The Chaser Report - Omicron Will Kill Us All (Or Not)

Episode Date: November 29, 2021

Omicron has officially arrived in Australia, so Dom provides all the latest details on the safest/deadliest variant of Covid so you know exactly how worried to be. Meanwhile esteemed Chaser boss Charles Firth is still missing in action, so the team give him a call to catch up - turns out he's in Canberra pranking politicians! Plus Gabbi brings you the latest depressing news in a much more melodic manner. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today's episode of The Chaser Report is brought to you by sexting. Kissy face, kissy face, water droplet, eggplants, carnival tent? I don't really know what that one means. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report. It is Tuesday the 30th of November 2021. We've got Lachlan Hodson. Gabby Bolt.

Hey-yo. I'm Dom Knight and Charles is not here. We don't actually know where Charles is at this point. Notionly still co-hosts the podcast, but it's been more than a week. And why don't we just ring him later in the podcast? Yeah, I would like to know if this means I can get his pay bracket or not, considering I've done his job for the last week. I mean, that seems reasonable.

Yeah. And I really need the money. It's nearly Christmas time. I've got a few HR things I should follow up with them just to make sure the business stays afloat. So that'd be pretty good to check in with our boss, yeah. Oh, you're just saying float's not really a thing we do here at the Chaser-Locky. But anyway, look, I don't know if you've heard the news, but there's some concerning developments have occurred

since we last sat down in the room together, team. I'm sick of this. I'm sick of it. What's the news? What's happened? Well, COVID might just be back. There might just be a little bit of a sequel. Oh.

A sequel to the sequel to the sequel to the sequel to the sequel. Like, if I leaves in Melbourne, I'd be getting canned goods in, frankly. I love a reboot as much as the next guy. So what's, who's in this one? If I say to you, Omicron. It sounds kind of like some kind of robotic COVID, doesn't it? But it's the new variant detected in Southern Africa. They did a great job of sequencing it.

And we've kind of skipped right ahead to what I think is the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet. We skipped over a new. How long did I have a nap for it? A lot of variants. So new they're worried about because it might sound new, right? Right. Oh, and also, you know, legally blonde would have an issue with that. Oh, why would that be?

Guys, Legally Blonde deserves better. Okay, Delta Nu, Delta who? Delta, Delta, Delta. You know, the song? Oh, wait, from the chat. So this kind of is the new Delta. So Delta New would actually work. But they also, the next letter was actually XI.

Oh, cool. Which, how do you pronounce that one? Sigh. He's making a comeback. Yeah, so they didn't want to offend somebody. It was either the Korean rapper or the Chinese president. I'm not sure who it was. I mean, Sai's got quite a lot of poor at this point.

I wouldn't want to offend him either. Surely no, it's offending the president because, I mean, if I was Sai, the rapper, I'd be like, this is some pretty fucking good publicity. That's true. I'm back. But I mean, also, we all know that the presidency variant was the first one that he let get out of China by not concealing it.

Anyway, I mean, if it's getting named after any president, it's Macron. Oh, yeah. Oh, Macron. Why did they not worry? Wow. Oh, Macon. Oh, Mycrone, I've caught Macron.

I've been diving into the evidence on Omicron and trying to get a sense of how much to worry. I want to tell you some of the things that I found out. You can just give me a sense of how scary it is because I can't put it all together, right? Sure, sure. So we should be very worried because there are 30 mutations on the spike protein. That's a thing that makes it hook into ourselves. Yikes. But then others say that it may only cause mild symptoms, that in South Africa there's only been mild symptoms.

So do we worry? Oh. So you win some, you lose. Yeah, I guess you do. Okay. What else is on the list? Well, there's a theory that it might evade vaccines because it's mutated so much. So the vaccines might now be useless, even though we only just got them all.

Oh, no. Whereas other people have said that, you know, the people who have, who've been vaccinated don't really get symptoms. They're asymptomatic. So no harm done. What does it really matter? So if I'm not vaccinate, do I need to get vaccinated or not? Yeah.

Wait, hold on a second. Lockhe's not vaccinated? Why are you in this office? Well, no, I actually went and got myself unvaccinated. after I watched all these riots. I just had someone just cut, suck the jab road out of it. Can you get vaccinated against being vaccinated? Is that a thing that Craig Kelly's invented?

What, counter-vaccination? Well, so more reports also say that it's way more infectious than Delta. So this is really bad. Like, it spreads fast in Delta. Well, and that's what threw us down into lockdown in the first place because it was so infectious. Yeah, yeah, that's right. So contagious.

