The Chaser Report - Fool's Gold, Gold, Gold | Chris Taylor

Episode Date: August 1, 2021

Dom ponders the PM's Norman 'Nugget' May impression, Chris considers the Australian Army's deployment to suburban Sydney, and Zander covers the athletics in Tokyo. Charles unveils his Morrison Certainty Principle while previewing life after COVID. As always, Rebecca breaks, then painstakingly reassembles, the latest news. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to the Chaser Report for Monday the 2nd of August. Charles, welcome to week six of Sydney's lockdown, or is it 100 or is it 1,000. I've lost track, frankly. Dom, Dom, the whole thing is you shouldn't count. You don't count at this stage. It's not a race. You just get through it one day at a time.

You know, it's like Nelson Mandela did for like 20 years in jail. He didn't think of how many years it was going. going to be. He just did each day as it came. Charles, are you comparing Sydney after five weeks of lockdown to Nelson Mandela's decades of racist incarceration? Speaking on behalf of all Sydneysiders, yes, yes. I think we are all Nelson Mandela. You're in your own house, Charles. Just scratching your own ass and watching TV. It's not the same. Oh, it's pretty hard, Dom. It's pretty hard. I now know how he felt.

Okay, mark this point about a minute into the podcast where Charles Firth was permanently cancelled. New co-hosts, please send applications to podcast at chaser.com.com. Anyway, Charles, this whole, it's not a race thing. You're out of date. Oh, right. What? We're out of date with the best thinking in the country and with our prime minister. So what, what happened?

Late last week, he attempted to bask in the incredible glory that our swimmers in particular, but the team in general has achieved in Tokyo. He actually began a press conference as though he were Norman Nugget May. Have a listen. He steps out of the Prime Minister's office. These are the first words that he says. By the way, the comedy audio is from The Guardian. It's only a place I could find it.

But it's kind of appropriate. Gold, gold, gold. That's what has happened today. It's something for all Australians to celebrate. And I know that really lifts spirits of Australians right across the country. So there you go. So our Olympians have provided a distraction. from the disaster that we have caused by him going slow.

It's a pretty nice little bit of sleight of hand, isn't it, Charles? Yeah, that's great. I mean, that's classic gas sliding, isn't it? You say to somebody, you're not in a race, and then you go, oh, by the way, we've come first in a race. He's not talking about the vaccine rollout. He's talking about the swimmers. That was how he started it.

And congratulating them for cheering us up. The point where he compares the vaccine rollout to a gold medal race is later in the same press conference when he said this. What we want to do is make sure we hit these targets, set these targets right, and then all of Australia, like our Olympians, we go for gold on getting those vaccination rates where we need to go, because the supply's there, the distributions there, the pharmacists, the GPs, the clinics, and we make a gold medal run all the way to the end of this year. And the sooner we get there, the sooner we get there. The sooner we get there, the sooner we get there. The supply is there. distribution is there.

If you were looking for Pfizer, do you feel that the supply is there, Charles? Is it there? Is it really there? Well, it's certainly not for the people in the Belmont vaccination facility who've all been told that it's no longer there. Have you heard about this? In New South Wales,

they're taking all the vaccines, all the fysers from the regions and giving them to HSC students in Sydney. Yeah, in the 8-LGAs that's a hard lockdown. That's right. So, yes. So, I mean, he's just a genius, isn't he? Like, it's sort of brilliant because you now can't use the it's not a race thing against him

because he'll just turn around and say, but we won gold. And so did our swimmers. We did win gold, Charles. We won gold of being last in the OECD amongst 38 rich developed countries for the rollout. It was gold. Gold had coming last. But Dom, we've already addressed that. If you turn the graph upside down, we're on top.

But the great thing was he still didn't commit to a timetable. Did you see that? He didn't want to start banning about months because whenever he does that, he gets to be wrong. So he just says, you know, when we get there, we'll get there. And that is so true, Charles. When we get there, we will get there, won't we? We will have gotten there wherever there is, but it involves gold, so I approve. Chris Taylor's going to join us to take a look at this new phase where the military are on the streets to protect everyone from themselves or something.

