The Chaser Report - Crown Town | Sami Shah

Episode Date: October 28, 2021

Sami Shah stops by to defend Crown Casino and point out why they should be cut some slack, and the team puts out an emergency alert to all of Australia. Plus another round of Fiction or Furphy! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of The Chaser Report is sponsored by questionable impressions. Oh my goodness, it's Britney Spears. Oh, um... I, uh, baby, am my conservatorship. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to the Chaser Report for Friday, the 29th of October. I'm Domain. This is Gabby Bolton.

Who's the other one? I'm Charles First. It's actually not a fun radio game. He's just saying that because every single day he has to do these memory exercises ever since he figured out he had early onset dementia dumb. You know that that's not funny because I went to the doctor and I was worried that I had cancer and dementia. And then he said, you know, the bad news is you've got cancer and you've got dementia.

And I said, well, thank God I don't have cancer. I hope you actually have cancer because joking about cancer is not historically been a good move for the chase up. Yeah, no, not exactly great for us. But why don't we go down this alley rather than what we agreed to do, which is issue an important emergency alert. Warning, warning, warning, warning. Scott Morrison has left the country.

Scott Morrison has left the country. Please stay indoors. Please stay indoors. Oh, thank goodness. And what a good move by the Australian government to distribute that via podcasts, the most immediate of all media. Well, no, but this is a disaster, Dom, because every time Scott Morrison leaves the country,

there's a natural disaster. I mean, last time he went, Melbourne had an earthquake. Yes, and a riot. And there was a tornado as well. Oh, yeah, our bathurst way. And then the bushfires in 2019, and then the floods followed after that.

And then there was also a plague. There was a rat plague. Oh, yeah, the mouse plague. I forgot about that. Well, but then again, if you were Prime Minister, wouldn't you go if the whole country was on fire? I wouldn't want to stay in the country. Oh, yeah, no, it's a good point.

But the point is that there is a strong correlation between Scott Morrison leaving the country and a terrible natural disaster happen. So this weekend, I know it's going to be nice weather across the nation, but please stay indoors, just cower at home, much like you've done for the last two years. Well, he's going to go and solve climate change in Glasgow, and most of the problems that have been caused by his absences were caused by climate change. So it's nice that he's actually finally getting on the problem. Yeah, he really is creating jobs, isn't he?

It's just a shame that he's creating. work for himself. But yeah, I like theorising about what the natural disaster is going to be. Because, you know, I don't know about you, but I don't trust those windy whirlies. You know the ones in the playground? The willy-willies. Yeah. Is that what they're called? They're willy-willies. Oh, I think we called them windy whirlies by the time I was a kid. What if a giant windmill comes loose? They've been wanting about us for ages. That's a very final destination. It's also nearly Halloween, so it could be any number of things. I mean, I've always said giant monster rising from the deep. And look, Clive Palmer has been getting very involved. No, what? No, Harold

He'll come back. I think you've got to go more biblical. I mean, it's a biblical man. It'll be, what are the, the, we've had play. Locusts. We've had pestilence. What else is there? There's famine.

Oh, famine. Famine. Yeah. Well, stock up on goods. I think you should immediately panic. As they did in the first famine. Panic by this weekend at your Coles or Woolies. I mean, I don't know what the natural disaster is going to be, but as soon as Scott Morrison

leaves the country. Barnaby Joyce is acting Prime Minister. Lock up your daughters. Mind you, mind you. In fairness, Barnaby Joyce has been running in the country for the last few weeks anyway. Coming up on the show, we're talking to none other than... See, I really should do my mind exercise because I can't remember.

Oh, Sammy Shah. Sammy's on the show today. That's right, Charles. We are talking to Sammy Shah. You get a cookie for remembering that. Did you know that? Charles, no judgment. You could use notes, I'm just saying.

