The Chaser Report - Mark Latham Gets Dumped & Rupert Murdoch Picks Up

Episode Date: August 22, 2023

Mark Latham has been sacked / resigned (depending on who you ask) from his position as NSW Leader of One Nation. Meanwhile Rupert Murdoch has found love for the THIRD time since turning 90yrs old. Plus Charles brags about an upcoming global financial crisis. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Dom and. Charles. What a show we've got for you. So many things to talk about in today's episode. Where do we start? Well, I think we should start with Mark Bucking Latham.

Mark Latham. It seems as though Mark doesn't play well with others. and at one point it looked as though he in One Nation was soulmates that they had a slightly white supremacist agenda in common. What? You don't like slightly. Is that the problem in that sense? But now they've fallen out,

as Mark and indeed Pauline seems to do with everyone that they work with. Now, I'm incredibly confused about this story because I'm pretty sure Mark Latham got expelled from One Nation last week. Not if he quit first. Not if he quit first, he didn't quit first. But he didn't quit first. You quit, like he quit yesterday. That's what you say.

That's what the news says. All right, that's one story. Also today, Rupert Murdoch has a girlfriend. And what a wonderful thing. Because of all the things you could allege about News Corp, having links with Vladimir Putin was not previously one of them. Now, look, is there a link? Isn't there a link?

I don't know. If I was on Sky News, I'd be completely certain based on no information. But as this is not Sky News, we'll actually take a look at the facts. And then if we get time, I just want to have a quick, boast about how if you listen to this podcast a few weeks ago, you would be up with news that is breaking just in the last day or two. That essentially the listeners of this podcast are three weeks ahead of everyone else. Amazing.

I'm skeptical, but you can have a crack at it. All right, all that after this. The headline I've got here from yesterday by the time people hear this, Latham quits One Nation and alleges it misspent. Taxpayer funds. Now, this is a nice thing, actually. He's working with Labor again. What?

He sent a letter to John Graham, who's a special minister of state, saying that One Nation tried to misappropriate more than 270 grand worth of payments from New South Wales Electoral Commission Fund. That's the money that they get when they win votes, right? Hang on, hang on, hang on. Wasn't Mark Latham in charge of One Nation? In New South Wales? Yeah.

He was the leader of it. Don't you think that probably he should just shut up about the stuff that happened under his watch? There's a great letter here. He's a sort of whistleblower who's blowing the whistle on his own player. The stuff he was in charge of. Okay, so the letter says, I've had highs and lows in public life, but I've always stuck to strong

standards of honesty and integrity. That's what Mark Latham's known for. Honesty and integrity. He says, I've never been accused of mishandling public money. Is this the shovel or so? Is this... No, no. This is the Heddy morning herald, another satirical publication. Within this ethos, I bring these

matters to your attention, knowing that you too, have no time for the misuse of public money in private life. Now, Charles, I must say, one nation being dragged before ICAC in New South Wales is something we haven't seen before and would be fairly entertaining for it to happen. Well, but, I mean, the whole, you know, using electoral laws in a way that is not necessarily the same as, like, in accordance with the law, I think that you can say that, is something that One Nation has a long track record. because Pauline Henson ended up in jail over electoral laws.

She was framed. She was framed. But this whole thing that was framed by her own actions. In a court of law. One of the things Pauline's done for a long time is, I mean, even before actually winning seats in New South Wales, she would run and get lots of money for the votes. So basically, at one point, it seemed as though one nation was not so much a political party as a business which got lots of money for winning votes. But because they didn't get enough to actually get a seat, the brilliant thing was they just got all this money for. not getting elected.

Yes. That was the genius thing. So what happened here? This is what the allegation from Latham is, right? He says that money was received by New South Wales One Nation and then sent to the party head office in Brisbane. So it went across the borders. And this is the bizarre thing.

They then used the money to purchase conveyor belts, other fixed equipment and P-H-O-N merchandise. Did they need a conveyor belt in order to sort of put a whole lot of crazy. people that end up as candidates in one nation is such a role of them that they needed a conveyor belt you walk you walk through the door you go on the conveyor belt the thing hits you repeatedly in their head until you talk one nation policy and then you get through so this is the thing he's saying there's two what was the conveyor belt really for i don't it doesn't say but here's the thing that i want to know let's ring them up and find out what the fuck that is a convey belt for so his theory is that they would buy merchandise they would buy 200 grand worth of merchandise

with the money and then it would say that it would say that they would sit in a warehouse in Queensland and they wouldn't use it. So it's extremely confusing what's going on. But here's the hilarious thing. It doesn't sound like impropriety. It sounds like incompetence. Sounds like the Chaser's business model. Yeah, that's right. Buying merchandise we can't sell. We've got to get back to the central issue, Doc. Yes. Which is that Mark Latham got expelled from one nation last week. So a week before, a week before he left. How can he, how can he quit if he's already been expelled? So he was dumped as parliamentary leader and then they split up the organizational wing.

