The Chaser Report - It's WAR! On the Solomon Islands

Episode Date: March 20, 2023

If people want war, Charles has a way we can give it to them. Meanwhile Labor have updated their opinion on wages. Plus, fuck Nazis. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence. This is the Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report. I'm Charles Firth. today, as always, is Domnight. Hello, Charles. How's Adelaide going? Have you almost left the burning city behind you and vacated permanently?

Yes, and I'm leaving today, and this morning, I found the place that has good coffee in Adelaide. There's one place. Oh, wow. Congratulations. What's it called? It's called Abbott and Kinney. It's literally just, you know, a rip-off of that Venice Beach, lovely bulletin.

Yeah, which is the one nice place in L.A. Yes, it's the one nice place. One nice place in Adelaide, one nice place in LA. Perfect. Yeah, so there you go. Now, big show today. There's lots to talk about. There's two weeks of parliament coming up, you know, over the next two weeks.

So there'll be a lot of disappointment in the Albanese government. I think the honeymoon is not just over, but I think that a lot of people are feeling like maybe it's heading for divorce. So we'll cover that. But first of all, I just wanted to start with something because I think. I think I've got a solution. Oh, I love it when you have solutions. To the China problem. Oh, thank goodness.

So which problem are we talking about? We're talking about the one where the SMH is basically terrified everybody with the Reds under the bed. Or we're talking about the genuine concerns that the relationship is souring despite Penny Wong's best efforts? Well, I'm talking about the fact that they're definitely going to invade us within three years. And we're going to be at war with China.

I mean, some say three years, Charles. other experts, say 72 hours. Yes. Now, so the thing is, I think everyone realizes that, you know, like, China's not the aggressive here. Like, clearly what's happening is Australia and, well, America is going around, whispering to everyone about how, wow, we really need to buy a few more arms from, say, hmm, us, so that, you know, and just sort of doing a bit of, you know, really good marketing, really, to sell their arms. arms and people like Albo are just falling for it like hookline and sinker. The British has a really good defence thing. So the point is, you know, like the drumbeats of war, it's being controlled by people

who want to sell lots of arms, right? And that's a hard problem to get around, right? So I think we need to learn from the Iraq War. Listen, it's the 20th anniversary of the Iraq War this week. That's when it broke out. And Simon Crean actually had some really interesting things to say about the Iraq War. Are you sure? Oh, is that the same Simon Crean who used to be the Labour leader?

What's something interesting to say? Well, the funny thing is, I was actually involved in the anti-war movement back 20 years ago, right? And I remember at the time, Simon Crean wanted to back in the American thing. And we forced him not to. We organised the numbers inside the Labour Party. and we fucking forced him to oppose the war. And he's now going, oh, see, wasn't I right? What an amazing victory for you, Charles.

You must have been so proud, except for the fact that he was the opposition leader and a very unpopular one at that. He was terrible. We went to war anyway. John Howard just went along with America. But other than that, Charles, an amazing achievement of yours. But Simon had some really actually quite shrewd things to say,

some lessons from the Iraq War of 20 years ago. I want you have listened to them. I'll just play it to you. It was illegal at the time, and I released an opinion to that effect. This never went to the Howard Cabinet until the last minute, and it was never debated properly

in the Australian Parliament in advance of going. They're important lessons to learn, and they still have to be practised. Now, this got me thinking, right? Okay, so the point is, we went to war without any proper cabinet process and it didn't go to parliament, we can do that again. That's the lesson to learn from this, right?

And the whole point is, what we should do is we, everyone who wants to go to war with China, we should point out, hey, China might be a bit large. Like, if we go to war with China, odds are we'll probably lose, right? What we need is we need a smaller pisciation that we can win against. Oh, a starter. A warm-up game. point them all in the direction of, you know, like, yeah, like New Zealand is, I don't know,

or, I mean, who should be in vain? What do you reckon? New Zealand's a bit big. What about the Solomon Islands? Falam Islands. Yeah, yeah. Now, Roos is good because the other good thing about the Solomon Islands, my dad used to go over there a lot. And remember when they had that coup about 10 years ago?

Oh, yeah. And the coup leaders raided the armory. There's an armour where they keep all the guns on the island. And eventually, once the coup got subsided, there was one gun missing from the armoury. And that led to a sort of week-long hunt for the gun because they went, hang on, there's a gun on the loose in this island. And they found the gun and then they put it back in the armour.

We know that they're undefended. I think that's a great idea. think there is a big problem though we bought we bought a whole lot of really heavy tanks to invade iraq remember back then and so our tanks aren't useful you can't unload the tanks onto the solomon islands because uh our tanks aren't oh appropriate for use around the pacific could your dad be the general in this attack could your dad spearhead the australian army's solomon campaign yeah i think so anyway so what we do regardless it doesn't have to be Solomon's. It could be like Fiji or...

