The Chaser Report - NAIDOC Week | Andy Saunders

Episode Date: July 7, 2021

Comedian Andy Saunders makes a special NAIDOC Week guest appearance and discusses special NAIDOC Week guest appearances. Plus, Sydney's lockdown drags on, and Gabbi reveals TikTok's masterplan to boost vaccinations. And Dan says farewell – subscribe to the 'A Rational Fear' podcast for more from him. 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 The Chaser Report for Thursday, the 8th of July. It is the Delta variant, which means that my co-host is Dan Illich of the A Rational Fear podcast. However, for the last time, Dan. Oh, it is for the last time, yes. It has been an absolute privilege to join you on this wonderful of podcast with my comedy heroes, The Chaser. And I assume that's all of you. I assume you're all listening.

It's great to be here. It's good to be part of it. Thank you for having me. It's been our pleasure, although I think the word you're looking for is peers. But anyway, Dan, there's no one I would have rather spent lockdown socially distancing a complete different suburb from. Thank you. Thank you very much.

And I do appreciate you keeping your distance. You know, initially you wanted to come over here and spread your dirty COVID in my face. But I'm glad we had a separation of distance. But not of minds, not of minds, Dom. I think our minds are very connected. Yes, and I'm certainly glad. go anywhere near Bondi. Nevertheless, Dan, the news came through yesterday

that Sydney's lockdown is going to be extended. Another week. And let's face it, minimum another week is what's planned at the moment. That's right. They haven't set a lockdown horizon yet. But it is pretty exciting. Sydney Siders have been asked themselves all week. You know, how can I stay away from work

and stay with my adorable children for 24-7 for one more week? And finally, it happened. 27 new cases yesterday, bang, one week extension, grounded by Auntie Gladys. Bang, there you go. You can tell who's got kids in this conversation and who doesn't because there's one thing that parents are thinking it's, oh God, not another week of homeschooling. This is the nightmare from last year. Like at least everyone knows that during the past two weeks,

it was supposed to be very hard of work, 24-7 parenting. But homeschooling was just the worst possible because kids did not learn a damn thing last year in homeschooling. I don't know what you're talking about. All I can understand from parenting from Instagram is that kids are adorable. Their parents love them. They love putting up how many months they've been alive next to their faces. I think that's amazing. I think it would be great if you put how many days you've been in lockdown with your kid

next to their face on Instagram. That's what I want to see. Well, Dad, I'm going to drop my three-year-old off at your door on Monday 9 a.m. And you can have it for the whole week. At first, let's head to the Chase Newsroom and Rebecca Day Unamuno. The New South Wales government have announced this week that the definitely not a lockdown will be extended for another nine days. Health authorities have said,

while it was a tough decision, this is the best way to buy enough time to ensure every private school child can be offered a vaccine. The federal government has sprung into action today announcing a new plan to suppress the Delta outbreak. Putting aside $5 billion in additional COVID funding, the government has announced a plan

to offer the virus a $5 million swimming pool if it will stay away from marginal electorates. And the Australian government has today celebrated completely vaccinating all aged care workers except for those that aren't. The government has described the aged care rollout as a great success, stating that if you ignore all ongoing failures, the plan has been entirely faultless. I'm Rebecca Dana Muno for The Chaser Report. Can't take being on hold anymore. FIS is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month.

Certain conditions apply. Details at FIS.Ca. Today's episode of The Chaser Report brought to you by St. Joseph's College. We don't enforce stereotypes about private school boys. We enact them. Dan, we should take a look at the extension to the lockdown in our nation's biggest city in another one of these. But as to the question of when this thing ends,

Gladys Berger-Clean said something yesterday. It's either good news or bad news, but I honestly don't know. Have a listen. What we want to do is give us our best chance of making sure this is the only lockdown we have until the vast majority of our citizens are vaccinated. Because she either means we don't want to have any more lockdowns, this is it. Or she means this thing's not ending until everyone gets vaccinated, which means, I don't know, 2027. Well, let me tell you, some people have it worse than us, Dom.

While we're in lockdown because of 27 cases counted yesterday, a beauty pageant in Mexico is going ahead despite 15 of the 32 contestants testing positive for COVID-19. Wow. For the swimsuit round, instead of having, like, judges looking at the physicality, they have people with like COVID swabs holding up positive. or negative signs. I thought you were going to say, instead of the swimsuit round,

well, we have the mask round. Let's see how the mask fits on your beautiful face. What about the full PPE round? Oh, yeah. So one of the other incredible things about this pageant is, this is like so ridiculous,

is that prior to the pageant, the contestants traveled to schools for impoverished indigenous kids in Mexico, where they delivered school supplies. And at that point, a minimum of 10 of the contestants had symptoms on that trip.

that's crazy. We're worried about vaccine rollout to Indigenous kids in this country. In Mexico, the beauty pageant is more concerned about disease rollout. I hope at least they got T-shirts that said, I met the most beautiful woman in Mexico and all I got was a respiratory syndrome.

