The Chaser Report - High School Naur-usical

Episode Date: September 21, 2025

Move over Alligator Alcatraz, there's a new detention facility in town. Meanwhile, Charles takes a deep dive into one of the biggest production flops in West End history. Plus, we answer the age-old question: Did anyone ever "smack the rump" of the Mona Lisa? ---The Chaser Report: EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/chaserreport Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee 🌍 Buy the Wankernomics book: https://wankernomics.com/bookListen AD FREE: https://thechaserreport.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @chaserwarSpam Dom's socials: @dom_knightSend Charles voicemails: @charlesfirthEmail us: [e-mail] CEO’s Super-yacht upgrade Fund: https://chaser.com.au/support/ Send complaints to: [e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal 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. Hello, Charles. What are we talking about today? Now, today I thought we should go on a bit of an excursion. Oh, wonderful. Because I want to relate to you a very timely tale from the past.

Very good. You know how a few weeks ago the federal government announced that they were giving $400 million to Nauru to take a few hundred of our stateless non-refugees. Yes, Minister for Home Affairs and former guest on the Chaser report, Tony Burke made that announcement. I saw, did he go to Nauru to do it? I can't recall. Maybe he did.

I think he did go to Nauru. And there was... Did they let him come back? Quite a few interesting details about Nauru, right, which is... The first one is, it's not just $400 million to take literally a few hundred people, right? But remember, but you know who the people were that they took, right? It wasn't the refugees. It was the people who weren't refugees, but then could not be also returned to their countries.

And I have a few, because you remember the High Court ruled a few years ago. We actually talked about it at the time on this podcast. The High Court had this ruling fairly early on in Labor's first term saying, no, no, no, you can't indefinitely jail these people. Oh, yes, that's right. You can't imprison them just for, because. Definite detention. Yeah, indefinite detention.

Was that a human rights thing? It's some principle. It's some sort of, I know, long-running, old-fashioned idea that people shouldn't just be indefinitely detained without trial. But it was, it did include people, and I'm not sure whether these are the people who've now been sent to Nauru. But it's people like, remember that assassin from Malaysia? Oh, yes. Like who had fled Malaysia because he was going to be subjected to the death. penalty because he'd found to be an assassin.

Right. But, so Australia was in the difficult situation of having to free an assassin onto the streets of Australia in order to meet its human rights obligations to not fuck we. I don't know. I don't understand. I do remember, we talked about this quite a lot of the time. And the coalition were making hay out of it.

And then the point was made that a lot of it had happened on their watch as well. Thank you for your page. 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.ca.

Yeah, so just to look at the report here, Charles, we need to be really clear on what's been agreed because I saw the figure of 400 million. Oh, no, no, that was just a down payment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've got a subscription to narrow it now. Yeah, so it's 408 up front. I don't know if the 8's 4.

It's $408 million. Yeah. And then almost 70. Well, that's the transaction bit. That goes to Visa card. And then almost $70 million per year to cover their costs. So how many people? They haven't said.

A few hundred people. It's like they said a few hundred people, right? I mean, couldn't the Soffertel take them? Well, exactly. No, but you can't do the Soffertel because that's what they did in the UK. They put them in shitty motels. And even that was like too much for the racists to bet. But I'll tell you what Nauru does.

It has latched onto, which I think is sort of the first proper carbon-neutral resources extraction economy, right? Right. So, as you probably know, Nauru was actually the richest country in a world for a while in the 1970s, right? Because they used to mine phosphate there, remember? That's right, all the guano, all the bird poo, right? It's only eight square miles of land. It's a tiny. I mean, the population's tiny.

It's 10,000 people. The amount of money that this deal is worth per person. Yes, is astronomical. Remarkable. But, but, Dom, Nauru have a better grift than, than guano, right? Oh, really? Because guano ran out, right?

Whereas what is the resource that they've tapped into now is the incredibly renewable resource of Australian racism, right? Like, they've literally, they've tapped into something which every government will have to, from now on, to the end of time, renew. Like, it's an unlimited resource. just be renewed every year. So you're basically saying, so this is kind of like the local version of the alligator Alcatraz.

