The Chaser Report - NSW Election Eve! | Dom Perrottet*

Episode Date: March 23, 2023

Dom recaps the greatest corruption moments in NSW government history. Charles makes his bets on the election results. Dom Perrottet comes on the show and announces that he would accept a bottle of wine.**He doesn't. 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 am Dom Knight, coming to you from the great state of New South Wales election capital this coming weekend. Yes, it's a thrilling nail but it. Can you remind me who the candidates are again, Dom? And that's Charles Firth. Are you in Canberra?

It's the wrong place. That's not the political capital today, Charles. You're in the wrong jurisdiction. I'm in Canberra because our sold-out show is played here last night, but obviously it is recorded on Tuesday afternoon. Yes, and I mean, you have done much better at getting voters into a room than I suspect the candidates would on Saturday, but for the law. Charles, I was looking back, there was a very helpful article in the Saturday paper

which charted the scandals. of the past 12 years of the New South Wales government the also known as the O'Farrell Baird, Berger-Clean who's the current guy? Perritae government. They've been a lot.

I'd forgotten how many there were. Yes. You were heaps. I know. I mean, you've got to go back to the bottle of Grange in the hidden, in the bushes. Do you remember that one?

Was that Barry O'Farrell's bottle of Grange or whether there's there more than one? There may well have been multiple bottles of Grange, There were a couple of bottle of Grange, but only one brought down a Premier, and that was a 59 bottle of Grange, and he claimed that he'd forgotten, he'd forgotten that somebody had given him a 19... So commonplace was his acceptance of 59 bottles of Grange, like 1959 bottles of Grange. Yeah, it wouldn't have been $59?

There might have been $1959. It completely slipped his mind that this, well, was it a property developer or something? Someone gave him a bottle of grain to celebrate his election win and he misled Parliament. Then, so he claimed, no, no, I don't even remember that. And then somebody produced the thank you note, thanking him for the, with him thanking the person, very, refusively for this bottle of 59 grange. I mean, I still feel sorry for Barry O'Farrell.

Imagine the amount of stuff you get given as the Premier of New South Wales, the amount of... He must have, he probably had 20 bottles of wine just that day. Yes, that's right, yes. From all the coal miners who want corrupt coal mines,

all the property developers. I mean, this goes on. But I think that was good. I think that was a good thing, because it allowed a whole new generation of corrupt liberals to come through, and not just liberals, let's just be clear, like nationals. All the Labor corrupt people were in jail at that point, and a lot of them still are, actually. By no means is this unique to the coalition.

There's the ones who've been in government and therefore had the money. I've got the list here. Do you want to read some of the ones we might have forgotten? There's just an awful lot of them. Do you remember John Sidoti, who was the member for Dremoy? We should do a bingo. Can we do it as a bingo? How would that work?

So ICAC investigation of his property dealings moved to crossbench. I mean, it'd be so hard to distinguish it from all the other people where ICAC has looked into their property deals and they've had to either resign or move to crossbench. It's a lot of them. Is it gone? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then there was Gareth Ward.

He's actually running for re-election in the seat of Kiama. Yeah, he is. He's an independent and involuntary independent. He was former, I think, community services. Minister. And there were, they're still facing charges over alleged historical sexual abuse, but there was also the incident where he was found wandering the streets of Potts Point, naked. And he claimed it was due to surgery. But then the cops took him back to his apartment, and then apparently an hour later he was out there again in his underpants.

Well, I think the problem is that that is common to happen when you've had too much. Surgery. You've had too much surgery. You've had too much surgery. Oh, oh, surgery. Yeah, yeah, that's right. You just go to it. If you mix the surgery drugs, quote unquote, with the 59 Grange, you end up in your underwear wandering around Kings Cross. Not that we want to suggest that's what happened, because that would be libelous, and he probably needs the money for his time. So, Garret. Can you launch a liable battle from jail?

I'm sure. I'm sure Eddie Abed would know the people who could do that for you. Then, who else? oh there's so many so there's him then Michael Johnson there were several sex scandals I don't even remember he was a National's MP

and he wasn't there he had a sex scandal you've skipped you've you've skipped about five Dom because remember in the weeks following Barry O'Farrell suddenly remembering that it had been gifted this

bottle of Grange then a whole lot of other Leibs also I actually did I skipped, because I was doing some research, I skipped the first ones because they were so long. I'm only doing the ones from the last 10 years. No, there were lots more early on.