Plus, I'm going to give you a little glimpse of what our future might look like under COVID. So it's, to do with COVID, not your usual thing about Bluetooth devices that are a bit cheered. Is that right? Yeah, no, no, that's... Well, mind you, maybe if we put some Bluetooth into COVID, our future could be even better. Don't give Bill Gates any ideas. Plus also, we're crossing to Zander for an Olympics update.

But first of all, let's go to Rebecca Dana-Muno in the Chaser Newsroom. Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, has taken immediate action after Sky News was suspended from YouTube for spreading misinformation. The Prime Minister said he would be rolling out a multi-million dollar. a handout to Sky News immediately. Meanwhile, unable to spread misinformation about the COVID vaccine via YouTube, a desperate Alan Jones has taken to distributing his message via love letters to his students. Harvey Norman, under pressure from taking $22 million in jobkeeper payments despite record profits, has announced it will donate all of its jobkeeper profit to the

honourable cause of running ads during the Olympics. Sydney faced a mass deployment of army and police to the streets on the weekend, with dozens of checkpoints preventing entry into the city. But locals said they welcomed the Blitz, just thanking their lucky stars that they're not suffering under the tyrannical reign of dictator Dan.

That's the latest news you can't trust. I'm Rebecca Dayunamuno. It's always good to catch up with part of the Chase of Family, and like everyone else in Sydney, Chris Taylor has time on his hands. So let's have a chat, hey Chris? How are you guys? How are you? You know, could be better.

My family's in self-isolation. I'm the only person who has any freedom at the moment. I'm waiting for the army to knock on my door and arrest my kids and shoot my wife in the face. So pretty much a normal week in the first household. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it's got nothing to do with the coronavirus. I often wonder if we reach the point in the pandemic where COVID is becoming useful to some families. Like, you know, as a perfect excuse, if, like, your wife and your kids want less child time,

can they all just pretend they've got COVID and have to go into isolation just to be spared from him? Well, I must say, my wife was very keen on, you know, like, because they give you, they emailed her with all these timeframes. of where she'd been. And it was like, you could just, if you just shaved off a couple of minutes, you wouldn't have to self-isolate, love. Oh, no, no, no, I've got to self-isolate. So it might be something in that.

It was quite funny because it was a bottle shop, and I was right next to that bottle shop, like, moments before. But I'm all easy, breezy. I'm just going to go out and pass strangers. But she's got to self-isolate for, this is the randomness of COVID. You can be, it's a minute or two apart and be in huge trouble. or just go bumbling about as per the rest of us. I find it very hard to believe anyone's been near a bottle shop during this pandemic.

That's a new one on me. I didn't realize drinking was the way through this. But I would have thought half of your suburb lives in that bottle shop. Exactly. Yeah, what are the chances? And those all just do a ring of steel around the whole glebe, I think, at this point. Now, look, obviously in the last week or so, the big development, I don't know if you've talked about this on the podcast.

I am a regular listener, as you know, but even some of the nuances that gave me sometimes. But obviously, we're at the stage now where the army has been sent in. Yes. And why did it take so long? Because obviously a health crisis needs a military response. I think with previous flu outbreaks, people have always called for the troops. You know, I think we can probably only really defeat this crisis with Bullock.

Medicine's not working, vaccines aren't working. Why did it take so long to send the Army in? Well, it's not a race, but it is a war apparently, Chris. It is. It is. I just don't know. I'm worried we've gone too late with the Army, and I'm worried also that we haven't gone hard enough.

As I understand it's just the regular army, why haven't the SAS been brought in? I mean, you know, the last time this country was really under threat, seriously. I think it was Tampa, under threat by boat people, which was a serious crisis. And the SAS were sent in there. Now, why haven't we called the SAS to go around the Western Sydney? Sure, you know, there's a risk of few innocent civilians might get shot along the way. It's bound to be a little bit of collateral whenever you've got the SAS involved. But I think it's worth it for Gladys and Kerry Chan's and all of the country, really, to

finally get on top of this once and for all. It's a good point And I just I can't believe that Ben Robert Smith is just having all this legal stuff to deal with

We're fighting with one hand behind our back Just let him lose on COVID Sure you know There'll be other casualties As you say But imagine what he could do

The good thing about Ben Robert Smith is He never soeth The defamation Dom So I think you're very safe But you're right I think the point is I think Dom's point is

Completely correct Which is if you told The people of Western Sydney Ben Robert Smith is about Hands up if you've got coronavirus. I think you'd find everyone wouldn't have coronavirus anymore. I agree.