It's just the pleasant place where you dump people. Where you dump people to sort of create this whole idea with people who like to shit on other people as a way of making themselves feel big, that Australia is tough on people who come here. So, but this is, so there's, from this report, there's hundreds of people who've been released into the community. So there's potentially hundreds of people. Yes, $70 million a year each.

I mean, that is, for running a relatively small prison, that's a pretty decent payday, isn't it? Yes, it's great. It's a really, anyway, point is, like, I'm just saying, like, these, these are good business people, but that was not always the case in Nauru. I want to get to that, but before we, before we get to Nauru's business dealings, we should note the upside because this is potentially just the beginning. I mean, there's a lot of other countries who could make.

this sort of deal with Nauru. They could be racking in billions. I mean, the UK has this issue at the moment. America is clearly loving shipping people offshore. So we create a sort of a colony on Nauru. Well, I mean, how much? There's most of Nauru. Where we ship all the undesirables from all around.

Isn't that just Australia? Well, that was the original idea of Australia. Yeah. It could be the other Australia too. Yeah. I mean, if you look at the area... I mean, Nauru is our Australia, isn't it? If you look at the aerial images of Nauru, I don't know if you've looked at

on Google Maps. It's quite extraordinary. Have a quick look. Almost all of Nauru is just this absolutely desolate form of mine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just basically... You've been to Nauru. I haven't been to Nauru.

Some of our friends flew Air Nauru at one point to... I remember they shared the playing with chickens. They're just stop over, yeah. So, and they've spent a far longer in Nauru that you want to. It sort of looks like... It looks like Adelaide, but probably more beautiful. No, please look at this on Google Maps as you were talking about. So it's basically, it looks like a cell.

Like, I mean, I mean like a body cell. Yeah. But also it's being turned into a prison cell. So there's basically along the coastline, there's the, there's trees. There's an airport. There's a trees. People live along the coastline basically all the way around. And in the middle, there's just nothing.

There's just basically abandoned scrub or whatever, which has all been mined out. So there's a lot of space, this is my point, for a prison. You can have 80% of Nauru being a prison without inconveniencing anybody. I've just noticed, you can, you can go there for tourism. Maybe we should go and... We should see it that. We should do a show, shouldn't we? We should do it to an episode of the chase report.

Maybe this is. Maybe this is responsible. They've got a blues point without an ugly blues point tower on it. So basically there's one road that goes all the way around the outside. And then in the middle, you can see regional processing center camp three. Yes. There's a poultry farm. Then you've got narrow rehabilitation corporation.

There's a crushing plant. I'm not sure if they crush rocks or humans or what they do. Well, it would be people's life spirits. And there's, they're building a stadium. So actually, if you look at now, yeah, yes, right next to the regional processing center. That's going to be the next DRL move, isn't it? Oh, for sure. Set up the next stage and Nauru team.

So the point is there's actually quite a lot of space, even though it's tiny, with nothing in it. There's only a few regional processing centers. I imagine basically before long and no one will need to work, except in the regional processing centers. Yeah, I don't think. anyone needs to work anymore anyway. Like the amount of money that they make out of Australia is that's enough for everyone. Wait until Donald Trump finds out

about this place. Yeah, I think that's right. I think this is... Maybe we should just go long on Nauru. I just wonder if they should, you know, are they going to float on the stock market? Well, Nauru, Inc. They do have a very storied history when it comes to their investments. Let's take a look

at the investments over Nauru's long and bird shit studded history. Okay, so ignoring their current investments. Yeah, the new business that they've, well, it's not a new business, it's been going for a while, but it's a new phase in the business. Yeah. Back in the 1970s, they were, as I mentioned, the richest country in the world for a while. Yeah. They were richer than Saudi Arabia per person.

