The Chaser Report - "I'm not racist, but..." says PM

Episode Date: April 4, 2022

After coming under fire with accusations of historic racism, Scott Morrison has declared he is not racist - so do his previous remarks hold up? Meanwhile Charles has a theory on why the election has taken so long to get called. Plus John looks at the budget and IPCC report to find out how Australia can save the climate, but isn't. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chase of Report. Hello and welcome to The Chase Report for Tuesday the 5th of April. I'm Charles Firth and with me today are John Dom and Gabby. Hello. Something shocking has happened over the weekend. Somebody has accused Scott Morrison of racism. I am shocked. This cannot.

Wait, wait a wait, wait, hang on, hang on, hang on. You're saying the Scott Morrison, the guy who lives in the Shire, is racist. Well, allegedly racist. Allegedly, Michael Tokes has accused Scott Morrison of using anti-Lebanese sentiment to help in the battle of pre-selection and of calling him a Muslim who is, quote, being investigated. Well, is it racist to be anti-Muslim? Like, isn't the point that, you know, Scott Morrison apparently loves Lebanese people.

It's just to use the whole Muslim thing as the talking point. And is that racism or is that just straight out anti-Muslim? Like, is that right? I don't know. Is it racist to be anti-Muslim? Or is that just anti-I mean, it's bigoted. But it's against a religion rather than a race. That's a very Trumpian argument, Judge.

No, I'm just asking for a friend. I'm asking for a friend. When they did the Muslim ban in America, when they did the big Trump Muslim ban, he said it's not racist because you can have white Muslims. Exactly my point Thank you Thank you Donald Trump Incredibly few of them

Yes There are just unbelievably few of them And I think Scott Morrison would agree with me Luckily Scott Morrison has come out And said that he is willing to sign a legal declaration That he has never been racist to Lebanese people Or Muslim people Aha well that's the thing

If this Michael Taukes or Tokes Wants to make his accusation He should make a stat deck I bet he doesn't have the guts to do a stat deck On the record about this Yeah he's already done that So obviously it's Scott Morrison is going to sign this declaration. There wouldn't be any like clips of him being

racist that we could compile. Are you telling me you've prepared a little treat? Yeah, I put in a little bit of work for the podcast. Yay! And went through his history. Does Australia have an Islamophobia problem? I don't know if Australians understand Islam very well. I've got to call it out radical, violent, extremist Islam that opposes our very way of life. Australia was established, yeah, sure, it was a pretty brutal settlement. My, my forefather and forefathers. mothers were on the first and second fleets. It was a pretty brutal place, but there was no slavery in Australia. So as we do this at this time every year, we remember the stolen generations.

I also said 14 years ago, sorry is not the hardest word to say. The hardest is, I forgive you. Yeah, so Scott Morrison clearly would never be racist and then sign a document and say that he's never been racist. I mean, this is an interesting debate to be having now, because it's a change from the debate we've been having for the past three solid. weeks about how every single person who's ever worked with Scott Morrison thinks he's a monster and a bully.

This is a real change. And look, I think this is, personally, I think that all this stuff is being leaked by Scott Morrison, because if the Australian public knew that he was a racist, there'd be more likely to vote for him. Coming up on the show, we're going to talk about the election, which may or may not be called by the time you hear this. And we're going to talk about trees. Yeah, I've got a big old story about trees coming up.

But first of all, let's go to Rebecca Day in Mnobino in the Chaser Newsroom. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has slammed the allegation that he was racist to Muslims and Lebanese people. The former immigration minister to Tony Abbott told reporters that he couldn't possibly be Islamophobic as he posted a message acknowledging Ramadan on the weekend. Flood victims who lost. their house in the floods have been seen dancing on their lifeboats after receiving a whopping

$20,000 to rebuild their homes. The former residents told reporters they can't believe the generosity of the New South Wales government as they will now be able to afford to install a couple of windows into their non-existent walls. In devastating news, the worst person you know is reportedly doing well right now. In a recent Instagram story, the fuckwit posted a picture of them relaxing and smiling in a way that will completely ruin your day. When asked about the douchebag in question,

Karma said it was too busy dealing with nationwide assholes like Scott Morrison, George Christensen and Kyle Sanderlands and are far too busy to deal with the cunt that you know personally. I'm Rebecca Daynamuno from The Chasing News desk, and I am considering holding a coup to overthrow this podcast. Okay, guys, now, by the time people are

listening to this, it may well be the case that the election has already been called because it's going to happen any day now. If you were Scott Morrison, would you be rushing to begin the contest? I have a theory about this because actually, if you think about it, the speculation for the election

actually started in about August or September last year, right? Remember, remember how we were all coming out of lockdown and everyone went, oh, we sort of run the vaccination. Scott Morrison will probably go to the election at the end of last year and use the fact that we have a sort of COVID-free summer, like a hot-fax summer. Hot-Vac summer. And he'll probably have it in November or December the last year.