I think Nauru is just about small enough for us to take Nauru, Pitcahn Island. I think that's only got about 50 people on it. Yeah. Anyway, point is, what we do is we point them in that direction. We say, look, you don't even need cabinet approval. You can just go to war against a country and you get away with it. They can do it now. Like, they're wanting to... They're wanting a sort of war to get it out of their system. They go to war. We can win. I mean, arguably, Iraq war was more of a tie. I mean, there are still 2,000 troops, Western troops in Iraq still, to this day. I haven't actually quite won that yet. But, you know, like, it would just, I think it's more certain that we would win than if we went to

war against a country of 1.4 billion people. Weren't the winners of the Iraq War, actually, the Islamic State? The people who swept into the vacuum that we created by getting into Saddam. It's a good idea, Charles. But another way to achieve that is that we've got all these pressures built up, all these experts. I think all the authors of that report in the City Morning Herald, the Red Alert report, Peter Harcher, all these people,

what we need to do is disendorse them as Australians and have them attack China on their own. Yes. Just say to China, look, we can't control these people that don't represent us. a small boat of middle of, you know, middle-aged to elderly blokes is heading towards the mainland of 1.5 billion people. Do with them as you wish. No, look, I like that.

And look, even if we didn't disendorse them as Australians, I think what we do is we passed some legislation saying conscription should first of all come from people who really wanted to go to war. Yes, exactly. National Service, who better, just to live. lead the way our national service and those calling for national service. I have no interest in national service, but those who want to do it, I don't want to get in their way.

And if these people want to take on the Red Army, which has, I think, more members in the entire population of Australia, I wouldn't be surprised. Be my guess it would be an interesting experiment to go from sabre-rattling to an actual sabre to inevitable death. I am not sure that the pundits who are beating the drum of war have that level of courage. I noted that Bevan Shields, who's the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald,

wrote this full-throated defence of beating the drums of war at the end of last week. And he posted it to a Twitter, and then he promptly deleted his Twitter account because he was getting too many insults. So if you can't even win a Twitter war, I'm not sure he's going to be sort of at the front line charging in actually because the other great thing about this thing

this thing of attacking like Solomon Islands or something like that is we wouldn't need to buy those eight nuclear submarines right no we could probably

we could arrive on one of those inflatable boats that you can get at BCF oh yes you just need like I don't know a cheese grater or something

you wouldn't need much yeah or kayak actually Craig's got a couple of kayaks we could probably borrow his and invade them I mean I don't It sounds like an amazing idea.

Just to blow off some steam. Why don't we do what China would do, actually? We don't even need to attack a sovereign state. We just need to find a little dirt patch sitting in the middle of the Pacific. Yes. And just put all these drum beaters. They can all take over that island and just laboriously reclaim land and build it up. And they could put a runway in there if they want.

And I just think all those commentators could be on their own little island and unfortunately wouldn't have internet access, so we wouldn't better hear from them ever again. but we'd know that they were keeping us safe somewhere on a rock an atoll somewhere previously uninhabited that's what China would do they'd just garrison some random piece of dirt

why don't we do the same thing I like that I like that I feel like what would they trade like what of value do they have to be able to you know trade with the rest of the world like what would Peter Harcher Bevan Shields and Andrew Bolt

be able to trade with the rest of the world Opinions. They would write their opinions on a little message, a little note. They'd put it in a bottle, float it out, and it would be picked up by a few people here and there who would immediately dismiss it as being ridiculous. I wouldn't say it's a successful trade, but why not? So we solved that problem. I think that's something that the Parliament should just address this week. Although actually it doesn't even need to go through Parliament.

No, but it doesn't that you go to Parliament? We just do it. But the more discussion, just get into it. Just get into it and worry about it later. 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 FIS.ca. The Chaser Report, news a few days after it happens. Okay, the next thing is I want to talk about the fact that the government, remember just before the election, the government said that they didn't want people's wages to go backwards, right? That was one of their key sort of strategies was like their message was people's wages shouldn't go backwards under labor. We are pro-wages increases, right? Sure.

Listen to Katie Gallagher this morning on ABC Radio, being asked by Patricia Cavelas about whether wages should. go backwards or not. Is that your position that you don't want to see them go backwards? We would want to make, I think for, particularly for low-income workers, we want to make sure that, you know, they are getting sustainable and affordable pay rises. And you'll see our submission provided through that wage case in the next couple weeks. But I'm going to ask it again politely. Will you put in a submission that says that they shouldn't go backwards?

Well, we're currently finalising that submission. Patricia, so you're not wedded to that language? Well, no. She was much clearer on this podcast, Charles, for the election, criticising the Morrison government. Isn't that weird? She seemed to have worked out what she thought back then. Yeah, isn't it weird?

Maybe we should get her back on. She seems to have forgotten one of the key commitments of the Labor Party. Anyway, you might think this is a problem that, you know, like your wages is going to go backwards, right? But I don't worry. Everyone, don't worry, because all the banks are about to collapse. anyway. So it probably doesn't matter that our wages is going to backwards. In fact, having more money means you probably have more savings in the bank, which will mean that you'll lose

more. You'll lose more. So you'll end up worse overall. Yes. So it's actually, it's actually a good thing. The Albanese government looking out for us by not giving us wage increases, by making our wages, by making us having less wages, that means that we don't lose as much I think I see where you're coming from, Charles. And the other thing is, even if your wages are increased, even if you did get an increase, given the cost of living increases, it's still a net decrease, right? No matter what happens, nobody's going to put your wages up on more than the cost of living. No, no, no.