Bird poo is more useful even than oil. It's a bit like Qataris nowadays because there were so few people to share the wealth. They literally, they didn't really know. what to do with it, right? And so there's lots of built, they bought lots of buildings in Melbourne and Sydney. Yeah, they knew that there was a finite amount of bird piece. They needed to try and create for the future. They sort of created a sovereign wealth fund except riven with bad investments and corruption. What do they put the money into? So, lots of things, but the one investment that I want to talk to to you about today is their investment in the West End, Dom.

they, they... So you mean in theatre? In theatre. Now who wanted to find a great business to stash their income in? Their finite income from Birdburn. And they thought, what about great art? Show beers. Yes.

Oh my goodness. That'll be a way to make good money, right. Right. And what they did was they invested in a musical, just one, because of course, you know, musical. Go along. Go along. Back the gag. Called Leonard.

This is honestly true. Leonardo, a portrait of love. Really? Right, yes. And the whole... I imagine musical theatre doesn't come to Nauru very often. Did they have any idea what they were getting into? They wouldn't have seen, you know, cats and...

Well, they might have heard about it. They've got, you know, TVs and radio. But back in the 80s, would they have had cats? I don't know. I mean, if they'd been spared cats, I must say, it makes Nauru look much more desirable as a place to go. But they didn't need to know anything because this guy... called Duke Mintz, this is honestly true, who was a former roadie for the 60s pop group Unit 4,

and also he was also a city bank executive for a while. Wow. He convinced them to invest in a Western musical about Leonardo da Vinci, and the idea was that Leonardo da Vinci had fallen in love with the Mona Lisa, right? Oh, and it was a four-hour musical. Four-hour musical. It premiered at London's Strand Theatre Yeah

On June the 3rd, 1993 And it closed after three weeks After three weeks After three weeks So they probably didn't even get the The population of Nauru through the tour Which I see now It's the third smallest country on the planet

Yes By both size, 21 square kilometres Yes And it's tiny And we kind of forget how small it is And then it's only bigger than the Vatican City in Monaco And it's the third smallest population in the world as well.

Well, but they punch above their weight when it comes to West End disasters. Because it was actually, the show was considered the biggest disaster in West End history. Wow. Yeah. Who wrote it? I mean, who are the people involved? Right. With their famous impresarios.

So I just want to tell you about this. I don't want to talk about Nauru anymore. No, I don't want to hear about the show. Yeah. So the whole idea, the plot line was that Leonardo da Vinci, who famously, He's widely considered gay, by the way. Like, you know, it's fairly certain that he was gay. But they went, for the plot, for the sake of the musical, let's just ignore that.

He'd fallen in love with Lisa del Giacondo, which was the original Mona Lisa. Oh, yes, La Giaconda, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it is true that they probably did meet at some point. So it's not based on a reality. It's a reality. Yeah. And then the whole, because in a musical, especially if one that drags them, Four hours.

Apparently, people just would leave before the end. Well, you're fair enough. It's sometimes a big call to get people back after interval. I don't want to say any musicals I might have walked down, but I did want to see cats. Anyway, yeah. So what happens in the end of cats? So the whole idea was that Lisa had already been married to Francesco del Geocondo. All right, okay.

A Florentine silk merchant. And she came in, she met Leonardo. And it created a classic love triangle. I see why it's called a portrait of love now. A portrait of love. Oh, that's brilliant. 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 fizz.ca. Mesa report, news you can't trust. And so then they had lots of ballads and overwrought duets between Leonardo and Lisa,

sort of talking about their impossible passion. To be clear, this is a woman. Yeah. Right, okay, just double-checking the facts. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. And there was even a scene where Leonardo slapped the Mona Lisa on the bum. Right.

There you go. It's in 1999. When I saw the Mona Lisa, the one time I saw it in the Louvre, I didn't think, good as me. I hope someone slapped her rump. Yeah. Wow.

And then there was, and the villain turned out to be Lisa's husband. So that was the villain. Did he commission the portrait? But ungrateful. But the reason why he was a villain, this is, he suspected Leonardo of wooing his wife. Oh, really? Which he was. Yeah, right.

