The Chaser Report - Every Referendum Conspiracy DEBUNKED!

Episode Date: October 3, 2023

Dom has a list of all the most convincing conspiracy theories about The Voice Referendum that you need to hear to believe. WAKE UP SHEEPLE. 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. And today, Charles, I have so many reasons to vote no in the voice referendum. I've got a collection here, courtesy of nine news, of the top referendum conspiracy theories. All of them incredibly true and deeply convincing. You're going to change your vote today, Charles. I'm absolutely certain of that.

Oh, okay. No, to yes. We're going to get into that very soon, and I must say some of them are genuinely creative. But what we're going to do first today is catch up on some of the reviews that people have left on the Apple Podcasts app because some of them, frankly, are amusingly rude. Get into that after this. I'm a little bit disappointed in the reviews, Dom. Producer Loughlin keeps telling us that we need to check it out. Yeah.

They're all quite nice. Yeah. I sort of would prefer. Yeah, we should find one that's not very nice. So here is some nice but funny ones. So Tristan says best satire. At first I was disappointed about the gas ads. But then I realised as a satirical podcast, the whole advert must be a bit.

This is apparently we have ads for, was it, Saudi gas project? No, it's renewable gas. It's renewable gas. What's the problem there? We all know that gas is renewable. You have to wait enough billions of years for it to form again. Or you just have to eat a burrito. Am I right?

Oh, God. Give that one star. No, no, but I think that, like, it's. It's the gas companies of Australia trying to sell us on the idea. To greenwash, yeah. Yeah, yeah, to completely greenwash. I'm convinced. Lots of environmentalists email me saying, you know that this is a total scam.

I can't possibly comment. Have we sold our opinions to them? If so, then they don't have got to be right. No. If the environmentalists want us to call out the gas companies, then they're going to stump up the money. Just buy ads. If you want us to denounce, just we're cheap. You'd be surprised how cheap.

That's how cheap it is advertised with the Chaser Report. So what about this one? This is actually a very cutting attack on you, Charles, actually. Oh, really? It's from rudely awoken 106. I just love these guys. It says five stars. Nothing really happens unless I hear Charles Perth's incites of analysis of it.

I think that's a serious one. That's so funny. What a great takedown. I feel the same way. That's a serious one. That's a nice one. No one actually respects you. Do you think someone, is that?

I guess to write more of a review. please jump on the app and if you genuinely respect Charles's opinion, write a review saying so because I don't believe it. At least I get mentioned, Dom. Look, this one, read your recent episodes is from All Edd Out. Five stars, it may be time to get Mark Humphreys to do the podcast solo for a while. Ouch! Most of the topics you're covering are just not hitting the spot from a satire perspective.

Also, I think this must refer to you, Dom. Also, you could let listeners know when the ads finish, as I may be missing the funny parts of the content by skipping. the ads. That's pretty brutal. I told you it was a bad idea to get Mark Humphries in when I was away. You should have got someone dreadful. But Charles, hang on, this is five stars. Yeah. So even though it's a bit mean and possibly entirely defensible, Mark Humphries is very good. It's two gave us five stars. Some just nice ones. This show is seriously messed up. It's so wrong. It's right. I love every minute. Their review of the Barbie movie had me laughing out loud. True story. That's very sweet. Because we didn't go to the Barbie movie. Oh, that was John. John Delmenico's thing. Yeah, that

It was a very good action. Yeah, that's John. That's John. It's not us. But we did one on the movie without seeing it. There's also one, it's a bit of a burn. Genius. One word review above, five stars. Well, no, that's alright.

Seems ironic. Oh, it's alright. Surely. Here's a good one. It's called meh. It's by bike Brad. Friday the 1st September's episode was surprisingly entertaining. For some reason, can't quite put my finger on it.

Surely it can't have anything to do with Verity First Brother not being on, although that Tom guy did bring the tone down a bit. I don't know who the Tom was, but we won't get Tom back on again. No. Wait a minute. I think that there might be about another podcast. I'm just imagining they've forgotten my name. I'm not to get them off.

Wow. Five nukes. Like the guy from Hiroshima, I just came back for more. And he's put five nuclear symbols. That's L-Cars Rockin. How insensitive. That's probably Bill Gates. Yeah.

Because he's into nuclear, isn't he? Absolutely. All right. Thank you for that. Please leave more reviews. you are so inclined, just, and the way to really hurt our feelings is to give us five stars and then burn us like that. Yeah, that's what we want. Yeah, excellent. All right. So, um, let's get into the conspiracy theories on the

voice. This is going to be very revealing. Oh, see, but you would say that, Tom. You would say that because, you know, that's what they want you to believe. That's what they want you to believe. So claim one, this is all from nine news. Yeah. Postal voting isn't safe. This is, um, is that because of paper cuts? Particularly, yes. Particularly after all, you know, the discussions in America about all the stolen ballots. Just as Donald Trump's election was stolen from him, the concern is that if postals are used, the evil forces of yes or somehow scam this thing. Yes, although I've looked into this conspiracy theory, Dom, and there's one fatal flaw

with the Australian version of this, because what the American conspiracy theory was, was that the postal service itself, which is controlled by the federal government, was in on it. Of course, the feds. Whereas Australia Post is so incompetent. There is no way they could organise an elaborate conspiracy. Actually, the only way that Postal votes could go wrong is if Australia Post tried to have a massive conspiracy to... They'd fuck it up so badly that they just accidentally lose them all. Although everyone would end up with expensive watches.