Oh my God. And I'm just imagining the interviews, Dan, where the women get up to on the stage and say, I just really want to save the world from me because I'm really contagious. Today's episode of The Chaser Report brought to you by St Joseph's College. Can you really put a price on your son's education?

Yep, that's just $35,000. Oh, just put it on Daddy's card. Well, it's NADO week, and it's the time of year where broadcasters get one Aboriginal person to contribute to their programs in the most token of ways, and not unlike our mainstream rivals, we too have proved that we've got a black friend. It's comedian, former block contestant,

and proud Barippi man, Andy Saunders. Andy, how is your NADOC week going? Oh, do you know how you said that, you know, And a lot of mainstream platforms get a token originally. Well, we do that with mainstream platforms. So every NADOC week, every year, we look to get a token podcast, mainstream podcast platform in on our week. Just so we can feel like, you know, we're being inclusive.

That's very good of you. Yeah. Well, you know, you've got to do what you can. This NADOC week, Andy, it's all about healing country. Like, out of everything that's happened over the last year, in terms of Australian and Indigenous culture, how has the country healed? Oh, look, I mean, all jokes aside, this is a really serious one for us. It's about connection, it's about culture, preservation, it's about revitalisation.

Country isn't, it's not just something you feel and see. It's about what lies in your chest as well and how you feel about yourself and your family and who you're connected to and what you're connected to, which is well over 60,000 years, the last count, which is, it's a pretty cool thing. to be attached to. It's a mind-boggling amount of time, isn't it? The depth of that connection, 60,000 years. Look, this is how precious I am.

I would have been the worst tribesman back in the day. My daughter asked me in lockdown. She goes, fat, you know, because of our original, if, like, the world goes to shit, we're going to be able to, like, survive in the bush, aren't we? And I'm like, fuck none. And she's like, why not? And I'm like, because we've got a thermo mix.

Phthalmix doesn't say you're not bush fit, nothing will. And at the time when I told her we've got a thermomix, I had a pair of fucking Birkenstocks on. You know that you're happily assimilated when you've got a pair of Birkenstocks off. They're very comfortable. They're amazing. The souls assimilate to you, don't they? That's a beautiful thing about them.

That's exactly what they do. That's a really, really funny thing. I'm going to steal that. Andy, I want to talk about things that aren't sacred. You know, over a year ago we saw BLM protests in Sydney and, of course, the Captain Cook statue was surrounded by police. Has there been any, you know, is there any consideration for removing that statue from BLM folks while the police aren't there? Because they're too busy right now as everything is in lockdown.

They're too busy chasing around St George Dragons from having parties. Oh, mate, look, that poor fella, I mean, he's only breached the law 500 times. When does a young, straight, white man in a football team get a break? Come on, Australia, far out. He only earns $800,000 a year. Are you serious? This is starting to make me cry. Anyway, the statue thing, I'm not a very political guy, okay?

I love my culture. I love my people. I love that my elders, my ancestors, give me the opportunities to do what I do and then hand the opportunities off to my kids. Because, you know, with each generation, especially, like, as a parent, you just want to give your kids the opportunity to have a better childhood or future than what you had. You know, as a parent, you're trying to either get with a trust, baby or make one.

So, I mean, it's a conundrum. It's a conundrum. Andy, let me ask you about NADOC week. We get to see a lot of great Aboriginal voices in mainstream media during this week. It would be great to see more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and First Nations people on TV the rest of the time. Is there a way we can get more Aboriginal people on TV? Look, the only way you can do that is talk to token entertainment.

They're the ones who are higher shit. And once a year, they say, listen, NADOC's coming up. We need some ideas, you fuck with. Who are we going to get on the project? Usually we've got a problem and let's not leave out some of the morning shows. Okay, let's do it. Chop, top. Who's got ideas?

Let's go. All right. And then that's what happens every year. I, too, am in the same mind frame as you, Dan. I want to see more. I want to aboriginalize this country. I really do. I want to see black fellas on Home and Away.

