The Chaser Report - How Much is a Loaf of Milk?

Episode Date: February 2, 2022

Aleksa gives his commentary on Scott Morrison's fiasco at the Press Club, and rates Scott's performance in dodging each question. Meanwhile Charles has almost killed another child - how did he do it this time? Plus all the latest headlines from Rebecca De Unamuno. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. That's right. Welcome to The Chaser Report for Thursday, the 3rd of February 2022. I'm Charles Firth and with me today are Dom Knight. I'm back, although at home. It's nice to watch you see you all down Zoom. Why are you at home, Dom? My daughter's got a fever and we've wasted two rats finding out that's not COVID.

So I really hope it is COVID today because honestly, Those things are expensive That's right Waste of good money on that Hold that against it Let's hope it's not BA2 Did you listen to the rave about BA2 yesterday? That's under the assumption that Dom listens to the podcast

No, I didn't listen to the podcast I was wrangling a sick child I would have loved to have had five minutes to listen to anything Well, I'm just saying If you do own a toddler out there Probably don't listen to yesterday's episode Would you agree? Yeah, I mean, I reckon if I were a parent with a sick toddler, I'd just pull Schrodinger's

child and just, like, put it in another room and then it's not my kid anymore. Yes, I like that. That's how it works. Docs can't get cold if you claim it's not your child, can they? I'm just hoping that she's got son of son of Omicron, because I really want to be the first. I want to be up with the latest trends. Grandson of Omicron. Yeah.

Coming up in the show, Alex is in. Hello. He's going to talk about the price of milk. Oh, yeah. Rividing. All fresh news from the press club. I'm already nervous. I don't know what it is.

And I've got an anecdote about how I almost killed a kid on the weekend. Docs. So a usual week at the first household. I don't know. Well, I wasn't official. Like, I didn't own that kid. Oh, not your child. Someone else's kid.

Genuine worry. Oh, this is a new low. Happy New Year. But first of all, let's go to Rebecca Dana Minow in the Chaser Newsroom. Relatable Daggy Dad, Scott Morrison, has come under fire after failing to state the correct. price of milk. Scott eventually gave a response by asking if he was meant to factor in the cost of a photographer as well. The Liberal government has since hired a milk consultant for 200 grand a year. A couple on Married at First Sight have been sued by the Nine Network for breaching contract

after falling in love at First Sight. The happy couple have had to postpone spending the rest of their lives together after being notified by nine they are required to have at least 12 domestic outbursts and a public affair before they can leave their contract. Following a string of heatwaves, a local air conditioning unit has been awarded employee of the month in its office. The aircon was humbled by the accolade after a unanimous vote from all humans in the building, stating it was the backbone of company morale. Those are the latest chaser headlines. I'm Rebecca Deunamuno. So on Tuesday, Scott Morrison fronted the press club,

and Alex, you've been covering this. It was a bit of a massacre, wasn't it? I mean, it would have been. It would have been if Scott Morrison wasn't so good at squirming his way out of questions. This was one of the best performances I've ever seen. It was quite a party. They were asking really hard questions,

and he just, he had, well, he didn't quite answer them, but he worked out how to not answer them in a very entertaining way. So we got the first one, Laura Tinkle. This one's actually pretty brutal. I don't know how you can squirm out of this one. Do you want to take this opportunity to actually say sorry for the mistakes you've made as Prime Minister? Not just about COVID, everything from going to Hawaii during the bushfires through to not having enough rapid antigen tests in place,

even as you foreshadowed the switch to a greater use of them. And for failing to live up to your pledge to hundreds of thousands of people on the NDIS that you would make sure the scheme was fully funded, uncapped and demand driven. And will you apologise to people who've had, the hundreds of people who've had funding arbitrarily cut under the scheme? Jesus. Ooh, okay. And very specific, unfortunately. Yeah, yeah.

She was very clear, and she's just asking if you'll apologise. I mean, what do you do? How do you apologise? How do you? What I would do in that is I would pretend that the apology was for something good. They'd be like, yeah, yeah, look, I do. want to take this opportunity, I apologise for being so goddamn good

looking. That is such a sibling approach. Sorry I guess sorry for like leading the country. Sorry, I'm so sorry. Sorry my job's really hard and you're just a shit journalist. Yeah. I know you are but what am I?