So why was he the villain? So he was observant. So, yeah, exactly. And it's sort of like, doesn't that make Leonardo the leading man there for the villain? Yes. Because he's the fucking cheater? Because someone's paying him to. Because someone's paid him to

Paid a portrait of a beautiful woman. And he's seducing the beautiful woman. That's not part of the service when you commission a portrait. Usually. The climax of the whole musical was he painted her smile. Oh, it's all about this.

Mona Lisa's smile. And the smile represented their furtive romance. So that's why she's smiling. Everyone always is one of what she's smiling about. She's smiling because she knows she's having it off with Leonardo. Well, he probably has been patted on the bummed, though, Leonardo. And then at the end, it had a whole, sort of, it had a whole number about how the reason that we should celebrate Leonardo is for his contribution to love.

Right. Not all the inventions of the helicopters and the philosophy. Not the sort of most extraordinary. Or art. Yeah. It should be. Polymath in history. No, just because he once patted some woman on the rump.

I mean, we can all do that. We can all behave appalling other women, Leonardo, who apparently was gay. Did they in any way acknowledge that or just basically just not a thing? No, no, no. They just ignored that completely. They just went, um, and then it was described by critics at the time famously as a dodo of a musical. So do they all survive? Like, is there a dramatic, like, does anyone get killed or?

Yeah, well, the problem is that. No one stayed till the final act. No one knows. No, no, but Mona Lisa was, in fact, married to the. this person, so they can't really change that fact. Right. So it had to be this unresolved sort of inadequate ending. Because I don't remember

how Leonardo da Vinci died. Do you think it's possible? It could have been the husband. See, that would be a better plot line. No, there's no death in the musical. All right. Like, do you want me to go further? I'm fascinated by this, yeah. Yeah. So... What do do they spend the four hours on? Well,

lots of musical number. Like, essentially, it was just lots of, you know, duets between them. Between the The song list, these were the titles of the songs, Renaissance. Of course. Set the same. Who the hell are you? Oh.

Which was... So they're not talking to each other in New York. That was the husband finding out about Leonardo. Forensia, which I think was a bit of a piece take on Mamma Mia. Okay. But, you know, obviously about Florence. Part of your life, just dream away. Her heart beats.

Which was a longing solo by Leonardo talking about, presumably, Mona Lisa's bar. So his standard for women was, does she have a heartbeat? Literally, that was his, that was the bar, okay. And oh my God, this goes on and on and on. Her heartbeats, endless is my love, just one more time. No, endless is this. Endless is this musical. Endless sounds like a very brave word to include in a four-hour-long musical.

Goodbye and no one said a word. Oh, I wonder... Is that the reviewers? Have you read any the reviews? Forever Child. Portrait of Love. She lives with me. Yeah, let's get the...

So the Republican also Roo. No, and there's a banger of a track apparently called Genius. Right, okay. He's a genius. We've got to... I'm fascinated. So now Roo's gotten involved. How much money did they put in?

Genius was not in the original... And it's added some more. Recording, but they added as a cast recording. the genius song. They just added it for the album. They made an album out of it. Okay, here we go, Charles.

I found the review for The Independent from June 1993. It was attended. Art historians in the audience, it says, may have felt queasy midway through Act 1 when Leonardo slaps the Mona Lisa on the bum and asks to help him with his research. But his excellency, President Bernard

Dowiogo, the Republic of Nauru, and First Lady, Madam Christina Doiogo, the whole Nauruan government was there. So basically probably most of the first-night audience. I suppose that's what you do if you invest in Western Music or you get to go along to the red carpet. It asks here, how many times you have a West End musical financed by an 8-mile square South Pacific Island? His wealth comes from a fertiliser. You know what they should have put on?

They should have put on South Pacific. Oh, they should have. It says here there were those who wanted this show to be a stinker. See what they did there. But it says it wasn't. It says it was more run of the mill than Reeking. It was... So what, sorry?

That's a narrow and foreign ministry there. It was passable, just not, just improbable. Okay. So why? They put two million pounds into it. Yeah, they put two million pounds into it. It was seven million dollars in whatever dollar. Wow.

