh, I've heard this, yeah, about the old queen, yes. Because he issues the passport. So he is the passport. I mean, that is a bit stupid, right? Like, if I hand out lunch vouchers,

that doesn't prevent me from myself having a lunch voucher. I can't go, oh, I'm the lunch voucher guy, I can't possibly give one out. So, is he, so every time he goes through Heathrow, is he one of those annoying people who don't have their paperwork? Look at the face. Look at the face. And they just hold up the line. Because he's going, well, I'm allowed to just get through.

And it's like, no, where's your paperwork? But also the Heathrow immigration is the worst in the world. The questions they ask you. And I'm just like, I don't, my people left this country for a very good, I'm not going to overstay my visa. I'm getting out of here as soon as I can. Yeah. But if I remember from my wife's citizenship ceremony,

there's a bit in the oath, and I think in the paperwork too, where they say you have to defend Australia if called upon. I mean, is this something you might have to do? Do you have to defend Australia now? Well, I think there's ways of defending Australia now. If I'm with foreigners, there are not citizens, and they make fun of Vegema, I've got to say,

oi yes oi vegima is the first savory thing that any Australian baby have ever tried when you try salt for the first time you're going to be in love with salt yes and then it's a memory so if you're saying

hey veggie my taste is like burn plastic with salt it's like saying to Australians your mom is ugly yes no so that's what it means by defense that's how I defend Australia yeah that's good

yeah And so does that mean I have to defend Australia? Because my whole life's work has been about paying out Australia. But am I being treasonous? I think that's part of being Australian too. You have to make fun of yourself. If you take yourself too seriously, yeah. I think that's why my comedy is welcomed in Australia because I make fun of

Australian. But I don't say I make fun. I say pay tribute to Australia. Well, actually, it's a fair point, though, because we never, we were never, we never, we never asked to be Australians. I mean, it's not as though we had any say in the matter. We just got born,

and the misfortune to be born in Australia and therefore required to defend it. No, we didn't agree. I mean, Ivan signed up to it. Yeah, but Obama was pointing out that, you know, like it's actually defending Australia is about saying Vegemite actually tastes good. That's the extent to each he did.

Or when people say, Australia, that's massively racist, isn't it? And you go, no, not massively, just very. It's not massively It used to be massively It's now very And if they keep improving it It'll get down to a little bit Yeah exactly

So did you have to Do racism training courses To become Australian enough Oh yes Or were you naturally racist already Or how did you do that So I think the way of doing it Is just do it like Australians do

So you say Welcome to Australia The sun is fucked the animals will kill you, we're a bit racist. That's all you have to say when you welcome foreigners. It's on the coat of arms, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, you know the citizenship test is, is by its nature racist because it's given in English. There's no actual reason why, if you bring your, I don't know, 80-year-old grandmother over to live with you who you're going to look after, who doesn't speak a word of English, there's no actual reason why she needs to learn English, except that I think the Liberals decided that this needed to be a thing, the citizenship test, as a subtle way of saying people who don't

speak English, it shouldn't really get to be citizens. Mind you, it's probably lucky because your 80-year-old grandmother-in-law now can't get a job in the public service, which is probably a good thing, both for her and the public service. Do we want? Well, also, my in-laws come from India, so their English is far superior in the Australian. That's right, exactly. Yeah.

They would basically. They're not more words. Yeah. Exactly. The Chaser Report, now with extra whispers. So you're taking this around the country. Have you had any pushback to, like, you announce, oh, pass the citizenship test. Do you get any people sort of who aren't welcoming?

What do you mean? Are they racist in the audience? Are they racist in the audience? Is it like a bus? Is it like a standard Australian bus where someone gets up and does a rant? No. Well, I think there might be racist in the audience, but not against Latinos. Yes, of course.

I've been asked me, have you ever experienced racism in Australia? I was like, well, never, but I've experienced, I don't know how to say, maybe third-party racism. I did a corporate show ages ago. And after you do the corporate show, sometimes I invite the entertainer, in this case, myself, the comedian, to sit down in one of the tables to have dinner with them. And it was, it was the, like the boss. and their partners and their family and one lady told, oh, you're very funny.

We like you. We like you. We like you. No, not like these Muslims. Oh, right. Wow. Okay. So it's, I mean, it's not really a great compliment, is it?

Yeah, but she had a very ethnic accent, like a walk accent. And I'm like, but you are, she sounded Italian or Greek. I don't know. But I was like, come on, you come from. a family of immigrants and then you're saying this, that I understand. Yeah. I mean, that's the only moment that I actually saw racism right in front of my face.

And the great thing about that, I guess, Yvonne, is that because Australians probably know absolutely nothing about Venezuela, the ignorance really comes in and helps there. There's just such misinformation that people that's kind of going, okay, this guy doesn't seem like he fits any of the bad groups that I'm irrationally scared of. Probably fine. Probably fine. Good on you. Bring your whole family, wherever they come from. I am very lucky to be also part of the positive stereotypes group. It's like, oh, the sexy accent, you speak Spanish and you like flamenco and ooh.

So there's something about, I don't know, thank you, Ricky Martin, and Antonio And Antonio And that's for what have you done to my stereotype. And I'm like, it's just an accent. So Ivan's show Citizen is playing the 13th and 14th of May at the Sydney Comedy Festival. And then the 18th to the 21st of May at the Brisbane Comedy Festival. Ivan, have you got any plan to take it any further afield into the, let's just say, even less accepting and tolerant parts of Australia. Is that something that's happening here?

Well, I'm going to Newcastle. Oh, I don't know. Oh, to Newy. Oh, lovely. Oh, dear. Yeah, I'm going to Newcastle. I think it's on the 24th. We're going to be in Brisbane at the same time.

What time is your show? Oh, great. My show is, I believe it's 830. I don't even know there was. So there's now a Brisbane comedy festival after the Sydney one. Yeah, yeah. Gosh, it's really backing up, isn't it? Yeah.

So the Brisbane Comedy Festival is a bit long, so it's taking, it's doing overlaps with Melbourne and Sydney and Perth Comedy Festival. Really? What? Yeah. So they've just gone as an endless comedy festival. Okay, that's sort of a joke in it of itself, isn't it? Yeah.

All right. Well, Yvonne, I hope you don't regret becoming a citizen. I hope so, too. What I understand, though, just quietly, is that if you are ever called upon to, like, militarily defend Australia, it is possible to renounce citizenship. Apparently, it's quite easy. Oh, really? Yeah, Charles and I can't do it because we don't have another one.

But in your case, just jump shipmate if you need to. Can I maybe get in on? I have another one. So I think I'm going to get rid of the Venezuelan because I'm also Spanish. My family is from Spain. Oh, my God. So it's an EU. What the fuck are you doing?

Can you marry one of us? Yes. It's a good passport to have. It is. It is. We look at these immigrants. coming here with a superior passports and rubbing them in our faces.

And their sexy accents. I have the three passports and I play with them as if they were my, when I was a kid, my he-mans or my Gia Joos and I got the Venezuelan going, let's dance some salsa and drink rum and then the Spanish going, let's cook something with garlic and olive oil

and the Australian. Shut up, you're fucking Mexicans. Okay, I think with that, you've outstaged, you're welcome. Thank you very much, you, but. It's been so nice having you back on. all the best with the tour. So good talking to you,

to you guys again. Big hug and see you in Brisbane. Yeah, yeah. See you then. Go and see his show, and see you. Thank you. We're joining us.

Our Gier is from Road. We're part of the Iconiclass Network. See ya. See ya.