But then other reports say that that's actually a good thing because it's milder, so it'll kill off Delta. Delta won't be able to spread because we'll have Omicron. Are you getting the sense that we don't really understand what the fuck this is? What's going on? Oh, truly, truth be told, I've never understood what the fuck's going on with most of this stuff. So if I can just summarise, some reports that I've read say it's probably not that bigger deal because it doesn't seem to make people very sick, like compared to Delta. Sure.

And other people say, holy shit, this could basically reset the clock on the whole pandemic. So we have a whole new pandemic of Omicron. COVID-2020. So the bottom line is, we're fucked and it might just be totally fine. That's the tagline of my life right there. Okay, so for our listeners, make sure that you're incredibly worried because nothing's going to happen. And don't get your health advice from the Chase Report.

And yet, I reckon that's one of the most concise summaries of what we know right now. Coming up on today's show, we're going to try and track down Charles Firth. Last scene in the vicinity of the ACT. Yeah, I give it about a week before we do a true crime podcast on him. Also, Gabby's found a new way. to deliver the news differently. And the project can't sue me for that one because I've fulfilled their job.

Does this mean that we still cross to Beck at this point? Plus, we've got Nat Domina and Marty Smiley coming on to the show for the afternoon edition to talk about their podcast, the housewarming podcast, as we prepare for the awards this week. Nice, nice, nice, nice. Our competitors for the best comedy, a podcast award, tense.

That'll be very awkward, lovely. All that after we catch up with Rebecca Dana Muno in the Chase Newsroom. If your new method of doing news, Gabi, still allows for this. A social media user has found a blind trust loophole in new laws that force social media platforms to reveal the identities of troll accounts. The troll realised he could maintain his anonymity by donating a large sum of money to a minister's blind trust,

in which case nobody needs to know who they are. Minister for the NDIS, Linda Reynolds, has today called for the end to the parliamentary pension scheme that offers former MPs roughly $200,000 a year to live off, which Reynolds slammed as a welfare system for life. This comes one day after Reynolds told a reporter that she was worried people were becoming dependent on NDIS money to live, much to the surprise of those who designed the NDIS for that exact purpose. Prime Minister and fact-checker employment generator, Scott Morrison, has defended himself against suggestions he lies when it's politically advantageous, saying that's more the go of King Kittenhater Anthony Albanese.

That's the latest chase and report headlines. I'm Rebecca Deunamuno, and I can't wait for our traditional Bondi COVID outbreak this Christmas. Now, Lachlan and Gabby, regular listeners may have noticed. noticed the absence of a certain Charles Firth. I'm sure some welcome this. But he notionally is a co-hosted the podcast. I mean, that was sort of the whole plan, wasn't it? Yeah.

I thought it was a thing, like, you know, long-term listeners of the show would remember we used to have a guy called Charles Firth on it. Yeah, it's entirely possible that given Charles' terrible memory, he's forgotten that he works on the podcast. I think that's entirely plausible. So why don't we just ring him randomly? What to find out where he is? Yeah.

So let's just see where he is and what he's doing. All right. It's ringing now. Tense. Hello. Oh, hi, Charles. It's Dom, Loughlin and Gabby. Remember used to work with us?

Oh, yeah. You're from the gestures. That's a deep cut. Hit us where it hurts in 2007, Charles. We haven't seen you for a while. Are you okay? Yeah, yeah, I'm great. I've never been.

Yeah, so we could have had this conversation without recording it, but just for the hell of it, are you planning to rejoin us or would you want to tell us what you've been doing? Ideally, no, but yeah, I think I'm going to have to, I'll be back next week, but I've been touring around the country, you know, from all the way from New South Wales to New South Wales to the ACT. I'm now in a different... Oh, did you go to Newcastle? Yeah, yeah, went to Newcastle. Did you get stabbed? Oh, man. Which I reckon is, that's a good result for Newcastle.

Yeah. To go there and not be stabbed. Well, I went there for a week and I got headbutted, so. Did you? Oh, really? Did you? Oh, that's right. That was why I came back.

I got headbutted by some random guy at a bar. Seriously. Yeah, that's true. That's what my nose is bleeding for. Oh, my God. I can actually see your nose is genuinely. I thought that was a joke. No.

Seriously. Anyway, I spent a lot of time hanging shit on Newcastle. over the years. It looks complete. So to be clear, we're going to the Central West. We're not going to fucking Newcastle. Yeah, fuck yeah, we're going to the Central West. So, Charles, I don't know if you've heard this,

but Bathurst and Orange bidding for our favours. We've had escalating offers from both places. Free accommodation and vineyards and other fun. Oh, wow. Are you touring the Central West? No, no. We once played Wogga Wogga. a few years ago to an almost empty hall.