That would be a thing that would work. Also today, another round of fiction or thurphy, the game where Charles tells a tall tale and our interns have to work out whether it's completely made up or just exaggerated. That's all coming up right after we check in with Rebecca Dena Muno in the Chaste Newsroom in just a moment. Scott Morrison says voter ID laws are urgently needed to ensure democracy isn't corrupted. The Prime Minister made the announcement in between pork barreling events in key marginal seats. Concerns have been raised that the new laws will stop legitimate voters from being able to vote. But Morrison pointed to his latest news poll numbers as compelling evidence the laws are urgently needed.

The public has been urged to stay in their homes after the government upgraded its disaster warning level to Scott Morrison is fucking off overseas again. Scott Morrison is travelling to Glasgow to announce Australia's plan to tackle climate change by offering the planet a milkshake. As a result, Barnaby Joyce will once again be officially running the country after unofficially running the country for the past two months. A massive outbreak of nausea interrupted the New South Wales ICAC hearings yesterday. The Anti-Corruption Commission heard testimony that balding former MP Daryl Maguire was in love with former Premier Gladys Berrigalian and they'd considered having children together.

Upon hearing the testimony, the hearings were halted for half a number. hour to let everyone go and vomit and get the image out of their head. That's the latest Chaser News you can't trust. Remember to like and subscribe to the podcast on your app of choice. I'm Rebecca Day andamuno. Have a great weekend. And remember to try not to think of Daryl and Gladys going at it. Today's episode of The Chaser Report brought to you by questionable impressions. Whoa, it's Ben Shapiro.

Let's just say, hypothetically, you listen to The Chaser Report. is absolutely incorrect and false. Facts don't care about your feelings. Here at The Chaser Report, we've had a thorough evaluation of all candidates and decided that Sammy Shah is the best person to talk to about events in Melbourne. Specifically, Crown Casino continuing to operate a casino

despite all the stuff that's going on. Hey, Sammy. Why are you surprised? It's a wonderful institution. It's a venerable. It's trustworthy. It's shown that it has nothing but the best intentions of every real estate agent, cocaine dealer,

and Chinese billionaire at its heart, and I don't know why you would ever malign. It's great and hard-earned good name indeed, yeah. I don't think you're reading the same Royal Commission findings as I am, Sam. No, I am definitely the same findings, because if there was any wrongdoing, they would have clearly gotten rid of the crown and the people running it would no longer be in charge of it.

James Packer would somehow, you know, managing to have the world's smallest forehead, would not continue to have such large ownership stakes in Crown, yet they continue to, which means there must be innocent Charles. The punishment must fit the crime, and if there's no punishment, then there's no crime, is there? I mean, is the fact that we want a world-class casino, which means it has to be run by organised crime.

Isn't that just what a world-class casino is? I've seen that documentary, yeah, exactly. I've seen the documentary casino, and this is clearly what's required to run a good casino. Have you ever been to the Melbourne Crown? Have you ever done cocaine in the black-tiled bathrooms of the Melbourne Crown? They both have, but they probably don't remember. Fair enough. Good point.

I have. I've seen an awful lot of people. I've itchy noses on Lugie's nights, have me? Exactly. Absolutely. The Crown Casino has a certain place in Victoria. It is the kind of building that were a sinkhole to open up underneath it, and everyone contained inside was suddenly to vanish from the face of the earth. The world would be better for it. But we would have no one to measure ourselves against,

as clearly I'm not a shitty person because that person's obviously shitty person they go to Crown Casino. So this serves a purpose and I would hate to see that purpose being affected. So what you're saying is it's a bit like that novel Brave New World. Yes.

Exactly what I was saying, Charles. Without sadness, there can't be happiness. Without Crown Casino, we can't actually be good. How can you have virtue without vice? Yes, yes. I just love that a place called Crown Casino had a royal commission. I just, as a fan of wordplay, I just enjoy that there's so much royal jargon being thrown around.

Yeah, and the same thread runs through it, improper accumulation of wealth. It's the royal family, it's grand casino. It's all very... Organised crime. Sorry to get all fact-based. But can I just read out some of the comments by the Royal Commissioner, Ray Finkelstein? I mean, obviously, if you want to read out some biased comments by some guy who's got it in for the innocent crown, Go ahead, Charles.