That's right. What happens if people are listening to this wanting, you know, for the historical record? Yeah, and to get a really accurate historical, like, we're the Wikipedia of podcasts. I will get, I will get. I'll just look up Mike Second's article here, a brief history of liberal party scandals.

So Steve Canstool was the first. This is a guy in 2005 after a speeding offense. No, no, no, 2005 is too early. No, no, this is what he did in 2005. So Steve... Oh, I see right. Okay, so within six months of Barry O'Farrell's election victory in 2011, the National's MP resigned because back in 2005,

after a speeding offense, he had somebody falsify a statutory declaration. And Charles, the feeling was that that was incompatible with being Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Police. See, isn't it interesting? Faking a stat deck. How far standards have dropped even in the last 10 or 15 years because I don't feel like that would be a hanging offence under a per capita.

Oh no, that would be a mere, that would be a mere Nazi uniform of a. Yeah. Oh, you know how to fake stat decks, you should run our election campaign. There's also, there's a guy called Jeff McCloy who handed over tens of thousands of dollars cash from the backseat of his Bentley here. Chris Harcher A Bentley had a staffer who set up sham invoices. Do you remember that? I love how in touch these candidates are. The backseat of his Bentley. Oh yes. That common scandal. And they washed, this was to try and get around the ban on donations from property

developers and they washed it all through the Free Enterprise Foundation and that took out 10 MPs. So I'm glad I went back and checked because that was no less than 10 MPs who got kicked out. Arthur Sedinus, one of the great survivors out of that scandal? Was that, that was he the Australian water holdings one? There are so many of them. There were liberal figures in the water holdings to candle too.

I know. Yeah, Arthur Sinidadis is in the list here. And he was found not to have been corrupt. He just got 200 grand a year for not doing... He just got a good gig. Doing 200 grand for not doing very much. And even Mike Seckham here says that O'Farrell's demise was unfortunate because he hadn't

done anything for the press. So if if the person who gave him the grain didn't get anything for it because he just forgot it existed. He presumably had such a well-stocked seller that it just went up the back behind all the other bottles of Grange and he forgot about it. I'm really regretting not running for Parliament now.

You should have. What about Greg. Greg Pierce was the finance minister. He'd wrongly claimed travel entitlements and turned up drunk and incoherent to a late-night parliamentary debate. Are we getting to the point where there's no longer

any people in New South Wales who haven't been a disgraced liberal MP at some point? It's getting up there. Like, are we running out? Charles, it's very unfair. A lot of them are disgraced Labour MPs. Yeah, that's true. And what about, and national park?

Because it wasn't Darryl McGuilar, I mean, we haven't even got to the sort of Beres-Havis Berwickleyan. No, that's coming up here in the list. Charles, that Donald Trump would say there are bad people on both sides of New South Wales politics. So, yes, Gladys Beridclan came in, but we didn't know. so she was in minority about 2021 because so many people So wait a minute

Who came So wait a minute Wait a minute Was he Glade was in there Mike Baird was there He was a rare one Because he didn't lose his job as Premier Due to scandal

No He tried to ban Greyhound racing Yes And they did him in Yes But also So animal cruelty Is in

The amusing Detail about Mike Baird Was that he resigned abruptly, claiming that he desperately needed to spend time with his family and literally within a few weeks desperately claimed he needed to go and work at the NAB full-time. That was the family he meant. He meant his family family. Oh, right, all right.

I thought it was like, oh, I didn't realize what family life actually entailed. I might go out and get a job. So then there's Daryl McGuire with the property business and Placadisbury. Jicklin claimed quite convincingly in some respects that he was so full of shit that when he was telling her about all these deals that you had lined up that they're all rubbish.

This is the man she secretly loved. Well, this was the funny thing where because it was a little bit convincing because ICAC released all these recordings that was secretly recorded of their sort of intimate chit-chat. And, you know, Gladys's excuse, which is, well, he told me about all these corrupt deals

and I did go, oh yeah, that sounds great, congratulations. But I was pretty bored at the time, right? And then you listen to the conversations, you go, yeah, she does sound a bit bored. Like, I can sort of imagine, you know, she probably was scrolling through her social media while on speakerphone. And I mean, I don't mean to be unkind, but it's not unlike. And also, you look at Daryl, but also, Dom, just let me complete my thought, you look at Daryl and you go, So, yeah, you would just, he's just eye candy. Like, you just want him for the sex.