Oh, we'd definitely get watches, yeah. So look, if Australia Post does start offering watches in return for yes votes, you'll know there's something to this one. Yeah, yes. Okay, the next one here is that votes in pencil. This happens every time. There's a lot of people who object to votes being in pencil, and the claim here is that votes in pencil will literally be rubbed out. Now, the AEC government agency you can't trust, says they use pencils because when they fold the ballot papers, as you're required to do, they don't smudge, and also they can store them and reuse them from one event to another. Also, they don't dry in tropical locations.

That's what they say, and they're cheaper than other implements, which is what they would say if they were planning on rubbing out our no votes, Charles. But isn't the other problem with that conspiracy theory that no erasing. ever properly rubs out pencil. That's absolutely true. Yeah. The facial flawed. The scripteneers would go look, someone's rub that one out in one second. The other funny thing is that

so there's been several reports of, I think, Bolsonaro the Brazilian president. The Brazilian president. Former president. Looked into using invisible ink in the pens. Brilliant. Oh, so that the text would just disappear. We'd just disappear

out later. Oh, it's informal. I love the idea that pencil, which actually is a physical graphite on a sort of thing, is less safe than an ink, which could be done in invisible. Yeah, look, if it was possible to rub out pencils and invalidate votes, you would know this because Republican lawmakers would have applied that in the inner cities in America. That's absolutely all would have happened. So it can't be a thing. Okay, the next one, Charles, the next conspiracy theory.

My favorite things in the conspiracy theory genre, Charles, are the concepts that some weird, archaic aspect of law invalidates what the government does. These things tend to go to court and the court goes, no, the government passes a law and it's a law. Sorry, guys. So here's one. So this is some sort of citizen, sovereign citizen. Yeah, it doesn't involve Magna Carta, strangely. This claim is that the vote is illegitimate because the writ for the referendum was not issued with the great seal of the Commonwealth

and that the writ must be displayed at polling places. So the Great Seal of the Commonwealth, which I believe is some sort of stamp and not a marine creature, supposedly not used. So the AEC says, no, no, the Governor General just issued it like every other bit of law. But maybe what we should say is, if the wrong side wins, where was the Great Seal of the Commonwealth people? Yeah, I've never heard of the Great Seal. I'd like one for myself. What's the Great Seal of the Chaser? Can you buy one off Amazon or Alibaba or something?

I bet you can. The Great Seal of Commonwealth of Australia. I've never heard of this in normal life. We should get a great seal of the chaser. We should. And we can just make laws using the great seal. We just buy one. And then if you don't want to pay your tax or something like that, you just pass a law.

You can get one from the great seal. From office works, can you? Yeah, just a great seal. Get a really great sale. I can see here, actually, there's, yeah, there's a basically a metal item with a coat of arms. Does it have elbows base on it? Yeah, it's got hot elbow. Hot elbows on it.

And you stand something with it sizzlingly hot. Yeah, right. No, there's a new seal apparently issued with every new monarch, so there's going to be another one. Oh, it'll be, oh, is that why they didn't have it in stock? Because they don't have the old Lizzy ones. There's a Lizzy one, that's right. It's probably part of the theory. So, yeah, the Great Seal is...

We should definitely get one for the Chaser. Yep, get on that for sure. Well, she'd sell it as merchandise. As a great, yes, make your own laws. Make your own laws. Okay, so another one, roll. I tell you what, you get lots of sovereign citizens buying them. I reckon you can make a lot of money.

The Chaser's magnate. Magna Carta. Magna Carta. There's also a claim that the AEC has indulged in roll stacking by getting more people to enrol. Yes, Indigenous people. They got all the Indigenous people to vote. And even worse, young people. Oh, no.

So the point here is, yes, that the AEC does its job by getting rid of dead people and adding new people in 2019. It's such a conspiracy getting all those people eligible to vote to vote. Yes. They've stacked the role with voters. Yes. That's an outrage. Well, you'd never see that happening in. Florida.

You wouldn't. Absolutely not. They wouldn't be allowed in. I would say, look, you were in prison. You can't vote. The Chaser report. News, you know you can't trust. There's also a theory that there will be two questions on the ballot and the answer to one

could override the other. But there's not two questions. There's only one question. So this one will be easily disproven by looking at, I don't know, a ballot. And given that, as we say, this early voting has already begun in the voice referendum, I think this one might die. Why weren't the original pamphlets fact checks? Now, this is interesting.

