The Chaser Report - Happy F Day!

Episode Date: December 3, 2020

Zoe Norton Lodge joins Charles, Dom and James of The Shovel in the social minefield that is every local playground. Also, we welcome Freedom Day – except Charles who reckons the end to Covid restrictions is destroying everything. Plus Rebecca De Unamuno with the latest headlines. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In times like these, it's important to know who you can trust. At last, a new source that's reliably reliable, informatively informational and never wrong. Unfortunately, you're not listening to it. Instead, you're listening to The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report. I'm Dom Knight. Charles Firth is here too.

James Schleffle is here from The Shovel once more. Hey, James. Hi, Dom. And Zoe Norton Lodge, who, We interviewed recently in the podcast, but she is here as a co-hosts. Welcome, Zoe. Great to have you back. Yeah, great to be back.

And so you're on Zoom. Where are you? I am in Sussex Inlet on a holiday. I've made a terrible, terrible mistake. I accidentally brought my children on this trip. You brought your children on holidays. That's a rookie era, Zoe. It's a huge rookie era because at home, there are four grandparents.

And here it's me, my husband, an 11-month-old and a three-year-old. It's the opposite of a holiday. And also, you don't even have all the toys and everything. No, I brought them. I brought so many toys that I actually had to sit like cross-legged to sit everything, you know, underneath us. We actually basically like, you know, like a sort of freak magic tricks, almost set up a bedroom as per at home. Oh, wow. That's very impressive.

So we've been having this issue because the childcare centre just said, hey can you please tell us when you're taking your daughter out over the holidays and we're just kind of going we're not taking her out no way we're putting a holiday should we want to pick up extra days you're very brave have they are they coping if they they're great stuff no they've been i'm being a bit facetious they're amazing they've been they've been delightful she legally has to say that because you know she doesn't want her kids taken over by docs yeah exactly yeah it's facts now by the way charles if you want to make that joke facts I'm surprised you don't know that, Charles, to be perfectly honest.

Coming up on the show, some good news in COVID Watch for once and several pieces of good news. No, no, it's not because I've got a complete disaster which is based on all the good news that's coming out of Australia that means that lockdown's no longer on. And Zoe, you were talking about playground ethics? Yeah, I wanted to discuss with you some sort of ethical dramas that I've witnessed and had myself in the playground. ground. Ooh, excellent. But before we do anything else, it's time to head to Rebecca Day in Amuno in the Chaser news room.

No, no, no, hang on. No, that's, no, we can't do the news this week, unfortunately. Well, that's, that's the most popular part of this podcast. Don't kid yourself. No, but bloody cam and all the riders on the Chaser are so lazy. We don't have any new headlines to do. Oh, the news has just stopped, has it? Well, we're very busy doing other things.

And we just don't have any news stories today. So I had to cancel to Rebecca. If only there was another satirical website, it represented on the show. Yeah, we're going to have a bit of an upgrade this week, guys, because we're going to get headlines from the shovel. Oh, really? Yes. At last.

Well, let's go to Rebecca Day and Menno from the, what, the shovel newsroom. One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, has moved emotion in the Senate, declaring that all Fridays matter, following an emotional speech in which she claimed the term Black Friday is racist against white people. Ms Hansen said she refuses to allow this blatant discrimination to continue and demanded that the government immediately reaffirmed that all Fridays matter. With legal options running out, Donald Trump's legal team has today claimed that Joe Biden illegally stole the election by getting more people to vote for him.

Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani told judges today that they are seeing a large-scale attempt by the electorate to install Joe Biden by stacking ballot boxes with their voting cards, suggesting Joe Biden received up to 5 million more votes than Donald Trump, using the corrupt method of counting everyone's votes. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been forced to self-isolate this week following an essential visit to Japan with only a personal photographer, PR advisor,

image consultant, makeup artist, four social media managers and empathy coach to keep him company. A spokesperson for Mr Morrison said the Prime Minister was required to follow quarantine rules like every other Australian who have also been allowed to isolate in a 40-room mansion with a team of public relations experts. That's all the latest from the Shovel Newsroom. Be sure to check out the shovel.net.com for more updates.

