The Chaser Report - Happy No-Mo-ScoMo Anniversary!

Episode Date: May 21, 2023

It's been one year since Labor won government, so it's time to answer the only question that matters: was it easy under Albanese? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal 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. Happy anniversary, Charles. Yay! One year of the Albanese government, which means it's one year since the Morrison government ended. And I must say, Charles, looking back on the past 12 months, it seems that several of the most egregious scandals of the past 12 months, involved Scott Morrison.

So I've got to say, congratulations soon for having such a long tail. He may not have been Prime Minister, but the multiple ministry stuff, the Robo Debt, all the legacy that he's left is just, I mean, it's made the Albanese government's first year very enjoyable for the Albanese government, I'm imagining. Well, this is the thing that is really interesting

about Scott Morrison, and I think more interesting than his predecessors, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull, right, which is the more distance you get from him, the weirder he feels. It's like one of those 3D paintings, right? Like those magic eye things. I don't know. It's not like that at all.

The more you look at him, the less you can see. He's a really... Oh, I see what you mean. I think he's going to be... Like I think in 20 years' time, we're going to go, what the hell was Australia thinking? Because he sort of... Well, it was very clear what Australia was thinking, Charles, to be fair.

I mean, it's not that hard to remember. They were thinking, no, Bill Shorten, thank you very much. His campaign based on higher taxes somehow fell flat, rather than going, as, like, it was pretty obvious even then that what you do is you don't make any terrifying promises that they can run against you on. And then ahead of your second term, that's when you start to do this stuff that's a little bit more challenging, like John Howard with the GST. Yes.

Rudd and Howard and now Abernesey all did the same formula of small target. And Short was like, nope, I'm going to trust the Australian people with my plan. And that's why Scott Morrison was prime minister. Yes, you're right. For another three years. And then actually, just thinking about it, he almost immediately started failing, didn't he? Like, before COVID, there was the bushfires, you know, and all he's, you know, going to Hawaii. That's true.

Anyway, so, but. But we're supposed to be talking about the Albanesey government. those 12 months, which have been made dramatically easier by Scott Morrison. Yes, that's true. More of that after this break. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore?

FIS is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at FIS.C. So the point being, I reckon, like, you can sort of, in terms of a report card of how the first year has gone on, you've got to say incredibly boring B student, don't you think? I mean, isn't that the aim? Yes.

Isn't the aim? Yes. And Albany's done a bunch of first anniversary interviews over the course of the weekend, which generally say, we're going to try for an act. What are you talking about? Progressives, get back in your box. But I think that we've been so trained over the last, say, several thousand years to expect that our rulers will just immediately break all their promises.

That's true, actually. That it is very weird and very sort of discombobulating, seeing Anthony Albernese generally follow his promises. Yes, even on the stage three tax cuts, actually. Really, given how much the economic conditions have changed since they were legislated, as he keeps reminding us, like his line is, oh, but it's the law of the land at the stage three tax cuts. We couldn't possibly change that. I mean, everything else will reform.

Yeah, I mean, the whole point of government is, of course, to change the laws of the land. But quite aside from that little tiny detail that when you become government, you can actually change. And then in actual fact, if people vote for change, then they probably expect change. Yes, but he said he wouldn't do it. And this is the thing. This is the thing that's so interesting. I mean, he has actually ticked off a lot of things that they said that they do. Things like the Federal ICAC, changes to industrial laws, the artist policy.

There are a bunch of things that they've kind of been quietly going on and doing. But in some of the areas where they campaign hardest, things like certainly job seeker and the biggest ones probably climate change, it's been, it's certainly been slow and steady winds, maybe not the race, but positive courage from me. News Corp, well, that didn't really happen. It's been a win for the fossil fuel industry, let's face it. Funny how that always seems to happen. Look, I think, well, should we talk about the new coal mine? Have we talked about the new coal mine on this podcast? The new coal mine, there's so many.

It's hard to remember which one you mean. We did talk about how she approved several things on the same day. Tendia, Philadelphia, the Environment Minister, probably not the most delighted member of the first year. I think she's had a worse first year than most. I've seen a lot of ministers on social media poweredly printing all these graphics with all the things that they've done.

I haven't seen where the tenure's done one of those. No. It's a lot of coal. But there are a lot of little things. I want to talk about the little things. Why don't you talk about the little things? By the way, just to correct the record. Let me read this out before we get to the little things. Tanya Pliber'sek on Instagram.

We've achieved a lot for the environment in our first year. Committed to protecting 30% of our lands and oceans by 2030, legislated a path to net zero, double the number of renewable energy projects. Zero new extinctions is their target, have you heard of that one? Zero extinction. That one, zero extinctions, including Tenia. I think Tenia is the top of the list of people who doesn't want to become. I would think she's very endangered in her seat here.