No, this is the thing. The Greens have actually, no, not the Greens. Sorry, the unions have actually put a submission into the Fair Work Commission because there's a wage case about to come up saying actually it should be a 7% increase. people shouldn't go backwards it should actually just keep up with inflation so you know like there is an argument

and that would seem to align with the promise that Labor made just before the election what confuses me is how come they've changed their mind after an election like what has changed that means that they don't want

they want wages to go backwards now I just don't understand the important thing to note is that politicians wages are set by an independent tribunal, and they always seem to go up. Have you noticed that? I don't know. But Charles, you've got to understand,

governing is very different from making campaign promises, because people don't have to like you. The government knows. Anthony Albanese is a very experienced politician. He knows that it doesn't matter at all what anyone thinks of him until about this time next year. Oh, so what you're saying is their policy will once again be that they don't want wages to go backwards in a year's time

just before the next year. By which time the economy may have stabilised. Yes. The other thing is they've only got to be, and this is the thing that they know best of all, and John Howard was the master of this, speaking of Simon Crean, you've only got to be more popular than the others. Yes. You don't have to be objectively like, no one genuinely like John Howard.

Nobody wanted to hang out with John Howard. He just was brilliant at just doing whatever it took to be slightly more popular than Simon Crean. In the case of Simon Crean, that was an extremely easy job. But all Albo has to do is be letting. less scary and horrifying than Peter Dutton. Yes. Peter Dutton, who's approach to Orcus.

I mean, this is the genius of Peter Dutton. He just came from out of nowhere. This wasn't even on the table. And he just said, we're going to be on board with all the submarine purchases. We're going to do it as well. And you know what? We're going to get the money by slashing the NDIS. Thereby, it wasn't even on the table.

It wasn't necessary. He just wanted to bring into the debate that the NDIS had to be cut. But thereby terrifying all the millions of people who are on the IndyIS about a future coalition government. He didn't need to do that. He's sort of a reverse Bill Shorten, isn't he? Like, Bill Shorten wanted to announce a whole lot of unpopular policies that were unpopular amongst the rich just before the election. And Dutton's doing the same thing by announcing policies that will be really unpopular with the poor just before the election. Yeah, no one said, Peter Dutton, do you think that the most next?

needy and the people who have the most terrible quality of life and desperately need this extra funding among us, which previously had bipartisan support, do you think we should slash and burn the NDIS as part of this? No one put that to him. That was his own idea. That was just him free bowling. It was the first thing that came into his head was, you know all those free wheelchairs? Let's not do that anymore. So that's the point. Labor doesn't have to be good. I certainly don't have to keep the unions happy. If anything, Charles, the role of the unions in a modern Labor government is to be the enemy, is to, you beat them up, Charles, to prove that you're not beholden to them.

That's what the unions are for these days. One of the best things I heard on that Katie Gallagher interview on Monday was Katie actually was complaining about how the Libs were not coming to the table on backing in their safeguard mechanism over climate change. And so therefore they had been forced to negotiate with the Greens and the independents

who actually want to do something about climate change. The opposition. And they're going, but hang on, this safeguard mechanism means that everyone will get their new coal mines

and their gas mines and everything like that. And yet the Libs aren't letting us do this. They're complaining that the Libs were was sort of meaning that they'd have

to have meaningful legislation on climate change. So she was saying we're trying to help the polluters here. We're trying to help your base. Yes, we're trying to help your base. We want to screw over the environmentalist and you won't help us.

You're just being obstructionist. It must be very rough being in a modern labour government, Charles. Now we haven't addressed that there's one final thing that I think we should talk about before we go, which is we haven't addressed the elephant in the room, which is that there were literal Nazis There were literal

Nazis marching in the street in Melbourne in downtown Melbourne like Nazis and look and I'm not talking about like Sky News commentators

I'm saying like real Nazis you know doing the salutes and everything like there but marching in the streets in Melbourne Isn't that refreshing I mean there was a time there was a time

when being a Nazi was something you'd have to hide there was a view views you couldn't express a dinner party, you certainly couldn't take to the streets and do your whole Hitler salutes. That was considered socially uncouth. You had to hide your deep-seated racism and absolute contempt towards all other races. But in 2023, in Melbourne, you can find a band of brothers, and they were mostly men, to go out there and just lean into the white pride.

We've come such a long way since the days of a fairly large global consensus that none Nazis were bad and should be defeated on a global basis. That's not what we think anymore, Charles. Anyway, the point is, if we're looking around for someone to invade, like for a country to invade, maybe Germany again. That's all I'm saying. I'm just saying that. Now, Charles, New South Wales elections coming up on the weekend.

Imagine the entertainment we're going to get out of that, at least three minutes of content, I would say. It's a big week. It's a very big week. Stay with us here on the Chaser Report for the least comprehensive coverage imaginable. Our gear is from Road with Pudderty. Myconoclast Network. See you tomorrow.

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 FIS.C.