I see where the bias in this podcast lies. He described Crown's behaviour as disgraceful and that it had an alarming catalogue of wrongdoing. But then he also said that nothing should happen and just continue on. And so I'm getting the sense that you're actually right, that he's basically gone, this is a disgraceful organisation,

deeply unethical, huge catalogue of wrong. Perfect people to run a casino. Well, I think that surprises me even more. Is it New South Wales? Like, Sydney is the original Sin City of Australia. It always has been. Yes. And even here, we had a problem with Crown continuing to run a casino.

So I'm amazed that Victoria, oh, wait a second. Isn't it a Labour state and doesn't, isn't Crown amazingly good at snapping up, like, Labor heavyweights for its board and... Look, I don't know. I don't know what you're insinuating over here. I mean, clearly when our Premier Daniel Andrews said, that we can't prevent, and I'm quoting you, we can't prevent what's happened in the past, but only stop it from happening again in the future.

He meant literally 270 days in the future, which is the two-year limit, because 269 days in the future, they can keep doing what they've still been doing. Because crimes that have been committed in the past never get punished. Yes, that's right. But just a blanket. Unless you arrest them in the middle of it. What are we creating a whole justice system on things you've done in the past? Has no one seen minority report

that amazing documentary starring Tom Cruise? I mean, we clearly punish you for future crimes now. That's the world we need to live in. Just the idea of like future crimes is really funny to me. Like somebody goes around arresting people for something they might. Oh, wait, sorry profiling. I'm just describing profiling. Yeah.

And look, I also have psychic powers like the three women in minority report in the tank. And I somehow know for sure that as soon as the casino is reopened, money laundering will somehow continue. I just think it's just a possibility that as soon as you can turn giant wads of cash into casino chips and then an hour later turn it back into different wads of cash.

I suspect that that business is going to be involved in organized crime. No, because under the recommendations of the commission, they're going to have a person who's a special manager sitting there making sure nothing happens.

Exactly. Now, this is an important detail because some would argue some people in Sydney, for example, who think this is a bit ridiculous, might argue that previously there were already special managers in place. In fact, on the floor employed to keep an eye on the casino, you know, behavior and were largely just bribed or moved out of the way and people were not effective. But they weren't special managers. That were just regular managers. But this time around, these guys are really bribe-proof and cannot be moved to a different location when something's happening in this location. It's, you don't have faith in the system. Guys, it's very disappointing, honestly. To see people with no faith in our system, you've got to trust Victoria. We know what we're doing when we allow the largest single employer of 200,000 fuckwits to cater to real estate agents and guys in really tight suits who want. want to do lines of a toilet bowl.

Allow us to have that freedom. It's the least you can do for us. Well, and in fairness to crown, this incredibly deceptive, dishonest organisation has promised, quote, we will be a better crown. Are they going to deliver that by pure belief, like the government? They've got a plan to have a plan to be better. I wonder where they get it from.

It's the Australian way, Gabby. This is the Australian way. I just want to make it very clear. that if Crown wishes to sponsor the podcast, we won't run any more segments like this. In fact, we'll simply talk about what a great employer is, how virtuous it is. Yeah.

And what a fine corporate is to say. But without sarcasm. You're those flames that they have outside the Crown Casino. I love them. Outside the ones in Melbourne, there's big flames that burst out every hour. That is all the evidence of corruption going up every hour on the hour.

Are you serious? Is there flames? There's giant fireballs on the era. Yeah. It's actually one of the, if God were real, there's no way God would not have just had a gust of wind blowing the fireball into the casino. This sounds like the hunger games, like a place where they'd like throw kids to fight for sport.

It's that's on level three of the Crown Casino. I've been in Crown Casino at 3 a.m. trying to get a meal and yes, it is. It is very much of that, exactly. This podcast was brought to you by the star, Sydney's Parenthood Casino, which has no one wants it. Check out somebody's podcast. It's called News Weekly with an A. It puts it out once a week. and it is, it's weak.