I agree. And look, he's a man with a PR problem at the moment. You know, the trial's not necessarily going that well for him. This might just, you know, if he wants to re-earn that Victoria Cross Medal, yeah, why doesn't he go door-knocking, with all the assault rifles that he has around Western Sydney? Well, look, I was actually talking to him on the weekend, and he said that he didn't want to go into Weston.

in Western Sydney because there aren't any cliffs in Western Sydney. So you can't even have any fun while you're, you know, going around chatting to civilians. I can only say again, thank God he's not someone to lose for defamation ever. Well, I just wonder, Chris, why the Air Force isn't involved. Why is it only ground trips? I mean, you could be bombing whole of South West Sydney and Western Sydney with hand sanitiser. You could have clouds of the stuff in the air. And this is an airborne virus.

I agree. Look, I expect that that phase will be announced shortly by Captain Morrison. Like, he talked about the four phases, didn't he, of this pandemic? Phase one is obviously just the army. We will get some, definitely some air attacks coming soon. And I guess come Christmas, the Navy will try to get involved. Now, if you were trying to get a Collins class up into Fairfield, what would be your route? Could they, are there any rivers down that way? There probably are. The Georgia's rivers in the area, Georgia's River Council's locked up.

I think that'd be good. No, but the problem is to get to the Georgia's River, you've got to turn left, and the Collins class submarines can't turn left. The good thing is they do explode a lot, so we might just be able to bust this virus completely, you know, just completely obliterate it if every Collins class submarine explodes.

Well, what about Fairfield Aquatic Centre and the various pools in the region? If you put some subs in those, do you think, for deterrence, that they could launch torpedoes and things from there, couldn't they? That's good. That's good. I just have every single military tool available on this. And not just sort of keeping people in their homes,

but other problems around this virus. If you notice, I noticed another big story last week, I think it broke. Have you seen there's a massive Uber Eats driver shortage? Really? Oh, really? Yes. Yeah, all these restaurants have got this massive. food weight because no one's around to collect orders that have been put through and cooked.

There's just not enough drivers on the road. Because I think we talked about this last time, in first round of lockdown, everyone was cooking mad, everyone, he couldn't, you know, move for sour though. Everyone was successful cooking. That's completely gone. No one's cooking anything anymore and people are only ordering in. So there's not enough drivers to go around to collect all the orders. Surely our military, even our reservants could be put into better use.

just going around doing Uber Eats delivery. Well, with a tank. I mean, to roll the tank down the streets, and you're shooting the delivery out of the gun. You don't want to cook it. It's contactless. You just take the food to the barracks and use the cannons to aim them into people's houses.

But also, couldn't you cook the meal at the same time as you deliver it? Like, with the amount of firepower in those cannons and tanks, you could actually warm up your burger, or at least keep it warm, warmer than the current system that allows. I think this is genius. You know what gets me down, though, Chris, is that Australia at this stage doesn't have a space force

because you can just imagine the sort of space-based COVID-defense systems. I mean, space lasers on Western Sydney would do enormous good, I think, at this stage. That's not bad. I don't know if Coma or even Kevin Rudd has Jeff Zazos's ears, but I believe he's got some space connection. He does. Yeah, we might be our... to get that involved.

There's no vision. That's what it is. The other idea I had, you know, the military's good. I'm sure the military will do an okay job. But Sydney already has a sort of army of sorts that's been lying dormant ever since the year 2000. Oh, I see where you go. The Sydney Olympic volunteers.

They've still got the uniforms. They've all got the uniforms. They've still got the uniforms. They're the best organized group we've ever had in this city. It's true. Surely they could come out for one last job. And what they should do is they should have a chat to the coronavirus and give them directions.

But, you know, like out of the city. Like give them the wrong directions. Yes, loaded onto buses that goes somewhere else. That would be fantastic. I thought you were going to say then, Charles. If you get to the Sydney volunteers to chat to the virus, we'll just put the virus to sleep. The virus will just want to kill itself.