Thanks, Beck, and may I say that's a very big upgrade on your usual service. Well done, James Leffel and the Shovel team. Thank you. It's not a joke. There was just genuinely better. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. The Chaser Report, sponsored by Summer. It's always such a great season.

Remember last years? The Chaser Report. News you know you can't trust. And now it's time for the first ever, mostly optimistic edition of COVID Watch. Big news in New South Wales. Monday is Freedom Day.

Gladys is rolling back a lot of the restrictions. We're going to almost return to life as normal in that state. Yeah, it's a very odd name. Freedom Day. who came up with that brand the F day oh yes that famous day F day

it sounds very American and can I just say because I'm obviously from Melbourne and I've spent the last week in Sydney and I've got to tell you it doesn't feel like anything is different from normal life here in Sydney

so I'm not sure what's actually going to change because compared to Melbourne over the last couple of months where we've just been in total lockdown this feels like it's glorious but you don't realise Sydney you know

once we have our freedom back we'll be able to not go to the pub after 9pm every night. Oh, that's what you're looking forward to. Yeah. Getting back to normal. Yeah, yeah. I thought that there was more people out and about than New Zealand, Sydney. So this is actually about rolling things back.

Yeah, getting back to pre-COVID levels. Okay. Yeah, there'll be basically no restrictions at pubs or restaurants, except that we've killed almost all them and the ones that are still open and no fun. So other than those restrictions, we can go wherever we want. Except for all the restrictions that Sydney always has. Yeah. Yeah.

So, you know, like, you know, whereas. under the strict laws, there was no live music. Now, live music is allowed, but there's still no live music. Yeah, the true story, I went to my local pub for lunch today. I was the only patron and the staff seemed genuinely surprised that anyone had walked in. It was just, I was like, yep, Sydney pub. But that was true before COVID, wasn't it?

That's actually true. That is true. I know that pub. Now, are you looking forward to F day? Oh, gosh, I've got some big things. plan for F-Day. Yeah, I'm going to like just run around singing about my freedom. When is it? Monday. Monday. Oh, Monday. Oh, gosh, F-Ds really come around, come around quickly. Before Christmas. We get F-day before Christmas. You do. And look, the great news for family Christmas.

So what are the rules? Well, the great news for family Christmas is that the numbers can go right up. You know, 50 people on a dance floor and no up a cap on the number of people are allowed to funerals. So that's great news. Oh, lots of fun. So I guess the bad news is that lots of people can come to family Christmas, probably more than before. Yeah, that would have been great. Wouldn't that have been great to keep those numbers really, really capped just through Christmas to be like, I'm so sorry, none of you jokes can come to my house. One of the strange rules, though, is that because there's a lot of things are allowed.

You know, football, you can 100% go. The cricket test is going to be all good and so on. But singers in indoor religious services and concerts have to wear masks. So you can go to your church, but the choir will have masks. You can go and see singers. If Beyonce was touring, she'd be wearing a mask. Like, is that a bit of a strange one? What?

Really? She's not touring. No, when people do live music now, they're not wearing masks, are they? I don't think that's true. I think that's religious. Unless you're saying Beyonce is some sort of queen. She is. Or religious, God.

a god of pop. I'm going to check this while we speak. No, I think you're just wrong. Do you know the one that I found interesting was that you can now have up to a hundred people at a picnic? Who the fuck has a hundred people to a picnic? I mean, that's... Well, in Sydney, you don't get ten.

That's a big picnic. That's a lot of humus you've got to buy it. It's a lot of goats cheese, isn't it? Is there a limit on orgies anymore? So what, there's a one person per two square meter rule, so you can have a very spread-out orgy. have a sort of stadium-based orgy. But look, it is good news.

And even more good news from the UK, they've actually approved a vaccine. They're the first, I guess, sort of Western country that we normally respect, although not at the moment, but they've approved the Pfizer vaccine. They're going to start rolling it out almost immediately. So there's an end potentially to this nightmare if you trust the NHS. But we've already eliminated it in Australia.