It's largely this. Thanks, Sammy. Thank you very much. Today's episode of The Chaser Report brought to you by questionable impressions. Is that Santa? Fuck you. Oh, ho, ho.

Merry Christmas. Gabby, you look like you've been a nice young girl. I have. Would you like some coal for Christmas? Oh. Too bad. You're getting some. We're all getting coal.

It's time for another installment of fiction or furthy. This is the segment where Charles tells a story which is either fiction, completely made up, or Thurphy, which is pretty much true, but a bit embellished. We have Gabby and Loughlin ready to tell fiction from Furphy. Are you ready, Gabby and Lachlan? I'm never ready on this show. Yeah, ready as I'll never be. Yeah, good, good one.

All right, Charles, it's time to crack one, tell one. Okay, this one takes place in 2016. I presume you guys were probably about three years old, in 2016. I was 20. Yeah, I was six. So I went with my friend James Schleffel from the shovel to the US because the election was on and, you know, we'd piqued that Trump might actually have a bit of a chance.

And it was such a character, why not go, right? Okay, so we've gone over there. We'd done a whole lot of videos and put them out. Some of them had got millions of hits. Like, we'd really hit the motherloid, right? Nice. And while we were there, we were actually in, because we did all the swing states and we, got to Ohio, we went to this huge rally the night before, and like there were tens of thousands

of people all turned out for Trump. And then the next day we went in Ohio to this school where Hillary turned up. And there were literally about 170 people in this small school hall. And that was it. And most of the people we talked to was like, I'm just turning up because she'll probably be president, so, you know, should see her, whatever. And that night, we just went, you know, Trump could actually win this. To come home, and this is just a couple of days before the election, I'm writing all these columns for news.com. So I've got to deliver my penultimate piece,

like the piece, you know, what's going to happen in the election? So start writing it, and it's like, in all likelihood, Trump's probably not going to win, but my goodness, he's given it a good shot. It was basically the angle of the article. Yeah. Then the editor calls me up. She says, look, we need an article saying Trump might win.

Because everyone else is saying he's not going to win. Can you do that instead? Can you just, you know, put in a few knots in front of your verbs and stuff like that, essentially? So it goes through. I totally changed the argument. It's like a half hour edit though. Give it back to her and she runs that and it gets this huge sort of, it goes a bit viral. And then the next day, Trump fucking wins the election.

And then I'm seen as this genius commentator, the only person who called it in the entire world. I'm basically my credibility goes through the roof Okay, credibility and respect for Charles's political now So what do we think? Is that total fiction Gabby and Loughlin Or is it a furphy, a true story That's just been a little bit embellished What do we think, Lachlan?

Oh, it's fiction all the way There is not, even in Charles's mind Even in a fake set of circumstances He doesn't have credibility, fiction I think it's furphy But I will say the one part I think is fiction is that Charles spent half an hour editing something. But other than that, I reckon it's a furphy.

Well, you are completely correct, Gabby, because it is essentially true. The only difference is I pitched the article as being Trump can't win, and I hadn't actually really ridden it up much. And then she went, oh, no, no, change it to he will win. And then, you know. I have no recollection of you getting respect for your predictive now ever, but I'm happy to hear that it happened.

There you go, that was fiction or furthy. We'll do another one soon. Furphy, unbelievable. The Chaser Report, less news, more often. Coming this summer, the government's hottest climate modelling to date. Australia's next top climate model. Join Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce in a hunt for our nation's future. We're going to get nailed. Because if we're going to have the hottest features in the world,

then we need equally hot people to fill them. God, is that someone's emissions in the pool? Was that you, Barnaby? What an absolutely load of pig manure. No one wants to see any of Barnaby's emissions. It's our time to put the Miranda Kerr into climate. I like to think of myself as Victoria's secret, just like the Nationals Climate Policy. Combining Australia's favourite two things, hot people and doing nothing about the environment. Oh my God, what colour is that dress. It's bleached coral beige. Six states, two territories, and one big greenwash.

