The Chaser Report - Free Speech Is Expensive | Sami Shah

Episode Date: November 18, 2021

Sami Shah joins Dom, Gabbi, and Lachlan to discuss the hypocrisy of freedom of speech in Australia. Sami talks about political correctness, media censorship, and asks why the people who promote 'free speech' are also the ones who sue any who criticise them? 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 another afternoon edition of The Chaser Report with Sammy Schar. Gabby Bolt is here, Lachlan Hodson's here, I'm Dom Knight. Hello. In a moment, we're going to open up the Zoom link to Melbourne and chat to Sammy. The Chaser Report, news you can't trust. Hello, Sammy. Have you been captured by anti-vaccin?

Are they string you up outside the parliament or? I'm gagging myself because I don't know what I can and cannot say in Australia anymore. I don't want to get sued for defamation by saying hi. And then someone's like high is actually defamatory where I come from. We're not high. We're low. And then, you know, I don't know. I don't have money.

I don't have money, Dom. I'm not as cashed up as the chaser team is. You know, I can't afford to get sued for defamation by the many people in Australian politics and media who seem to do it casually every weekday. Can we actually just end this afternoon interview now? He's kind of already gotten on my nerves. I don't really want to hear much more of Sammy at the moment. Let's just cut it here. Are you doing the gag orders?

This is exactly the kind of censorship I am talking about. This is a censorious country. This is like North Korea, basically. I live in North Korea. With a little bit more food, I'm guessing. So, Sammy, as a loyal fan of yours who read your first book, I'm migrant, talking about how back in Pakistan, there was a genuine risk that frees.

speech could lead to explosions in your general direction. How do you think we're traveling towards that direction? Well, okay, so back there, the threat to free speech used to be, you say something wrong or you say something right, really, it's not the wrong thing, it's because you said the right thing that these things happen

and you end up with a bullet in your mailbox as the first warning and then the second warning is usually a bullet in your head. I never made it past the first round into the second round, but I'll be honest, a bullet in the head and lawsuit from defamation, largely just as frightening,

given the financial destruction that comes from the latter. So, yeah, it's not great. It's really weird to be here. In the last three years, just, well, three years alone, I've had my tweets brought up in Senate estimates by members of the Liberal Party because I made fun of Peter Dutton. I hope he doesn't remember that I made fun of him because I don't want to be sued for defamation by him.

And also, I have made fun of the victim. Victorian Liberal Party once, and he showed last year during lockdown, and ended up having to have the entire program, which was a massive program supporting the arts community, have its funding threatened because the Victorian Liberal Party didn't like being mocked. And now, of course, we find out that the Chaser team as well, I don't know if you saw this dorm, I don't know if you're aware of this, but it was on Twitter, on the social medias, that you guys almost ended up becoming a legal thing at some point as well. It seems a little weird. that the free speech advocates really don't advocate for free speech very much.

I just want to clarify, if you want to know what this is about, look at Charles's Twitter at Charles Firth. He did this long thread last night talking about it. I didn't know much of the detail, and he's not here presumably for legal reasons. Either that or he's touring around the country. So he's not even here to tell the story about what happened with the shot. But go and read his tweet,

because I know he got that tweet legaled, so I know that I won't speak for him because I wasn't part of the conversation. but he basically tells the whole story. And as against that, though, Sammy, the notion of using defamation actions to silence free speech is used extensively in Singapore, as I understand, multi-million dollar defamation suits

launched against opposition politicians. And as someone who likes travelling to Singapore, I think that's absolutely fine. I have no issue with it. And it's a functioning democracy that we should model ourselves on. What's your problem with politicians having the same right to sue Peace aunt comedians like us as anyone else. There's a defamation lawsuit going on in Pakistan right now.

It's a very big story. It's the biggest story in the country, one of the biggest stories in the country these days. And it's basically there's a musician and actor who was accused of allegedly sexually harassing and in some cases possibly sexually assaulting multiple women. And those women came out and said that he did that. And he has not put a defamation action against them for saying it. Many of them have had to withdraw their claims.