Presumably it was seven million Australian dollars. Duke Minks turned up and played them little bits on the cassette. And they said, oh, he's two million pounds. And apparently, yes, he was the former road manager to a one-hit wonder group in the 60s called Unit 4 plus 2. Wow. So the point is, Dom, that you, like, Nauru is currently swimming in a whole lot of new cash. Oh, that's very exciting.

And I reckon that they're going to be looking for some novel investments. Yes. So why don't we come up with our own little, you know, musical? That's a very good idea. Well, I mean, I'm thinking, what am I thinking? Optics the musical. Optics, the musical. Whatever, no, but I think, you know, it's got to play on what they.

think of what would now rule what yeah I mean it's saying here the president said I'm really excited I'm trying to be objective yeah I had my fingers crossed the show we'll tour the world yes um he says a bit of love a bit of music it takes the worries away so we want a love story for the ages so what about something like Shakespeare in love in love I know I've thought of an amazing actually I've got an amazing topic yeah what about Jesus in love didn't they yeah Jesus Christ superstar But with more porn. Or Buddha.

Buddha super stuff. What if? Yeah. And I actually think this is a genuinely good idea. Okay. A musical about the making of Leonardo. Yes. Of love.

It sounds very funny. Yes. Apparently most of the audience didn't make it to the end of opening night. Yes. So in actual fact, we could rehash a whole lot of it at the end. We could play, license some of the songs. So it wouldn't be expensive. And then, yeah, tell the story of Nauru.

It'd be fantastic. Yeah, and it would be called That Sinking Feeling. Yeah, or Island of Pooh. Island. Yeah, yeah. Pura dice. A whole lot of guano. Yeah.

Oh, Puri dice is very good, actually. Yeah, no, that sounds like a very good idea to get some more musicals going. Because it is risky investing in musical theatre. It's really hard. I know people who have tried to do this. Ah, yeah, yeah. No one told Nauru this, but so there you go. Is there, I mean,

thinking of some of the triumphant heroes. Ben Robert Smith, the musical, you know, who could act in the musical? Who? All the assassins that are now right. Oh, to you what, that would be a reason. Like, you know, that would probably make people come if the people on stage are going to murder you if you don't like it.

Like, you'd certainly deal with the critical acclaim problem. No, well, actually, you know what I mean? You wouldn't, you wouldn't walk out of the theatre. Yeah. Because you'd know that there are there. There, it's assassins. Sharpshooters. Assassins, loose or narrow.

Okay, so, all right. Well, I mean, have they thought of investing in podcasting is what I wonder? Well, I think we should go over there. Well, I think this is a really good idea. Let's get a couple of the visas. Because I heard that it was going to cost like $12,000. But if we could go in on a sort of influence of visa. Yeah, yeah.

And we could have a podcasting festival. Yeah. In Nauru. In Nauru. Well, they're building a stadium. Yeah. Once the stadium is built. That would be fantastic.

It can't be. They've got 11,000 people. How big is the stadium going to be? It's a fun-sized stadium. Yeah, you're right. I don't know if they let all the murderers in. No, that'd be fine. Oh, God.

Charles, that has really enlightened my day learning about the Nauru-funded Leonardo musical. Yeah, I think, yeah, it's just one of those feel-good stories of failure and mismanagement that, you know, we haven't had enough. Ever since Scott Morrison, no longer his pro-minister, we haven't had enough of these sorts of fun stories. Scott Morrison the music. We have to get the rights to April something in Cuba.

Oh, yeah. But I think it's doable. Okay, so just, just this is a little bit off to one side, and we're not only need to end the podcast. But it's a 10,000 seat a national stadium in a country whose population is 10,000. Like, I think maybe it's 11,000. Who's going to like serve the food at the stadium? Yeah, that's true.

That's quite true. You know who it'll be, Justin Hems. That's true, actually. They get a contract. Actually, once Merrival gets into Nauru, that's what they'll really do. Even Justin Hemis could get people to go to a bar made out of bird poo. I think probably already has. We're part of our ConocoCless Network.

Coming soon to Nauru. 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 a fifth. $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca.