The Chaser Report - Labor's Got Your Back (Stabbed)

Episode Date: December 12, 2024

John and Lachlan are behind the wheel of the pod, so naturally Lachlan takes the time to talk about universal childcare. Meanwhile, it's election season and John unpacks the brand new slogan being used by Labor, as well as their current strategies for appealing to voters. 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. I'm John Domenico. And I'm producer Lachlan. And Dom is away today. John, you've recovered. You're feeling tip-top and I believe we're busy because you had a certain awards show as well. Yeah, I got invited to the Amnesty International Human Rights Defender Awards. I went to one day after I was off sick because I had an allergic reaction.

I was the only comedian in the room. Everyone else was journalists and who have covered Gaza and I write jokes once every couple days. We're all equals here, guys. John, John, you discredit yourself far too much. Obviously, you were there with people who've seen war-torn countries, but you were there the day after a sore tum and, you know, that's a different type of war zone. Also, to clarify, I was in the audience. They were not silly enough to have me in any part of the actual ceremony or the awards.

You didn't win? No, no, it went to Palestinian journalists, two of whom are currently still in Gaza. This is basically as rigged as the podcast awards, as far as I'm concerned. Today, we're bringing you two more stories, and I've been looking across the news, John, and I saw a big announcement from the Labor government today about something that, really given me a bit of a bone to pick with someone who has had it too good in Australia and it sounds like they're just getting an even a bigger piece of the pie handed straight to them. I'm talking, of course, about parents trying to raise children. So I'll get into my gripes

with those part of the country. But what have you got? I'm going to be checking in with what seems to be happening with Labor's strategy for the election and where I think they are showing real promise and where I think maybe they are showing real stupidity. How unlike them. How about we have some ads and then we get into all that? John, I thought while the two parents of the pod aren't here, I can really stick the knife in while they're gone, because obviously we've got an election coming up. It's not going to be in February or March. Yeah, it's definitely not at the time frame. That would mean that there's no more sitting days in Parliament, which would explain why they tried to rush everything through in the last minute.

No, so it's definitely not then. It's definitely in May and they're going to catch us all by surprise if they do it any earlier. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely not happening, which is why this last couple of days we definitely haven't heard both leaders of the two major parties making promises for what they'll do in the election. By the way, Peter Dutton, promising not to stand in front of the Aboriginal flag if he becomes prime minister. I saw that he said that it's because the flag is divisive. Which, if that's the case, I'm assuming that means he is not going to stand next to anything he's ever said or done. Following that wonderful election promise, Albanesey said that if he wins the next election, Labor has promised universal child care to all parents.

The government will pay for children to be taken care of at early learning centres for three days a week. Wapping promise. Absolutely massive. Yeah, yeah. There is a cap on it, though, John, because obviously, obviously, let's be real, the government shouldn't pay for everyone to have their kids taken care of, right? Like, if we had to spitball, who do you reckon the government's not paying for to have their kids taken care of? I was going to say Gina Reinhart, but I would assume they would offer it to her.

Well, of course, Gina Reinhart's going to have her kids taken care of, or else she's going to have to give them money in her will. No, no, it's not Jenna Reinhart. However, the people who are unfortunately not going to be getting free child, care from the government will be people who make, and it's a pretty, it's pretty, you know, shallow cut off, people who make only $530,000 a year won't be receiving universal health care. So if you coincidentally make slightly more than the top paid politicians in this country, you don't get the substance.

John, John, you sly dog. You will not find how much does your average senator make in my Google history before I opened up this story today. No, it's $530,000 a year will mean that these parents aren't getting their children paid for and I've got to say, it's a pretty controversial bill. It's a pretty controversial

promise to make, as my favorite publication pointed out. My favorite publication, of course, being the Knightley. Yes, of course. You know the Nightly? You know the Nightly? You know the Nightly? Which if you don't know, because they have very few subscribers. It is genuinely a PDF file.

They're very progressive with tech, just like they're very progressive with everything else, and they're definitely not another outlet for Seven West Media to promote Channel Seven's type of view. Not just Seven West Media. Remember, this is a team of Seven West Media and the mining industry. Somehow they managed to get Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham on to sledge the policy. Simon wanted to point out that this policy was wasteful, and he opens his article by saying, Now look, everyone's against government waste, but what counts as waste is up to interpretation. What do you think Simon Birmingham found wasteful about this universal childcare policy that the Labor government promised?