It doesn't really affect us, does it? Yeah, but that's just. Like because you're not allowed to travel anyway because of all the, you know, all the things you've done. But for the rest of us, it would be good if we could leave Australia. I mean, it'll suck if the only place you can go to the UK, though. I mean, that's really unfair. I'm not going to like that.

But look, the good news just keeps coming. The recession as of today is officially over. The COVID recession is over, 3.3% growth. So the economy's all fine. All those closed shops and restaurants everywhere are just an obstacle illusion. Oh, we're back. We're back. Right. Okay. Well, that's good. But hang on, didn't we contract by 7% earlier on in the year?

So we're now 3% smaller than we were six months ago, but we're back. Supposedly. And the government's very excited about this. Well, I'm sure all the unemployed, the hundreds of thousands of unemployed people are also incredibly excited about the economy being back and that is a 3%. Do you know what it feels like we need? a marketing campaign. Yes. Funny you say that. The government's gone to an advertising agency.

Go figure because they're never unemployed. And they've come up with comeback as the line. So the government in question time on Wednesday used the word come back 20 times. I know why. Because Skone's about to pop off to Hawaii again. Come back.

It's not come back. It's come back. Come back. Is that the best slogan we can think? I mean, that was probably paid good money for that. Yeah, there was a figure. Was it $50,000, $500,000 or $50,000? It was a lot of money we paid for that one word.

It seems like quite a lot, yeah. For something that would be ordinarily described as a comeback. As just something you'd say. Is that all you got? Did it like come with fries or anything or was it just come back? I don't even know if it's come back exclamation mark. I think it's just comeback. Couldn't afford the explanation mark.

That was. It sounds rude. Yeah, it does. You can talk you about orgies before you. Come back. It's like a buyback scheme for water, but comeback. But so I don't quite know how to process this. I mean, I'm not ready to be like with sweaty people in a nightclub or whatever,

which is unlikely anyway. Dom, dumb, sweetheart, were you ever ready to be with sweaty people in the nightclub? Well, this is the thing. I feel like my social anxiety has really worked well the past few months. So I'm not really ready to be cast aside and made to feel different. Yeah. So you don't have to go to a nightclub. That's fine.

You can just continue on like you've done for the rest of your life, not going to nightclubs. It's totally fine. Oh, thank God. Yeah. And no one's going to say, come back. No, no. They're not going to be like, Dom, come back.

Yeah, it'll be go away, just like always. The Chaser Report, news a few days after it happens. The Chaser Report is brought to you by summer. It's time to hit the ski slopes and go. Oh, wait a minute. No, it's winter, isn't it? The Chaser Report. News you know you can't trust.

I've been holding this in while Dom talks about all the happiness and, you know, Zwa de V that's around because we've, you know, got rid of, we've got a Freedom Day and COVID's gone. It's almost eradicated in Australia now. It's extraordinary. Which I hate because the whole thing is it's completely scuttled one of my business plans.

Oh God, not again. So I don't think James is actually involved in this. one, but I'm not quite sure. James. James Schleffel. I'm not quite sure he's aware of just the catastrophe that we're facing here, which is, so as you may or may not know, we're doing a end-of-year show, a series of videos called The War on 2020, right? And the whole thing is that usually we'd go out and tour around the country, but we couldn't do that this year because of COVID, right? Well, we thought that we weren't going to be able to have a national tour.

So we instead got a bit of money from Screen Australia and we did this quite lavish production making up, you know, 13 videos. And the idea was we'd sell tickets and show them on Zoom to thousands and thousands and thousands of people who would otherwise buy tickets to our live shows. And, you know, we'd all be rich, right? Right. And so the whole thing is we've done this. It's like I've paid for the lavish production of all the videos.

It's a screen Australia did. The Australian people. No, but the fatal flaw. The taxpayer. The taxpayer. Let's go on. Sorry, screen yesterday put some money in. But the fatal flaw is that the whole part of the financing of this bloody thing

was that we were going to sell thousands and thousands of tickets to the bloody live stream show. Guess how many tickets we've sold? How many have we sold to us? Oh, God. 27? We've sold 350 tickets as of today. 350 tickets.

