The Chaser Report - Libs And Nats Breakup With Being Broken Up

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

The dating and gossip branch of The Chaser Report has gone wild after the latest hot tea about new exes, the Libs and Nats. Are they getting back together, or is it over this time for good? Charles and Dom may not be relationship columnists, but for this behemoth breakup, they sure can pretend to be. ---Follow us on Instagram: @chaserwarSpam Dom's socials: @dom_knightSend Charles voicemails: @charlesfirthEmail us: [e-mail] our caviar addiction: https://chaser.com.au/support/ Send complaints to: [e-mail] 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. Charles, it is so hard to stay across the story of the coalition split, or is it or isn't it? News is breaking as we speak. David Little Proud and Susan Lee are about to sit down at about midday on Thursday to try and figure out whether to be in coalition or not, it's really hard.

It's a bit like our conversations about whether it changed the podcast or to sack you. Oh, sorry, I wasn't meant to mention that part of the conversation. But nevertheless, yeah, it's moving parts as we speak, Charles. Who knows where the things will be by the time listeners hear it? Do you think it's because the nationals went, yeah, yeah, we'll just split. We'll split and we'll get our climate policy and it'll be really good. But they didn't realize that that that would mean that they wouldn't get to be, like deputy opposition leader and they wouldn't get to be in the shadow cabinet.

They wouldn't get to be in the opposition at all. They would be on the crossbench, but also Charles, I wonder if they realize. Now, I'm sure they're very bright people who understand parliamentary procedure far better than us, Charles. But I just wonder if they remembered that they wouldn't get paid the same if they weren't shadow ministers. Do you remember that whole story about, remember Barnaby Joyce wanted to be deputy prime minister again because there was more money and be national leader again?

There was all that stuff. He was complaining about a divorce. and all that. He's one of the people who apparently has been charged with trying to sort this out before the two of them sat down along with Michael McCormack, you might remember as the forgettable leader and another. So when Barnaby, Joyce is one of the more sensible heads talking for calm, you know, things are at an interesting point.

Well, I wonder whether, like, the thing is, though, Don, that these are people of principles, right? Like, they weren't splitting from the Liberal Party because over mere money. Like, to their money is nothing. Well, they've chose less money, do that? It's all about, you know, wanting to be able to pollute the atmosphere with carbon, be able to dig shit out of the ground and sell it to China. Like, these are principled things.

You don't become a National Party MP for the money. You do it because you want to make the world a worse place, like, and stand on the principle of that. Right? So I think it's very cynical for us to say, you know, it's just because they didn't quite realize that the paycheck would be less. I think it's also funny that Barnaby Joyce is the one leading the negotiations because it's like, or, you know, sort of going, hey, can we get our opposition pay? Can we get our money? He is used to negotiating post-breakup deals, though, Charles. Look, let's take some break quickly. I'll talk about the policies that the nationals were

willing to die in a ditch over, and then perhaps won't be dying in a ditch over, depending on what happens. Here's a mess. All right. So let's look at the, these are the things that have been reported. If you believe Sky News, it's three things. If you believe the City Morning Herald, it's four things. See what you think of these, because as you say, these are people of principle.

The first one here, a commitment to establish a $20 billion regional Australia future fund. It's also known as a slush fund. Well, I mean, isn't it lovely that regional Australia would have a future? Because I thought everyone was leaving. I mean, even the nationals have left regional Australia to move to Canberra, haven't they all of them? Well, that's the aim. That's why you join the National Party is to try and get the fuck out of there. Now, here's a big one, a commitment to legislate federal divestiture powers that could break up big

businesses like supermarkets that abuse market power. So this is the idea that, you know, there's a lot of the talk about this under Peter Dutton. And I'm wondering, Charles, if they're onto something here, because you know what's turning into, you know, a big business that has a lot of market power. Labor's got a lot of market power at the moment. Labor could potentially be broken up under this law. No, but I think they misfired. I think what they did is they looked at the coalition and they went, well, that's a big grouping of people. Maybe we need to break that up.

