The Chaser Report - How To Extort Gina Rinehart With Art

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

Dom and Charles concoct a foolproof plan on how to make infinite money from the most famous woman in the world this week, Gina Rinehart. Turns out all you need to do is know exactly what billionaires don't want you doing. 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. Hello, Charles. So good to be here with you. Charles, here's a question. Should any artist have the right to paint any unflattering portrait of any billionaire called Gina Reinhardt? This is a big question that's come up in culture. A bit of a philosophical question.

Yeah, free speech versus the right to privacy. and not being laughed at. This is Vincent Namajira, one of Australia's finest artists. He's got an exhibition in the National Gallery in Canberra, and in that exhibition includes, look, it's not the most flattering portrait in the world. Gina Reinhardt looks aghast. In fact, I think Stephen Colbert a nailed her expression.

But, I mean, come on, how on flattering could this portrait possibly? Okay. Okay, okay, I got to say, I'm no art expert, but in this portrait, I believe the artist really captured her expression at the moment she saw this portrait. And so it's a question of freedom, of creativity, Charles, of whether or not Gina Reinhardt, for all of her money,

should be immune from this portrait existing. Look, you can argue lots of things. I mean, I think there's a feminist perspective here that we need to unpack at some point, probably not in this podcast. Unpack or briefly gloss over as the men that we are. You know, like, you know, women have. have been judged on their looks for many years.

And, you know, even though there is a long tradition of artists portraying both men and women unflatteringly, you know, if they're in positions of power, you know, you could argue that there is a thing here. But I think the main point that I'd like to point out about this is that Gina Ryan Art is an extremely generous donor to the arts. And I just think it's so ungrateful of the artist and of the arts community. to be putting up with this shit, right? Because she donated up to $5,000 to the National Gallery in Canberra.

Which for her is basically, that's an insult, right? Say on, so is your point that if she'd given them hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions, she would have had the right to demand? Protection money. Yeah. That's how things roll in this country. Actually, what a brilliant model that is for arts funding, which we'll unpack right after this. So this is a really good idea.

Charles, I know that, for instance, the new art gallery in Sydney, the art gallery of New South Wales, has had some funding issues recently. Oh, God, yes. Maybe what needs to, I mean, they've just built this new wing, but staffing the new wing has been challenging. What galleries need to do is hold billionaires to ransom and say that unless you fund our gallery, we will have horrible portraits of you that go global. It's extortion. I think artists have been too. lily-livered over the years to engage in probably their most lucrative avenue of revenue raising.

Call it art-stortion. Art-stortion. And also, and the thing is that as an artist, you'd be protected because what you'd do is, you'd say, well, the extortion itself is an artistic expression. It's a performance. Yes, it's a performance art. That's just like in Mona, you know, Mona where they had that, this is fascinating too. They had the ladies' lounge, a room where men could not enter, and the point was that their

frustration at not being able to enter this amazing, luxurious lounge where there was free champagne, that was part of the artwork. Yes. And they took that to Human Rights Court and lost, so they're now appealing that. Is that part of the artwork too, the judge? Should the judge go to the ladies' lounge and issue the ruling? I'm not sure where this is in. Yeah, look, I think it's all art.

It's all art. Everything's art. Everything's art. This podcast is art. You can't sue us because it's artistic experience. So Vincent Namajiri, the point is he does this to lots of powerful people. Yes. He does it to the king.

He does it to the queen. Even Adam Goods, he's portrayed in his unique style. Yes. But it is a caricature. It's not a flattering portrayal of Gina Reinhardt. Right. Everything that I've known about Gina Reinhardt suggests that, you know, is he reacting to her appearance or is it the fact that she is a mining billionaire who's his father said some

terrible things about Aboriginal people such as Vincent Namajira. But also, isn't it the case that? that, you know, like, if you are a mining billionaire, shouldn't you just, like, cry, if you're upset by a painting, shouldn't you just cry yourself to sleep and blow your nose on the billions of dollars that you've inherited over the years?

Like, you shouldn't you just... Because otherwise you're just inviting... I mean, it's clearly what has happened is the Streisand effect. Absolutely. It's the thing of, you know, you complain about something, and then everyone in the world hears about it.

Like, this story is gone completely global. It's utterly global. New York Times, And plaudits to Dan Illy for jumping on the back of that because what he's done is he's started to go fund me to get this unflattering image, you know, put up in Times Square. Yeah, and all the digital billboards. He's got a little sample.