Now, so normally we would sell about 13 or 14,000 tickets to a national tour, right? And so I thought, I'm not an idiot, right? I thought, oh, we can sell at least a couple of thousand, right? You know, and I put, like, it actually was conservative and thought, you know, Even if we only sell, you know, like a thousand tickets, it won't be too ruin us. Like, we'd break even type thing. The good news, though, is that now that you've mentioned it on this podcast, and I think how many people listen to this podcast, probably two or three million, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah. So you have to get a very small proportion of those people buying tickets now. So are you saying, James, that they should just head straight to chaser.com. That would be a new way to do it. I'm just noticing how. It's been an increasing trend in previous weeks, and I think this is the most heinous episode ever that while getting paid

some sort of amount to do this podcast Charles has now just transformed the podcast into an opportunity to spook other stuff I mean it was funny when they were mugs

and they'd smashed they were funny when it was beach towels from a joke from 12 months ago it was funny when it was 8,000 rolls of toilet paper but this is just

gratuitous and you're just bragging about your normal ticket sales but you know no no but you know that so but the PR person sorry I was sorry, Zoe wants to pile on as well.

Sorry, I'll let... Oh, yeah, excuse me. Don't, like, fucking let... Dom, you make a mistake because that was the most depressing thing I have ever heard, and it has done nothing but alienate anybody. Anybody who was remotely considering buying a ticket,

now their, like, credit card has, like, shriveled up and disappeared because I would... I've never been... I'm in some of the sketches, and I tell you what, watching them now. Like, I'm, I am sad. I am melancholic from that sprook. That was the worst sprook. It was the saddest thing I have ever heard. I've just been thinking more about it. And it seems that the pitch is, you've already paid for the sketches through taxes,

for Scrant Australia. Pay us more money for something that is basically like watching a free YouTube video. But the whole thing is, it was a deal. They're like Screen Australia put in some money, but then I put in, well, the Chase it put in a whole. whole lot of other money on the basis that we'll make all the money back in ticket sales. And that's the thing that hasn't happened. Charles, this is why, Dom, this is why Charles mustn't go to Hawaii to help a startup. Yeah. That's a very, very good point.

No, but the whole, but the thing is, but the problem is that people are getting freedom days. Like I talked to the PR guy who's in charge of spruiking this and he said, oh yeah, nobody is interested. Like, nobody in Australia is buying Zoom tickets anymore because they're all fed up with Zoom. They want to go to live events. And I'm going, this is a live event, but no, they want to be actually in person.

And they're allowed to now. So, this is the most disastrous. So, Charles, but I'm impressed because when you did just go my Hawaii towels, that was 12 months behind, you're now six months behind. Because in April, tickets to a Zoom event, I mean, that was the thing that people were doing back when the whole country was under lockdown. Well, when they put together the business plan. Hmm.

Yeah. Anyway, so the point, no, it's just, yeah. So the whole point is that I've sunk all these costs. I'm not getting them back. It's a complete disaster. You've got to buy tickets. Well, Charles, what if you hired some theatres? Yes.

And people paid to sit and watch your Zoom video in the theater. Would that work maybe? It's a slightly less crap experience. I love it. I love it. I'm going to do that. I tell you what, why don't you just mug people and then force them to watch your videos? Well, or what if you, what if you,

you screen the stuff and Zoe and I and Craig and everyone else from The Chaser will come and live explain why it's an incredibly stupid idea. I think that would be a great event. Well, that would still think it. But, no, and look, I do have a bit of an announcement about it. So, you know, just to make people, you know, to wet their appetise. Oh, is it cancelled? Yeah. No, which is, which is that we are. Can I tell you, appetites are so dry. There's no way. them from here. It's fucking over. The cards are shibble, remember?

We are going to, we have booked a venue to actually do it live and we are going to have a small COVID safe audience live with us. Oh, you managed to book it. Yep, that's great. We booked the four seasons. Oh, great. Oh, it's exactly like I said, the hotel. No, good.