Well, they've proven what a bad idea that policy can be, haven't they, potentially. Yeah. So we'll see about that one. But, yeah, make, including the supermarket, duopoly, ironically, Labor might just do this anyway, I'm reading. There's a genuine, there's a genuine policy difference, the ideological difference here, because the lives have no interest in breaking up powerful monopoly. Like, that is, that's core to their philosophy. Charles, Charles, Juopolis. Close your juopolis.

Yeah, of course. Yeah, of course. So, yeah. Gen Reinhardt and Clive Palmer can coexist. You know, if the market deems it fit. that we only get two places to buy all our ship from. Two airlines, hasn't that system, works well for consumers. Yeah, exactly.

So, and then the Nats, the problem is that if you live in a shit old, like, regional Australia, I mean, it is true. Like, you go out there and... Supermarkets are expensive. Yeah. No, well, yeah, it's sort of ridiculous. They're much more expensive, but Charles, as against that, like it costs far more money to ship milk or whatever it might be to regional Australia.

But they pay way less for property. So isn't it not necessarily unreasonable for them to pay a bit more for everyday things? If there are other costs of living are massively lower than us, idiots in the inner city pay, where we're basically paying far more than luxury hotel suites just for a little shithole in the inner city. The other advantage is that the NBN doesn't go out to a lot of the really far reaches of regional Australia, which means they're very lucky that they don't have to get an NBN going to. Yeah, and there's no, they can get Starlink. Yeah, yeah.

Well, they can not have the internet at all, which is increasingly looking like an option. Charles, you've brought me to the next commitment that the Nationals wanted, which is the universal service obligation to guarantee telco companies provide mobile coverage across Australia. And the liberals are not interested in that. I mean, from my perspective, telcos are struggling to provide coverage in inner cities to Sydney. So it's hard to see them signing up on that one. Well, isn't the point that we're all regional at heart? Sure.

And I think this is where, you know, maybe it's sensible for them to split because the National Party could become, you know, like if North Sydney is considered regional, well, that's a seat that's up to grabs, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. But maybe the next MP from North Sydney will be a National Party MP. Maybe if we're in Barnaby Joyce. Yeah, we're in gunboots in the, streets of the North Sydney CBD amongst the skyscrapers and Akubras.

I think an Akrubah would work very well at the rag and famished pub in North Sydney, actually. Yeah, there's some great singles bars. Great singles bars in North Sydney. There's some planter boxes too, actually, I've seen last time I was there looking very attractive. So that's difficult. I mean, this is the whole point, Charles, that we've been coming up against, though, is the national parties have often, they've often been described as a querian socialist

to some degree. They quite like the government helping out the bush. And the Libs generally aren't in favour of that. No. The final point, Charles, and this is the big one, they demand that the Liberals agree to lift Australia's ban on nuclear energy. And Susan Lee's response to all this was, can we just actually work out, like, who's actually elected in our party room

and go through a process of reviewing the policy to work out what the Australian people actually said? Because, Charles, isn't it just possible, just possible that the Australian people quite recently voted a big fat no on nuclear? Yeah. Yeah. That is true. Yeah. Yeah. But not in nationals electorates. But not in national party seat. And also, you've got to balance the, in the oblivion, never going to get in government again with the, you know, like the nuclear lobby and their dollars. Like, I think you've got to realize the nuclear lobby and indeed the fossil fuel lobby, which sort of has a last time. Yeah. Yeah. They hold good cocktail parties. Like, I was in Perth. And I was here. hearing tales of the sorts of, like, if you go to a fossil fuel fundraiser, like that's good shit, man.

Like, you're not getting bottom shelf caviar. Oh, we're missing out on sponsorship from fossil fuels. No, we're so, so principled. We even blacklisted gas companies on our fucking ads. We basically, like, we only advertise sort of morally acceptable industry. Yeah, that's terrible. It's so, we've missed out on some of the truth. Because we don't advertise any gambling.

With the gambling, that's a massive mistake, actually. That reminds you, I've got an ad collab I need to approve. I won't say who it's from with some patis yet. But I think the last one we've got to say yes to. Like, basically, please buy ads on the podcast. Just think of the quality discerning listeners you're reaching. I think you're sounding a bit too sweaty. You're sounding desperate.

