The Chaser Report - Exclusive: Unmasking The Spy In Parliament

Episode Date: February 29, 2024

There's a spy in the midst of Australian politics! And the two great minds capable of identifying the traitor are not Charles and Dom. 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. Hello, Charles. Look, there's an amazing opportunity for us that's been extended. And particularly to you, what we could do is get paid very well, which is something we're always interested in. Oh, I like that.

For doing reports. And in particular, if there's anyone we know, any politicians or members of, I don't know, former prime minister's families who might be interested in doing a deal similar to this one just to pass on information to a friendly i'm going to say definitely not a government a consulting is it any different you know occasionally you know this podcast is sponsored by i don't know like Mitsubishi or yeah whoever McDonald's or whatever is it no different from that if we happen to be sponsored by the chinese communist party oh why are you assuming it's china no so i mean i mean A consultancy owned by the Chinese Communist Party.

A company called, for instance, Data 31. Data 31. That sounds innocuous, doesn't it? Data 31 is a great way to learn information. Not all of the data that they have has been collected by hacking into Australian government computers. Some of it may have been, who knows? I just don't understand it. So you're obviously talking about the spy scandal ride.

For me, I think there's one very obvious flaw in the plan of this, whichever foreign country it was that recruited some politician, right? So that's the story that's come out, right? Which is, we've got optus, right? Like, the data is already out there. They've already collected their information on everyone. It's all been leaked onto the dark web. Between that and Medibank Private,

pretty much every single piece of information about everyone is already out there. You don't need to recruit politicians. You can just look up on the... the dark web, pretty much any information about Australia or Australians that you want. That's true. I wonder if not the Chinese Communist Party have thought of that. But like, see, I don't understand. Maybe I'm just naive.

There's a lot to get to the bottom of with this story. Let's get more into it after this. So this is one of those stories where it's changing as we record different bits of information of breaking left, right and centre. Let's just recap why we're talking about this. Mainly to the right and centre. Yes, it does seem. So the reason why this has come up is that the Director General of AZO, Mike Burgess, gave a speech that was quite a bombshell, really, saying that an unnamed, and I'm quoting the ABC here, unnamed former Australian politician who was successfully cultivated by an international spiring, Problem 1, once suggested bringing a Prime Minister's family member into contact with their foreign handlers.

Problem 2. Problem 3, there's an overseas intelligence service that has an Australia team or A team, which poses as consultants. headhunters, local government officials and so on from companies such as Data 31, he said during this speech, they offer their targets consulting opportunities promising to pay thousands of dollars for reports on Australian trade, politics, economics and so on. So this is something the Azo heads actually come out

and announce this to make the point to this mysterious foreign government that their efforts have failed. I must say, Charles, I'm offended not to have been asked. Yeah, I know. Exactly. Like, if you want to find out about Australia, what more powerful media broadcaster would you need than Dominic Knight? And Charles Feth, then the Chaser report. I mean, we could have, we have friends in high places.

I think that they know that our integrity is just too high, Dom. Yeah. That we could never be bought. And also, aren't you quite good friends with Sam Dastyari, who all I'm going to say is when this news broke, his name was trending on social media. Coincidence, I suspect. No, no, but I think the whole point is that that's not the source.

story it's not sam that they're talking about no it doesn't seem to be but the hilarious thing is as soon as this broke peter dutton immediately called for the politician to be named and shamed and all this stuff and this was really up on its high horse about it i'm going to guess that perhaps he thought that labor was involved yes and as the day has gone on it's become clearer and clearer that doesn't seem like it's on the labor side shall we say we don't know exactly who it is but why don't we why don't we just wildly speculate? Before I update you on who has been kind of a named somewhat, why don't we just speculate?

Why don't we try and guess who it is? Well, I think this is a perfect opportunity to speculate and say some wildly defamatory things about a lot of people on the basis that this is just newsworthy speculation. So we're acting on no information here. We don't know. I mean, I've read. We don't know.

We're being clear that we don't know. But it's got to be Clive Palmer. I mean, isn't that? the obvious person to recruit. I mean, would you pay Clive Palmer for a factual report about anything? Well, but where did he get, where did he get that $110 million to run for Parliament and only get one seat? Where did he get that one?