Personally, I hope we get net zero ugly people by 2050. Australia's next top climate model coming soon. This episode of The Chase Report is sponsored by questionable impressions. Gabby, you're Stephen Hawking. No, no. I'm not going to... It's just a British voice. What?

It's the British voice. He's the guy who has your name. Do you mean Stephen Friday? Wait, do you mean QI? Before we go, it's Friday, which means it's time for my favourite part of the week, which is reviewing the podcast. Yes, we get to look back at the things that you've said about us, which we kind of hope are funny and mean.

But lately they've been, like, either we're doing a good job or people pity us. I'm not sure which it is. Let's find out. I love how Dom can bring his depressive thoughts even to good reviews. Yeah, so look, We'll start with... Oh no, this one's too nice, isn't it? See? It's pity.

Pip the Angry Dog. What does she say, Gabby? She says, title, Charles, here's your fucking review. And then followed by five stars, I listen to the show every morning on my ride to work. This podcast, I love this sentence. This podcast is hotter than a Buccaneer's pistol and it keeps getting better.

Hang on, hang on. Is that insensitive in light of what just happened? Ooh, yes. She didn't say hotter than Alec Baldwin's pistol. She wrote it on Monday. Too soon. Too soon. Too soon.

Who sued, pimp the dog? Yeah. Possibly before the incident. It blew over my head. The interns are fantastic, as are all the guests. And Rebecca rocks. Charles and Dom aren't too bad either. See, at least she, you know, paid out you, Dom.

And me, as well. That's not a payout of me over you. It's just indifference. We're at the point where we're at, mid-40s. We're just getting indifference of people, Charles. Oh, look, this is a nice one. Hoping for Cleaner Streets, is the name of the reviewer. More Sammy, please.

Five stars. I agree. Need depressing reminders from Sammy on how terrible life is. It's ironically the highlight of my week. I think we might have some more Sammy in the mix, certainly in terms of overall minutes. I don't want to read. Love the podcast five stars.

Yeah, no, much more Sammy required by Anukriti Aria as well. Look, I think we've got Zander to find some shit pod. Because we've got some shit reviews off Facebook. Oh, where are they? I'm just trying to find. Oh, God, that can only end. Badly. Love the show, although didn't need to know about Alex's penis.

I think that speaks for all of us. Oh, no, here we go. Here we go. Excellent and well-balanced episode with Saul Griffith. There are lots of people, by the way, who've got the end of the Saul-Griff one and wrote bananas in the review, which is what we asked them to do to prove that they listen to it. Very, well, well done to all of you. Although I do think that the future of this thing on Friday afternoon,

it's the tradition where we read out the reviews and use them to laugh at each other, It's in jeopardy because you're being too nice. Yes, so please, yeah, because Dom wants to cancel this segment. I'm just getting a bit bored with it. Yeah, so everyone, just pay out Dom in your reviews. But it is important that you keep it five stars. Otherwise, we actually get in trouble. So, five stars, and then you can say whatever the hell you want.

To be really nice about Charles and Gabby. Yep, and Sammy, if you want, and Alexer and all those. But Dom is the person to take, okay? And Gabby, that's Gabby. That's Gabby with G8, two Bs and one I. There you go. Yeah, just in case. Whatever you say, it won't be worse than my inner monologue.

Our gear is from road microphones. We're part of the ACAS creator network. And remember to subscribe to this podcast. Plus, excellent news we probably should have mentioned earlier in the episode. Tomorrow, we've got a special interview with our very good friend, David Hahn. He's got a new history book out called Gert Nation. It is very, very funny. Yes.

I've got a long interview with him dropping tomorrow morning in your feed. Yes, and it's a great interview as well. It's a really fun look back. How many stars would you give you a job of interviewing, Charles? Oh, I reckon at least three out of five. He was five stars, though. Catch you then?