The Chaser Report - NSW Wins Gold Again! | Harry Jun

Episode Date: August 22, 2021

Over the weekend, NSW set a new daily record for COVID-19 cases anywhere in Australia – and then broke it 24 hours later! No longer the gold standard for managing outbreaks, NSW is now the gold standard for outbreaks! Plus, comedian Harry Jun tells us about teaching high school English over Zoom, we get an exclusive interview with Scott Morrison, and Donald Trump returns to rallies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of The Chaser Report is sponsored by Wine O'Clock. In this lockdown, every hour is Wine O'Clock. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to another week at The Chaser Report. It is Monday the 23rd of August. I'm Dom Knight, Charles Firth and Gabby Bolt are with us. Hey, Gabby, welcome back. Hey, thanks for having me back.

I really thought I was fired for a while. How was television glamour? Oh, it was wonderful. But you prefer working with us Will Anderson and Janfran Yeah, because you know They're pretty shit No no no no not at all

No it's more that just Will Anderson and Janfran Actually check that I'm working As a connoisseur of doing the least amount of work For the maximum pay possible It wasn't for me No They actually care about The product they're putting out

And as somebody who's worked for this podcast For the better half of the time It just wasn't Oh come on Like, you guys, when was the last time you actually checked my time sheet? You have time sheets? Do you have time sheets? See?

This is why it's the perfect workplace for me. But look, things haven't been great since you've been gone. On the weekend, New South Wales, recorded 825, which is the worst day ever in Australia. And then 830 yesterday, so everything's bad. No, no, Dom, this is good news. This is good news. How can that possibly be good? We're eight weeks in, we haven't done anything.

We're in hell. Tom, we've beaten Victoria. We've beaten Melbourne. No longer, will they ever be able to say again, oh, we had a terrible lockdown? Because we'll just go, no, we had it worse. Ha, suck shit. That is a good point. So instead of us having to sort of go, oh, I don't know what you've been through,

sorry, Melbourne, yeah, we'll just shut up. We'll just go and, because we had a light lockdown and it was fine. We'll be able to go, oh, Melbourne, you don't know what it's like having 800 plus. No, and Melbourne is catching up. Like, Victoria's numbers are starting to rise. It's turned out it, It is a race. I hope that they make a reality TV show called It Is a Race.

And they actually just make us fight in various disease spreading activities. Like, you know, we've got seven people from seven different states and territories. Now they have to lick all the polls in the vicinity. Who will catch COVID first? That is funny, Gabby, but isn't that the reality show that is on like TV every day at 11 a.m? Aren't we stuck in that exact event right now? Okay, well, coming up on the show. Is that it?

Is that the only note we've got is that we beat Victoria? But it sucks. I just wanted to say, I think it's now incumbent on every Sydneysider to keep this number up. Because I think 800's great, but Victoria is catching up. And I think we need to start accelerating. I mean, it is accelerating. But, you know, we've got to get in the next few days, if we can get it over 1,000, I don't think Victoria is going to be able to keep up.

So, you know, stay in there. Stay true. It's going to be great. You were at the protest, weren't you, Charles? You got this. You got this, Sydney. 800 of us have got this, Charles. I mean, the problem is we start joking about it,

and then my stomach just fills with dread and horror and... Yeah, do you ever feel like the weight of our words carries a little bit of a sadness with it? Because I sometimes think somebody listens to this podcast and goes, They're right. We should catch up. He's the gun. we've actually got an exclusive interview with Scott Morrison to put to him some of the questions about about all this stuff. So it's going to be...

Jesus. In the week that I was gone, did you guys manage to get a PR agent? How did you land that interview? You know, he's been doing the rounds. He did insiders on Sunday and he's stepped into our podcast this morning to clear a few things up. Wow. Plus, Harry Jun is joining us. He's a teacher and talking about what it's like to be a teacher under lockdown.

And John is giving us a bit of an update as to what President Donald Trump is up to. But first of all, let's go to Rebecca Dana Minow in the Chaser Newsroom. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has come under fire today after his consistent fuck-ups reached a level that he even managed to fuck up an interview with former Sky News presenter David Spears on Insiders. The PM went on Insiders after a recent spree of fucking up on morning shows and shock-jok radio shows.

However, things all fell apart for the PM when Spears asked, what have you been up to lately? A Sydney cider who has already endured months of lockdown that has no sign of ending has today said he's relieved to have avoided that unnecessary short lockdown back in June. New South Wales Premier Gladys Berrigicclian said she was pleased with the decision

to not lockdown at the beginning of the outbreak. Instead of locking down Sydney for two harsh weeks, we've now had a much more enjoyable four-state and one other country mild lockdown instead, she said. Don't all thank me at once. Current Premier of New South Wales, Gladys Berejiklian, has received the kiss of death after members of her party came out to deny speculation that she will be forced to step down, saying they fully support her leadership.