I think you're on the right track but Skomo's actual answer is just like one step more divorce from reality. Well thanks for the question. Always happy to ask you questions, Prime Minister. Yep. We're all terribly sorry for what this pandemic has done to the world and to this country.

So it's just, it's an amazing lack of accountability. We're all very sorry for what COVID. Yeah, so he's blaming COVID. But it's also, it's like, and he's apologising on behalf of COVID for what it did. No, but I think it's one of those awesome sorries, like, because there's two kinds of sorrows. You're going to be like, sorry for something you did. Or you can do the whole like, oh, when someone's dad dies, like, sorry for your lot. which is like obviously I didn't kill your dad

and like there's nothing to do with it like that's the sorry he's like oh I'm so sorry this has happened to you on account COVID I'm so sorry this you know government which you've got nothing to do with having to ruin your last two years but this is the whole strategy isn't it because he's spent

all the past two years trying to blame the states for everything I don't hold a hose mate it's never been his fault but now the strategy seems to be I'm really sorry for COVID being beyond like it's the new Dan Andrews is Omicron I think it's not a bad gamble. I'm very impressed.

Are we going to see attack ads against the coronavirus? You know, if you elect Alba, then the coronavirus will become Minister for Health. But it's not even like a good, rounded answer to the question in terms of encapsulating everything Laura asked. Because the first thing was the bushfires. And the Hawaii, oh, sorry, the coronavirus made me do a holiday in Hawaii. The coronavirus is the reason that the people in those bushfire have had the community. These haven't received their subsidy packages yet. And also, it's not the coronavirus's fault that he didn't order the rat test.

I think it is because the coronavirus makes people forgetful and get brain fog. I think everyone in the whole cabinet has had asymptomatic COVID. And it's COVID's fault. In fact, even before, even before we knew about it, I reckon Scott Morrison had it. He was in Hawaii. He was on a plane. He's had brain fog for two and a half years. The poor man.

Yeah, he also shook hands with patients. zero when he did that photo op with Guy Sebastian. For some reason, journalists weren't satisfied with this response. That's crazy. So 9 News is David Crow. He asked why the government didn't order a rapid antigen test. And Skomero's answer,

he did this really weird thing where he said, look, we were focusing on vaccines for children and booster shots, and that was our priority. And that's why we didn't get rats. And it's this awesome trick where you pretend that the government doesn't do more than one thing at once. Yeah, yeah. And the crazy thing is, like,

they didn't get the vaccines. Like they fucked up that thing too. We were focused on fucking up something entirely different. Yeah, because when you haven't prepared in advance for one crisis, you then have to solve that. You don't want to spend any time thinking about, what if there's another crisis that we haven't prepared for yet? I couldn't possibly fuck up two things at the same time, pandemonium.

But also, didn't he suggest that it wasn't his fault because no one was suggesting that you'd need rat tests? Even though in Britain, they'd already had a billion pound scheme. to do it and it was like I was talking to my friends in England and they were all going oh yeah you'll have to stick something up your nose every couple of days and I was going this is going to be great and then I realised just the rat test yeah but also don't forget there was the manufacturer in Queensland who came up with the rapid

antigen test and took it to the Australian government and said hey I'm making all these things in Australia do you want to buy any and they said oh no we couldn't possibly use so he shipped them all overseas like we actually were one of the first countries in the world to have them made on shore. No, no, because all my American friends, their rat tests come from Australia. It's hilarious. So, but then presumably it turned the corner for Scott Morris and the rest of the press club was really good for him.

Kind of. I mean, they did change tack a bit. They weren't really talking about policy anymore. I mean, Peter Van Onsoulin had this Zing had a throw at Skoma. I wanted to ask you about another close friend, Gladys Berijeklian. I've been provided with a text message exchange between the former New South Wales Premier and a current Liberal Cabinet Minister. In one, she describes you as, quote, a horrible, horrible person, going on to say she did not trust you

and you're more concerned with politics than people. The Minister is even more scathing describing you as a fraud and, quote, a complete psycho. Does this exchange surprise you? And what do you think it tells us? Do you know what I love about this? Peter Van Oncelain has proven time and time again that he is just great at digging up colloquial conversations between women. That is just the thing that he is great at.