Others have had to leave the country because otherwise they'll end up in lawsuits and things. And I never thought it'd be so familiar between Australia and Pakistan. It seems like the gaps are kind of closing between the two. And I know a lot of people will be like, oh, Sammy's just doing hyperbole over here, just exaggerating. But am I? Really? Because right now I can't even name the giant dickhead whose last name is actually a verb for his very existence, who sued the shot because I don't want to end up in his legal thing because my Patreon subscribers

don't pay me enough money for a fucking defamation defense. Well, one of the things you'll see if you go and look at Charles's Twitter feed is that there's actually a group that is helping to fund defamation defenses against people in this situation. And I know that Charles is very grateful for that support because it is a chilling thing. I mean, we started this business as a tiny independent newspaper. We did get various threats back in the day.

And fortunately, we never had to pay out partly because they realized how few resources we had. but also because fortunately comedy is often useful it's hard to see people for a joke but when Tom makes a fact claim which is what the shop website does with our sister website yeah you do get into that territory and it is a chilling thing if your if your house is on the line and stephen may the founder of crikey had to sell or mortgage his house or something to fund a defamation payout back in the day this is a chilling factor for small independent publications we don't have big law firms on retainer. We don't have friendly barristers who'll take a percentage of the

profit, you know, if we win. Free speech is not guaranteed. It's not a right in this country really, to a surprising degree. Yeah, it turns out free speech is a very big thing that gets brought up whenever they want to call, you know, say something about a trans person, whenever they want to say something about women, whenever they want to say something about black people, minorities. You know, when they feel threatened by a footy player throwing an imaginary spear and they want to call him all kinds of racial insults, free speech is defended to the hilt. But other than those situations, it turns out free speech, really just an inconvenience. We don't even have the basic protection against farce that America has, thanks to

Larry Flint in the People v. Larry Flint court case that was called by Hustler. So, you know, we don't even have that. So at the very least, we need one of our pornographers to step up and fight for our rights because no one else is doing it. Well, I know that in the office some photos of some of the team have been going around. Maybe we can get involved in that. Isn't there talk of nude photos of Charles? That's what I saw. Oh, Charles, right.

I was, oh, Jesus. My blood just fucking. I'm the one who's going to be fronting the Charles Firth Onlyfans page. I've never seen Gabby break out into sweats so quickly. Nor have the people who subscribe to my only fans. Yeah, I mean, I guess the thing is when you go into politics, I've generally assumed that that involves having a thick skin. One of the things that happens when you're in politician is that,

that you get access to complete protection from being sued for defamation. We're under parliamentary privilege. And I've said to you before, Sammy, you should run for a... I know you don't want to give up your Pakistani citizenship, but I would just love you to be in the upper house in Victoria or something, so you can just basically do all the things you do now with complete protection from defamation. It's the only way to get it.

It's a great comedy set, too. That room is a really fun one to win over that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, clearly. They're big hecklers, but they're also big laugh at first. They really are. You know what? I really like. Okay, so I'm a comic book nut. I don't know if you know this about me. My appearance might give this away, but I love comic books. And in the comic book industry, for a very long time, there has been an organization called a comic book legal defense fund, CBLDF.

And the idea is, it doesn't matter what the claim is. If you're a comic book professional in America, in North America, you get legal protection from the place. And it's all purely volunteer funded, right? Wow. We need something like that in Australia now. Chesa has been, were you guys sued for the dogfucker claim? Are we allowed to say the ABC were involved in a whole legal settlement? Oh, are we talking about the one that we're definitely not making an NFT of?

I don't think I'm allowed to discuss. I actually genuinely think Dom's not allowed to, but Gabby and I can answer all of the questions. As people who were not there, yes, we are, and yeah, we're still working on the NFT for that bad boy. Well, that would be excellent because the tourism minister of Nauru, as I've called him in the past, is not a fan of you guys. But, you know, this is an age-old tradition. Even in Australia, in the 80s and 70s, there's a magazine called Oz Magazine, which was sued for farce. And so there's a long historical tradition in Australia of attacking comedians and comedy. Even though we don't like, you know, associating ourselves within too much, friendly Jody's case is a very good example of a way of a similar thing to some extent, kind of sort of maybe.