Meanwhile, a local news reader is hoping people listen to this quick, because last time she wrote a story about this, Barnaby took power before the podcast even went live. That's the latest Chaser News You Can't Trust. I'm Rebecca Dayuna Muno. The Chaser Report is brought to you by Wine o'clock. It's five o'clock somewhere, and yet I can't help but feel that time is meaningless, and in the grand scope of the universe, I am but a tiny clump of carbon that can't actually wait until then, so I'm going to drink now.

Our guest today on the podcast is comedian Harry. Hi, Harry. Hey, how's it going? Yeah, good. How's your comedy career going at this point? Oh, yeah, it's going about as well as it was before lockdown. which wasn't great. I mean, I'll do any gig.

I'll try to do as many gigs as possible, but obviously that's dried up. Got a couple of Zoom gigs coming up, which should be... I've seen, like, on LinkedIn comedians that I know, who are good comedians saying, hey, add some fun to your Zoom. I'm going to come on and do Zoom comedy. Does that work? I guess it's better than nothing.

Yeah, it can work. I did a corporate one last off down. It was for this geology conference. Yeah, right. Peak of comedy. What do you mean? Rocks. You have any jokes about geology?

And I was like, not really. And it was like, oh, well, here's a guest speaker. And if you know, if you could just roast him, that'd be great. And so, like, I did this whole power. They sent a photo of him. No way. Yeah. And they were like, oh, give him a bit of a roast.

And the photo they sent of him was, like, him, like, kneeling on a rock wearing, like, this really cool jacket. and from Catmandu and I just kind of roasted him about how like he's a geologist but he just so bad he wants to be this male model and just really like it wasn't nice

and then and like they're all laughing and everything and then he comes on and he's like the nicest guy you could ever meet and I'm so passionate about geology and he's like oh

thank you so much Harry that was really funny but you could see the heartbreak you were hired to break a man's heart yeah Yeah, and then afterwards they were like, oh, please feel free to stick around and watch the lecture. And I felt so bad for roasting this guy that I sat through a whole hour of like shit that I had no idea what they were talking about. It was just looking at topographical maps.

I'm like, yeah, oh yeah, that's a rock, man. That's cool. I'm fine with that. So you're a high school English teacher? Yeah, yeah. In Sydney. Yeah, I'm teaching. Yeah, I'm teaching in years.

That's right. That's my side hustle. And have you been, obviously. teaching classes on Zoom as well? Yeah, Zoom classes. I'm teaching, so the years I'm teaching this year is 7, 8 and 9. Oh, brutal. So the younger kids.

Yeah, it's rough. Someone asked me what Zoom teaching was like, and I told them that it feels like a hostage situation, except you're the abductor, the negotiator, and also one of the hostages. Like, as you're, you're there, you're like, I don't want to be here either, guys. A one-man show, yeah. You will listen to my demands. And do you find, like, do you find that kids on a Zoom chat are more disruptive or less disruptive than if you had to actually ring them in person?

Oh, I mean, it's different for each year group, but it's like the worst thing is their lack of participation, which I think Zoom gives you the permission to do. Like, our school doesn't mandate that you chuck your cameras on or your mic. microphone's on. So I won't even know if they're there. Some kids are clever too. Like they're clever at it. They'll sign into the Zoom. They'll say, hey, when the roll's been marked. And then they just don't respond to any question. There's an amazing story last year about really smart kids like looping a video background of themselves, just nodding occasionally. I mean, did you've seen anything like that? Oh, no, I haven't said. The funniest stuff I get to

see, especially with the young kids is like, there's like a new generation of that excuse of like my dog ate my homework because the kids are so young. Good to know that's still kicking, yeah. Yeah, but the funniest thing was because, you know, I'll ask questions in class. Like, you know, write a response to this. We're looking at a documentary. How well do you think they use camera techniques or whatever? And the kids write their responses in the Zoom chats and, you know, we go through it.

And one of the kids wrote, like, he was the only kid who hadn't done it. And I was like, oh, can you write a response? And he wrote in chat and type, he goes, sorry, sir, my keyboard's not working. and then he sent it. No, he didn't. Oh, it's so clever, too, if he didn't think about the fact that you have to use a keyboard to type the message. And this was happening live.