Charles, it's the four seasons title landscaping. Yep. Ah. Should we need a separate podcast for your business. ideas. Is that the kind of amazing political satire that we can expect to see from these sketches? Yeah, their reference was only two months old. Jeez, you know what, if you get to 351 by tomorrow, let me know, because I reckon you're going to get a couple of refunds in. I reckon by the next time we chat, you'll your ticket sales

will be about. No refunds are allowed. No refunds allowed. The Chaser Report, now with extra whispers. The Chaser Report, sponsored by summer. If you have to name your kid after a season. The least bad one is summer. The Chaser report. Less news, less often. As I've mentioned, I'm on holiday with my children and one of them is wheeling a tip truck back and forth outside this room over and over and over again. You can feel it with Summer Charles' unsold tickets. Oh, great. Like the wheelbarrow is full of like inflated money. That's a lovely image. Yeah, so look, speaking of my kids, you know, like, I don't know about you, but the older I get, I feel like largely I have less

and less social hangups. Do you guys feel that way? Yes, definitely. Like, even public nudity is just not a problem. And you never had many hangups to start with. Oh, yeah, wait a minute. I never had to hang out with public nudity. Yeah, but, you know, and so I kind of felt like things were getting, you know,

I was getting more and more chill about stuff. And then I've also heard that when you have kids, you really just let it all go. You just don't care about anything anymore. Like you just, you know, you just kind of accept everything. You don't have that sort of anxiety anymore. But no, it's not true because I've recently realized that, so I've got a three-year-old and an 11-month-old.

And I've recently realized that playgrounds are an absolute social minefield. Do you guys find this? Yes. Yes. Because kids just sort of are kind of idiots, right? Totally idiots. Yeah. And they just kind of do whatever they're going to do.

They just sort of like, they don't really kind of follow like, you know, polite societal rules, but they're kind of being chaperoned by people like us who have to sort of, you know, at least pretend to. And I never know what to do. So I don't know what to do if like, you know, what do you do if like a kid, so my kid's like playing with a car and a kid comes along and takes that car. Like, what do you do you just, a lot of the flies, you just let it, do you just let it be? Do you take it off the kid? Is that insane to take a car off another kid? Like, what do you do?

Isn't the whole point that you've just got to do whatever looks like would be good parenting in the eyes of the other parents who are observing you? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, that is so true. But it's like playing like four-dimensional chess and I don't know. Like, I'm so sort of nervous and confused. I don't know what they think.

Oh, okay. So it's sort of eight-dimensional chest in a way. Yes, okay. Isn't the whole point that my approach is always being, you sort of do all the responsible things like, oh, don't you think that maybe you should, you know, do this, but you always put your thumb on the scale for your own kid. That's my approach to, you know what I mean?

Like you sort of help them out, help them navigate whatever they've done wrong, but you sort of for them. Is that? Yeah. But, like, also, are you ever, like, secretly fighting, like, a burning, like, hatred for anybody who wrongs your kid? Oh, other children are awful. All of them. All of them are awful. That's true. Yeah. Yeah, particularly kids who, like, I'm very bad at just being snippy. So I'm several times, once the playgrounds are open, I was like, because there's always that kid that stays on the swing way too long, like just far longer than anyone should ever hog anything.

And so I just always stand there and was like, well, that kid seems for having. a nice time on the swing. I guess we'll just stand here. It's completely ineffective. It's my sort of British heritage of just being stupidly formal. And of course, the kid doesn't pick up on the subtle hints that I'm dropping, but I can't stop. So I never say, hey, can you give my kid a go? Then I think would actually do anything. I just get frosty and huffy. And I don't get anywhere. I don't know what to do. There is a lot of passive aggressiveness, isn't there, in the playgrounds in Australia. And I wonder, like, I wonder in a more kind of outward culture, maybe America, are they, Are they more up front?

Excuse me, sir. I think they would be. I think they'd just come out with it. Get your kid up to swing. Oh, you're so right. You're so right. They'd be so much better at it. They'd be so much better.