And so there was, I think, one MP who was loyal to Pauline and then the other two are loyal to Mark. And so he's now an independent, presumably, and I presume he'll start Mark Latham's outsider's party or some shit like that. So he must be pretty angry at the moment. You know, having been ripped off with all the merch and been expelled, you know, dumped his party leader.

You know, if I was a taxi driver, Oh, yeah. In Sydney tonight. I wouldn't let him in. Well, I would just, maybe just, you know, stay at home tonight. Walk it off. Yeah. Walk it off, Mark.

Yeah. No, it's a very strange story. But it is so satisfying when One Nation Acolyte's fire. I mean, they've just had, haven't they just had the lawsuit between Pauline Hanson and Brian Burst them? We shouldn't have to pay him. They're just always suing each other. It's basically what One Nation is for now is infighting. So, in actual fact, it's not that the money that they get.

from all the votes, from the public, you know, voting system. It's not that it stays in one nation, it just goes to lawyers. It's a sort of... I think so. Maybe the lawyers ask for the conveyor belt so that the money can come direct to them. Or maybe they wanted to be paid in merchandise. I don't know how that would work. So it's a very strange, it's a very strange situation.

The reality is Mark Latham is going to be in New South Wales Parliament for as long as he wants to be. He just keeps getting elected. You know why? Why? He tells it like it is. So Rupert Murdoch has found love And it turns out that Rupert Murdoch loves 66 year olds He's had a series of...

Oh, what? He's 92 years old. Yes. He's recently embarked, as he said, on the second half of his life. So what's happening is he is dating someone by the name of Elena. How do they have... Different generations. Yes.

They definitely would be... He's old enough to be her father for sure. Like he presumably, you know, his favourite music would be from his era, which I presume was what J.S. Spark or something. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Classical music.

Yeah. And her era, if she's 66, that would be like, I don't know, buddy Holly. So here's the thing. Previously, Elena Zhukova was married to Alexander Zhukov, who has links with Roman Abramovich. So this is the thing. He's now basically connected to an ex who's part of the whole world of Russian oligarchs, essentially.

Right. And it just makes you think of all the things that had been said of NewsCorp before, you couldn't, You couldn't implicate them with the Russian oligarchs. But hang on. What about Tucker Carlson? Tucker Carlson was totally pro-Russia. He was sort of anti the, you know, Ukrainians fighting back against the invasion of them.

I don't know this is, this is not a correct premise, Dom. You think this is a nothing, Berger? Well, no, I'm just saying. I think that, yeah, Murdoch's been sort of playing both sides of that equation for quite a while. So, Alain and Jacova used to be Roman and Bromovich's mother-in-law. And Roman Abramovich is the... the guy who bought, was it Manchester United? Chelsea. He was the billionaire who won't.

Chelsea. And he came to Russia, for some reason, had a billion dollars or a couple of billion dollars to spare. Yeah. And this was quite towards the beginning of the Putin reign, wasn't it? This was a few years after. And he's one of the first oligarchs to go to the Western bishops. And he's always been sort of thought of as a sort of proxy for Putin, right? Absolutely. He hasn't befallen any polonium. He hasn't yet fallen out of a window. Mind you, I think that he did, didn't he host Litvin Yanko maybe a week before Litvin Yanko then? Quite possibly. So he owned Chelsea and then at the moment where the Ukraine invasion happened, he had to sell.

Wow. So he had all these boats that got seized and so on. Yeah. So it's possible that Murdoch just wants the boats. Yes. He loves a Meggiot, that guy. What would it be like having all those billions and wanting love at the age of 94? Like, I kind of feel like we should empathise with Rupert Murdoch for him.

I mean, the nice thing is, if you go for a nice young, sprightly, 66-year-old, they can nurse you, they can wipe the drawl from your mouth, can't that? Well, that is what happened to Jerry Hall. Did you read the Vanity Fair article? Is that why Jerry Hall and he are no longer together? Yes. So basically, they were together during the COVID lockdowns, right? And Rupert got incredibly paranoid that he was going to get infected and die.

So he sacked all his staff, right? Meanwhile, he broke his back. Remember there? Oh, yes, he really badly hurt himself. He hurt himself on this yacht, on Lockland's yacht. He had to be airlifted, it was all this whole thing. But he then sacked all his staff who would do things like, you know, wipe his lips and... He'd have an arse wiping person, with me.

An ass wiper and some of that. And Jerry Hall had to do all that. And he forbade her from going out and seeing her friends because she might give him the virus. And then he also... He also insisted, this is all true, by the way, I'm not making this up. He then insisted that Jerry Hall also do this vineyard, like, winemaker's course, which is like this online course that, you know, hundreds of hours of winemaking, so that he could claim some vineyard he'd bought as a tax write-off.