We got to do something, dog. We got to set up a comedian's legal defense fund here in Australia. got a Patreon this or Kickstarter it and we got to do something because inevitably first they came for the shot and I said nothing and then they came for Chaser and it was kind of funny when they did and then they came for me and now I'm broke and I don't have a house and I don't want that I don't want that point the Chaser report news you can't trust well there is a go fund me called it's hashtag enough the defamation defense legal fund and they've raised an extraordinary $231,000 at the time of us recording this chat.

So people, this isn't comedy specific. And Mark Lawyers, and we've talked to Michael Bradley, who's been a guest on the podcast before. He writes for crikey. He's from Mark Lawyers. They've been involved in defending some of these defamation actions. So they have a trust fund, which the, it's actually got more, it may have more money in it soon than Christian Porter's the way this is going.

So, gosh, I can see here, the first donation to this was Grace Tame put in to an half grand. So this is something that is being raised, but it's not a comedy-specific one. And the good thing about The Chaser in the past, Tammy, is that it was a bad look to sue a comedian. Particularly when all those comedians were lawyers themselves. Yes, well, there is that.

But, yeah, so that gives you, if you're making a joke and someone's suing over a joke, you look like a bad sport in Australia. But it's these factual claims that people make, and people like you who work between, I guess, journalism and... Well, that's what, new satire is. And that's what so much of what satire is. And that's why in the end, what is and isn't a factual claim, right? Well, there's a great Alan Moore saying,

which is the farce lives on even when the history dies. And that's what, that's what people are afraid of. They're afraid that when you call them a dog fucker, a hundred years from now, people will remember them as dog fuckers and not as hack journalists who've never done anything worthwhile in their life. In fact, I want to go a step further and say, if you're a journalist who's ever filed a defamation lawsuit against anyone, fuck yourself. Go fuck yourself. You can beep out his name here.

Peter Van Olselen or whatever the fuck you pronounce that fucker's last name as. He is a hack piece of shit who is completely got no ethics when it comes to the basics of journalism. Take it on the fucking chin. I've been caught all kinds of shit by all kinds of politicians, by all kinds of other journalists, by all kinds of people texting on the text signs when I'm on radio. I took it like a fucking adult because this is the game. play it or fuck off you cowards although i will say joe rogan's gotten ahead of that advice sammy

because he revealed this week that he can actually perform fallatio on himself so that's a win for defamation isn't i mean look who which teenage boy hasn't tried that so it's good to know joe rogan is finally reaching that part of it is yeah i mean whenever i hear joe rogan i i know that he's very self-satisfied i didn't know how literally true that was but um do you know Well, I actually think I have a solution to this, you know, because the thing about getting sued is they have to read out what you said in a court of law. And I think on the defense of like artistic integrity, everyone should just become musical comedians.

Oh. I think I've got it covered because they can't quote me unless they sing it. And you know what? Being defamed to be worth it to see the entire court system have to sing everything that I was, that I said. Be hilarious. That's how it works, isn't it? Yes, that's right. In a courtroom, they've got to.

They've got to sing if it's in a song. They can't, otherwise you don't get the jest of how insulting I said it. As Journey, don't stop believing, Gabby. Come on. Can I make them, I can make them sing it. I do not believe there was ever recording of the lawyer or George Pell's singing Cung Home Cardinal Pell. They do think they read it.

Okay, well, I'll give them something. Scott Morrison's a dickhead and then they have to sing it. Yep. I'm a believer. I look forward. forward to the Senate estimates. So, Sammy, I mean, I agree with you. You get in the ring.

You shouldn't be seeing people for defamation. I mean, I've been defamed in a way that was very embarrassing. And you just don't do anything about it. Where did Charles hurt you? Show me on the door, Dom. Where's the doll? Show me on the door. That was in school.

But, yeah, the Sydney Morning Herald said that I took my clothes off and ran through a courtroom. Did you? I didn't. It was Andrew and Julian. and my grandparents saw it and they were absolutely mortified. I mean, in the eyes of the law, it's just as bad to film people doing that as part of a TV show. But in the eyes of my grandparents, it was an important distinction. Yes, so, I mean, I could technically have sued them, I suppose.

