The Chaser Report - LIVE: Protest of the Century

Episode Date: July 3, 2022

Dom takes a look at the news of the week and observes all the protests and strikes occurring so frequently - but why are they happening? Together, Dom, Charles, Chris and Floyd all effectively solve modern protest techniques and devise how to run the most effective social movement... Or more accurately, how not to. Plus Dom asks what happened to all the Christians on census night. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to another week of The Chaser Report. It is Monday the 4th of July. Welcome back, Chris Dom and Floyd. And that's Charles Firth. We haven't left all weekend. We live here now. So look, protests shut down Sydney for several days last week.

We were nurses. There were climate protesters. train drivers. Everyone was out protesting last week. Getting to work was completely impossible. So it was just like an ordinary day in Sydney, basically. A group called Blockade Australia was responsible for many of the moves, things like shutting down the harbour tunnel. I've got to say, I think Blockade Australia were not all that impressive, to be honest. I mean, Scott Morrison blockaded Australia for two years, ladies and gentlemen. He's the king of that. They also tried to draw attention to climate action. This was their plan. They wanted to draw attention to climate action

by shutting down the train lines, a genius way to get everyone into their cars. It's a little bit like if Greenpeace campaigned against whaling by just dynamiting some of the fuckers. I mean, and then the nurses went on strike as well, and I've got to say to them, congratulations for holding on for two years of a pandemic before you'd had enough.

I mean, they've got a job that involves long hours, they've got COVID everywhere, they've got sexual harassment from perverts who watched too much Benny Hill as a child, It's a horrible job to do, so good luck to the nurses. And also striking last week, we had train drivers who wanted blockade Australia to fuck off out of their trains. And you've forgotten.

There was also teachers. Teachers went on strike. But we do forget the teachers, don't we? Yes, we do. So I want to ask the panel, and we'll start with you, Charles, because I know you were lefty on these sorts of things. I mean, what is the line between legitimate protesting and just fucking irritating, right?

is it okay to sign a stern petition but not okay to park your car across the entrance to the Hubbard Tunnel? Yeah, look, I think when you're looking at a global apocalypse, the convenience of commuters on a Tuesday morning is far more important than solving climate change. So, yeah, I totally agree. We should lock these people up.

Two years in jail, $20,000 fines. Lock them all up. Yeah, the one I kept hearing about was this girl from Liz Moore, who drove a car. None of them do, usually. And no, that's the thing. She parked it across the Sydney Harbour Tunnel to blockade.

Now, if you're an environmentalist, would you be driving a car to your protest or shouldn't she have just taken the bus and then taken the bus driver at gunpoint to make him... Or do what Krita Thunberg does. She gets a boat everywhere, every time she speaks. They should have chartered a boat

and rammed it into the Sydney Harbour Tunnel. And to be fair, there were plenty of them. I was in Lismore. So I just sort of thought mixed messages. Are you pro-car or anti-car? I think she was pretty anti-car. She fucked off tens of thousands of people. From a car.

I think it's just as bad that people who stopped to sign a petition on the sidewalk and get in my way. That's arguably more annoying than a car blocking the tunnel. We should have fines on people who blocked the pavement. $20,000 fines. I'm going to start a petition against people who get able to start petition.

No, but the thing is, like, you can sort of say, oh, it's very inconvenient. But what else are people to do? Like, voting doesn't help. Well, no, no. Petitioning doesn't help? Wasn't that the argument, though, that we've just had a change of government? And they'd barely given the new Labor federal government any time to really set their climate targets. I know they had them as policies.

But with any negotiation with the crossbench, maybe let's see what the new targets will be, They was almost like they were angry just after a really good development in the climate wars which is to get rid of the coalition. Labor doesn't do anything and then then get stuck in. Yeah, that's right.

I would have done that. I would have waited a year for certainty that Alba would be as disappointing as Scott Morrison on all climate matters. I think we're pretty certain, Chris. I guess my follow-up question, aren't there better ways of reaching the public in 2020? I mean, what I do whenever there's a protest

every single time, You don't have to go. All you is just get a news photo and just Photoshop yourself into it and put it on Instagram. You've raised awareness and you've virtue signalled. That's all you have to do, isn't it, Charles? I remember back in the day, you actually broke a window at Sydney Union in the main quarter over a VSEU protest.

You can deep fake that shit these days, Charles. No, and we actually, yeah, because I broke a window. Actually, it was actually Craig. I probably shouldn't reveal this. Craig actually broke the window. Craig Kelly. But I took the fall. because he wanted to become a lawyer or something.

And I climbed through and got into Territorytogood. You got into the Senate meeting of the University of Sydney. And the only thing, and we're protesting against, it wasn't VSU, we were protesting against upfront fees. Because back then there was no such thing, a university could not charge fees, upfront fees to a student in Australia. And so he got into the meeting and the whole point was to say,

no more fees, no more fees. and instead I just went my arm if the police officer and all I said was I'll go peacefully and he went into the Sydney University Senate the only body more impotent

than the federal centre anyway point is we succeeded we actually won that campaign and there are no university fees for students in Australia people are just very perplexed about whether he's being sarcastic.