It's on Indiegogo.com. And as we speak, $597 backers, $22,000 have been raised of the 30 needed. So it's probably going to happen. Yeah, yeah. Which makes me think, Charles, I think Dan's missed a trick here. Yeah. Because isn't the point that he needed a. another go fund me for how much not to do it.

Yes. That's the way you make money out of it, Dan Elish. What are you doing? That's what we should do. Yeah. We should set up an Indigo go for $40,000. Just saying, $400,000.

We'll take out Dan Illy. Stop Dan Illich from doing this. And then see how... I mean, isn't the point that Gina Ryan Hart would probably go, well, you can have $5 or something like that is an aunt's grand of $5,000? This is awkward, too, because one of the things that's emerged during this whole debate is that she has enormous power over Australian swimming. So she's basically a very generous sponsor of Australian swimming.

Oh, right. I think it was our friends at the shovel who had a satirical article of all the swimmers sort of mining awe for Gina Reinhardt on their days off in their swimmers. But yeah, I mean, she's an enormously powerful person. It's kind of reassuring that in this society there's at least some things that you can't control. Well, I think it's one of those things. You know how in communist Russia, even in the height of, you know, the control by the KGB and people being disappeared and exiled and sent to Siberia and

prison camps and gulags and all that stuff. There was a sort of undercurrent of satirical literature and, you know, an arts community, you know, like underground theatre and stuff like that. What was that? That thrived. Yes, yes. All the way through. And lots of jokes that were made at the expense of the Russian leader is often very coded. Oh, yes, like Xi Jinping and the Winnie the Pooh stuff. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I think that that's where we're at in Australian society. We can't do what, you know, should happen, which is, you know,

Gina Ryan Hart should have her inheritance stripped from her and the means of production reappropriated by all the people, you know, or she at least pay a sufficient royalty that actually means that she's no longer a unworthy billionaire, right? But we don't have that, and we don't have any prospect of that, because ever since the mining tax, our political leaders are too lily-livered to do anything to upset anyone who goes anywhere near a mine, right? But what we do have is we have the ability to draw a painting of her

and laugh at her a little bit. And that's what Vincent Niger has... Yes. I mean, look, I'm sure that it's all dressed up in, it's an analysis of power and so on. and it's tied in with colonialism. I wouldn't want to speak on his behalf, but those are the sorts of themes he normally likes art about.

But perhaps there is space to laugh at people like Gina Reinhardt. Perhaps this is just a brief moment. It's the breadcrumbs of democracy. We've ended up with the breadcrumbs of being allowed to at least laugh at people. We don't do anything about them, but we can laugh at it. Yeah, so in the same way that the servants in a manor house might have a little snigger at the bosses behind their back. Well, there you go.

Well, that's a really encouraging. idea. It's sort of all we can do is laugh, at least until Jane Reinhardt buys the National Gallery of Australia. And so what's going to happen to the swimmers? Do the swimmers get it in the neck if Danilick gets his billboard put up in Times Square? That's another go fund me. Because that's a threat, isn't it? That's a, you know, she could do that. She could. She's got the power. Absolutely. It just makes me wonder though, Charles. And I don't know to be a cynic, but if you go to the Out Gallery of New South Wales, you'll see almost every room in the new building is sponsored by someone or other. Oh, really?

Particularly the Ainsworths, the family that own aristocrat gaming. Well, they made their money off the misery of human beings because it's all about gambling machines. I was honestly surprised there wasn't in the back of the Ainsworth's room. There weren't some pokey. If I'm an artist, right? What a good idea. I want to propose, but if I want to propose some custom design pokey, some satirical poikies,

which is actually, I kind of think of it's a damn good idea. Yeah, that's a good idea. For the New South Wales Art Gallery. Yes. Where you were guaranteed to lose and the animation makes fun of you. Yes. If they're actually honest pokies. What the gallery actually fund that on?

No, they wouldn't. No. Or would they say, look, at artistic freedom? Or would they say, hey, look, thanks very much, the check is cleared. What are the terms and conditions of this sponsorship? That's what I want to know. Isn't the point that it depends whether there's more money to milk out of them? And also, isn't the whole point about the arts community?