None of the medical advice contained in the Chaser report should legally be considered medical advice. The Chaser Report. You don't want him for the conversation. Shut up and kiss me. Don't tell you about your deals, right? Is that what you think he did? Yeah.

But also, hang on, can you just, sorry, this is a very bad rundown, Don, because you've also skipped the little moment where the Labour Party read its head, just before this, which was that John Robertson, who was the opposition leader at the time, gave a letter of commendation

or recommendation to the guy who, the terrorist who held up the Lint Cafe. Don't you remember that? I do remember that. I do remember that. You've got to include that just for balance. To be clear, this is the coalition list. The Labor.

party list, even in opposition, I'm sure is absolutely massive. So there's Daryl. The internet doesn't have enough space to be able to have a podcast about the corruption in the New South Wales Labor. Charles, we'll do it next week, if Labor win

government, as he's predicted. So there's that look, there's so many more of them. Labor's Trish Doyle in 2021, he used parliamentary privilege to and I'm quoting here, alleged that a coalition MP had raped an MP in the Blue Mountains. In 2019, at the same day, there's no link necessarily, Charles.

This is how they're reporting it in a Saturday paper. The Nationals, Michael Johnson, announced he was taking leave immediately and stepped aside from Parliament. Then, there were hundreds of explicit text messages between Johnson and an unnamed sex worker in which he offered her $1,000 to come to the Parliament. Isn't that what you're supposed to do in federal parliament in the prayer room, not in state parliament?

It gets so confusing. Yes, that was sallying. so he resigned no charges were laid though there are so many more there were so many more scandals to go we haven't even mentioned the words John Barilara yet

well this is the thing like John Barillara you know yeah he did that trade job thing where he tried to appoint himself as a trade employee but before that and I don't think this is corrupt

this is just like his character which is that he threatened to split the coalition and bring down the government because the liberal side of the coalition weren't allowing him to drive koalas to extinction That's right

And then he And but the deal wasn't Oh okay John You're going to have to back down We want koalas The deal was Okay John You can go and kill your koalas

It's all right We'll find somewhere else for them to live It was called the koala war The backdown, yeah, the backdown wasn't from him. They went fair enough. You want to kill koalas? You've got a good point. Yeah.

Can't make it on a lot without killing some koalas. That's what I always say. John Barrow, I didn't know this. They've got texts here. So, Victor Dominello, the former, well, he's still a minister, I think, but he's leaving at the election, member for Dremoyne. He suggested in 2020 the idea of mandatory cashless gaming cards, which is now the policy of the party at this election.

Yes. And John Barilaro texted him after that saying, you're seriously a dead set dick, do your fucking job. What about looking after your stakeholders like clubs New South Wales? So, and that policy is now the policy of the party. Yeah. I mean, if only John Barilaro were there looking out for the gaming companies and clubs. Well, I just think what he could have done for the gaming companies as trade-invoid in New York.

Well, luckily, Chris Minn's is in the pocket of them, and it looks like he'll get elected. Charles, he's not in the pocket. Fear not. That's really unfair to our possible next Premier. Chris Mince is not, he wants to do a study, Charles. There are 86,000 pokies in New South Wales. He wants to do a study into 500 of them with a cash-discam. Because how do we know if it's a good idea to cut down?

on probling gambling until you try it. How do you know whether measures that are designed to cut down on gambling will cut down on gambling? Like, you just can't, you can't jump the gun. It's like all these measures against murder that they've got, you know, the banning of murder. You've got to run a study. We should actually just, we shouldn't have laws against murder. You've got to check. No one's ever studied whether they were for not.

So if you just murdered 500 people, then you'd get a sense. Then, okay, so then this list features, we talked about already the hunt for the Peritay brothers. You've also got Peter Polos. Is Charles Peretet, is Charles Peritay still on the land? No, no. Charles, Charles, Charles, Charles. You've got the wrong Peritay.

There's a lot of them. It's very key. Charles Peritay is the one who convening it lives in Victoria, so can't be subpoenaed. And Jean-Claude, Jean-Claude Perate was the one who disappeared and turned out to have been overseas on an extended break, which ended shortly after we entered the caret taker period. He'd had enough of overseas life and came back to New South Wales. Just because, you know, trips end sometimes, Charles. They end. And so did the inquiry when

we entered the caretaker face. So we haven't even touched on... You think that maybe, can I, can I just suggest a strategy here that I think that the coalition have employed since 2011, which is they went, let's just be so corrupt all the time that it becomes really, confusing and you can't possibly keep track of all the different corrupt things that are happening on the beginning day.