You might recall that the pamphlets came out with the yes and the no cases. And the AEC were not allowed to fact check them in any way. They couldn't correct typos. They had to simply print what was given to them. Yes. That was apparently a giant conspiracy for the AEC to not alter the cases of the yes and no. I can only assume that the no case was littered with typos and it was a bit embarrassing. Well, I don't know whether it was typos, but it had lots of all caps.

Yeah. Like, it was written, like, one of those. Well, if you're saying, no, that's in war caps, isn't it? No. No. No. Okay, there's so much more here. Another reason the vote is illegitimate, this is a great one.

Because the Constitution of Australia, Charles, I don't know if you know this. It's been invalid since 1973. Oh. Because in 1973, Queen Elizabeth was changed to, her title was changed to Queen of Australia. The High Court has found that that was fine, by the way, but they don't mind. The Queen herself signed that bill, making her Queen of Australia. when she was here in 1973. Yeah.

And what? You can't sign your own... I don't know. Your own certificate. She's still queen of the United Kingdom. Yes, she is. It's, anyway. So, hang on.

Hang on. So what's the problem? Because she's now the Queen of Australia. It doesn't work. There's no constitution anymore. She has to be Queen of Britain, I don't know, for the Constitution. Oh, that's a bit of an own goal, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.

You just sign something, suddenly, poof, there's no constitution. The Queen's power is so great that she can change her title and write herself out of existence. I don't think so. That's amazing. No votes will be this. I like that one. I'm going to use that. No, because the Constitution has been invalid

ever since the Queen declared herself Queen of Australia. But does that mean every law since 1973 is wrong? During my entire lifetime. So, because they brought in all the anti-drugs legislation since 1973. Yes. So drugs would be legal. And they're kind of anti-hacking and all kinds of things. You can hack away.

It's all invalid, so 73. And also treason? Treason. Yeah. Yeah, they updated the sedition laws about 10 years ago. So they would all be invalid? That would be. So we can do seditious activity.

And, you know, the best bit. I'll tell you what, Sam Destiari's off school. Didn't the fireworks ban come in after 1973? Oh, yes, fireworks illegal. All right. That's the best news. Also, no votes will be discarded. The whole thing is rigged.

The AEC will just dump no votes in the river or the harbor or something. Well, let's wait for election. Look, you never know. You never know. You don't have to vote. This is another one that is not. mandatory, unlike regular elections. No, it's not.

It is mandatory. But what's the, why is the, why is they? They're saying that so people don't turn up. Well, the no people are. Well, I don't know. They are, maybe they're hoping to trick some yes people. I don't know what the plan is here, but you'll get a fine if you don't vote, just to be clear.

And also, um, there's a claim that special enrolment is required to vote. No one can just turn up and vote on the electorockers. That'd be a great system having a special system where to enroll to vote in referendum. So that's the best. Well, I don't understand that one either. They are arguing that. The role itself is not valid. You can only vote in the referendum if you signed up to do so, that it's a voluntary process.

That'd be like 12 people. Wouldn't the yes campaign completely win in that scenario? So the bottom line is all these conspiracy theories are ridiculous and rubbish. But having said that, can I say if the conspiracy theory is about, you know, like the fact that if we vote yes, then indigenous people will just run Australia. Isn't that sort of already happened because in 1973 the constitution was abolished? That's true. So it goes back to being. It goes back to be.

So there's no terra no paranoias, which means that this Aboriginal sovereignty existed since 1973. Yes. That's better than any voice. It's handed back to the indigenous traditional owners. The traditional owners run Australia since 1973. The queen to find herself out of existence. We don't need the referend.

So I hand over your house to a local landowner. you are squatting. Yes. I don't own a house, so I'm even worse. Yeah, no, you should, you know, you're going to get out. No, you've got to get out. Yeah. It actually would be hilarious.

And frankly, in international law, a more correct position than the one where Australia actually exists as a legal entity because that never was, you know, the thing about sovereignty never ceded. Yeah. It can't have a problem. It really, it really is a problem. Maybe we need a treaty. That's what the conspiracy theorists said.

Said what happened if we've all voted. So have we changed your vote, Charles? I think you've certainly confused. I think technically we have. Yeah. Technically we've changed your vote because your vote doesn't exist because of what happened in 1973. And also, like, because you've changed my vote because the election officials are going to change my vote because I'm voting in pencil. You know what you need to do.

Invisibly. That way, at least don't. I don't make going with this thought. My brain is up. Just write the whole thing in Invisible Inchales, and they'll figure out what you meant. I'm sure. Trust me. Okay.

Our Giers from Road, a part of the iconoclast network. Catch you next time. You know what? The Queen should have signed that 1973 thing in Invisible League. She should have. Yes. Actually, you know what? I bet if you go back and look at the legal instrument where Australia was even founded in the first place,

it was 1788. It's probably faded by now. Yes. They should have used pencil.