The Chaser Report - Have The Greens Just Won The Election?

Episode Date: March 27, 2022

The Greens have just promised to abolish the national student debt, so what would the Chaser Interns do with all the extra cash? Meanwhile Aleksa brings a moving tribute to beloved Madeline Albright, and Lachlan deep dives into the resignation of Brian Houston. Plus Gabbi Bolt reads the latest Chaser headlines. 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. It is Monday the 28th of March. I'm joined by Lachlan. Wayo. Alexa. Hi. I forgot your name.

And John. Hi. And I'm Gabby. And you'll notice that there's a bit of a missing hole in our hearts in this podcast today. It's pretty weird. It smells less musky in here. Yeah, I know. Used be really stale in this room.

What happened? Now that the average age of the podcast has gone down by 15 years. is let's talk about something to do with the youth john yeah i found some actual good news in the news this week oh fucking great that's like finding a needle in a haystack on uh there's a party running on the platform that we should cancel all student debt no way what just get rid of it no student debt how is this possible like retroactive like as in my debt's canceled all the debt's gonna be gone our debt's gonna go away as well because we'd all have like how much debt i've got like a solid 40 50k that i'm sitting on gabby i have 40,000 if you count all of the different degrees that i have

picked up and dropped in the last six years of my life, so that's nice. I think I have about 40,000, but I'm too scared to look. That is, it's just, that's just, we'd all be $40,000 richer. Holy fuck. Yeah.

We wouldn't have to work here anymore. No, what do you guys don't do with the money? Oh, I reckon, I don't know, I'd start an upstart or like, I don't, I don't, I start. What? Is it not called an upstart? Oh, well, I'm not doing well on the upstart business. You finish your degree.

Yeah, yeah, no, no, you never start a startup with a degree. It's not how it works. What about you, Alexa? Alexa. I always wanted to try one of those lasagnas. Is it a $40,000 lasagna? Like just the ones that everyone else eats. You own enough from this company. You can just buy all the ingredients. Do you know how much your lasagna cost, Gabby? But, Alexa, I make lasagna like once a month. Wow, big shot. Only to boast. Jesus Christ. All we just need for Alexa to have the lasagna is the greens to win and will be fine? Wait, wait. You just say that was part of the deal.

Greens have to win. The Greens have to win the election. I know it's. I know it's. It's not normally what they seem to want to do. I'm pretty sure this is impossible, and I resent both you and the Greens for making me think of lasagna for the past minute as if it was some kind of attainable food. Let's get off this topic. It's too depressing.

Coming up with the show, I got something to lift our spirits. Something amazing has happened this week. Something amazing happened. Something amazing. Just a certain someone provided an amazing gift to the world. It's real good. And then straight after that,

I'm going to have a look at Brian Houston who's just resigned from Hillsong. I'm going to have a look at the little spin that he's put on his excuse for why he had to go. All that and more coming up after this in the Chaser Newsroom. In response to the Greens announcement that they will be clearing the national student debt,

the Liberal Party have promised that if they win the election, they will make university free for all millionaires. The announcement has been celebrated by fat cats across all of North Sydney, with the extra relative pocket change, meaning they'll be able to afford a new yacht shed for their local private school.

Scott Morrison has slammed Anthony Albanese for his failure to address the toxic culture within the Liberal Party. Morrison criticised Albanese, stating that unlike Albanese, he was ready to answer all the hard questions people had for him, so long as they were about his favourite types

of curry or Bunnings projects, and not anything work-related. Minister for Space Defence, Peter Dutton, has been outraged after discovering that his space force would be accidentally creating a safe space. After a cardiac arrest induced by his contempt for PC going too far,

Dutton was so distracted that he forgot to renew his website domain, leaving it to be taken by naughty pranksters. These are the latest headlines for the Chaser Report, and why not visit www.p.p.m.m.com for a bit of fun. So, Alexa, you've prepared quite a moving story for us, a moving tribute, right? Very, very, very happy day. Well, happy week, really.

I just don't know when this happened this is going to end. So something really interesting happened last week at Guantanamo Bay. Oh, we're all good news story. The Disneyland of the South Pacific. No, no, shut up to down. People in Guantanamo Bay are mourning.