Yes, he is. I just haven't checked since 1997 about whether they... The reason they don't know that is because they were full-fee students. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It does always interest me. And we're all for the protest movement, and there's been some amazing civil rights marches and acts of just public disobedience.

But you know, like, how most public art forms evolve? Like, when you look at the history of music, where it's sort of gone from classical and to jazz, and then into pop and rock and hip-hop. I don't think anyone who's ever protested has changed the melody of their chant in fucking 500 years. Hey, hey, ho, ho, this chant has got to go.

Hey, hey, ho. All I'm saying is can we not hire Goitier or like, you know, Briggsie just to write a new bloody tune for them? I actually remember the most awkward chant ever and it was from that very protest. this is honestly what they were all shouting and I was there too Vanstone and VCs

say that we must pay fees bullshit come off it education's not for profit they need Jay Z on that shit where's Kendrick I think that's why the protest ultimately failed people were like what

but like in sorry I'm just going to defend the people from Lismore for a second which is I don't know anything about them but I do know that a few years ago, all the people in Lismore were part of the Lock the Gate Coalition, who here knows about Lock the Gate,

which was a remarkably successful campaign that actually managed to, just through sheer force of physical protesting, literally locking on and putting their sort of arms in cement outside every farm that was about

to be fracked, and you know, forest that was about to be cleared to be fracked. They managed to not only get fracking banned in that sort of region of New South Wales, they managed to get the Conservative state government at the time to ban fracking completely from New South Wales. They were that effective. So, you know, yes, I mean, yeah, I tend to agree that most protests sort of incredibly cliched

and things like that. But actually, you know, if you're prepared to put your body on the line, you can actually succeed. Yeah, you put your arm on the line. Yeah. Because they'll concrete their arm in in these metal sort of arm jackets. And it takes all day for the police to come and use sort of angle grinders to remove the protesters. And by then the workmen have left and, you know, they've got to start again the next day.

And then they just do it again and again. It's like the suffragettes in the UK, they were using their bodies. They like, that sounds wrong. Let me rephrase that. but they were like chaining themselves to parliament and then refusing to eat so like it does have to be extreme to have an effect so maybe but it also proves chris's points that the the chaining stuff is not new and protest methods have not evolved i remember um i don't know if anyone else remembers this annabel crab who you know we generally

love and is really smart smart woman and great brain she once wrote a column in her the regular piece in the Fairfax media as it was then. Asking these very questions, sort of expressing surprise that the protest movement hadn't really changed their tools in years. And Annabel was generally always on the side of the left and, you know, everyone sort of agreed

in whatever Annabel says is gospel. And she got a bollicking. Like everyone sort of read it as oh, you have no respect for the protest movement which wasn't the intense of her piece. She was just sort of, I guess sort of doing, well we're doing a little bit tonight, expressing surprise that

the mode of protest hasn't really changed and that's genuinely interesting as our media revolves and we get more and more sophisticated about the ways we can be heard it's interesting people use the most analog strategies available to them which is to stand in a street with a handwritten placard and rhymes that wouldn't pass the test in the worst Pam is poetry contest and it's sort of yeah I but yeah whatever whatever works I guess ladies gentlemen, welcome to The Chaser Report, the podcast where we concur with an unpopular Annabel Crabb column from a few years ago. The Chaser Report, less news, less often.

Let's move on to some other news here. And the census results, it says today on my piece of favour, but of course, last Tuesday. We talked about this last Wednesday. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I've still got stuff in the tank. It's very interesting, very interesting. I say that less than half of us now follow Christianity. It's down to 44%.

Yeah, there's heathens in there. You disgust me, sir. Down from 52% in the 2016 census, which is the least ever. Which makes me think that means, I mean, 44% of us are still on Team Jesus, and apparently have absolutely no idea what's been going down in churches recently. I think it's just that the other 8%. I think we know who's been going down. That's the point I wanted to make, right?

Going down. Going down is absolutely fine with me. If it's two adult Catholic priests, that's absolutely fine. Not a problem at all except in their religion. But it's so rarely. But I think the drop-off can be explained by that 8% are now in jail. Isn't that the... Do you not get to fill out the census if you're in jail?

Yeah, I don't think you... Well, do you? I don't know. The rights... It's taken away from you. I mean, you can't get out of it, can you? They're one of the few communities for whom it's a pleasurable activity. because they've got nothing else to do. Yeah.

No, I think prisoners do fill out the census. Where were you on the night at the census? The police already know the answer to that question. And I mean, I want to conduct a little census of my own. Just with a round of applause, who in the room feels icky when I say the words Catholic youth pastor? Give me a round of applause if that seems icky. You shouldn't applaud that.

That is disgusting. And when I say Hill Song, how many of you immediately... There we go. I mean, all I want to say about Hill's song is, you know, Justin Bieber went there and God paralyzed his face, ladies and gentlemen. So the thing is, that could have been, to be fair, more for the music than the religion. And the thing to note about Catholic priests, they've done a lot of brand damage. I mean, okay, they may not be going to hell, but they're going to Pell, which is even worse.