All the kids could see it, and I'm sure they're laughing. They're probably too polite to or whatever. And you see it on the screen that my face just goes from, I look at the chat, I kind of hide my laughter and go, moving on. Do you want to try and like punk them back? Oh, I mean, to be honest, I just want to get through the lesson. Just want to go start to finish in and out like a heist, you know. You want to save time.

Can you get that on a T-shirt, please? Secondary high school teaching. It's like a heist. I like the notion, though, that, I mean, much of my high school career was sitting up the back and very quietly insulting the teacher and whatever. I imagine that in the digital world, there must be so many ways. of them doing that. And are you aware of any of them having like a Discord or a back channel or something?

No, they, yeah, they definitely have Discord. I'm waiting for the day that one of the kids writes a really mean message about me, but sends it in the wrong chat. So I see it and there's like, that'd be great. It's hasn't in the Zoom chat. Yeah. But no, the kids are, the kids are pretty nice. It's the biggest problem is the lack of participation.

Yeah. Because I can't mandate the mic and camera on thing. It's like, uh, it just kind of feel. feels like, I'm at a birthday party. Like, I've got to do everything. I'm at a birthday party, but everyone that's invited, none of them are my friends. And I'm like, all right, guys, let's play past the parcel. But like, I'm the only player.

It's like, who wants to go next? Oh, me, sick. Oh, it's paper again. Like, it's so demoralizing. You're just sitting there talking to a blank screen, occasionally getting some chat in the Zoom chat, but it's just talking to a blank wall. And how do you punish them? I mean, you can't exactly say, like, go to your room or something.

No, they're already there. I mean. Well, this is the fun thing about Zooms is I figured out, like, you can send them out. I put them in a break room. No. There's like a virtual dog house. That's very exciting. Yeah, I mean, it only really works if you've got more than one teacher like on the Zoom

so they can supervise because you can't just let them run a muck. But it's like, you can send them out and it's great. I reckon you should be able to send them to a room where you've jigs. it to like play something non-stop. Like you could send them to, like, I don't know, like streaming of the movie Sleepless in Seattle on an endless repeat or something and just torch them. Like a Rick-Roll room. No, it can't be something they can find funny.

It has to be something they find just so awful. Like a documentary on how rubber bands are made or something. Or maybe a geology conference. Yeah. A geology conference. It's like the Zoom version of like the Chinese water torture just like. Yes. You've got to figure out how to jig it so that when they actually get in trouble, they actually get something worse than being sent out.

Yeah, I wish. I mean, I have to be careful with, because I tried the, a student had joined the Zoom with like a profane username and I had to get them to change their name to their, you know, shoot name. And I didn't know this was a feature on Zoom, but I accidentally kicked them out of the Zoom. Like I kicked them out. And apparently when you kick them out, they can't join back in. You expelled them. You expelled a child. She missed the entire lesson.

So I had to sort out like alternative ways to catch up on the whole hour of work that we did. But like all the tech issues make it so much harder than just face-to-face being like, look, you've been a grub. Just focus and do your work. Charles, what are your thoughts? As a parent, are you more sympathetic to the plight of the teachers now than perhaps you were at the start of this conversation? No. No, but Charles would. say that because I was actually going to ask you about this, Harry, do you reckon that parents

like Charles are actually doing their kids work for them? Oh, yeah, there are some sneaky, like, exponentially growing responses in their English essays where it's like, you didn't know, I reckon 80% of those words. Yeah, you've got some little Einstein's all of a sudden. And I read, I wrote this script for my son. What? Charles don't admit it. What? You're in a public platform. You know what your son's tick. is doing right now, I wonder if, I wonder if his dad is doing his work for him and you just admitted it.

Tell us the story. Yeah, but it's, you got to put him on, no, no, no, because it's, it's how my parents helped me, which is, like, you put them on rails, don't you? Like, you help, like, if you're there. Oh, you know, at a Sydney private school, for sure. And so he then recorded this video, the voiceover, and, and he, he didn't know the word that was written in the script. Funny that.

So he used a different word. It doesn't make any sense. Instead of consequently, because I'm being consequently dismal. Because it was like a life on Mars thing. And consequently, humans can't live on Mars. But instead, he read it as coincidentally, humans can't live on. It doesn't make a sense.

Which is a very different word. That just changes the meaning completely. Charles, this way. ended up in comedy because your parents did all your school work for you. No, I'm just saying, no, I think it's good when parents help their kids. Like, the worst thing would be to just dis-ingay. And I think, like, because you have to look after them. Like, I mean, my whole thing about homeschooling is just how unbelievably good teachers are

because it's just, they do, they require constant sort of reorienting away from the Discord server and the YouTube. channel that they've got set up on their second screen. Yeah. And back to the Zoom that this boring teacher is trying to bore them. Yeah. Like, as a comedian, do you find it hard to like, as it, like, your teacher role is obviously to reprimand these kids when they do something wrong.