Yeah, you're sounding like Susan. Actually, that's true. I don't care. Actually, I don't care if you buy ads on the podcast at all because we're going to incentivize people to subscribe, aren't we charge. Yeah. More on that. Later.

Anyway, okay, so that's, so the nuclear thing is kind of a deal breaker until it's a walk away line in the sand, perhaps until you realize that you get paid less if you're not actually in the opposition. And don't you get fewer staffers and stuff too? Far fewer romantic options. It's horrible times. Yes. I mean, who will you go to the pair room with if you don't have any staffers?

Like, it's just, it's a total catastrophe. At all, like, being in opposition sucks. It does. So the way to do it is to split yourself into two so that it's even less plausible. But at least then you can have these pure policies that attract funding dollars from lobbyists. You see what I mean? Like, if you're going to be in opposition, might as well be whined and dined. You know what I mean?

This is the weird thing. I mean, it's a lifestyle. They absolutely need each other. There's no way the liberals are winning seats in the bush. There's even more no way that the national. are winning seats in the inner city. There are two halves of one functioning party. If you're someone, like, if you're currently in the Liberal Party, you're sort of going,

it's going to be minimum six years before you back in government, probably more like a decade. You might as well enjoy life, you know, at least for the next three years. I'm not having to hang out with the nationals, you think. Yeah, and then in three years' time, maybe you get serious about, okay, we've got to win the next election. I mean, you sort of just give up. There's got a lot of confidence in Labor's ability and not stuff things up royally. No, no, I'm not saying that that's, well, I'm just saying you've got to look at it from their perspective. Yeah.

Well, it's probably nice having a break. Yeah, I mean, maybe it's not a breakup. It's just seeing other people. Maybe, maybe the nationals will go and hang out with one nation for a bit. Anyway, as we say, this could all be over by the time you hear this. So before, let's take some more ads, if anyone's bored any. And then you can give us your theory about what this is really, all about. And caveat, it's a Charles theory. So we may be entering the realm of wild speculation.

The Chaser report. More news. Less often. So it's very good. It's your favorite realm. And we know from the recent market research we've done, people have been emailing saying they enjoy Charles theories on politics. So the people have spoken. This is the point. And I heard it from a fairly reliable source, which is that David Little Proud and Anthony Abernesey are friends. Oh, right? So, you know, they maintain a bit of distance in public, right, because they're completely, you know, like at loggerheads in every policy matter in the world, right? But actually, they used to go on overseas study tours all the time together.

And there is a sort of camaraderie that comes along with those parliamentary study tours. Sure. And also they served on lots of the same parliamentary committees, right? So there's sort of been colleagues for years, right? This could be a way through because, I mean, if we're saying the nationals are in favor of government giving money to the Bush and Labor is a party of big government, maybe there's a new coalition in town. Well, this is the point, right? So there are a whole lot of policies that you just mentioned, right, that Labor's not as, you know, anti as they, as they're. The Libs are.

The regional communications and regional infrastructure policies are all stuff that Labor is closer to the Nats on than the Libs, right? They're actually into sort of that agrarian socialism thing. I mean, Alba was in the socialist left, for God's sake. So you could see that. Yeah, the splitting apart the supermarkets thing. Yes, Labor might do that anyway. I mean, people in Western Sydney, people in Western Sydney are demanding that already

in Labor electorates. And, yeah, they, Labor doesn't mind the idea is ticking up. That fits their political brand better than the lips. True. What about the nuclear? And the point about that is that it actually is proper microeconomic reform. Like if you got the Productivity Commission to do a report on it, you'd go, you know, if you want to increase productivity, if you build it into the story of this will actually increase productivity, it would, right, because the whole point is it's not so much the monopoly power of the supermarkets, the monopsony power. It's the fact that there are only two buyers in the market.