I want to see them on Ramsey Street. Okay, let's pepper ourselves. And I'm sorry to use that. PEPA, let us pepper ourselves across all three networks, maybe four, five networks. I don't know how many networks we've got in this country at the moment, but let's cover ourselves across that and just infiltrate slowly. So people sort of start getting normalized to black faces on TV. I don't know that White Australia is making sufficiently good television that they shouldn't

just bugger off and leave it to other people, frankly. Come on. You cannot say you're not addicted to beauty and the geek. Well, okay, maybe that one program, maybe that one program. But then again, there's no black geek. Not yet, Andy. You're daring to dream. I like the vision.

What about black beauty and the geek? And the next Bachelorette is a queer Aboriginal woman. That's the next big breakout reality star. That must be exciting for people. This is amazing. I'm looking forward to watching that. I've already bought my popcorn. It'll be stale by then, but I don't give a shit.

I'll still eat it. Well, Andy, thank you so much for making our podcast much less boring in this episode. Hey, no worries, hey. To all the mob out there, get involved in your NADOC celebrations. It's an amazing week. It's to celebrate the oldest living culture in the world to celebrate families still surviving and people still surviving communities, our culture, our language. It's all still here.

Get involved. It will not bite you. Thanks, mate. Today's episode of The Chaser Report brought to you by St Joseph's College, where you really get to feel like the 1% of young people who are vaccinated. One of the delightful things about working on the Chaser report is the Chaser interns, of course. And among the interns, we have somebody who is a bona fidey TikTok superstar, Gabby Bolt. Legend of the game. Legend of the game, Gabby.

Fettuccini Feta Queen for those on TikTok. She's here to tell us about an interesting communication she got from TikTok. And Alex is here too, another one of the interns. Hello, Alexa and Gabby. Hello. Hello. Hello. Yeah. I have a stupid name on a stupid app. And I got an email today. They're a really great team, but I got an email today that they're planning like a pro

vaccine kind of trend. So they want you to make like pro vaccination content. It's a really nice thought and I appreciate the idea. The problem is this is aimed at Australia and New Zealand. So New Zealand could probably get away with doing it because they actually have vaccines to go around. But to encourage Australian youth to get vaccinated is pretty hard right now because none of us can. This is a good point, Gabby, Alexa.

Why have you not been vaccinated? What's going on? What's holding your bath? Where's your jab? And don't say supply. That's just passing the buck to Greg Hunt. Now, honestly, no TikTokers have told me to so far. I just stick to dancing in my room. I think the idea is good.

The only issue I take with it is that you don't need to convince young people to want to be vaccinated. I don't know a single young person that isn't just rushing to throw whatever into their system, to be honest. So I suppose the plan for us is just coming up with what we actually could do on the app. to, I suppose, push this agenda. There's definitely ways, I mean, yeah, since Astonica's only one available, there's definitely ways to make it look cool. I'm thinking you just got to spruke the symptoms. You've got to make blood clots look cool.

And I think, like, TikTok dances are the way to do it. Like, you can have a viral dance routine to, like, Taylor Swift's bad blood or, maybe something more recent, but I think the material's all there. Is it possible? I'm no doctor, but is it possible that if you have the rare clotting syndrome, which is very, very rare to be clear, and can be treated these days, which no one is talking about, but they can. Can you dance it off?

If your blood starts to clot, can you just get up there and do a boogie? Yeah. And then just, you know, just get those veins all cleared up. Shake that clot. Shake that clot. So I came up with, because they gave us some examples, obviously, oh yeah. What do they think that would work?

Just saying things like, you know, why you're getting vaccinated or like why it's good to be vaccinated. You know, I'm vaccinating for my family, for my mom. I've sort of gone a bit more with a bit more mainstream of an Aussie youth thought. I'm getting vaccinated because I seriously need to get maggoted in the club again to deal with my emotional trauma. Very relatable. So there's like a super, like an astra yager bomb where you have the yager,

you drop it in the beer and then get an astra at the same time and then dance on the bar. I came up with a TikTok dance and I realized that this is, this is an audible podcast so you can't see it. But, you know, they could do like a TikTok dance with like the shooting up action. Although now that I think about it, it probably becomes a little bit more pro heroine. Hold on. That's a bit interesting. Yeah, that's not going to work, is it? I always like TikTok memes where they do like,

Here's five websites you might not know. Go to health.gov.com.com. And then go to NSW.com.com.com.com and then type in your thing and you will find whether you're eligible to get the vaccine. Then go to your GP and get the vaccine and put in your arm and one neat trick later, you'll be COVID-free. My favorite genre of TikTok is when a 20-something person discovers something the rest of the world knows. Yes. I love those. I did have one more, which was a true crime series about all of the elite who got vaccinated before health care, age care and airport. workers.

