The Chaser Report - Crosby (Textor) Deals & Cash

Episode Date: October 18, 2023

Dom and Charles do a deep dive into the schmoozy endeavours of the world's favourite lobbying firm, Crosby Textor. 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. Now, as you may recall, on the weekend, Australia went to the polls. Oh, really? We did. There was a referendum.

It was just a small matter. Not to anyone directly affected by the massive gap between Indigenous Australia and everyone else. No, for them it was a fairly large. But that was a fairly big deal. In many ways, everything, some might say. For those who went and voted, though, a mere inconvenience that ended up with 60% of Australians voting no. But one of the mysteries, and there are many mysteries at this point, Charles, is why did the yes campaign unfold in the particular way that it did? Why didn't its message manage to connect with Heartland Australia?

It's very clear that the further you were away from the inner city, the more likely you were to vote. No. And why were Crosby Texer, the group that's been incredibly closely tied to the liberals, the many, many years. Well, and also the conservatives in the UK, just as tightly with Boris Johnson. Scott Morrison in particular. Stop the Bates. Why were they... Stop the Bates.

Put in charge of the yes campaign. I'm going to try and figure that out after this. So I don't know why Crosby-Texter got the gig. Can I just start by suggesting one reason, which is that they've been enormously effective in stoking racially based campaigns in the UK. And here too. And here too, yeah.

Like, they're the flavour of... the month, not just in the UK, but throughout, you know, the European Union, they're bringing Howard-style anti-refugee rhetoric to the world. I mean, literally, they're not even rewriting messages, right? It's stop the boats. Is the slogan in the UK with Rishi Sunak at the moment. And the EU commissioners said, we decide who comes into the country in the terms in which they, or into our continent or whatever, and the terms in which they go. Like, literally stealing that line from John Howard. And the, I mean, you've got Soella Braverman in the UK, who I think is the Home Secretary,

who is the daughter of two migrants to Britain coming out and campaigning against further immigration. It's quite a bizarre situation. But the thing is, Crosby Texter, if you look back at their history, they've been so incredibly successful. I can only assume someone thought, look, these people are the ultimate Spengali's,

they understand how Middle Australia thinks they'll get it done. So why did they do it? I mean, my understanding is that they thought it was time to kind of give something back. Right. What they've given back is a massive defeat, it would seem. This was the thing.

It was meant to be sort of a passion project, right? A passion project to, what, make the yes campaign lose. Like, it was some sort of Machiavellian figures who are clearly aligned with the no side and get them in on the basis that they'd be acting in good faith. Is that the idea? What, like, what does that make any sense? What I don't know in particular is why Anthony Albanese

signed off on this, because the yes campaign was separate to Labor. It was meant to be bipartisan. And my theory is that they thought if they get Crosby Textor, We'll be able to get the Liberals on board. Yes, and that actually squares away with something I heard, which was apparently Noel Pearson was sort of going, oh, these guys are all. And I think Noel Pearson has been a very sort of broad church style.

Yeah, wanting to bring the Libby's end to the foals. Well, presumably he recalled that no referendum that wasn't bipartisan has ever succeeded. So that does actually have some logic to it. But what about when Dutton then said, no. Maybe they'd sign the contract by that point. They'd already signed the contract.

And you locked in for 18 months, like it's some sort of mobile phone contract. Oh, fuck, I've got the Texter plan. Apparently it was Crosby Texer's idea to focus on constitutional recognition because their research showed that it was more widely supported and easily understood than the voice advisory body. Some might have said, well, you'd better explain what the voice advisory body is or no is going to run on you don't understand it. But instead they went, oh, let's talk about the constitutional recognition.

So clearly a major miscalculation by Crosby Texer. So is it that maybe? Because I've got another solution, that it's not that he intentionally scuttled the yes campaign. It's that he suddenly, after years and years of being incredibly competent at what he is doing, has suddenly become incredibly incompetent. Well, this is what's being asked at the moment, is have they lost their touch? Yes, because there's no, I mean, it wouldn't just be that they intentionally were incompetent. Are you suggesting that they tanked it on purpose, that there's an inside job?

I mean, I don't know what I'm suggesting. Well, can I just have a look? It's so well played. Can we please? Yeah, I know, very well played. But can we just please look at what they're quote-unquote successful at? Because what they're not quote-unquote have never been successful at is actually progressing humankind in the correct direction.