Oh, I see. This is why the Nets want to break them up is because if you're a milk seller, you've only got colds or woolworths to sell your milk to now, though. Well, just wait until Amazon comes in anyway and everything. Yeah, that's right. Probably buys them both out. So, Charles. But then, and this is the proof, though, is that already Labor's started doing stuff for the Nats

ahead of the Lebes, right? Who is the recently appointed ambassador to Rome, Dom? I have no idea. Heath Pitt, former National Party MP. Well, actually, it's in the first time they've done this. Wasn't Tim Fisher, the former national leader named Ambassador to Rome by Kevin Rudd? Yes. Remember when Kevin Rudd used to do all those things where he used to try and be Macy with former coalition figures,

he was sort of trying to cover the field a bit, maybe we're going back to that? So the point is, Alba doesn't want to do deals in the Senate with the Greens, right? Like, he hates the Greens more than he hates the Lids or the Nats, right? He wants to be doing deals, ideally, with what he thought would be the coalition. But now there's enough numbers. So if he brings the Nats across, then he could bring the Nats across and just pass legislation, not even have to talk to Susan Liu. And I've got a really good idea on the nuclear stuff, which I think will really just sort that out.

Because I know the Nash is pretty committed to it. Why if you have the wind farms and the windmills? Sorry, that creates the fig leaf where you can go, but we're not. A point of strategic difference. Yeah, it's strategic difference. Because everyone agrees that the nuclear power plants are so far off. I mean, there are another three years off now. It's another three years for renewables to just completely smoke matter of the water.

But Charles, what if we had lots of wind farms all over Australia and offshore? But the beautiful big windmills ran on nuclear, so they spun around really fast. Ah, yes. That is genius. And you hooked them up to the grid. Yes. And they actually create wind. That's why they're wind farms.

Yeah, that's right. They create weather. That's what you do. And they blow all the smog away and created by the coal mines that are actually, you know, towering them. I think I'd blow it all those. I think it can work on a lot. But my point is you can do a deal. You can do a deal with, particularly with the nationals.

The nationals love a deal. Yeah. It's a deal where they get, Barnaby Joyce gets a higher salary for all of his children. Doesn't you have five now? Well, that we know. Is it five or is it six? I lose track how many kids he's got. I'll just check.

I'll just fact check myself on that. So, okay, so Albaugh and Barnaby Joyce are friends, you think, potentially. What about Matt Kavanaugh? Because he, I know, four daughters. He's got six, six kids. Yeah, so Little Proud and Albo are friends. You could see a really interesting thing. But also, you know, I can see Albo sort of going, hey, I know that you're in opposition.

David, but here's some extra resources. Remember, he gave a whole lot of resources to the teal? Yeah, I do. Like extra parliamentary library, staff, you know, like all that sort of stuff. And sort of boost the ability for the Nets to sort of feel all right, not being the official opposition and just keep the libs and the Nets completely split. Well, let's see what the final numbers look like. Is there any chance of the Teals and the Nationals joining forces to be the official opposition?

That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I'm just trying to hypothesizing. Yeah, I can't see that working. They both have a common interest, though. They don't like the liberals. No, I know. That's the start of a conversation. The whole reason that they exist is because the libs were too close to the Nets.

Which is why my suggestion was facetious, Charles. Anyway. So here's interesting. The master plan may not come. out. So here's, here's where things sit at the end of the podcast, just to be completely inconclusive. Lee and Little Proud have decided to delay naming their front bench to see what's going to happen. So they've got until July when the parliament reformed. Yeah, just on a break. They're on a break. They're on a break. Little Proud says, he's sent home MPs, his MPs from

Canberra. Yeah. They want to resolve the breakdown and get back together. But, so they're going to maintain their four key demands. But are they going to go to counselling? I think they are. I think they are. I think just talk therapy. And just talk about their feelings. Like, it's all based on policies and facts and things are there. What about feelings?

How people feel? And maybe cry it out a bit. So, but then you know that thing where people break up and they, they share ownership of a space and come and go? Maybe they could do that with the prayer room. Yeah. Maybe they could just sort of have the prayer room on a timeshare. Yes, I love it.

All right. So reconciliation may be on, but if it ends up, if it ends up that it is in fact the Labor National Coalition we're talking about very soon, you heard it here first. In the incredibly unlikely scenario that that happens, it was Charles who came up with him. I'll be a little proud of that theory. I think it's time to go. We're part of the O'Connor Close Network. Get you tomorrow.