And there's a whole bunch of other things on the list, recycling, building a circular economy and so on. Doesn't say anything about the coal mines. I can't see a single graphic here saying approved a bunch of coal mines and, you know, kept the Darnie and all the other things. That's so weird But there's lots of pictures of her with trees Why would you not? Look here she is in some sort of wetland Is she chopping down the trees?

That's the Great Barrier Reef She's holding the little girl's hand In the outback Maybe she's telling her Don't worry you can work at the coal miner We're opening around the corner I'm not sure So but there are

Well on tenure She counts as one of the little things right One of the things that Tanya's done In the last year is declare that that sort of Macquarie Island. Yes, that's actually mentioned in the list here. Right. It's going to be a marine sanctuary, right?

And that is actually important to the future wealth of the entire globe. Because actually that sub-Antarctic, which Australia has a responsibility for, is responsible for 75% of the ocean's nutrition. Oh. Like all the sort of nutrients that come, you know, that other fish eat all around the world come from the Sub-Ban Antarctic. It's an incredibly rich, nutrient-rich, sort of ecosystem. And so what's the Engadene McDonald's of...

Yes, and so the fact that they're going to turn it into a marine sanctuary, it's going to piss off the whole lot of fishing people. But actually, it's incredibly important. And then the other little thing that I just wanted to know is I walked into a bank on Thursday to try and set up a bank account. And the guy, the teller was unnecessarily chatty to me. Well, they don't know how much to do these days. No, yeah.

I think he was trying to... Oh, my God, a few human customers walk in the bag. And he was saying that the moment, because I said, have you noticed any change between Labor and Liberal? Like, once Labor got in any... Gosh, you're in touch with the people, Charles? No, it's because he was sort of going, oh, I've got to do all this know-your-customer stuff,

you know, anti-money laundering stuff. I don't remember that ever being a thing where they've got to know all your numbers and everything. No, in fact, Scott Morrison was very much against checking the details of applications. For instance, jobs. Yeah, well, these ministries. Well, imagine Scott Morrison walking into the bank.

He'd have to show like five different identities for all these ministries and everything. But no, so he says, no, the moment Labor got in, April, which is the prudential authority that oversees banks. Bank regulator, yeah. You just suddenly cracked down on all this know-your-custom stuff. That's why we've got to be all strict about it. That's pretty funny.

I got this call from the Commonwealth Bank saying, we need all your details about the Chaser Bank account, which I never operated. I don't know. It's so bizarre. I've never been involved in the bank account of the Chaser, or at least as far as maybe there's a shell bank account with my name on somewhere. There wouldn't be any money in it.

In fact, I inquired and there wasn't. Yeah, it was closed about 10 years ago. But nevertheless, good work, CDA, very thorough. That's good. That's very good. Impressive. Hang on, is there a show company? I need to find it about it.

Anyway, let's talk off the podcast. Anyway, so that's, so what are we going to say, B plus, B minus? I mean, the thing that Tanny didn't put in that little montage on Instagram was she didn't put, turned up to work each day despite everything, which is probably her biggest achievement over the past 12 months.

The person who was going to be Deputy PM, with Bill Shorten, was going to be education minister, and now has to approve Commer. Yes. And apparently my understanding, the gossip is that actually a lot of those announcements that she's being forced to make are coming direct from Alvo's office. That essentially he's just piling it on. Yeah, exactly.

Well, you know what, Charles, the amazing thing is that if it ever becomes all too much, either just for a weekend or a week or on a permanent basis, she can go to the Macquarie Island Marine Sanctuary and there's no internet access there. There's nothing there, I think. And she can just have a break. And it is true. Like the Environment Minister, of all the ministers, I think, is actually one of the most powerful ministers in terms of a lot of stuff. She personally has to approve for things to progress.

Yeah, they've got a lot of discretion so that when the coalition's in power, they can waive things through personally. Yes. And get, the great thing is if you're going to a donor who wants something approved. Yes. And you're the person who can personally wave it through. Yes. It's a lot easier to get a big check. So maybe she should just start that grift.

Like maybe the problem is she's sort of resisting her power. Oh, and so if she's being sent, I don't know if it's true, but she's being told by head office by the PMO approve this thing. She should be going to the donors and saying, look, it's up to me. Yeah. I haven't made my mind up. What do you reckon? Got any checks?