And you know that whenever a mass detention camp is morning, you know that something amazing has happened. So you had the American flag and the U.S. Navy flag and the McDonald's flag for some reason. There's a McDonald's flag? Oh, yeah. There's a McDonald's. I've not seen, like, there's actually, if you look at photos of Guantanamo Bay's entrance,

there's a McDonald's literally, like, almost touching the building. Oh, no, I'm not at all surprised at the concept of McDonald's being fucking everywhere, like herpes. No, I mean, I'm surprised in the concept of there being a flag. Yeah, they've got their flag. What's on it? What's on it? This has got a big old M, but all of them are at half-mast today.

Is the hamburger waterboarded for too long? Grimmis looks like the kind of guy that's committed some terrorism. Yeah. Is it Maccas that we're mourning, or is it something else? Oh, it's something else. they're mourning one of us they're mourning one of America's greatest mass murderers in history

oh my god Madeline Albright has died oh little Madeline I'm gonna have to get the lawyers to look after this one what so all right who was Madeline? Yeah run us through her

what's her life? Well look I mean there are there are some upshots there are some nice things about her life like she's the first female secretary of state in the US That's good. Women can be mass murderers too. Yeah, yeah.

She was a refugee during World War II, so, you know. Presumably she, for the rest of her career, supported refugees and people from other countries coming to America? Well, she supported creating more of them. So I guess that's some kind of support. Oh, my God. Okay, no, there could be an argument that I'm slightly biased because she bombed my country.

That's the reason I'm in Australia is because of poor little Madeline. But I think I've got a pretty good grasp of her life and legacy. see. So for our fans who don't know, what, what's the backstory there? Of Madeline Albright? Well, we're with you, your country. Oh, she's just, just Secretary of State when the US was bombing Yugoslavia. And then I was like, oh, no, there's bombs.

We've got to get out of here. And then Australia was like, bomb free. So that was a pretty obvious choice. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But it was, look, it wasn't just my country. I think as Secretary of State of the U.S., obviously she had a hand in a lot of places. and I always remember this one heartwarming quote from her.

Now, in the 1990s, the US put on some of the most hectic sanctions on Iraq, and the UN reported that an estimated 500,000 children died from those sanctions because they couldn't access medicine. Insane numbers of people. This is before they actually invaded Iraq. She was the architect of this US foreign policy, and then she was asked by 60 minutes by an interviewer about these sanctions that killed all these people, and this was her lovely response

and what we should all remember her by. We have heard that a half a million children have died I mean that's more children than died in Hiroshima You know is the price worth it I think this is a very hard choice But the price, we think the price is worth it Fucking hell This is the worst episode of price

Oh the price is right ever Fuck you, John, that was my life Yeah well I'm the one who looked and said it first Well done. Fuck. Yeah, it's a terrifying person. I disagree. I don't think it's the price is right.

I think it's grand designs. Fucking hell. What a chirpy lady. Yeah, yeah. She sounds, I don't want to say like criminally insane, but if that's your response to that amount of death in the world, that is just soulless. Yeah, but now they're dead.

So, I mean, she is now as well. So it's just like, you don't want to see it is a bit of a tragedy. I'm devastated that she died of old age and not being strangled to death by 500 Iraqi children 30 years ago before they died. Jesus. None of the medical advice contained in the Chaser Report should legally be considered medical advice. The Chaser Report. To continue this trend of good news of the Greens getting rid of our debt and people dying, also got some good news on the religious front, which is...

Goody! Hillsong's founder, Brian Houston, has resigned last week. Coincidentally, about 30 minutes before Ash Barty resigned. What if they coordinated this? So Brian had to resign because he broke the Hillsong Code of Conduct. It came out in 2019 that he broke Code of Conduct because it looks like he spent a night in a room with a woman who wasn't his wife. So essentially looks like he cheated on his wife.

Yeah, it's like the first one, isn't it? Adultery? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he broke the code of contract and had to resign. Oh, the code of conduct is the 10 commandment. Yeah, I mean, why would you have more than one list? Yeah, no, it's a bit like that. It's rules that the passes and stuff have to follow.

Are they allowed to covet? I mean, if Scott Morrison's not to be horny for Cole, I'm assuming they can still cover it. Oh, yeah, okay. But, so Brian, it looks like he cheated on his wife, and he apologized for this inappropriate behavior. To his wife or to just the church? To everyone, to the church, presumably to his wife, I don't know.

However, he did have a very good reason. for why he potentially cheated on his wife. Oh, yeah? Which is that he was on heavy sleeping medication. Oh. Oh, that's when I'm sexually at best. Because as we all know, sleeping medication causes you. Of course.