But as a comedian, do you find a part of yourself going, that's bloody good? Like, that's really good. And you guys don't want to get mad at them. Yeah. Well, I'd say, I do have to like meter it out depending on how old they, like with the year seven kids have got to be pretty like, you know, on the spot and really, you know, a teacher, teacher vibe. But like for the year nine kids, some of them, they do the funniest stuff.

And like, you know, they kind of get it. They get the shtick. And my role was the authority figure or whatever. And it's like, we have a good laugh. Like, one of the kids was, like, playing a video game at the same time as my class. But he had his mic unmuted. And you could, the whole, all you could hear was. oh really

oh fuck and I'm like over this constant tapping I'm like yeah and so the metaphor here you want it all right

do you mind jumping off your game or mute you might just suck you know I know you're not paying attention and it's just it's so fun like it is great I'm lucky to be able to work

a job where you know it's fun at the same time you know yeah well here's so that you can get back in a classroom and test your material out. Yeah. I think, to be honest, you'd be able to do Zoom schooling material for years

and all the parents, I'll be like, don't take me back there. Yeah, fingers crossed. All right, well, look, I hope you survive this. I hope the kids survive this without major psychological scars. And you can get back on the stage soon, Harry. Yeah, thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

And if you accidentally give them major psychological scars, they'll all turn out to be comedians. So you've kind of done your job, both jobs. You're fine. It's a circular economy. It's great. And do you have anything that we should plug? Or is everything that you're involved in cancelled?

What a way to phrase that, by the way, Charles? You know what I mean? Well, I've got that online gig. It's with The Running Joke. And that'll be this Friday. Woo-hoo. So that should be fun. A genuine event we can plug.

And it'll have all the interactivity and the spontaneity of Zoom School. Oh, right. Okay. Great. I also forgot this Thursday I'm hosting. It's a book club. for the Korean Cultural Center, which it should be fun. And all those details, like if you go to Korean Cultural Center

or the running joke on Instagram, it'll all be on there. But yeah, thanks for joining us. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. The Chaser Report, less news more often. Now, Dom, for our next bit, Zander and I have got a bit of a scoop. Yeah, we've been lucky enough to secure an exclusive interview with the Prime Minister. Good morning, Mr. Morrison.

Morning, David. My name's not David. it's Zando. Prime Minister, you went on holidays during the bushfires. You've comprehensively botched the vaccine rollout. Sexual assault is rampant in your own workplace. And you seem to have spent most of your term handing out car parks to your mates. How frustrating is it for everyone in Australia that you're still Prime Minister? There are enormous frustrations. And every Australian understands that. Do you think we've reached a situation where everyone should seriously consider voting in the opposition?

Australia is not in that situation. Yeah, but America got rid of Trump. He was almost as incompetent as you. The United States are in a very different situation to Australia. Yeah, because they've got actual fucking vaccines. Why can't you be just a tiny bit competent? Trying to be, but you keep interrupting me. I'm trying to answer your questions.

Yes, but you're so fucking incompetent. You can't even get our names right. I'm sorry, David. I'm going to insist on finishing my answer. My name's not, David. All right. Now, turning to the pandemic, what's your thoughts on the situation currently unfolding in New South Wales right now?

It's a failed state and it has been for the last 20 years. Yeah, I suppose you're right. Labor was corrupt and then the Liberals were even worse somehow. That's surprisingly insightful of you. So have you just given up on New South Wales? What I'm stressing is in terms of our diplomatic mission and those who are involved there, I mean, over the last couple of days, many countries have been getting their diplomatic staff out. Wait, so if you're evacuating New South Wales,

Doesn't your family still live in Kiribili? David, we've been getting people out for years. My name's not David. Isn't the problem here, not the cases, but the fact that you've failed to effectively deliver a vaccine? Tell you what the real problem is. The real problem is in New South Wales. Thank you for your time, Mr Prime Minister.

Thanks a lot, David. Dude! This episode of The Chaser Report brought to you by Wine o'clock. In lockdown, every hour is whine o'clock. including the one we recorded this episode in. So just before we go, an update on the man we spent most of last year discussing. John, one of our writers, has had a good look at what Donald Trump has been up to. Hey, John.

Hi. That's the name I haven't talked about in a long time. But he's still out there doing his thing, huh? Yeah, I was excited when I saw this news, because finally it's like that wasn't depressing like everything else. It's the excited news that Trump's back. I thought he was supposed to be back on like the 6th of August. He was supposed to be returning to the presidency. He's back as president, John.