No, they don't do progressive, Charles. No. That may be the mismatch. Well, let's take a little bit of a look at the history of Crosby-Texter because, I mean, they've been massively successful. If success is the only criteria, And they're brilliant. Now, there's a whole series on their influence that were running Crikey in kind of May and June. It's well worth getting into it.

And I'm just going to completely rip it off by talking about what they did. John Howard was the leader who kind of first rose along with Crosby texture. They crafted many of his major wins. And that's where they really made a name for themselves. Now, Litton Crosby ran for the Libs in South Australia in 1982 and flopped. His first job out of university, by the way, guess which industry he worked in? It'll be fossil fuels. Yeah, petroleum.

Yeah, he worked for Santos. He worked for Caltechs. And then having, of course, the expertise in fossil fuels is the perfect way to then become director of the Federal Liberal Party. Yes. He was there 97 to 2002. So he was very much involved in the head office to get John Howard elected. He was seconded. And then he went on, for 2002 on, he went on to start his own company sort of spun off and went from there.

Why didn't he get with somebody called Steels and somebody called N? Nash so that it could be Crosby Stills and Nash. Yeah, I don't know. But then Mark Textor was from, what was Mark Texer doing? He was a pollster from the Northern Territory, would you believe, known as Tex. I think Crosby was strategy, Texter was the polling guy. This is the thing they were always really good at was knowing which messages were going to resonate.

That's sort of the dark art side of things. But these days, it's called CT Group now. It's got offices in London, Washington, Dubai, Hong Kong and Mumbai, right? So they're absolutely global. And their latest big trick, the latest industry that they've sort of moved into alongside it, is intelligence. I was going to say, I'll bet you it's AI. Yeah, no, no, it's not AI. It's actual spy intelligence.

Oh, right. They've worked together with the former spy chiefs of France and Germany. Yeah. So what you're saying is a spy firm might have done something, you know, were completely, you know, upfront about their intentions of joining the yes campaign, don't. Is that what I'm going to tell you after this. And industry based in duplicity, but they weren't duplicitous on the... This was their one that they were going to do for good.

This is the one time. The one time. All right. I'm going to tell you about their involvement in the Morrison government after this. Oh, great. Right up in the middle of it. The Chaser Report, news you can't trust. So according to crikey anyway, I don't keep crediting them because I've done a lot of deep digging on this.

You know what would prove them to be incredible Spengali geniuses? What's that? be case closed, is if they had no involvement in the school Morrison government at all. No, well, here's the thing. What they've done successfully a couple of times is essentially take over a government by having one of their major staffers becoming the right hand, and it's always a man, of a prime minister. And they did it at the end of 2018, a guy called Yaron Finkelstein, it was the CEO in Australia

of Crosby Texer, became Morrison's principal private secretary. So he literally moved from this group into the paper. PMO and ran everything going on. And then at the same time, a guy called David Kanzini was Boris Johnson's deputy chief of staff. So they had two PMs basically in their pocket at this point. That would look very good on your annual report, wouldn't it? We own intelligence agencies.

We own PR firms. We own a prime minister in both hemispheres. And maybe if you have an intelligence firm and you can collect dirt, it's a pretty good way to get prime ministers on your books. I'm not sure. The inception story of Orcas is that Scott, Morrison, political genius, was just over in Europe, went to look at the French submarines and didn't know what was going on, and he just suddenly just occurred to him.

Goodness me, why are we having French submarines when we can have British and American submarines? It was his great idea on his own. He went to Biaritz in France and thought, hang on a moment, aren't there some other allies that produced nuclear submarines we could go to? Yes. And it was just him on his own. No one else came up with the idea. Guess which industry, Crosby Texter, had been advising in the United States?

Oh, no. The submarine industry? The nuclear power industry. So in the states, they don't really do the kind of Australian and British-style political consultancy. They consult to industry. And they had a client over there in the US called General Dynamics, and their subsidiary electric boat, great name, runs nuclear submarine shipyards. Oh, man. And at the same time, Boris Johnson wanted to...

wanted to convince everyone in the UK that there was a viable industry for the UK in building nuclear subs and so on. And so suddenly... So that's why it was so higgledy, bigly. It made no sense for the UK to be involved in that at all. No, because of course you'd just go to America, right? Yeah, yeah. But instead, what we had was this whole, well, who will it be?