Well, Gabby, given your intense influence on this platform, given that you are a leader of your generation on TikTok, can we ask you to produce some content maybe later in the week or next week to rally your followers behind you and queue up for these admittedly non-existent vaccines? Oh, yeah, maybe. Look, I'm not exactly filled with fucking ambition for a vaccine myself. So maybe I'll just make a song to like try and book it. Just like take the first step.

A vaccine booking song. Yeah. I mean, it will be about four years long. Still, it would be easier than logging into ABC Eye View. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore. FIS is 100% online so you can make the switch in minutes.

Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. Coming soon to Channel 10, the exciting new TV series, I'm a masked farmer celebrity bachelor, get me out of here. Experience all the fun and adventure as this unlucky in love amateur chef attempts to find love while cooking an entire meal in 20 minutes while wearing a mask. Okay, so I've tried to whip the eggs, but then I realised that I'd forgotten to jump into

the bowel of snakes while singing. It's not gone down well with the judges at all, and I think I've really hurt my chances of finding love. Experience all the thrills as the celebrity farmers attempt to build an entire apartment in under 40 minutes while in the deepest, darkest jungles of South Africa. So I'm feeling pretty good. I've just built the kitchen, which leaves me 20 minutes to cook the flambay chicken in time for tonight's date. So if I learn to see a song right now, it'll leave me just enough time to get the Lego done

before I have to rescue swimmers at Bondi Beach. And then, once you've seen all the action, be sure to catch. I'm a masked farmer celebrity bachelor. Get me out of here, Gogglebox. where all the masked farmer celebrities watch back episodes and react in real time. Hey, can I take the mask off while watching TV? No, sorry.

According to the contract, the mask stays on. Yeah. I'm a masked farmer celebrity bachelor. Get me out of here. The new ratings juggernaut for Channel 10. But Dan, before we go, the far right Republicans, the kind of people that tried to overthrow the capital in January,

have a new social network and you've actually been on it. Yeah, I've checked it out. It's called Getter, which is meant to be a shorthand of get together. But for me, it just sounds like people in Trump hats talking about Hillary Clinton. Oh, get her! That's what it sounds like. Yes, Jason Miller, one of Trump's top executives, has launched it. He has said that Donald Trump may or may not join it sometime soon, and they've reserved his handle so that he can be part of it.

Trump has yet to say whether he will or not. But don't worry, Dom. There's about 30 or 40 other fake Trumpers out there. or pretended to be Donald Trump on this platform already. And I understand there's already a Scott Morrison on Getter as well. A fake Scott Morrison. That's a deep cut, isn't it, from the repertoire? Yeah, yeah.

And it's, the official accounts are just full of people who you may have remembered over the last four years, like Judge Jean Shapiro and other people who are in Trump's orbit. But it kind of looks like the cast of an old TV show that is no longer relevant. Or perhaps a future ward of a maximum security prison once they get around the prosecuting the January stuff. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it's a checklist of people who need to go to jail. So, yeah, Getter, it's already filled with a whole bunch of junkie type kind of accounts.

And I don't know how long it's going to last for, but, you know, you might as well go get your account now because it could be, it could be the next TikTok. Yeah, I've already started an account. It's at Dan Illich. Dan, hey, thanks for joining us for these past couple of weeks of the Dell tradition. It's been enormously fun having you along with us. And I guess if people want more Illich, tell us. to go to the Rational Fear podcast from now on.

Yeah, just sign up to Arationalfear.com. Give me your email and I'll give you content for free in perpetuity. Excellent. It's been a delight having you working with us, by the way, on behalf of the interns, myself and all here at Chaser headquarters. But the contract says Charles had to come back tomorrow. So that's what's going to happen. You can get more news around the clock at chaser.com.

Our Melbourne podcast festival gig is still going ahead for now, but who knows what will happen as things change. but why not book? Go on, take a risk. And if you want to leave us a five-star review at Apple Podcasts, today's code word is we want Dan back. Yeah, and you know who's the person that's going to leave the first review? Me, got to get back on this podcast.

I also want to plug that Irrational Fear is going to be touring Melbourne for the Comedy Republic Replay Festival. We have got Lewis Hobart, myself, Dylan Bain, who is one of your favourite friends. Also, we've got Alice Tovey and Patricia Carvellous joining us on stage for a huge irrational fear, August 14. at Comedy Republic. Every time you do the plug,

there's more people on the bill, and we still haven't figured out what we're doing. Cutback from holidays, Firth. All right, Dan, it's been a delight. Now, Gary is from Road Microphones and we're part of the ACAST Creative Network. Cheerio.

Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore? Fizz is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. atphiz.ca.