Is it that the child care centres aren't only at private school? Oh, you're close. He thought that poor people were going to use it to be lazy. Oh! If everyone's having their kids get paid for, then damn it, you know, what happened to good old-fashioned work? What happened to paying for your own kids to get raised? He said, we believed that parents should be responsible for looking after their own little scrogs. I mean, as someone who has worked in a child care centre in an area that had lower income,

you know, all the time I thought all these parents are coming in because they needed childcare. And we're quite often rushing out of the building because they were getting calls from their bosses because if they're one minute late, their boss will scream at it. Yeah, no, exactly. Apparently, they were just going to spend the whole day at the hair salon. Hmm, and, you know, obviously a lot of our listeners, John, are parents. So, you know, and I don't want to upset them. But Simon knows that your goal is to go and, quote, play golf or attend a Pilates class.

That's what you're all about, working class parents. You just want to have a bit more time away from the kids to go to your golf course. Who does it? I mean, to be fair, if you're a politician, the idea of somebody who's, skips out on work and drops their kids off with a nanny so they can go pay golf is probably still the most working class person you hang out with precisely you want to think about from the literal party politician perspective oh and that's what i tried to do i tried to get into to simon's head because you know again he said back in my day we all paid for our own kids and they turned out

all right simon birmingham of course born in 1974 raised in the 70s did you know that in the 70s the child mortality rate in australia was five times what it is now oh that's how they could have uni. They're all dead before they got to uni. Exactly. It was a lot easier to afford childcare when five times more kids carcan it. If the government doesn't want to have to pay because they don't want to be excessively wasting money, have they considered

increasing the childhood mortality rate? I'm going to say how to live here and say that's a bad idea. It's definitely not the Albanese. You're just trying to throw money at liberal voters with small children. It's definitely not that. It's definitely not another desperate attempt to appeal to the conservative. voters with children like the social media bill that's not what's happening and it's also definitely a big enough subsidy i assume to actually pay for the three days and it's not just a small fraction of

the cost right you know who i do really feel bad for in this situation who's that it's the parents who are only making five hundred and thirty one thousand dollars a year the real strugglers amen the chaser report less news more often all right john labor's election strategy we just talked about one thing that they're doing to try and win votes, but you say that there's something else they're trying to do to appeal to young voters, is that correct? Well, it's voters in general. All voters in general, of course.

I don't know if you've seen this locklet, but according to Sydney Morning Herald, a shocking development has happened in Labor Party H.Q. Is it that Rebel Wilson is gay? No, they've already done that one. Oh, okay, right. Sorry, so what's the big reveal that the Herald had? So, it turns out, Rupert Murdoch, and the news calls, Empire will not be endorsing Labor at this election.

It's, despite Labor's entire strategy for basically a year and a half now being, do whatever the Murdoch family says so that we can try to get that nomination, Anthony Albanyese has conceded that it looks like it's not going to happen. He must be absolutely devastated and surprised. This poor man, he's been... Who could have seen... Who could have seen this coming? How could have seen this coming? How could Charlie Brown have known that that football is going to get pulled away from the last second again. There was no way of knowing. So I thought I should look into what Labor's doing outside of getting a Murdoch vote.

Is there a vote outside the Murdoch vote? Well, there is, but it's not looking great. So the current polling has Albo about as popular as Peter Dutton, which that's going to hurt the most. Could you imagine reading in the newspaper that you're roughly as popular as Peter Dutton? I could read that in the news. but I would be reading it next to a headline that says, like, Peter Dutton has just passed away

and he's gotten a whole bunch of extra popularity from that. Luckily, Labor has been soft launching a new slogan. Okay, cool. Labor's got your back. Simple, easy slogan. John, that's four words. Well, you're not taking into the account that they use it differently. Like, sometimes they'll say, we've got your back, or I've got your back.