Yeah, it's like, um, you know all the people I've slept with in my dreams? I made the queen. Barbara Streisand. Wait, sorry, you sleep with the queen in your dreams? I mean, obviously he would be telling the truth because lying is a sin. Oh, yeah. Which means, I'm assuming that means, have we thought? about how the people in the Ashley Madison hack

just considered the theory that maybe they had some sleeping medication and that's why they're using Ashley Madison to cheat on their partner? It's caused you to lie. And it's not just Brian who's blamed on medication. The Hillsong Board has also blamed the drugs for the statement. They released something saying following an in-depth investigation,

it was found that Pastor Brian became disorientated after a session at the Hillsong Conference following the consumption of medication beyond the prescribed dose mixed with alcohol. This resulted in him knocking on the door of a hotel room that was not his, entering the room and spending time with the female occupant. Are they trying to say that he thought it was his wife?

The response that they've had is said that we actually don't know if there was anything sexual that happened, but it's a breach of their code of conduct. However, rather than, I don't know, blaming Brian for getting drunk or taking more than what his medication was described at, or what some might call his decisions, go on. They blamed, or the official statement is that It is the drugs fault.

Fitchell's saying that he's a junkie. He's a no good drug adult addict. He needed another hit and he couldn't resist. And it's the drug company's fault. What surprises me though is because they said he had a lot of, he said heavy drug use and also drinking. Like at that point, if he, I reckon fire him if he didn't have sex with her

because at that point it's impressive to get it up. Like if you're that drunk and you've had that much medication and you're tired and you're like sleepy, getting it up, that's an impressive feat obviously got it in him because that is some unholy power. That is sex, drugs and rock and roll. That's what Hill Song's all about.

But look, surprisingly, this isn't the first time that Brian has breached Code of Conduct before. So this instance, with the hotel room happened in 2019. However, 10 years before, Hill Song has admitted that there was another complaint approximately a decade ago in which Houston was sending inappropriate text messages

to other members of staff. Now, I actually found what these inappropriate text messages are. Oh, baby, what are you guys thinking? Babe, I'm so sleepy. What are you doing? Yeah, sorry, again, they also blamed this second infringement on sleeping medication. Oh, of course. I can't even keep my eyes open totally get in here.

Which this means I can see the most beautiful version of you. Now, I've found the text, and the text actually read. If I was with you, I'd like to kiss and cuddle you. Now, Brian has come out and said that there was no sexual activity or tension between him and that staffer. No shit. Look at this guy's dirty talk. No, but to be fair, I think this is actually very, very raunchy in Hillsong circles. I remember I used to work at Hillsong.

He used to set up jumping castles over there. And I don't know if you remember the male bathrooms up in Castle Hill. They were really interesting. There were no urinals. It was all separate cubicles. So, like, you can't even pee shoulder to shoulder with another man. I think, like... Takes away the joy.

Yeah. If they're freaked out about that, I feel like kissing and cuddling is, holy shit. So my question is, like, clearly there's something about sleeping medication that we don't know about. Because apparently it's just... Veritas serum of the modern world. It's the excuse to end all excuses. It gets you away with everything. Lighten the head, heavy in the penis.

That's what they say. Nothing like a bit of kissing and cuff. Adelaide, ale that one. I'm just thinking maybe like sleeping medication has branded itself wrong. Maybe it should change its name to sleeping with someone who's not your wife, medicare. Yeah, good. That's good.

Although, if it is the all-excuse-giving method, I'm amazed that, you know, king of excuses himself, Scott Morrison hasn't used this more. He should pull, he should pull at Roseanne Barr. Yeah. Which, if you don't remember, Roseanne Barr had a big racist rant about black people and then the next day on Twitter she said sorry took some heavy medication and that brand had to come out and say racism is not a side effect of our product i mean it makes it makes sense that um that scott morrison hasn't used it because as far as i know he doesn't

know brian houston for the listeners who don't know yeah so back on thursday which is like a year in 2022 time he said uh Scott Morrison said that he has not been associated with hill song for 15 years and has no connection to him, which, I mean, to be fair, he didn't actually go to the White House with Brian Houston because the White House turned down Scott Morrison's invitation to Brian Houston.

That wasn't sent, apparently, according to Scott. Yeah, because the White House said no. So the White House just received it, but he didn't send it. No, so Scott Morrison wanted Brian Houston to come and told him so. He gave him some sleeping medication and he sent him home. Our gear is from road microphones

we're a part of the ACAS creator network and I guess. Our safe medication is from Viagra. Guys, I know it's at the start of the week, but I'm feeling really drowsy. I think, I'm like, go have sex with Brian Houston.