You know, a rape victim, trying to prove she was crazy. And now Gladys's text messages. Do you know what else, though? I know that that conversation is probably a bit jaw-dropping for the large majority of Australians who, I don't know, have been living under a rock for the last 10 years. But I want to know who the current Liberal MP in that conversation is. Do you know that we're in that room just like,

fucking sweating. Isn't the point that it's basically anyone who knows Scott Morrison could be implicated as the other time? I also love the calmness of like, you are quoted as being a quote, complete psycho. How do you respond?

But the thing I want to know is what the next part of the conversation is, because I can entirely imagine that a current Liberal Cabinet member actually said he's a complete psycho, that's what we need in these difficult times, that's why he has my full support. He's radical! I don't know.

I mean, I'm sure you've got his response there, Alexa, but I would love to just hear him go, oh, no, I'm not. That's pretty much what it was. What did he say? Oh, his response is hilarious if you actually think about the subtext. Well, I don't know who you're referring to or the basis of what you've put to me. But I obviously don't agree with it. And I don't think that's my record.

Look at my record. This is not my record of being in total psychos. No, he is a complete psycho. You know why? He didn't know who they were referring to. I mean, you'd think that that was the biggest scandal, but there's actually one question which somehow reverberated past all these others, and it's the most popular one right now.

So you're saying that the one where our Prime Minister was called a complete psycho by a current cabinet member. No, no, no, no. Was not the big... So what was it? It's a question that came from Sky News. Oh, so it's a, oh, hard-hitting. Hard-hitting. Hard-hitting, investigative journalism, yeah.

Okay. Off the top of your head, can you tell me the price of a loaf of bread, a liter of petrol, and a rapid antigen test? Do you know what he answered? Well, surely he said, about $3, about $1, $1.89, and about $12 at the local stores. Or $100 on Uber-A. Well, here's what he said. He wasn't quite that specific. Well, let me talk to you about a couple of things.

Now, I'm not going to pretend to you that I go out each day and I buy a loaf of bread and I buy a liter of milk. I'm not going to pretend to you that I'd do that. And I'll leave those sort of things to you, mate. It's just baffling that he didn't even try to guess. Like, imagine being so out of touch that you're like, whatever I say, it's going to be wrong. You just can't guess. How much can a loaf of bread goes?

Fifty bucks. I saw this. I saw this reverberating on Twitter all morning, right? And the thing that was reverberating was milk. Milk's not even in the question. Yeah, it was petrol. It was petrol. So it had nothing to do with milk.

His answer was milk. And I reckon, yeah, he worded it back as milk because if he didn't know the price of petrol, that he has lost the election. If he doesn't know the petrol is at record highs, Then he is a fuckwit. Yeah, but the thing is... He's a psycho. I'm going to defend him on this one.

I think that is the most honest reply that Scott Morrison has ever given to any question. He says, I'm not going to pretend that I have a clue how your little people live. That's not what I do. And in a way, I don't give a shit whether he knows the price of all this stuff. Well, even petrol. No. Well, no, that's the petrol is the problem. I don't care about bread.

I mean, it depends where do you get it. If you're stuck at home because we didn't order have an antigen test. That's been the coalition, that was literally on the coalition's talking points yesterday morning was, well,

bread costs different amounts. You know, over in Mossman, it costs $7.50. I can't remember because I've been stuck at home all week and I've had to pay $10 for a life of press. That's because you're a lazy fuck wit just like Scott Morrison.

Yeah, you and your sick kid. The Chaser Report. News you know you can't trust It's time now for one of our most beloved segments on The Chaser Report It happens at least once a week It's a segment where Charles puts a child's life in jeopardy

It's usually one of his own But Charles, in the intro you mentioned You've extended your amazing services To other children this time During the holidays We really got into making rockets Do you know about rockets? Well, like just the general NASA situation

If you go to Hobby Coe, you can actually buy model rockets and you can buy the explosives like the gunpowder that you put underneath the rocket and then they go really high in the air. It's like the most legal fun you can do. What happened to soda bottle rockets? Why do you need to buy explosives for children? No, no, it's baking soda rockets. We've done baking soda rockets. They would go at most maybe 25, 30 metres if you do a really good one. That's not enough. This one was like SpaceX style. It was advertised as going 175 metres, and this is the lowest grade rocket, because we're going to go up.

It goes A to G, and that was A grade, and G grade is like the chunky things, which I think must go kilometres up. I'm so happy to be hearing about this. It completely takes away from the fire I course of your house with your sons a month ago. I'm free now, this is all on you. So we got into that and everything like that. And last weekend, we decided to take our latest druggers to this set of sand dunes, right? Because the whole thing is you don't want to, you know, make the bush catch on fire and, you know.