I wonder whether that's what she did with Macquarie Island. She went to the Penguins and said, well, come on, Emperor Penguins. What are you up for me? I mean, look, how long has it been since a brown paper bag full of money was last seen in Labor headquarters, but we did Sam Das Tari resign. So there you go. Alba's government is one. Yeah, and look, he's

clearly aiming to be there for a long time. Yeah. The problem is don't you think that he's sort of positioned himself as a centre... Like, politically, he's brilliant, right? Like, he's positioned himself as a centre-right party. The Liberal Party have nowhere to go. The

grains will end up becoming quite big, I think. Well, that would actually be a huge accomplishment. And you know what? If during the course of his term as Prime Minister, Labor becomes the main centre right party and the Greens become, because Labor is obviously, let's be fair to them, their policy is very different from the coalitions. And the Greens become the centre-left party or the left party. All that the Liberals have left is the let's pick on First Nations people angle, which seems

to be what they're doing, focusing on it. Well, I don't think that's a very, I mean, this is Australia. I think it's got a long history of working. They're probably still the centre people. While they're saying no to the voice, they're probably still the same time again. Oh, man. Oh, Tom.

I know, I know. Look, no, the polls aren't that bad. I feel like the voice at this stage in the process is exactly the sort of, we're sick of the whole thing, endorsement that same-sex marriage had, wherever, everyone's just like, oh, yeah, okay, whatever. And that's actually, by the Australian people's standards, that's a ringing endorsement. Did you see Noel Pearson on Friday going up against Mick Guder? Yeah, I saw the comments reported.

It was unbelievable. I mean, where's that? That's what I want to see on Q&A. With all respect to standing ground, it's a sad situation. That's what Q&A should be. It should be a cage match. Yeah. People are really disagreeing.

Wouldn't that be fun? But you don't want a moderator, Charles? We'll just play a little grab of Noel Pearson's appearance on ABC Radio on Friday morning. This is from our own breakfast, yeah, from our own breakfast. And on the nights when there was a scary movie like The Exorcist or, you know, the night of the living. dead. We were prone to wetting the bed. And this is what little Mickey Good has done here. He's wetting the bed far too early in the day. See, that's the sort of, like, just personal attack that we haven't seen in a politician since Paul Keating.

I reckon Noel Pearson is the first politician, or a political figure, not politician, but the person since Paul Keating to actually just get down in the... the mat and just punch people in the face. Have that much of addressing. Yes, and it's so entertaining. Peter Dutton must have saw that and just thought, I can't. I know I'm a Queensland cop, but I can't compete with this sort of. I think what, I think that the Labor Party needs to recruit Noel Pierce,

although is he a lib or is he? I'm not sure. I mean, he might be ill. If he's wise, he probably hasn't really played his cards. Right. But I want to do a Warren Mundine and be the federal president of Labor and then the coalition candidate and then the face of the Nogam. And that's an odd trajectory to have had.

But what I'm saying is, let's get rid of. of elbow and have Noel Pearson as our Prime Minister, because it would be so much more entertaining. Charles, you see, you wouldn't do that. You wouldn't. Now, this is Australia. Have you learnt nothing from Stan Grant's comments over the weekend? You're not going to have an Aboriginal man running a thing. That's just not the way this country works.

You're not going to have Stan Grant, for instance, being the managing director of the ABC, or on the board, or have anything other than someone who they trundle out when they want to have a bit of acknowledging the kind of fact of the coronation. That's what he's there for. You bring him out. Bring him for Q&A. You don't put him in charge. That's just not how Australia works.

The managers are white. It's just the system. Yeah. That's... So if you feel a little bit depressed and... That's just sort of where we are, isn't it? I mean, look, it's been a... We've come a long way since the days of multiple ministries

and the vaccine debacle. At least we're not in lockdown, Charles. Yeah, look, I think... So what I was about to say, just to complete my thought about, you know, Alboe, aiming to be a long-term government. Oh, yes. That's his whole idea, his slow and steady wins the race. Which is what he's done so far. Yeah, and just always say what you're going to do and then do it and promise, you know, except for poor people and stuff of that.

You don't need to hold those promises. But you know, like... The point is he got out of the council flat, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then, and staying in the lodge. as long as possible. The thing that I'd say is he has to become better at telling a story

for that to work, right? Like, he has no story. Like, the Labor Party have no story. Like, I think one of the reasons why it's sort of hard to work out, well, what did they do in their first year? It's because there's no overarching story about, oh, well, we got in and we want, like, who are they governing on behalf of?

What are they doing? What are they, what's the... You know the funniest thing? The funniest thing is that the answer to that question, if you're a News Corp journalist or the coalition, you'll say the unions, you'll say the workers, you'll say the poor. Yeah. Thank you for your patience.

Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore? Fizz is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. The Chaser report. Less news.

Less often. Wages have gone backwards in real terms greater in the last year than in the last 20 years. Like this is the worst wage, real wage growth in 20. Well, it's actually going backwards for the first time in 20 years. Like, there is. Not for elbow, personally. You're doing all right. But there is, there's no story there.

