The Chaser Report - Labor Celebrate 100 Day 'No-Backstabbing' Record | Floyd Alexander-Hunt | Shaquille O'Neal

Episode Date: August 29, 2022

Floyd Alexander-Hunt joins Charles and Dom for a look at Labor's first 100 days in power without backstabbing their leader. Meanwhile Charles explains the relationship between business and unions. Plus Shaquille O'Neal stops by while he's in town, because apparently that's just how Australian politics work now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gattigul Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is the Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to the Chaser Report on Gatigal Land. I'm Charles Firth and with me today are Floyd Alexander Hunt. Hello. And Dom Knight. That's right. And I'm very sorry to say I didn't manage to get Shaquille O'Neill here for the podcast.

He expressed interest. I just thought, you know, now that he's been on with Albo, Shack's brand is. He's useless in Australia. He's un-cooled now. He wouldn't fit into this podcast studio either, you know. Well, I thought it was amazing was there's a point at which the angle of your head looking up goes from just like, oh, he's looking at that very tall man to adoration. Like, yes, it is impossible to look at Jack without...

Without adoration. Without looking like you're expressing adoration. And Albo's not a tall man either. No, but Albo's not a short man. No, he's sort of about the same high. as me, isn't he? Yeah. Yeah, he's not a short man.

But no, it was very strange, man. I have no idea, really. I mean, I know. Well, was it? Oh, Shaq expressed interest in hearing about the issue. So, of course, the Prime Minister just cleared his schedule. Because Shaq couldn't just look at Wikipedia or something. Shack had to meet with the Prime Minister to find out about the voice.

But that's good, isn't it? That's a coalition. There's an alliance of interest between indigenous people and the Black Rights Movement in America, isn't it? Like, wasn't that the context? That might have been what they were hoping for. I think the general response was, what?

Wasn't Shaq here because Bet 365 brought him out for a new ad campaign? He was doing a whole bunch of corporate appearances and he was at Macquarie Bank because of course he was. That's where you go, getting off the plane. He was probably just around the corner

and they said, oh, the prime minister's in that pudding. Just ring up, see if he's around. See if Alba is around. Yeah, okay. It was a strange moment in Australian politics and not the highlight of the first hundred days of Albanese, which you talked about at the press club this week. Oh, yes.

Listing his achievements. Yeah, well, there's been tons of stuff, isn't there? There's a bunch of, so he's been setting up those new gas fields. Yes. Opening up, there was a coal mine opened up in Queensland. Wow, good for him. Late on Friday afternoon, last Friday. Why did they do that on a Friday afternoon?

I don't know why it was announced late on a Friday afternoon. Ackland coal mine has just been in his family. Because that, you think that might have been front-page news that they wanted to... Yeah, why wouldn't they just do it on Monday so that everyone got to hear about it? Why wouldn't they've got Shaq to announce it? They could have got Shaq to announce it. I've got some news. What else?

What else have they? Minimum wage increases, flood support, climate targets, moving on paid domestic violence leave. They've certainly talked about wanting to do a lot of things as well. And they've got the job summit this week. And to me, the most exciting thing of the first hundred days is this whole idea of having industry-wide bargaining. Yeah, and it was so nice of Shaq to agree to share the job summit. He's going to do an incredible job.

Yeah, yeah. No one's going to argue with him. That's the thing. It would be a very short meeting. Yeah. Who's going to take on Shaq at a summit of any kind? No, I've loved it. He's higher up the summit than anyone in the room.

He is the summer. He is the summer. So the weird thing to me about this job summit, by the way, is I saw a pressure. release on the weekend where the Business Council of Australia and other like business groups had put out a joint press release with the ACTU. What's going on? Why are they friends now? It's bizarre. Are we actually going to solve something and make progress? Because that's just not, isn't that not the way this works usually? So do you want the comedic answer or do you want the real answer? A bit of both. Because I saw this, I was like, you're supposed to hate each other. It's like

when mum and dad are divorced and suddenly their friends again. There is a genuine problem that Australia faces, which is that the business interests need more immigration because they don't have enough people to hire. I had to do another callback, but it seems pretty easy to get shack into the country. And the thing is that, and, you know, the union movement could just say, you know what, we're going to not support more immigration. And that would be, that would be a very, well, not. Not really in the last 30 or 40 years, but before that, yes, absolutely.

Because it's a very popular thing to say no immigrants. Like, it's, like, look at Mark McGowan. Like, he's got, like, 90% approval values by basically saying, no one, even Australians can't even come into Western Australia. Borders are the one great Achilles Hill of Australian. Like, if you want to, if you don't win an election, make the election about. And Eustasia as well. Yeah.