Will it be Britain? Will it be America? Who knows who they're going to pick? And so the whole thing was dangled because both groups could hold it out as a giant win. And this is still happening. So the Orcus announcement in March this year, Crikey points out,

says that $3 billion from us is going to those US and UK production lines. So you've got Crosby Texter playing all parts of the deal. That's the way to succeed in business, Charles. God, is have a finger in all parts of the deal. You've got the UK government. They get benefit from it. Boris Johnson looks good.

You've got the Australian government, Scott Morrison looking like he's got this brilliant idea. And your US client that makes nuclear submarines, cha-ching, they're doing great. Do you think maybe I should siddle up and become Chief of Staff to Emmanuel Macron. I think you should. And be the French.

Instead of Crosby Texter, it'd be like, Crosby Texter. You could. Yeah, yeah. You could be their agent in France. Well, they've got a European operation. Instead of selling submarines, I would sell Brie and French wine. Fou gras.

Fagra. We have to buy $368 billion with a foie gras. You should definitely do that. That's a great idea. For strategy. That would be how we would win France. months back. See, what you would do is, I mean, I assume C.T Group have already thought about this,

is getting France back on board by doing a deal where they get paid on all sides of the equation. Yes. So the point is that they're clearly very good at what they do. Yes. So maybe the problem. The question is, what do they do? Well, they grease the wheels.

They come up with the message. I mean, they're a big part of Tony Abbott's campaign, for instance, when he relentlessly focused in on the message. I mean, he was not a man of great message discipline. No. But as opposition leader, he was absolutely ruthless and very effective. I suspect that the lines he served up, all those three-word slogans, you know, ax-tax and all that.

Yeah. Well, I imagine that Dutton would be looking at the same sheet and going, I might not be able to get out three words, but if you can come up with some two-word slogans, I'm up for it. I mean, he had one word slogan for the no-cam. No. No. No. So in the press today, it's being suggested that because Crosby-Texter worked with yes,

the libs don't want them anymore. So they might be hung out to dry. Oh, cut. That line has been planted by none other than Mark Texter himself. It's quite possible. I guarantee you, I will pay you a million dollars if that is not true. We do a marketing deal with my new company. So this is the thing.

So a lot of Liberal MPs, and this is from Crikey today, admittedly it is Crikey. I wouldn't want to rely on it too closely. But they reckon they've spoken to a lot of Libs off the record. He was saying we've got to dump these guys. Yes, I think you should, guys. Yes. Oh, they're such betray.

And they were so good for the yes campaign. That is a story definitely 100% planted by Mark Texer to give himself cover and distance. And then the Libs will still do Crosby, Texer. It's just a piece of sawdust. Have you learned nothing from Crosby Texer? There's a great quote here from the Oz, of course, the House Journal of all these people. Pretty interesting quote here. I didn't need to see their effort on the Yes campaign.

and this is someone who believes they're losing their touch within the lips. I saw their effort on the 2002 election and 2016 election. They've been wrong more often than they have been right. I can assure you there's no love for Crosby Texter from the leadership team on the right. So I guess we will see. We will see whether Crosby Texter siddle back into the Dutton campaign a bit later on. And if they do, maybe the conspiracy theory is worth pondering. The Crosby Texter came in and went, oh, you should definitely do.

Don't give any details. Talk about the constitutional recognition. That's going to get us because people are really excited. about the Australian constitution. Because I've got a completely different theory for why the no campaign won and why people in outer western suburbs didn't like it and all the rich people did like it. No, yeah. Simply that it's the politics of scarcity.

If you fucking can't even cover your fucking rent, why should anyone get anything ever? I mean, that's a big part of the problem, of course. So that's it. You think that they should have just tanked the recession? We should have said to Aboriginal, Torres Strait Island or Australia, Look, we're a bit short of cash. We can't possibly think about your issues. Sorry, come back to a few years.

No, I think what it is, is we've got to overthrow the billionaire class who take all the money out of the system. So we stopped fighting amongst ourselves for once. Well, it's quite possible that Crosby and Texter are billionaires by this point. They've done pretty well. Actually, I'll tell you what, I think Mark Texter would be really good at helping out on our takeover the billionaires campaign. He's offered to do it for free.

Oh, really? Just out of conscience. Digging something back. Yeah. Oh, good. Thanks, guys. Yeah. Good to have you on board.

Aguiz from Road, we are part of the iconic class network. I must say, having done that deep dive, doesn't make me feel any better about anything. No, it makes, yeah. I hope they got paid. Crosby texter. Yeah, well, they need the cash.