Sorry. Domite, ladies and gentlemen, the master of the pun, still got it. Australia's next to be ambassador to the Vatican. So I want to ask the panel, I mean, how has Christianity fucked this so badly? Fucking their brand is frankly the least of their worries at this point. Is it just the sex pests or are there broader problems within the church? I think it's broader. I reckon the big thing, wasn't Christianity, it's all about guilt,

but like social media makes you feel more guilty now. I'm like, God, who? I don't care. Social media, I'm like, oh, about myself. Yeah, I used to have to go to church to hate myself. and now I just look at Instagram. Look at my phone, yeah. Just get reminded of my screen time rather than saving myself a marriage.

I wonder if it was strategically foolish to take the face of the church from Jesus and turn it into Scott Morrison. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it was sort of that, I don't know, I was sort of down with Jesus. You know, you know. He's got some good points.

Yeah, I didn't believe he was divine, but he was sort of a dude. then you've got Morrison doing this shit and I kind of thought oh maybe you're starting to lose us what do you reckon I mean it could be I just think they need to partner with a better organisation

and this is the thing I think the church need they need to do what you do when you've got a failing brand which is new partnerships and I think the group that they should hook up with is motorcycle gangs because that is a brand that is very resilient and there are always new vacancies in that organisation and you can't tell me that there aren't some sex pest

priests and gang members sharing cells already and, you know, making those connections already. I think that could be very, very fruitful for them there. They could control the drug trade and the holy water and wine trade as well. That would be a great place to do, wouldn't it? Just come up and get your weekly stash.

Yeah, absolutely. I've always thought, like, if you wanted to genuinely, like, fix the church and, like, boost congregation numbers, you've got to widen the options during the Eucharist. At the moment, it's a very, very stale, oxidised port or a wine or something. If you had an open bar, top shelf, cocaine, ice speed, ecstasy, like, anything, like, I'll take the spirit of Christ. What would the lines of the Lord? What would the speed represent?

Is that the dandruff of Christ? Is that the idea? If you take LSD, you do see the Holy Ghost. It's the earwax of Christ, isn't it? It's always just been a very limited offering, hasn't it? Yeah. They should make the communion bread like, you know, sour dough and like dip it in. Yeah, vaccia.

Dip it in some olive oil. Have a caviar bump on it or something like that. If it was chicken crimpy shapes, we'd all go. Oh, we'd all be there. There's actually a church, my parents went to this church in London, which apparently there's a full bar on the lower level. And if you go to the service, they'd all go and get absolutely smashed on the body of Christ, and why not? You know, it's a beautiful way to commute.

Well, I was listening to the head of Demographics Australia. He was talking when the census came out last Wednesday about it. And he was actually saying that the reason why Christianity had, or their study had shown that the reason why it dropped so rapidly was because they had been. not align themselves with community values on a whole lot of key issues like gay marriage and all these sorts of things they were just not keeping up with what people believe in this world

The risk also of sort of repeating exactly the point I made on last Wednesday's podcast I hate it when you cross-reference yourself A week later Taylor I also wonder and I'm sort of using my parents as a sort of barometer here if it's more permissible now to sort of put your hand up

and say no religion you said like my parents and so many even people my age I know when confronted with the question of religion it's like well they were always no religion like they were always atheists or agnostic but kind of thought oh

I guess we're CV or I went to a Catholic school so you kind of felt obliged on a public form to mark yourself as that now I think there's almost more freedom and permission to say oh it's okay It's a bit like gender, you know, you can have no gender now.

I think it's today, religion, oh, we don't have to have religion. It's okay just to say no religion. And I wonder if, so we've always had as much agnosticism in the, not sort of going back to the 50s where John Howard and his values thrived. But from the 80s onwards, I suspect there was always a pretty high level of atheism and agnosticism that just wasn't being measured on the census. But also, Chris, as soon as you tick the religion box, the census goes straight to the sex crimes unit of the police.

a very big problem. You know that that's actually true. I was talking to... No, no. I want to hear him bring this one home. That's not true, but I was talking to a prison guard the other day. And I was saying... His regular parole meeting, that's right.

No, and I was saying, oh, you know, who do you guard? You know, like, and he said... He said so many Catholic priests, like, just so many. Like, he said, you know, the Royal Commission you only heard about the sort of top cases where it was really, you know, like senior people. But there were just hundreds of people who were swept up in that and jailed

and are still in jail, you know, several years later, from that whole period of, you know, 2016 where they had the Royal Commission. And you don't have that sense. And he said, got to any prison in Australia and there are just stack tons of people from the... Yeah, priests from the gap. It's almost a communion of priests.

Is that what it is? A bunch of them confessing to each other and themselves. I always get a little bit nervous, though, when they ask to be transferred to a juvie prison. Ooh. Let's turn the episode here. If you want more milk run material, we can do that.

Our Giersum Road microphones are part of the ACAST network and forgive his father for we've seen in this. episode of The Chaser Report. We'll catch you tomorrow.