They just swap out the first word and then have the main three. I mean, this is 2024 or a bigger 2025 election. No one's ever going to listen to a four-word slogan. Our attention spans just can't handle that. No, I'm skipping past that video straight away. Yeah. So there is actually one slightly bigger problem with that slogan than the amount of words. Is it, we've got a knife in your back?

Was that the original? Well, according to polling, 56% of Australians disagree with that statement. Far out, have they lost their lead by that much? If Albonisi wants to leave a legacy, it seems like maybe his legacy is, I want to be the first guy to have a one-term government in, well, it's been 100 years, 50 years? I don't know, it's been ages. But that's his legacy. His mother never got to see a one-term government because she was in public housing.

It's a shame, and it's a shame that she won't get to see this one either. Well, what do you reckon it could be a better slogan for them at this point? Stop the boats. I reckon that would work. I reckon it would work, and it has historically. Obviously, they're now going into this election, and they've got these new slogans. They haven't gone with stop the boats yet, but I'm assuming by the time the actual election starts, it's on the cards. It's on the cards.

You know what? A hundred bucks, John, election day, Albo pulls a Tampa. Do you reckon this will go as well as the bet that you made last election? Oh, John, I made so many bets in every election. I've never won a single one of them. That's fair. They've obviously started announcing some new stuff because they've got to get people back on board. Okay, yes.

They've got the hex cut that comes in if they win. They've got the child care subsubs. because they win, good ideas. Yeah. They've also got ministers like Julian Hill bragging that they'll be tougher on immigration than Peter Dutton. Of course.

Which is bad. You know, they're going to balance the good and the bad. I mean, but it also does leave room for if they want to have stop the boats is their next slogan. So I understand the vision. So they're just running a really strong campaign for if you're an opposition party

and you're not currently in government where you could be doing things. And obviously, that worked really well for Kamala Harris as well. Whenever Joe Biden or Kamala Harris has asked, why aren't you doing stuff now? I mean, and they also, Kamala Harris also had a genuinely good excuse of

they literally could not get anything past government. And here, the Labor Party would have to, like, talk to the teals or the greens, and that's just yucky. If the US election taught us anything, it's that going further right when you're the left-wing party is a good idea. Oh, yeah. And also putting forward a boomer

at a point where, by this point in the US election, Joe Biden were still running. They're still hoped for the Labor Party to do what Labor Party does best and throw in a knifey. Tap him in the back. Brilliant. So what's this policy that I keep interrupting you get on? Well, so another big issue they're having. So I've got interesting general, not just Labor Party as well, is that a lot of people don't feel heard by the major parties anymore.

But luckily, they've gone on the offensive for that. And they sent out, especially on the housing policies. Oh, brilliant. Really bad. They sent out the housing minister, Clara O'Neill, to go to go. talk to young people. Okay, well, this is great, because we're, you know, you and I, we're both young people, despite the fact that today we're Charles and Dom.

Good, so I'm assuming that they promise to, you know, get cheaper rent or bring the price of housing down, that type of thing. Well, let's look at it ahead of ourselves. Oh. She had an interview on Triple J, meaning that to appeal to young people, she spoke to an audience of people in their mid to late 30s. Here's a clip of Claire O'Neill on Triple J. Why don't you want to be seeing house prices drop?

If you're looking to get into the market, if you're a young person looking at what's ahead of you, you definitely want to see house prices come down. Well, that may be the view of young people. It's not the view of our government. We want to see sustainable price growth. Don't you feel hurt? Finally, someone who is willing to listen to me and take the opposite stance. What a brilliant election strategy. We hear you.

Shut the fuck up. Wait, wait, wait, John, could you count the words in that? Shut the fuck up. Oh, I just go, fuck up. Yeah, that's it. You don't need three words, you just need two. A two-word slogan. There we go.

I'll send that into the staffers. Well, I do think I have Labor's actual new slogan from this. Okay, brilliant. Labor has your back if you're a property developer. Or if you're a parent, but not if you make $531,000 a year. Or you can't afford a house. I feel heard. Don't you feel heard?

I feel heard by our listeners, thanks to this podcast, I was brought to you by the Iconiclass Network. That is the smoothest anyone has done one of the house. knows that that is smooth and it's only made smoother by us commenting on how smooth it was thanks listener you have a good weekend and john i'll see you at the pub see yeah