But it's just, but it's just backfires. This is the Stryzan principle. When you sue someone for defamation, it almost, and Christian Porter, for all of his knowledge of the law, he's the first law officer in the country, it does not make the thing go, away. You might get an apology. You might even get damages, but you also get to be front page news. And the best way to do that is to sue

a comedian, right? And what we've seen, John Barrelaro is no longer in politics. They've talked to Christian Porter might not be any longer in politics. It's not a sensible strategy if you want to make something go away, which is what most people who sue for the information was.

You say you'll be in the news, but this is the thing I found really interesting. And I think it's something to do with it. I say this is journalists as well. There's a certain complicity between people in power and the newsrooms in Australia. And one of those examples is the fact that I did a Google search just before this podcast started today on Chaser plus defamation and Chaser plus Charles Firth plus the name of the person who, you know, threatened defamation against the shock. And there was nothing. The last news story was July of this year.

So even though yesterday, Charles put a great big thing on Twitter, not a single news channel and newspaper has picked that up as a story. It's a pretty big story that one of the premier satire publications in Australia who was threatened with defamation by a politician with a face like a fucking avocado that's been smashed. And so it's astonishing that that's not been posted up. Is it because journalists themselves are scared? That even reporting on what's happened might open them up to defamation lawsuits?

I don't know. He's pretty busy. I don't know how often he gets around to reading the rest of the news. You can tweet that part. You can beep that part out. Yeah, yeah. Like, when we're beeping what we just said. Yeah, I'm beeping a lot of what's back.

But everyone should know that it was a great thing. Today's episode is sponsored by the censorship. We might see if the enough defamation legal fund will pay for the legaling of this episode. Yeah. Like I can retain up. It is very challenging. And part of the problem is the lack of a right to free speech. To just get a little bit earnest about it.

We found that the High Court found that there's an implied freedom of political communication, that you're allowed to share information that voters need to make a decision. But that is definitely not a broad enough umbrella to cover what we do. You can't make jokes about politicians. And some might say that that is actually part of political discourse. If you can't make fun of politicians, then you're a much less free country. I always love that the chaser could go up to politicians on Election Day with a silly stunned and whatever. And we had a, we treated as that we had a right to be there, right? That was

actually something that we could do that was seen as part of the election process in Australia. And what we're seeing now at state and federal level is politicians using these laws to try and stifle criticism. And I've got to say, it's true, Sammy, that that particular case with Charles wasn't reported very widely, but most of the ones in the past year or so have been. I mean, certainly the Christian Porter lawsuit was one of the biggest news stories of the year. It's actually getting in the way of us being able to begin doing stunts. We wanted to get out there and do a stunt that may have involved calling someone a potato. And because the punchline that we planned on using for a particular prop we were going to be using...

I don't know about this. No, no, no, no. We were going to fly a plane above Canberra that said... Someone is a potato. And because of just the political nature of... that stunt and that bit, no one wanted to associate with it. We actually then fell through and weren't able to.

Lockland, if I in the audience am able to guess who you're talking about, saying, mm, doesn't help, by the way. Yeah, I actually think, I actually think parliamentary privilege

should extend to criticising politicians. I completely think it's just not, if you want that job, you've got to be able to put up with what your employers say about you. And we are the employers of all these people, though they forget it at times. But, yeah, this has all gotten very earnest. But this is incredibly important.

The system doesn't work if you can't make a claim about it. They get the right to say that you're wrong and you should have to apologize. I think that's true if you make a fat claim that's wrong. But the payouts, you can't do journalism if this is, you can't get insurance, you can't pay your rent. It's just not possible. Well, the only, the problem that this creates is it creates a two-tiered system, right? And that if you have the money to have a great defense lawyer and if you've got the money to have your defense, you know, your basic you know, if you lose the court case, for that to be paid out by maybe, let's say,

anonymous donors, you can say and do what you want. If you do not have those resources, then you're stuck. You're out of luck and you really have a limitation on what you can and cannot say. And so we end up with a two-tiered system where it comes to free speech, which is not how free speech work. Free speech shouldn't have a price tag attached to it, and that's where we are right now in Australia. And it seems like it doesn't seem to be bothering anyone.