Wow. So the notion of being married to a billionaire was suddenly much less glamorous than she'd hoped for. Yeah, yeah. Wiping the ass and doing the wine. Yeah, exactly. Well, I still love the fact that in their divorce settlement, she wasn't allowed to leak any plot points to succession. Yeah, succession writers.

The Chaser report, more news, less often. But, Charles, while Rupert was sitting at home being absolutely terrified of COVID, do you think he might have mentioned to Fox News that they should perhaps take COVID a bit more seriously? Weren't all of his people at the time just broadcasting that it was just all misinformation and that we should just ignore it and not get vaccines? Well, there is, yeah, there is.

a sort of allegation of hypocrisy. But the other way you could look at it is Rupert's always claimed that he has no editorial influence. So, you know, that was a perfect example. There was a global pandemic and he decided that if his editors and his producers wanted to spread lies and misinformation, that was just their prerogative as independent editors. Well, you would think that the new Murdoch girlfriend, Jacova, would, she'd be used to dealing with capricious billionaires to how people killed. Like, she'd be perfect for them. Yeah. For the role. Growing up in Russia and having to survive the Putin regime would be the perfect setup to deal with news.

By the way, how do you, like, not that I'm very happily married. I'm not going to look for a match with a billionaire. But if I wanted to, how would one go about meeting a billionaire? Like, how does Rupert, you know, find these hot young 66-year-olds? Well, I know the answer to that. So Dasha Zhikov was the Russian socialite who used to be married to Roman Abramvich, right? she hangs out in New York with Wendy Deng, his ex. So the ex is recruiting new victims, basically.

Yes. Oh, and because it wasn't there a whole allegation that Wendy Deng was a Chinese spy, which is very racist. Well, there was also that I preferred the story that she was secretly in love with Tony Blair. Oh, I think that was definitely. That was much more joyful. Oh, I think she definitely had an affair with Tony Blair. I think we can say that for certain.

You heard it here first. God, what a world they lived. Succession, if anything, was not exaggerated as well. She's got a thing for war criminals. Yes. So there you go. So that's love. It's been a bit of a meandering episode here.

Well, no, but before we go, we've got to... Bring it home with your boasting, I reckon. Talk about how great I am, which is a few weeks ago, we did a deep dive into Evergrand. Do you remember? Yes, that the Chinese property company that built all the ghost cities. Yes. And it was sort of hilarious because the whole point was that their assets outweighed their debts, which means that technically they are insolvent.

And it was like, well, will they go bankrupt? Well, the answer is, yes, they did. And it happened a couple of days ago. They filed for bankruptcy in New York, which is the place that you do it because that offers the best protection for all your assets. And so basically, the whole Chinese economy is essentially melting down. And what a lot of observers are predicting

is that the Chinese government, because this is sort of on the sky, of a sort of GFC-style financial crisis. Well, their net debt was $300 billion US dollars, which is quite a lot. Yeah. And it's exactly the same problem, which is they've essentially been selling off their debt

to foreigners, especially to Asian banks, and then going, oh, we can't repay it anymore, which is what happened in America. America was selling off all this prime real estate mortgage debt bundling up all the shit mortgages. To German banks.

and they went, oh, we can't pay it anymore. So that's going to cause contagion. But apparently the Chinese government is not necessarily going to bail Evergrand out, even though Evergrand accounts for 2% of the entire GDP. Yeah, that makes total sense. And tens of millions of Chinese who are just middle class Chinese investors who will be wiped out through this thing. So there you go.

You heard it here first. Isn't that great news? You were miles ahead. And also we made the point that a lot of the ordinary Chinese people are the people who were on the hook for this and they've lost their life savings. Yes, yes. I know. Isn't it great? I predicted that. I predicted that. Yeah. That's so great for the people. But I mean, I guess what I'd say to those people is welcome to capitalism. Yes. That's right. You've got in China, the great thing about being in China is you've got the best of both worlds. You have an authoritarian government that essentially is quite repressive. But you have total freedom to lose your life savings. Yes. Exactly.

You don't get the, you don't get the sub-expression, but you can express yourself through the form of losing all your money if you want to. Yes. So, it's unfortunate. Well, it makes you, it actually is a bit of a feel-good story from our perspective. From your perspective. In that, it makes you go, well, maybe it's not so bad to live in Australia. Maybe it's not so bad not to have property investments if they can turn sour. Maybe you're better off owning nothing, and that way you won't be disappointed.

And so, Mark Latham, if you're listening, and you're feeling a bit sad about how, lights turned out. Just remember, you could be a Uyghur in China, which would be slightly worse. I think some days it would be a toss-up, frankly. Do you think maybe the Uyghurs made the conveyor belts that One Nation bought? It's entirely possible. Our gear is from Road with part of the Ocona Class Network. Catch you next time.