I thought, so like, we, so we picked Roo up from, um, my kid up from daycare recently. And we didn't realize until he got home that he had this like huge, um, bite mark, right? And I know kids bite, like, that's what they do. And they're not, do you know, like, they're not allowed to tell you who bit the kid, and I kind of always knew this rule that, like, they don't tell you who did it. Really? Yeah. It's like a mafia rule.

Is it? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think it's because, like, I think it's because it's, okay, I'm sort of, I don't actually know. I'm kind of guessing, but I would guess it's because it's fairly common behavior. And they don't want you to sort of, you know, develop really intensely negative feelings about another child and to potentially act on them in some way or tick them off or

whatever or tick off their parents or or try to get some sort of retribution or or something like that especially as biting is attention seeking behaviour so the whole thing is it's the weirdest thing because I think one of our kids went through a biting phase and the whole point is you're supposed to sort of not pay attention to it while at the same time making it very clear that you're not supposed to bite your child it's a really complex it's a 16 dimension chess It is. It is because, like, if the rule is you're not supposed to pay attention, then you're just letting a kid hurt another kid.

Yes. Yes. So that's why. Yeah. Because no sane adult would go, oh, by the way, you know, like if you told them, oh, by the way, James is the kid who's biting your son. No sane adult is going to go, well, we'll just let that slide. Is that because I'm 40 years old?

That's right. Yeah. That'd be pretty weird. That would be. So isn't your whole TV show about not judging someone by the one bad moment, and you've got to put it all in perspective? So sure, little Sean is, you know, biting chunks out of kids, but he does lovely paintings.

Yeah, I don't think Sean is going to be on reputation rehab. Yeah, but like I got honestly, like, I'm so glad. I'm actually really glad I don't know who bit my kid because I got so angry at this straw man, like, And I'm like, I'm glad I don't know which two-year-old that is. They don't need to feel the wrath of a really angry, like, mom. So the problem I have is the opposite, which is that my daughter comes with all kinds of slights that I think are probably untrue.

So she's always saying, oh, someone pushed me or whatever, and I'm skeptical. And then on the weekend, we went to visit some friends and who also have a two-year-old. And the two-year-old was lovely to my daughter and let her play with all of her toys. and then at the end of the whole little play date my daughter was playing this little toy elephant and just wouldn't give it back to leave and then when we made her give it back for the rest of the day she kept saying

you know dad are Sophie took my elephant away from me and it's like it was never your elephant darling it was never your elephant it's Sophie's elephant this is just so she will not concede she's like Donald Trump she just keeps going keeps saying it over and over again and in her head it's her elephant now

She's going to make a good columnist for the Herald son, isn't she, one day? So I don't know. I'm worried that my child is like a serial liar. Oh, they're all liars. They're all liars. Like when I say to Roo, like, Roo, you know, I'm going to change your nappy. He will which look me straight in the eye and say, I already changed my nappy.

I like that. That's amazing. Well, that's very good. It's advanced. Did he? Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, no, he did. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, he's a genius.

He's a genius, my three-year-old. I think Donald Trump used to say that as well, just that confidence. Yeah, he got Rudy Giuliani to change his day before. Really liked it. Oh, that's what was running down his head, was it, in that sweaty conference? None of the medical advice contained in the Chaser Report should legally be considered medical advice. The Chaser Report.

That's almost time at the end of the show, although we should check in with the Chasing Newsroom to see if there's a light-breaking. No, because there's no, there's no Jaser News headline. because our writers are so lazy. Okay, well then instead, maybe we'll head to the shovel newsroom. Maybe there's some break-in news there, James. Let's do it. New reports have been released today by the federal police

suggesting crime syndicates have begun using the federal government's COVID-safe app to guarantee they will never be tracked down by authorities. One criminal insider, who cannot be named because he provided his details via COVID-safe, said criminals have spent years trying to come up with a way to become entertained. and he never would have guessed the government would do it for them. Big thanks for our producer, Mike the Barralle. You can get more Chaser.com.com. When the writers actually write some or go to the shovel.com.com.

Which seems to have no trouble updating itself with quality content. I'll catch you next time right here on The Chaser Report.