Everyone's too focused on Dave Chappelle's latest special and where they sit on that, as opposed to the fact that we literally have a two-tiered free speech system in this country. Well, maybe we've just got to change the name of it. Maybe, like, free speech is too accessible or it's not bougie enough. Maybe we should have, like, free speech premium. This is Australia. To make people understand, it's got to make a free speech O. Or something add, like, an O at the end of the word.

Oh, yeah. Free speech plus. Or abbreviated. F.S. mate. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know what I find really funny about all of this, though, is that obviously comedians are a main target of politicians in this kind of defamation stuff. And like, we're a target of, like, I just kind of wish we could see the similarities. Like the similarities between being a comedian and being a politician are 10-fold.

They're like everywhere. Because I go into this job and I go, right, I know that people are going to really hate a lot of what I have to say. And because I hate myself, I know that that's a part of the job. I just think politicians need to catch up with that self-loathing that we all have so that they don't go after everybody who hates them. So maybe we just need to be mates with all the politicians and talk because everyone hates both of us. It's like, oh, I've been there, buddy. Yeah, some people don't like my material either.

The difference is my material doesn't create laws for the country and for its people. Well, you kind of sort of have that already. You know, you kind of, the comedians who are on the mainstream TV channels right now doing quote-unquote news satire who politicians in parliament say, I love that show, they're not really doing comedy, are they? They're just, they're just massaging egos with their jokes. Yeah, true. Bring back the Tenightly.

The Chaser Report, news you can't trust. So, in summary, Sammy, being a comedian talking about politics, it's only fundable by Patreon. No major, you know, media company is going to pay for it anymore. You've got to subscribe to Sammy's Patreon to help them actually do it. Yes. All listen to his News Weekly podcast and the ads will help as well. Same as that is it for us here.

And you can get sued. So why the fuck are we doing this? Why don't we all become... Do you want to form a hedge fund with us? I mean, look, right now the reason why I do this is it's a compulsion. It's either this. And if they look, here's the thing. If they take this way and they sue me and I can't pay and I go to jail,

I'll be doing open mic nights in the Wentworth. improv, you know, facility. That's just how it works with us, unfortunately. We're not comedians because we enjoy it. God know, that's for true. We're comedians because we don't know what else to do with ourselves because we're utterly useless human beings, much like politicians. Exactly.

Embrace each other and let's fight the common enemy, which is dogfucker. I reckon we buddy up, create a buddy system, and everybody gets a politician to bring on stage and now every single single comedian is a double act. Gladys is recently out of work I'll take her because our initials are the same It'll be great It'll be the GGBB show

Oh my God That's a great idea I'll teach you to sing it'll be fine Alternatively and I keep coming back to this Sammy Shah Member of the Victorian Legislative Council Your only brief being

To take the piss out of them all Getting paid handsomely And getting total legal protection For your comedy I'd have to give up my deal of citizenship And you know how much I love Going back to Pakistan Haven't been back at seven years

I don't know why I'm holding on that passport. Just in case. Yeah, you never know. You just schedule you're fleeing from both countries at the opposite times. It's a complicated way of committing suicide if I ever feel the need, basically. Just fly all the way to Pakistan, announce that I'm there, and then wait, you know. Oh, God, it's terrifying and funny at the same time. Quite like working in news phase to comedy.

If this resonates with you, support Sammy's Patreon. and seriously, and listen to his podcast. And there's the enough defamation defense legal fund. Just put in GoFundMe and enough defamation. And you'll be able to find that and fund it if that's your thing. If you are a rare listener with heaps of money. Yeah. Any blind trusts out there?

Thank you, Sammy. Really enjoyed that. Although I am going to have to disassociate myself from you once you get sued for this episode of the podcast. You're not the first and you won't be the last. Thanks, Dom. Thanks, everyone. our gears from red microphones.

We're part of the ACAST, Creator Network, back with the morning edition tomorrow.