I've got to say, if a foreign government gave Clive Palmer $110 million to win one seat in Parliament, it's pretty bad value. I reckon, I reckon there's literally, there's no need for any, like, judicial inquiry. It's already failed. The punishment's already happened. Yeah. that's right. It's actually the one time where Australia's actually done well out of the transaction. Absolutely. I think that's a net win. It was a boot for the advertising industry. And don't forget all the DVDs emailed all around Australia. That must have cost a lot of money that was spent with local DVD deliverers.

So then the other person that sprang to my mind, which is probably not as newsworthy or sensational, but sort of seems a little bit obvious, is what about the former Chinese Communist Party member, Gladys Liu, who actually literally was a Chinese Communist Party member back in the day. You're assuming that it's China that's behind this story. They haven't been named. Oh, yeah, it could be. It could be, actually. But do we know that it's an enemy? Because it could be a friend.

I think it could be America. So Joe Hockey, he runs a company. He was on the radio this morning getting very angry about this person. And an actual fact, at one point, the interviewer asked him, do you not protest it too much? And he's got, like, he runs a business in America with, like, American military, industrial complex interests. But don't they all? Like, doesn't every single informal politics?

Like, Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull both have houses in New York, for God's sake. Okay. So, who else would you pay? Maybe we should be spitballing a little bit sort of further afield. What about Albo? Albo? Yes. Oh, my goodness.

Well, I mean, that, that would be quite the bombshell. Yes. If you had invested an Albo in an influence peddling operation, would you feel that he was influential at this point? he can't even get a referendum up. Terrible. Who else could it be? If we're just speculating wildly. Tanya Plibersek?

Yeah. Oh, recruited by the nation of Antarctica. Really? To save all... Because you know how she's been saving all the penguins? She's declared all that fucking part of the ocean of wildlife sanctuary. Not allowed to drill or mine there anymore to say all the stupid wildlife. You think greenpeace?

Greenpeace has gotten to her. Yeah, exactly. This is an affair. Imagine if the left was good at what it did and recruited secretly recruited politicians to carry out acts of good in the world. Environmental action action. Yeah, they're peddling influence to get them to declare national parks.

Yeah, perhaps not. Back in the day, I mean, Bill Shorten was a pretty powerful figure. He'd be a useful recruit, wouldn't he? Yes, yes. But we're looking for someone who knew a member of, like, a prime minister's kid, probably, like a member of a prime minister's family. Right. So that's part of the...

That's part of the story. So this person reported of their handler, hey, why don't you hit up this member of a prime minister's family? Ah. But wait a minute. Isn't that Alex Turnbull? Isn't that literally... Alex Turnbull's come out and said that it was him.

Yeah. So this, essentially, the fact that we now know that it was Alex Turnbull, he's come out and said, yeah, I was approached, it was really crude, it went nowhere and I reported it to the right authorities. But that does tell you it's highly likely to be on the liberal side of politics. Although actually... Alex Turnbull worked quite hard to undermine Scott Morrison. So perhaps it wasn't.

I don't know who's Alex Turnbull's mates with these days. So I think we should stick to wild speculation. Well, Charles, why don't I just present you with a completely different, a completely different news story with no connection to this story. Okay. I'll do it after this. The Chaser Report, news you can't trust. Okay, in other news, let's talk about another story that has no connection to this scandal. A man by the name of D. Sun Duong, who is a former liberal candidate, has been sent to jail

over an attempt to influence the Morrison government in favour of China, and in particular, specifically, to cultivate a relationship with Alan Tudge on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party. And on behalf of the Federal Multicultural Affairs Minister, as he then was, Alan Tudge. Do you think he knew... Well, I think you would need to be paid to cultivate a friendship with Alan Tudge. I think anyone would need to be paid. paid. There was an event with a novelty check. So this guy was, you know, with Tudge.

A novelty oversized corrupt check. $37,000 for the Royal Melbourne Hospital on behalf of Oceani, a federation of Chinese organizations. And Charles, I'd never run a charity, but I reckon you can't look like a novelty check in the mouth. No. If every children's hospital or if every hospital looked carefully at the people who are donating to it, then I think they'd ever raise any money.