Not so that's a California. Yeah, exactly. Like, you don't want to cause it. That must be why the US kept doing those wars in the Middle East. They're like, if we're going to explode the bombs, got to do it in the sand. No bush there. It's a giant sad bit. Yeah.

So the thing is that the way it works is you have the rocket. And then what happens is it's called something, the recovery package opens up as it hits the top of the trajectory and a parachute opens and it sort of glides the rocket down. It's really quite spectacular. So you get your rocket back. You get your rocket back. Can you use it again?

And then you use it again. Right. So we explained the first one and it worked perfectly. Like I was so proud as a parent so that it actually worked really well. But in the process of coming down, part of the sort of bit of the rocket that goes into the nose of the rocket sort of got dented right and and my son was going oh you know do you think that's going to be a problem because it sort of meant that the nose which holds the parachute

was really stiff to sort of put in and supposed to you know open up and think anyway i said nah it'll be fine it'll be fine right and then so we did the second right and then so we did the second So we had three charges to do it. Did the second one. I forgot to put the wadding in. So the third one comes around and my two kids have each had a go to launch it. Because you get this amazing thing, which is like this electronic. Is this a sponsor?

No, you had this red electronic panel and you've got to hold down a button and then you launch it. This doesn't sound very kid-friendly. I'm going to be honest. No, no, yeah. It's not kid-friendly. It's supposed to be for only over 18. Oh, right. Sorry, Hobby Co. Not Toys R Us. Got it in my head now. You've got to show your licence. Yeah, got you. All right, great.

But my kids are under 18. But I think that's fine. Yeah, fuck it. They've got to learn. Ratings don't matter. It's funny. You've got to learn how to smoke at some point. They've been on this show. It's fine. Anyway, sorry, so there's an electronic panel. So then the third kid that we had was actually a friend of my sons is 11 years old. Very beautiful, very serious kid. Not sure you can call a kid beautiful, Charles. No, he's a very beautiful soul.

Oh, right. So the last launch had been a bit of a dard, but I sort of, and Hartley, my eldest was sort of going, I don't think the parachute's going to open, you know, should we be worried about it? No, no, no, son, it will be fine. Don't worry about it. Right. So we launched the rocket. So he launches the rocket.

And to be clear, like, the little launch pad doesn't have a very long cable. Like, it's only about five metres away from the actual rocket. You're standing essentially right under the rocket. But it's all right because the parachute's here, right? Except that Hartley turned out to be entirely correct, that the damage meant that so it went up. It went and it went up spectacularly. It would have been 175 metres up in the air,

this very tall, thin, pointy rocket, right? And then, and there was no wind, it just turned around and started hurtling down, right, And with all the pay. Because what goes up must come down. This is a science lesson. Oh, I didn't know. Yeah, sorry.

But the little kid, the idiot, little kid, then started running towards the rocket, like where it was going to land. Which was not very far away, because it was like, there's no weird. Like, it was just literally coming down. And literally, within about a foot of where it came down, like, it missed him, luckily.

So I didn't kill him. anyone but it would have killed him but instead it was really fun so there you go that's my story it reminds me of um the worst christmas when i was a kid which was when my grandparents bought my brother uh who loves such things a rocket kit like this and um it was maybe i don't know a hundred bucks something like that it was really fancy rocket exactly the same thing so a giant stick of gunpowder with it yes and a beautiful like plastic rocket with a parachute and all this kind of stuff and they lived in a kind of rural property, so a perfect place to let this thing off.

And so we put it in the middle of a paddock, you know, this beautiful fancy rocket, also from Hobbico, lit it. It went massively up in the air. It was incredibly exciting. Then it started floating down and floating down and floating down, and we never saw it again. The parents of the kid knew that I was taking them to launch a rocket.

But, I mean, we were out in the June. It would have been a huge... Like, if Say it had stabbed him through the heart and he'd bled out in the sand... Oh my God. What would have been the correct moral response? What, do you, like, return him to his family? Or do you...

He returned to hobby... He'd have to carry him. It'd be like 40 kilos. Charles! I reckon HobbyCo just gives you another kid. Yeah, gears from road microphones. We're part of the ACUSCreated Network and this was not sponsored by HobbyCo

where you can get death machines any day of the week.