You'd know this more than me, Don. Isn't the whole point that you've got to be rich to be on the boards of directors? Like, you wouldn't, you don't just sponsor a wing of the art gallery. If you also get on the board of directors, you get to run the art gallery. Well, I mean, the Archibald Prize is famously voted by the directors, by the board of the gallery. So there's rich, rich people, yeah. I mean, there are, there's always a few painters on the board, I should point out. But people like Ben Quilty have been on the board.

But generally, yeah, it's business tycoons that get to decide the Archibald. Pay to play. So when are we going to make the honest pokies? Because I think, I think that's a great idea for two reasons. Firstly, it would accurately satirise the game. gambling industry. Yes. And secondly, people are so stupid they'd put money into them.

We'd make a lot of money. Like, if it literally says you cannot win. No, except, no, except, remember, one of our first benefactors at the Chaser, remember, owned a pub, right? Oh, yes. And she, so she was this, you know, publican. Lovely person. Lovely person.

And she had a few pokey's as every pub in Sydney. You just have to. It'd be rude not to. People expected. And she decided the way to sort of assuage her. guilt about having these horrible pokies in her establishment was that she decided one of them

would, all the profits from that one machine would go to charity. Right. One of the 20 or whatever. Yeah, one of the 20. And actually, to be honest, I think she only had about 10. But still, yeah. And so she put up a little plaque saying this is the charity case. Really? And the thing is, there was no

difference between any of the pokies. Like, they're all just random profit generators. Sure, yeah. They're all random. That's right. And, and, and, but she said nobody, as soon as she put the plaque up, nobody used that machine. Nobody played it? Wow. Yeah, you don't want your losses going to good. No, you want to go to a company called, literally they're called aristocrat, Charles.

Like, it's literally saying, if you play this machine, you will make us as wealthy as a lord. And that's what's happened. They're billionaires, the Ainsworth. Extraordinary. So, um, so the point is, I don't think our scheme will work because, you know, you know, you know, it'll be, like, don't you have to give the appearance of winning? Oh, okay. You've got to sort of pretend.

Like, you can say at the end, you will definitely lose, and it'll be fine. But you've got to go, you know, your chance to win. So maybe it just needs to be the pokey to give Dom and Charles money. Don't say you definitely lose. No, but that's definitely a charity case. Oh, yeah, that's true. That actually would be very charitable. So, I mean, what's the level above aristocrat, Charles?

No, I like the idea of the definitely lose pokey. And it takes out, it's not long. a game of chance, right? Because there's no possibility of winning. Is that what you're suggesting? Yeah, you definitely lose. But there's fun and emotions. But I'll tell you what you do.

It's a bit like our shit bet. We used to have, remember shitbet? Yeah. For years, we ran shitbet, which was this scheme where it was a new form of gambling. We invented it in about 2015. For years, ran it. And we looted all these odds each year about things that would happen. And the way you would bet on any of these things, and they're always funny things.

It was like, you know, Scott Morrison becoming prime minister. It's something completely unlikely. Something implausible, yeah. And then what you would do, if you wanted to bet on any of these outcomes, is you'd take your wallet and you'd put it in the bin. And then that would be laying the bed. The Chaser Report, news a few days after it happens. The problem is, Charles, we could design these pokies where you definitely lose.

And the way to incentivise players, just based on the real. pokies is what they call features, right? Yeah. So if you pay for long enough, as I've tried occasionally, you get this thing where, like, it has all these flashing lights and plays a tune and all these digital coins appear on the screen. So what we need to do is have it to, if you win, you get to see a portrait of Gina Ryder. Yes, that's right.

Yeah, so you have it. So the thing that you win is the mockery of public figures. Or of pokies, whatever it might be. The only problem is, we probably couldn't legally release them because, you have to have some sort of return to punters. So I just don't know how to happen. No, but that is, the return is the feeling of goodness. Yeah.

Well, we can see if we can make that legal in the state of New South Wales. Wouldn't it be hilarious at the state of New South Wales, which has something like 10% of the world's pokey's. I'm sorry, you can't have these honest pokies that tell people there's no possible way of winning. Can I say, I've never believed that figure that we've, because surely Las Vegas has more pokey's per square centimetre than New South Wales. Well, every pub in the whole of the state.