Has they delivered on that theory yet? No, he's actually campaigning again. He's already campaigning for the 2022 and 2024 elections in the US. There was a period where every Republican who Warner Office had to go down to Mar-a-Lago and kiss the ring. So he's actually left. He's actually in front of crowds again. Yeah, he was at a Republican event called Save America with Trump. He was in Alabama.

So he's already going back to his, like, his roots. Of course it was. And there's everything you expect from a Trump rally, except for the extra bonus of the crowd turning against him multiple times. Really? What? That's so weird. That never happened before. Yes. So I've got a clip now. This is how they're planning to go down talking about the election. Here's Mo Brooks, the guy that they're supposed to be campaigning for. There are some people who are despondent about the voter fraud and election theft in 2020.

Folks, put that behind you. Put that behind you. Yes. look forward look forward look forward beat them in 2022 beat them in 2024

all right yes that's a crowd is not over the 2020 election yeah he's just given the absolutely terrible advice for the Republicans to focus on a future election

not a previous election but luckily though there was someone who had a different opinion about whether or not we should do that This is the start of Trump speech. We did have a rigged election. Do we have? It's terrible.

Terrible. And you look at what's going on now. So we're now at the stage in denying reality where it's just a given that the last election was rigged. Okay. This bodes well for the future of America. I also love that clearly his own advisory team is like, we need to stop talking about it. But then as soon as he starts talking, he's like, well, we have to talk about it. But isn't the case, John, that every time, like conventional thinking would say,

oh, maybe they should move on because it'll depress Republican voters in the 2022. But doesn't Trump have this genius of taking conventional wisdom and just making it not true? Like, isn't the point that he'll just focus on that and yet they'll still turn up for some reason anyway? Oh yeah, this is a packed crowd of mostly unvaccinated people in one of the only states in America that's still currently having a lot of issues with COVID because of their vaccine. rollout. Yeah, 12% vaccinated in Alabama, I was reading the other day. That's not great. Matt, that makes Australia

look good. Come on, Dom. There was one person there advocating for vaccines. Trump had an interesting take. You know what? I believe totally in your freedoms. I do. You got to do what you have to do. But I recommend take the vaccines. I did it. It's good. Take the vaccines. But

you got, no, that's okay. That's all right. You got your freedoms. But I happen to take the vaccine. If it doesn't work, you'll be the first to know, okay? Holy shit. Oh, my God. He's the most reasonable person there.

So that was him getting booed for saying that he took the vaccine. Yeah. So they're all on board with the last election result was a complete scam, but not I got vaccinated and it's working. Holy fuck. Oh, my God, John. I now wish that when Alan Jones and Rupert Murdoch came out like two weeks ago saying that they had been fully vaccinated.

I now wish they did that to a live audience too, because. I'm assuming it's the same response. That's amazing. So the forces of craziness unleashed by Trump have now outstripped even his craziness. That's quite extraordinary. Yeah, he came out and said that he took a vaccine so that he doesn't die within the next four years.

And his voters are not happy about that. That's a good point. But he did hits on some of his top, on like some of the main things you would expect from Trump. At one point, he praised his own team and the current work they're doing in the presidential suite in what seemed to have been a copy and paste. from a speech he gave in 2020.

Well, that's very, that's very Malaniar, isn't it? She's the copy and paste queen of the relationship. He also praised the Muslim ban. He had a rant about wokeness. So he didn't fully lose the crowd because he hit on some of their favorite points. I asked the child. So what would you do after describing? Would you leave the military until everything's out,

including the civilians and all of that incredible military equipment? Or would you have the military? go out first. Sir, I'd leave the military in. He was five. He said, I'd leave the military in. Get everything out first. I said, thank you very much.

But they didn't want me to tell that story. They thought it was not an appropriate, sir. I mean, I would say how hilarious it is that the Republican Party's now even more nation crazy and weird. But as Charles said, he'll still probably win the 2024 election. Well, a very part of that is the fact that he got told it not to tell the story because it won't make him sound good and he decided to do it anyway. I mean, I was thinking this would be a fun thing to talk about because we haven't talked

about him for ages and he's funny, but fuck I'm glad that guy lost. Thanks, John. Thanks for waiting into the Trump gutters so the rest of us don't have to. Yeah, it's been a great day. All right, that's it for today's episode. If you want to leave us a review, jump on Apple podcast and use the code word homeschooling. Yeah, very nice. Our goos from road microphones.

We're part of the Acast. Creator Network. Catch you tomorrow. Bye. See ya.