So, so, the, the best. business community really need the union movement to back in, yep, we'll up immigration. Yeah, right. And so the union movement needs something out of the business. And what they've pushed for is, well, it won't just be enterprise bargaining. We don't have to go business by business around and actually do the hard work of organizing every shitty little three people in a row. We can actually go, no, no, we are bargaining on behalf of the podcasting industry.

Hang on, where's our own-price bargaining agreement for this job, by the way. Shut up. No, no, you've got to be paid something to be able to. Oh, yeah, yeah. Bargain. But, you know, the entire podcast industry, they'll just bargain on behalf of everyone and go, everyone deserves $1,000 a minute. So is there just one representative from each sector at this event?

That sounds quite efficient, if they're doing industry-wide deals. And that's what it used to be. Like, before 1983, you just set the prices of Labor for everyone. industry and the reason why the union movement loves that is because then it eliminates price competition so instead of a business model being oh well you know what we'll do we'll just drive down the price of truck drivers and that'll be our advantage over the next business along and suddenly you've got an incentive to to you know lower have lower and lower and worse conditions suddenly if it's like the whole no the whole industry has to pay their truck drivers X amount of money

then suddenly it's got to be like, oh, we've got to be more efficient at our processes. We've got to actually have better trucks that are more fuel efficient to actually make a more profit. Can I just jump in because this is sounding like genuine analysis. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I'm really not happy about this. Floyd, are you feeling a bit uncomfortable?

Yes, I'm feeling like he's trying to teach me something. I was just, yeah, I was noticing that you were just preparing for bed. That does genuinely make sense. Thank you for that explanation. I'm now deeply sorry that I asked. I didn't want to learn something during, I didn't want to not want to learn from you. Anyway,

so that's why the unions of business have joined together because they both need each other politically to back in things that wouldn't otherwise be popular. Cooperation. What a bizarre idea in politics. That's just not the way that's supposed to be. But the point is Alba doesn't need to do this. He doesn't need to get up and say,

oh, look, I've had a great 100 first days at the press club. No. Because the amazing thing about Albanesey's prime minister, is that normally, normally after someone loses an election, that is to go away. Basically, leave Parliament, maybe in the case of Malcolm Terminal and Kevin rather they come back a few years later and snipe a bit. Whereas, Albert, whereas Scott Morrison has become an even more gaping wound since May

than he has before. It's extraordinary every single day. Like Peter Dutton isn't even discussed. It's as though Scott Morrison were the opposition leader, but only to himself. He's actually managed to get both his old party and Labor. to dunk on him in recent weeks. And there's amazing news stories out this week. Do you know what he's done now?

Well, even more, like another mystery? Like, what is it? No, you remember all the... He appointed his wife, one of the ones. Do you remember all the confuzzle about... He forged the Governor General's signature? Scott Morrison is the Governor General. Yeah, right, yeah.

It's very awkward. He's also the Queen. I don't know how they even know that's impossible. The Chaser Report. News you know you can't trust. So, remember the discussion. When Parliament started, he just fucked off to Japan for a week. And we were kind of going, what?

You've got a job to do. Oh, that's right. You don't like doing the jobs you paid to do. That was before we knew that he did like having a lot of extra jobs and not doing those as well. That's why I went to Japan. He was so overwhelmed for how many jobs. He was kind of not there for the day.

He didn't want to take his lumps from the electorate. Did he have to set a separate email out of office for every job? Do you think he had like a to-do list for each job? like next two jobs like a different colour of my going. It would make you so anxious. You'd be so anxious you'd do nothing, which is sort of like what he did. Well, presumably he approved his own leave from Parliament. And presumably he also gave himself a pair.

Surely you got, like, the more jobs you have, the more, like, money. I really want the ATO to look into this. Can you imagine if he? Yeah. There's more tax deductions as well. True. Like here's finance. Well, those second, third, fourth, fifth jobs, you've got to start paying higher tax on those,

don't you? So, like, surely on the other. Now, let's get on the second jobs, because you might remember that this thing to Trip to Japan is kind of like, kind of a junket. It was all these old failed PMs from around the world. I think David Cameron was there from the UK. It was basically a wash-ups club for people who've been rejected by either their parties or the electorate or both. Yes. And Scott Morrison got a hefty fee for attending that event.

But it's just been revealed this week that for some reason, which entirely, you know, escapes me, he had publicly funded. security on that trip. Taxpayers paid thousands of dollars to send an advanced team to make sure he was safe and they provided close personal protection to Scott Morrison and Jenny in Japan, one of the world's safest countries. What possible reason? But that's because Shenzhou Arbe, another former Prime Minister, got killed like the week beforehand, isn't it?

Like, isn't the possible reason that... Was that the timing of it? Yes, it was. Japan has a history of killing former Prime Ministers. But that's literally fresh in the memory. That had just happened, admit it. But we don't normally provide security for former Prime Ministers, for anyone. But surely there's a sort of phasing out thing.