Yeah, so we've got like 100,000 pokies or something like that. That does not sound, there's not only a million pokey's in the world. You know what I mean? Maybe not anymore. Like, there's a lot more casinos now than they used to be. Yeah, right. So at some point, we had 10%. Well, according to the Australia Institute in 2023,

yeah. Australia has, ah, here you go. It's a, there's a technicality. In fact, it's bigger. New South Wales has, this is extraordinary, one poker machine for every 88 people. Wow. And 30. 7% of the world's, here's the caveat, non-gaming venue and caveat poker machines.

So we are, the others are probably in Victoria and everywhere else. We are one of the only jurisdictions stupid and corrupt enough to put pokey's outside of dedicated casinos. Yes. Like, you go to the pub to go to the pub in New South Wales and, oh, there's a pokey there, I'm addicted to gambling, I'll play it. This is the thing. Whereas in Vegas, or whatever, at least you know you're going to ruin your life. You walk in, you walk in the venue knowing you're going to destroy everything you believe. On the flip side, Dom, it does mean that the Art Gallery of New South Wales gets that extra Ainsworth wing.

That's true. You know what I mean? Like, I'm just saying, like, you could have people being able to, you know, feed their kids or whatever, you know. But on the other, you know, like, there is, it swings and roundabouts, isn't it? True. I must say, I also admire the way that our government has managed to include gambling and other forms of life. It's like, it's not just at the pubs. Whenever you go to a bus stop or a train station.

and tap your Opel card. It's a total gamble whether the service will actually turn up or not. Ordering a cab. Like, yeah, most aspects of life, ordering a delivery of anything. Like, Australia Post is now a gambling company. Yes. Like, you're posting it better about whether the letter will actually arrive or not, ever. The NBN, yeah.

We're constantly gambling. Submarines. I mean, that's not even, it's a certainty, isn't it? The submarines aren't going to write. I mean, even Singapore Airlines now, Charles. Oh, you went there. I did go there. Yeah.

I booked a flight. I can feel like there's going to be a sudden plummet in our ratings after their point. Anyway, the point being, look, it's not a flattering portrait of Gina Reinhardt. No. But we live in a country where you can make fun of how a billionaire looks. And let's not forget, Charles, that the chase is one of our first stunts in you ever did in television, was an appalling piece of fat shaming. Yes.

I think conceived by me and performed by you. Yes. So we've never been better. The ticker test. Than anyone. Kim Beasley go an entire press conference without grabbing food. Like, you're getting a chicken leg. I think it was a turkey leg.

It was a turkey leg. That was a baguette that descended as a boom microphone. That was the piesta resistance. Yeah, and there was a piece of corn. That's right. That's a corn on the gob. It was so bad. And he just, he didn't know what was happening.

He just kept grabbing it. That's right. And the best thing about that whole. And we've talked about this on the podcast before, is that when we met Will Anderson talk about collaborating with him earlier, our career. Before we had any television shows up, he said, I want to do smart political satire. I do not like those idiots who held the court on the cop. It's kind of kissing his face and it was us.

And that was the most awkward moment ever in a meeting. Yes. I mean, admittedly the awkwardness should have come in the meeting when we suggested him basically a court on the cop. But anyway, so there you go. So we're no better than Vincent Namajira, an award-winning and much acclaimed artist. In fact, I think you can say we're genuinely worse than you're. Genuinely.

Yeah, that's true. That's absolutely true. So, look, but at least we still have this one freedom from billionaires. It's just right art. That's it. Yep. With the one thing we have is that you can do insulting pictures of billionaires. So, you know, get out your pens, Australia.

This is the one thing we have. Yes, that's right. Well, that'll solve all our problems. And the one thing that you know is that, you know, if you do want to pursue your artist a career visual arts, there's a very, very small chance that you'll be Vincent Nerveger. and be really successful, but you'll know that your entire life will be spent resenting people like Gina Reinhardt, they pull all out of the ground and sell it. Yes.

And make much more money than people like us. Yes. So who's the real winner in this society, Charles? I'm hoping it's Vincent Namadira. That would be a good outcome. Yeah. Well, I think it's whoever runs those billboards in Times Square, to be honest. Is it a distant?

Dan Illich. Oh, it's like the podcast awards. Dan wins again. Oh, yeah. Great. Great. Fantastic. What a great world we'll live in.

Our gear is from Road. We are part of the Iconiclass Network. And should we return up again tomorrow? Maybe. It's becoming a habit, isn't it?