Yeah, no, exactly. You've got to turn it blind. Isn't the whole point that charity exists for people who are deeply awful people to sort of clear their moral conscience with a sort of a mild tip? I mean, you may say that, Charles, but by way of rebuttal, I happen to be in a children's hospital earlier this week, and I walked through the Ainsworth wing, donated by the people who run aristocrat pokies. So I think you'll find that they're people who only want to help ordinary Australians have great lives. Yeah, great. Yeah, so do they run the wing dealing with people who've lost family members to gambling? To problem gambling.

No, I think they just give money to the children's hospital side of things. You give them money then, and then once they're 18, they're considered fair game, I think, for the answer. Yeah, right, okay. So here's the thing about this Duong character. You get the money back. You get the money back. You see them through to adulthood, and you get the money back. I guess beat them alive.

It's alive long enough. get to the pokey land. So just looking at this story here about Duong, this guy, he's got a minimum of 12 months jail sentence. He's 68 years old. So that's basically treason, isn't it? So you get 12 months in Australia for treason, do you? Well, it's a two-year-in-nine-month prison term,

and he's only got to do 12 months. I mean, that to me makes treason a fairly low-level offence. But Charles, I mean, there's treason and then there's just delusion. I feel really sorry for this guy, Duong, in a sense, because he told his handlers that he thought Alan Tudge would be the prime minister in the future. He thought Tudge was the boy.

Tudge was the guy who was going to go all the way. He was on Team Tudge. Oh, God. So I think that's it. I think by giving his handlers in China, coincidentally, by the way, it's China, just happens to be China. By giving that sort of information,

it's almost like misleading. Like, it's almost like he was a double agent. Yeah, so this is some sort of sufficient. sophisticated operation to undermine China by leading them along the delusion that Alan Tudge would be prominent. Is that what you're saying? I think that's what's happened. I mean, in many senses, this, Duong guy's some sort of a patriot. Spycraft is such a complicated, like, keeping track of all the lies, you know. It's very hard. It's very hard. So, I guess in, and I'm not just saying that to, I'm not saying that just to keep people off the scent. Charles, if you're any kind of overseas

operative that is the greatest concealment operation in the history of politics you know a bunch of senior politicians but they never tell me anything or they tell me like they they do i think they actually tell me lies to put me off the scene isn't the usual isn't the usual interaction with you oh charles yes or they just get angry at me okay just get angry with you just go no albo's got a plan that would be it amazing if you if you can manage charles to actually work out what albo's plan is. What Alba's, oh, that's worth money. That's worth millions.

That's worth millions. So a big day in Australia, a genuine spy scheme. And then, coincidentally, news of a former liberal candidate being convicted for basically selling out Australian interest to a foreign government. What will happen next? I don't know. I don't know. But Barnaby, I'm just saying.

Barnaby. Barnaby. Who's more likely to be Prime Minister, Alan Tudge, your Barnaby choice? One last suggestion. It's not Barnaby. It's got to be. Drum roll, please. Please leave in the pause while Charles desperately tried to think of someone funny in

Australian politics anymore. Oh, fuck, I don't know who it was. It'll be... It's totally Barnaby. Because remember, he turned out to be a New Zealand citizen. Secretly, he was a New Zealand citizen for like 20 years. And he was also sort of thing. He was clearly spying on behalf.

He's a double agent from New Zealand. He's now gone through this charade of renouncing his New Zealandness And they're the real enemy He's a sleeper agent It's a fucking, it's a stitcher I tell you what, the deal where we got to keep Barnaby Is one of the shittest deals Yeah, exactly

There's a conspiracy there There is a conspiracy there And he goes around pretending to be drunk And pretending It's a perfect way to listen on a conversation Yes, he was actually using the ground waves To listen into conversations You know how sound goes through solid objects?

I must say... That's why he was on the ground. If I was out in Canberra late at night in Kingston drinking at the bars where they all drink and Barnaby Joyce was at a table, I would not bother to be discreet. Yes, exactly. It's the perfect cover.

It's just genius. He's New Zealand's James Bond, really, Barnaby. That is a movie I would like to see. Shaken and Sturred. Okay, our gear is from Roe. We're part of the iconoclast network. You heard it here first. Barnaby Joyce.