Because I imagine there would, like, if you're somebody who likes killing Prime Ministers or fans are. If you're listening to the podcast and you like. So you're concerned that the kind of person who kills Prime Ministers, it might not have got the mean. date, that's now elbow. Exactly. Yes.

Funnily enough, that's actually what it was. He has, he kind of has trailing. I didn't realize that because you know how it's kind of secret service protection for presidents forever. Yeah, yeah. But then the rest of their family get about six months or whatever. It's kind of like that. He had about six months of...

Is it for the public to forget them essentially? And then once they're forgotten, then we... Yes. But that's not happening in Scotland. Yeah, he's going to live for a long time. He's far less popular now than he was then. Well, maybe he does need security. Maybe he should be his own security.

As many security guards, as for each title he has, to protect all the roles. Hundreds of people. I just think if you get a, if you're getting a speaker's fee and free business class flights to Japan, which he did, could you pay for your own security? Is that too much to us? Yes, it is, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know, it just seems that every week that's, for the rest of the time he's in Parliament, there's going to be another embarrassing headline about Scott Morrison. And thereby, Albo has nothing to do. I know. It doesn't need to do anything, no. Which is a problem. Unless you really like opening gas fields and coal mines. Because I think that there's this sort of lack of accountability that he's got going

where it's like he can do anything. As long as he doesn't secretly appoint himself to multiple roles, we're like, he's amazing. Yeah, no, exactly. So he's just going, oh, look, okay, so he opened a few gas fields and we didn't want him to do that and we feel really let down. But he's not minister for finance, you know. He's not simultaneously in Homeland Affairs Minister, we'll take it.

I sound is a solo and everyone's kind of going he's kind of like a nice guy he loves the rabbitos he's mates with Shaq why do we get rid of him that's what you want to do job-wise isn't it

you want to come after someone who's so bad yes or even dating wise you want to date someone who they've just dated the worst person in the world and then the standards are so low

is that how I found a one that's how you want to set yourself up you know yeah that is But doesn't this mean that when the sheen finally comes off elbow, it's going to come off hard because he won't have done anything to, oh, Tanya's going to be loving this, isn't she? Is that a real thing? I mean, I've seen the past week saying that, oh, actually, Tanya is the most competent

minister, so they gave her, Tanya, Pliby's sake, they gave her the Environment Ministry because she's really good at really hard problems. No, that's rubbish. No, no. Environment is like the worst ministry in the world. I saw a profile about how she just, you know, went to Cornell and was just striding on to take on all these huge challenges. So I'm pretty sure, like, the health ministry,

which is what she was about to become. No, education. Oh, was it education? Yeah, yeah, she wanted to do education. Which is famously a very large and important role. Environment is, I think, something like, it's a tiny ministry. But it's also it's environment without climate change, so it's environment without the most important.

It's koalas. But mind you, there is a very important. role in protecting koalas from National Party MPs in New South Wales. That's very vital. I was up in Byron on the weekend and the tales were of, oh yes, and then the National Party member got in, or even the National Party here on council, what they did was they allowed this developer to bulldoze a koala sanctuary. It's like, that's just, all around New South Wales, the nationals just, just run.

And it's a really populist thing to do to get rid of koala sanctuaries. Really? Why don't you release stickers that say fuck you koalas in National Party electorate? But you know what I'm just realised, Charles? You know what the Environment Minister does? What? Approves gas fields. Oh.

Suddenly all makes sense. Oh. Oh. Oh. Awkward. Yeah, that's not great. So it's tenure. Tanya is going to be the one.

who... Ah, so she was... So, that's her career ruined. Well, no. Her career is genius. It's genius. That is amazing genius by Anthony Avanese. I mean, to make the, your enemy, the person who has to do all the approval of the gas fields and the coal mine.

To be fair to Tanya Plibersek, her career was ruined when she decided to be Bill Shorten's deputy. I don't know. That was, uh, that's, uh, so there you go, first 100 days. Um, and amazing to see all these, uh, uh, games. gas projects being... It's so crazy to announce what you've done in a hundred days. I feel like it's like wait till you've done a full year, for God's sake. Like a hundred days, you haven't...

It's not enough in a job for us to... No, exactly. It'd be like... Because when I sort of started out here, like first 100 days... We avoided bankruptcy. We probably did have a party. Yeah, that's right. Like, it would be, you know, get my email under control.

I mean, my view with The Chaser is that my productivity here needs to imagine. over the first 100 years. Our gear is from road. We're part of the ACASC creator network. We'll see you next time. I will actually be in LA the next time we speak. Goodness me. How very Kyle Sandelands of you.

Yes, so I'll be broadcasting from LA for the next few weeks. Why are you still doing the show when you're in America? Oh, you know, like, I pity you, Dom, that's why. That's a good answer. I do too.