Do you remember that? Yeah. I was. I did remember that. So I have a theory that actually Scott Morrison has been wanting. to call the election pretty much every day since then. And all he's been waiting for

is to have a clear day, 24 hours without a scandal or a crisis caused entirely by him that he's at the centre of, right? That is a bold, bold assumption. Because if you look back, there has not been a 24... And I think this is why he didn't call it last weekend.

Like, you had the Michael Tokes' racism scandal, Now, before that, you had all the bullying allegations, which was consumed all of last week. Before that, you had the claims that he came out and said, oh, well, I haven't been to Hillsong for years. And then it turned out that he had been to Hillsong in 2019. Before that, there was all that criticism of him bringing in the army too late to the floods up in the Northern Rivers, in the first set of floods earlier in the months. And then before that, there was all the thing about him for the first 10 days of the floods, just disappeared. and not being there for the floods.

And then before that, there was the mishandling of the Novak Djokovic sort of thing where this electoral gift of this anti-vex who wanted to come to Australia was then made as confusing and is internationally embarrassing as possible. Dales, is this list going to go back to the beginning of Scott Morrison's first Thomas Prime? Or the beginning of time. And then before that, in January, I don't know whether you remember, but... This is the new Bible. He...

He's a bagat. Yeah, that's right. But before that, remember there were all those leaked text messages? There was weeks and weeks of him. Oh, Macron. Well, Macrom was late last year. But after that, there were all those cabinet colleagues. And then there was the text messages, you know, calling him a complete psycho.

And then there was the test. And that was early February. But even before that, there was ones about that showed that Scott Morrison actually must have known about the Brittany Higgins alleged sexual assault 50 metres from his office at the time because of the sort of text messages. But yeah, but then before there, as Don mentioned, the Orcus stuff up, where McCron basically, you know, said that he knew that Scott Morrison had lied to him. And a complete political gift of buying 50, 60 billion dollars worth of submarines was completely squandered over his complete inability to sort of handle that announcement properly.

And then before that, as we had the Omicron outbreak in December, you had the going back into all the aged care homes and realizing that the government, despite a fucking Royal Commission, had completely failed to prep for the next wave of the variant that every expert had told them since August was coming. And then before that, we had the lack of testing line And so that every testing line in the country was like 12, 14 hours sort of in testing. And then before that, the fact that they forgot to order 100 million rat tests in August,

despite being told that that's what was going to be needed in the next sort of thing. And then before that, before that, we were all hanging the fucking round because there were no fucking vaccines because they forgot to fucking order vaccines in the middle of a global pandemic. I don't mean to point a hole in this list, but you forgot the fish. The fish? You forgot the fish. What's the fish? Ultimately, the worst crime Scott Morrison ever committed was that fucking fish.

The time he cooked a fish. When everyone was in lockdown or something. Yeah. And he ordered a fish in. It was Christmas Day. And that's right. And there were no supplies. Like, because everyone, there was no food on the supermarket show.

There are so many things that are occurring to me that you missed in the list too, Charles. Like, there's the whole climate summit. Oh, my God, Glasgow. Oh, yes. I forgot about it. Because I decided when making this list to only do it from memory. I wasn't going to Google any. It's just like, what can I remember?

Like, what's the things that are standout? But you're right, the climate's, oh, my. Oh, my God. Oh, sorry. And very recently how he told renters to just buy a house. Oh, yeah. I love that one. So it's the moment he gets 24 hours of a clear run.

Yeah. He's going to call the election. What happens if the prime. Minister never calls an election under our constitution. I've got a theory for this as well, which is, you know what happens whenever there's a national crisis? Because it would, it would be a constitutional crisis. Oh, I don't know.

He goes to Hawaii. He goes to Hawaii. He's going to spend, and actually, I think it would suit the Liberal Party because their polling would show Scott Morrison's electoral death. Like, you mentioned Scott Morrison's name. Suddenly, people are not going to vote for you. So I reckon he'll just, he'll not call the election, head off to Hawaii. there'll be a constitutional crisis and he'll send us some Instagram photos.