Yeah, just reggae. it with tails of how great 2000 was. It'll fuck right off. That's better than Pfizer. These are all very good ideas. But the city, I mean, the weird sort of taking a step back, what I still really don't get to understand, you know, in terms of why we need the military to keep people inside

is who are all these people? Who are all these Australians who want to go to work? Like, I mean, what happened to the? the Aussie love of taking a sickie. Yes. Coronavirus is basically giving us permission to take a one year's sticky and no one's taking it. This is the best opportunity ever not to go to work or not to go to school.

And yet somehow all these people are suddenly, you know, going against years of tradition of Australian bludging and hating and hating. And yet suddenly the one time we're not allowed to do it is when we want to go to work. Well, I want to thank the heroes. The heroes who are gathering at funerals, meeting up with their families, visiting, you know, restaurants and stuff on mass, having parties in their workplaces and hotel rooms to just keep this outbreak alive, because otherwise we'd have to go back to work.

You're quite right. Exactly. Let's just take a moment. I don't know if you want to take a minute, silence on your podcast or at least a couple of seconds, to remember the true hero, who are the people that are keeping COVID alive long enough so the rest of us don't have to work. This episode of The Chaser Report is sponsored by Scott Morrison's Words of Wisdom. It's always in the last place you look, unless you're looking for me in Hawaii, which is the first place you should look.

Well, the second week of the Olympic Games is underway in Tokyo, and Charles, I don't think we've budgeted for a second. week of Zanda. It's awkward. Look, I looked up the COVID figures at the beginning of last week, and I thought, there's no way he's going to make it through a week. So we only budget it for one week. So it's going to be a disaster if he's still there on what day.

Is it nine or something? This is a disaster. Yes. Well, nevertheless, as he's there, we may as well make use of him. He's not allowed back into the country anyway. He's hoping. Zander, hello. Hello.

Look, I'm really putting. the Pfizer vaccine to its limits I have been running through the street without a mask just going crazy and I've got to say only a few sniffles I clasped once yesterday but I'm back on my feet today and I'm going

That's very impressive and by the way if your credit card stops working it's just an administrative glitch and I'm sure it will be resolved Okay because I thought that was the issue right because you know what I knew that nothing was going to happen with the athletics this week obviously it's not Australia's strong

point so I thought I'm going to hit the town I'm going to explore Tokyo and I went out and then suddenly the other night in a hazy state this old Australian man came up to me and it was John Coates and John Coates goes mate what are you doing you're supposed to be at the athletics and he pulled

me to the athletics he didn't give me a choice and John Coates forced me to watch the athletics oh my God I'm so sorry and did you did you collapse several times as a result I did I was just stumbling the whole way to the arena just face-planned multiple times that I managed to push over

and get there in the end. Hang on. Were you in... Were you in the 10,000 metres, Zander? I don't know. It's a bit of a blur, to be honest. John Coates was like, mate, we need you. And then I kind of just faded in and out. I'm, you know, a big night beforehand. And then next thing, you know, a lot of bright lights.

And I heard a bang. And I wasn't sure what happened next. So I just kept stuck... I ran away from the bang. And then next thing you know, I'm at a finish line. Well, I feel very sorry for Patrick Tienin, the other Australian competitor in that event, to Zanda.

Do you have any idea what John Coates said he'd do to him if he didn't turn up to the race? Yeah, look, John Coates is being a bit serious. Obviously, he takes this Olympic thing a bit too much, I think, honestly. What were the threats that John Coates made, you know? Oh, he said he wasn't going to buy us Maccas after the game, wasn't going to give us, let us have dessert at the Athletes Village, all those big ones, said we'd have to go to bed at night.

o'clock. Apparently he's got a punishment javelin that he uses. He does. Is that true? No, there is. But he's also got, instead of a swear jar, if anyone says that they're sick, you've got to put a coin in the jar.

And so that's how we make sure all the athletes are going out onto the field. So anytime someone sniffles or coughs, you just put another dollar in the jar. So everyone's that scared of being sick that John's now just doubled his income. Maybe we should try that in Australia. Yeah, where instead of all these people, you know, getting COVID,

they just have to... Maybe John coach should run the Sydney response to the COVID. No, it's been effective. It's been effective. I mean, what Aussie athletes have missed events? None. Zanda, look, stay safe. And can I just say, if you do find yourself going to hospital,

you will discover that your travel insurance doesn't include healthcare. So just wing it, mate. Okay. Did you bring your Medicare card? I did. Oh, well, that's a bitty because it doesn't work over there. Oh, damn it. So don't do the pole vault skateboarding this afternoon?