What is the story? I don't know what the story is. What's his story? His story is, I'm not going to frighten the horses. I'm not going to freak you out. I'm not one of those scary firebrand lefties. I don't fight Tories anymore. If anything, I go and speak at their luncheon functions.

So the story is you've actually got somebody vaguely competent in charge. You know what he's turning into? He's turning into, and I'm not. He's turning into the Labor John Howard. Because the genius of John Hald was, until his final term, until his fourth term, he just, whatever policy setting he needed to get 51% of the people on board, he did. And that's where Arbo is. Albo just wants to have a slim majority with doing the kinds of things,

nothing hugely radical that people might like. And the opposition's absolutely nowhere, just as, I mean, Albo's doing what you need to do to create a Simon Crean opposition left. But Albo did, like he's doing a sort of reverse Howard. Because Howard did the intervention in his last term and did all that stuff to First Nations people and made that a huge thing about his, whereas Albo is sort of doing a reverse intervention in his first term. Does that mean that in Albo's fourth term, he'll start handing all the guns back? Is that how it worked this the other day?

Could be. But this is the thing, if the goal, and this is the thing that Labor probably forgot for about a decade, but if the goal is to actually govern, if you want to become the natural party of government, he's doing exactly what he needs to do, which is both highly competent, given his job, but also massively depressing in some respects as well. Yeah, so just listen to your real bosses, which are coal mining executives and voters in marginal seats. Voters in marginal seats. Bill Shorten can tell you about that one. And negative gearing people. And make sure you don't scare anyone who... No, scare campaigns?

Who negative gears because they probably own the Australian. And as soon as Peter Dutton comes out and tries to scare campaign on negative gearing or something, you just say, no, we're not going to do that. Yeah. And give him nothing. You just literally implement the other side's policy, or all the policies that could possibly have a scare campaign around them, you just sort of don't change.

Well, you know what his pitch is? His pitch is, and this is it was very clear in the City Morning Herald interview, his pitch is we are actually going to change stuff slowly and cautiously and not all at once. And so, you know, in 10 years, in 10 years we might look back and say, that Albanesee, he made at least one change. But I mean, in the meantime, there was a hundred coal mines commission. Yeah, and cost of living went backwards and the rich got richer. But, I mean, I guess he would say, and I don't know why he's on the podcast, celebrating. his first year. I thought you had connections in Labor, Charles.

But anyway, we should get him on. He would say, well, he's going to try and get the voice up. If he's got the voice up, isn't that his first term, basically, and that would be an achievement? If it would likely. Do you think it's going to happen? I still feel like it probably will. I feel like it's going to get a slight majority and just the four states.

Let's get Thomas Mayo on and have a chat about the voice. That would be great, because that would actually mean we were providing a voice to the able who are so politely and patiently asking for one. Yes, unless you're on the podcast. But I don't want it to be written into the Constitution that we have to. No, and we certainly shouldn't have to consult. No. It's just nice when we do.

It's polite. And only at a sort of like legislative. Not in any effective way, like at an executive level. Yes, and certainly not in a way we're obliged to do what the voice says. So we can have him on. Yes, yes. But we're not going to. Well, that is what the proposal is.

Just hear it. Here's your space. Have a chat. Tell us what you think. Have a chat and then we can just totally ignore. It's a voice. It's not power. No.

It's just a soapbox. Yeah. You know, it's the little soapbox in the domain. We actually don't have to have to listen to it. Look at something. This is the most depressing podcast I think I've ever been involved with. Why do we do Australian politics? Why do we do something else?

Well, okay. So I'm going to go on. You don't have any. sort of rope or raises around. No, look, no, the way to die under the Albanese government chance. Oh, it's slowly. It's slowly. Yeah, and methodically.

And not being able to afford a GP. That's right. If you're in some sort of desperate health condition and you think yourself, well, I'd like to go to the GP. But it's going to cost me hundreds of dollars. No, but actually, Dom, I have to disagree with you there because he's doubled the number of pills that you're allowed to get from pharmacies. Oh. So it would become much easier to do.

top yourself. If you need to call Lifeline, you should. Is that free? You probably do after this episode. I do. It's not. We promise, Charles, when Labor came into power, when Labor came into power, we would satirize them, we would scrutinize them, we wouldn't celebrate what they've done.

And I think I would do it. We've delivered on that promise. I think the Albanese government has also delivered on being imminently satirizable. So well done. Yes. Albo and team. Our gear is from road. We're part of the O'Connor-Cless Network.

And if you're still with us tomorrow, let's catch you then. Catch you then. We won't talk about our boat tomorrow. How about that? Yeah, that's a deal. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important.

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