The Chaser Report, now with extra whispers. All right, guys, I've got a hopeful story for once. Oh, good. So I don't know if you've seen this, but hopefully around the time that this podcast goes out, the final IPCC report is going to come out. That's still going to be. Another one already? So the fight, well, there's been a whole issue where the final draft has not been able to get released

because governments around the world have protested the IPCC. report because it says that we need to phase out fossil fuels. So this is the international panel on climate change. Yeah. Yep. So hang on. So we had the draft where they actually said what they thought. And then now it's had to be negotiated past all the governments.

Yeah, a lot of governments around the world have tried to get blocked because it says that we need to phase out fossil fuels and that scientists for some reason aren't budging on the fact that the biggest polluter is the problem and that we need to get rid of the biggest polluter. But the governments point out there is another way to solve climate change. which is trees. Luckily, Australia already has plans for trees. So Australia's going to solve climate change.

Where are we planting these trees? We're mostly desert. Where are they going to go? Well, I don't know if you guys remember this, but there were these big bushfires a few years ago. Well, they're going to plant the trees where they all get burnt to the ground. Yeah. Well, the government at the time announced a $38 million fund to plant a billion trees by the end of the decade.

But they're going to get burnt. If they're going to get burnt, we can just put down more trees gabby. I don't see why you can't. But then the trees can't do what trees do. You being a bit negative, Nelly. I am pretty sure that you need to... The globe has to plan about three and a half trillion trees to do the right amount of carbon sink

to sort of stabilise carbon emissions, right? So how's a billion, which is, you know, one three thousandth of enough, going to solve anything? Well, I looked at it in terms of, like, if you look at how much Australia doesn't do anything about climate change, and the fact that we're going to be putting out more carbon emissions by 2030 than we are now. If we're planting a billion trees,

surely the countries that actually give us shit will be able to plant maimor. Oh, I see, because we're doing bare minimum. We're like the really bad housemate who doesn't do anything. And then they suddenly turn around and wash up their coffee cup for once, like Craig used to do. And therefore, suddenly all the other flatmates

will suddenly renovate the house. Yeah. Because Craig has led the way. by washing out his mouldy coffee cup for once. I mean, if it's Craig, I'm assuming that just means he has another keep cup that he can use instead of the other one. Yeah, the best way to deal with that is every time you go to the cafe

you get a new Cape Cup and throw it out. So like I said, there's been a 38 million dollars since the bushfire has happened for trees. And luckily, we're getting sort of close to the first checkpoint where the government set down that there has to be a minimum of 150 million trees planted by 2027. And so, I'll be honest, we are slightly off track from hitting that number. Have we got 150 trees, John?

We so far planted zero. Oh. Okay. I'm not shocked. They've got until 2027. You still it all in the last night. So if you look at it as they've only missed a billion trees out of the trillions that we need, it's not that bad.

Oh, yes. Yes, that actually makes me feel happy. Yes, that's a really good way. It's a very depressive way of looking at it. I genuinely think I might have a solution here. Oh, what's that? A genuine solution that not only plants more trees, but also gets the left to vote for the Liberal Party.

And here it is. If the Liberal Party just count marijuana as a tree. Yes. Then technically, every drug bust they find, that's trees planted, is it not? Marijuana is a tree? I appreciate that's what people mean when they say Canberra. is a green state?

Yeah. Is that there's just so much marijuana growing up in a people's houses? If they start planting marijuana, they can still charge out the nose for it, but if they start actually planting it and allowing use of it legally, boom, trees planted and the left of the left

get to vote for liberal. There you go. I've solved it. Boom. Election solved. Because there is another solution that has been put forward in the budget this week. Right.

Which is that there's a new 20 million fund for trees under the federal government for the queen. We're going to plant trees for the queen. Oh, that's so lovely because of her Jubilee. Shouldn't it be daisies? Won't she be pushing up daisies?

Oh, good one. We need to incentivise Barnaby Joyce, who essentially is the Prime Minister now, to see that it's in his interest to plant trees, and then it'll actually get done. So this is my theory. You just point out to Barnaby Joyce.

choice, the trees are all about roots. And then he'll want to do it all. Well, he's already good at sowing wild oats. Why not sowing tree seeds? Our gear is from Road Microphone and we are part of the ACAS creator network. Let's all go away.