And so people just... There's so many of them. Yeah, it's really hard. I mean, apparently even the people serving subpoenas couldn't keep track of all the peritase. Just to finish the list off, and this isn't everyone, just the Mike's second list here.

Of course, there's the Nazi party costume, which still may come out on election eve, by the way. I've got a hot tip, I reckon, that'll come out, that'll come out today. It'll come out Friday 24th of March. Yep. The only thing is, I've heard, I've heard the photo includes other prominent libs. Oh, okay.

So that's why, I mean, how could it not? And because it's a sort of, yeah, there was all these mates were young rebels. Yeah, and because it, um, it's an internal, factional battle that's going on that, that means that photo's going around. because there's an internal battle it's actually no one's interest to release the photo because they're from both sides of the battle. So then there was Peter Poulos who got kicked out of the party

and off the ticket after sharing the classily sharing explicit photos of, and I'm quite again a female Liberal MP and they disendors the Yon candidate Matthew Squires over social media post that were homophobic, Islamophobic and anti-vax.

Apparently... I would have thought... But that there would be a reason for his endorsement. I'm astonishingly hasn't been picked up by One Nation at this point. So, yes, it's basically Jeffrey Watson, who's interviewed here about all this, the former head of ICACC, Jeffrey Watson from ICAC basically wants minority governments, and no one has any influence to pedal.

Okay, so... Which I think, you know, I can... Looking forward... So that's the coalition side. Looking forward, Dom. What is your bet on how many days? it'll be into the Labor government that the first minister has to resign in.

Well, my tip is sworn in in the morning and resigns in the afternoon. The same day. Okay. I mean, Labor's, don't forget, don't forget, Charles. Labor's been in opposition for 12 years. They've had not much to do. They've had no influence to peddles. But they've had plenty of time to sort things out.

And they've been ahead in the polls for months. So if you wanted to buy an MP, you'd think that you would have been able to find one. for months now. And they've been flying under the radar. Even Chris Minge has been under the radar. No one knows who he is. I'm going to go a bit differently.

I'm going to say it'll be a good six weeks before we get our first resigning disgrace because Labor have learned. They had so many ministers go to jail last time they were in government. They have learned how to cover things up and be a little bit more discreet. Don't just explicitly.

do a deal about a trading mine and release the details on Christmas Eve and think it's all going to go under the radar, I think it's going to be, you know, like, they know how to do it this time. This is a competent team. If they're season pros, you think. Okay. So Charles, if Chris Minns wins government on Saturday night, and my tip is it would probably be a minority government. I think faced with the choice between these two extremely similar 40-something Catholic men who like jogging. I think it'll be minority government. But if Chris Minns wins,

we should send him a $19.59 bottle of Aldi wine and see if there's a, and keep the thing. Brainge. It'll be called Brains. Because you always want to have something. A bottle of Banta Valley Brange from Aldi. Yeah, because you always want to have something over the Premier.

That's basically the guide to life. Well, good luck tomorrow. Happy voting if you exist in anywhere other than New South Wales. I have no idea why you're still listening to be. Let's just be really clear. In the interest of balance, a Labor going to be net worse or net better than the coalition? Because the old Labor government was far worse than the coalition. Although, to be fair, it was in their fourth turn that things really started to happen.

So if Perritae comes back, we can look forward to an incredibly entertaining next four years in South Wales. I think somebody said the last Labor government, was the most corrupt government in Australia since the Rum Rebellion. So, I mean, that's... Yeah, you've got to give them points to that. It's almost an proper achievement, really. They certainly deserve to be remembered.

Yeah, look, I know, but I'm definitely watching Labor. I just want to... I'm definitely going to vote Labor, definitely the next election, mainly because my sister lost for the Labour Party in the seat that I'm in, and I can't wait to see the look on her face if Labor wins.

that seat back without her. Charles, do you know where she is, by the way, if a parliamentary inquiry needed to find her, do you reckon you could do a better job of tracking her down the Dominic Peritade did with his two brothers? No comment. I do not comment on family matters. Except for the entire episode of the podcast.

Our gear is from Road. Except for the entire episode of the podcast about how... Charles is very jealous of his sister's success. Our gear is from Road. We're part of the Iconic-class network. See you next week. Enjoy the election.