Dude, just try to make it fatal. Okay. We've still got life insurance on you. Just try laying ahead first. All right, well, thank you for putting your body on the line. Zanda, you may not win any medals or indeed be paid award wages, but we appreciate it all the same. This episode of The Chaser Report is sponsored by Scott Morrison's Words of Wisdom. get there, when we get there, when do we get there, when do we get there, when we get there, when

we get there, when we get there. Now, before we go, Dom, I just wanted to give you a bit of a glimpse of the future of under COVID. No, but Charles, you don't need to do that because the Prime Minister has outlined last week a four-stage National Cabinet-approved plan that's going to take us out of all this and back to normality. I feel reassured that everything's under control. just don't know when that's going to be, Charles.

I love it, and it's totally different to the last stage plan that he introduced in May, which was a three-stage plan. This one's a four-stage plan, totally different and much better. But yes, no, probably a better indication than any of Scott Morrison's plans is what's happening in the UK at the moment. Oh, yes, we talked to, if you haven't heard the episode with Sarah Kendall time last week, it was fascinating, just listening to what they're doing with no restrictions. It sounds bizarre, Charles.

So it is very bizarre, but I've seen some friends over the weekend about what life is actually like, because they literally have a vaccination rate that is the start of the phase B of Morrison's plan, which is 70% have at least one dose vaccination, 57% of the population are fully vaccinated right. And so I was going, oh, well, okay, great, you must be back to normal now. And it turns, and actually, the person I was doing to, Dom, is, was Dave Stewart. Yes, our friend and business partner, who is actually the co-founder, one of the co-founder of the chaser. But he now lives in London and he was saying that like even though you're vaccinated,

you never go outside because all the inconveniences that we currently have are still there. So if you come in close contact with somebody who's got the virus, you still have to self-isolate for 14 days. Oh, your phone pinged doesn't it. We talked about this with Sarah. Yes, that's right. And so, so there is no point in going outside. He has not been to work since March last year. No one invites anyone around to their house. unless you're absolutely certain that they're not going to give you COVID. So literally everyone's life, even though they're all vaccinated, has just completely contracted. And that's what we're setting ourselves up for.

Like in six months' time, best hope scenario is that. No, Charles. No, no, no. That's the UK. We're different in Australia because Scott Morrison made it very clear in his plan. When we get to 80% of Australians having had both of their doses of vaccine, we can resume normal life. Now, some experts say, given that even the UK is only 57%,

that we will never get to 80%. But I trust Scott Morrison, because when is he ever not delivered on an objective? Dom, I have a whole theory that the one thing that has remained absolutely true throughout this pandemic is if Scott Morrison says something, then it definitely won't happen. It is actually now, there is so much evidence. The Morrison certainty principle. It is Morrison's certainty principle that literally, if Morrison has said something,

then, you know, anything else could happen, but you know for certain that it won't be that. Okay. So I can tell you now, it's just not going to happen. Australia's never going to get to 80%. Frankly, I hate him for saying that we would get to 80%, because now it's not going to happen. Let me revise my theory then, Charles. If we're never going to get to the 80%, we will become like the UK. We will only, we'll never leave.

the house, we'll just stay at home and maybe occasionally see our close friends from far away. What that means is within 20 or so years, humanity will die out in this country. No one will meet new people. No one will breed. No one will have children. The human race will simply disappear. And frankly, what a legacy for Scott Morrison. What a legacy.

He will always be the last. That's a happy note to end the podcast on, isn't it, Dom? Well, the good news is that we won't have to do this forever. Charles, because eventually we will die and our children won't take it over. But until then, we'll see you tomorrow for another episode. What's today's code word for those kind enough to leave us a five-star review? What should it be? Oh, I think it's the Morris Uncertainty Principle.

They're not. The Morrison Certainty Principle. There's an article in that, Charles. Can you write that up for The Shot? I am going to write one up now. It'll probably be out by the time you hear this podcast. That's our sister site, the shot.net. You're with opinion articles rather than the topical satire you get at chaser.com

at u around the clock our gear as always is from roadmark phones we're part of the acast creator network catch you tomorrow unless scott morrison says we're going to do it tomorrow in which case it's just not going to happen is it so yeah