So where are you at the moment then? So I'm in Canberra. We've been trying to talk to politicians all morning. Oh, yeah. I don't know why they wouldn't want to talk to you personally. Is this to ask for funding or to... No, it's totally changed. No, no.

We're trying to pin them on, you know, the inaction on climate change. Lockland is very political satire. Very old chaser. Okay. No, but Alex's to have been doing all the work. He's the new craig. What's different?

The whole security around Parliament and House has completely changed. Because we used to just buttonhole people when they're walking outside the doors and people are okay with that. And now they've put in the fence, haven't they? And can you not even get near politicians anymore? No, no, we can't. You can still get near the doors. Like, that's the one place where you are allowed.

But get this. They've actually specifically changed the rules to not allowed oversized novelty props. You're kidding. And I said to the Usher of the Black Rod, you know, oh, why is that? And he said, you guess. Guess who? And to be fair, this is a man whose job is carrying a novelty oversized prop. Where's the sympathy black rod?

The big black rod. No, but the thing is, no, and also the other, the weird one this morning was our cameraman kept on getting in trouble because, you know, as they walked through the door, Or, you know, most people would ignore us or say something horrible to us. And then the cameraman would follow them into the building, like, you know, as you do, you sort of attract the person. And you're not allowed to do that anymore because that would then mean that he was filming the insides of Parliament House. And you can't possibly allow any part of Parliament House.

It's like this government is so committed to not having transparency. You're not allowed to even see inside the Parliament House. So this is the building that the Australian taxpayers built that was the most expensive building in the world when it was open. We're not allowed to see inside. Okay. No, that just makes sense there

because the second you film inside of Parliament House, you have evidence. Yeah. Can't you just say that you're Annabelle Crabb? Can't you just dress Alex her up like Annabell Crab and say you're doing a feel-good documentary? Oh, yeah, Don, that'll work. Yeah.

Nothing about that seems weird. Just giving some, a tray of muffins. I'll tell you what was weird, though, It was the number of politicians arriving with suspicious, like, paper bags and things like that. Because a lot of them were getting, you know, obviously he had arrived from the airport. And they brought all their sort of brown paper bags with them. That's just their little lunches. Yeah, no, it's not a nice table lunch.

It's the lumps of coal to bring on to Parliament to not be scared of. Well, Charles, you know what to do, right? I mean, you're an old hand at this. Just go to Kingston and get them when they're smashed. No, so that's what we did last night. We went to the Kingston Hotel. We had a tip off. We had a tip off that the entire National Party was drinking there, like all the MPs.

Had a pub? So we arrived at 5pm and there was one Com car out the front and no national MPs inside. And it's going, what's going on? We bumped into a few other politicians from the Labor Party and they went, no, I think you're probably too late. Like, the national impeach, they roll off the plane at like 11 a. They get there for lunch. Oh. They've already gone home by five because they're absolutely stonked.

So they get off the plane and they're just like, first priority here is just representation. Yeah, but to be fair, actually, they had, you know, like every, there were politicians from every party there. It was just, you know, like, it's just like, all right, okay, that's our, that's our camera. The middle of the day, they've gone to the pub. Yeah, that's right. Well, it's beer o'clock somewhere, Loughlin. Well, clearly we need to be recording this podcast from the front bar of the Kingston Hotel.

Oh, we should, yes. But like at 10 a.m. on a Sunday morning. That's right. It just didn't occur to us. We thought, well, as long as we get there to buy five, you know, it'll be fine. And we actually put out a call on Twitter when we couldn't find them. We said, you know, where have they gone? And it was like, oh, no, no, they're at the Kingston Hotel earlier in the day.

but you miss them because, you know, you know, whatever. It's the 5 o'clock, not the 5 o'clock still, the 5 o'clock sleep. Yeah, the 5 o'clock, you know, drunk and stupor off to bed. Yeah. Well, I must say, I'm very proud to hear that after all of our years of hassling pollies, they're still changing the rules to make it harder. Exactly. But also, don't you reckon Omicron means that we're just,

this is our last chance? Like, we're just doing it this morning, and we're just going, I think this is probably the last chance we'll get to ever confront a politician because they'll just lock everything down even harder and the election, it'll be a lockdown election. It's going to be horrible. Well, we've been looking at the evidence on Omicron earlier, Charles, and basically either it's all going to be a total disaster

and you'll never get to do this again, or it won't matter at all. We just don't know which, but it'll be one of those two things. Wow, what a hot take. Gosh, I don't know why the podcast ratings are going down. Why don't you just go and see if you can get the nets spreading some Omicron on the front bench? I think it'll really help them understand the plight that people in Southern Africa are going through. Well, we've got a couple of Nets this morning who just were in denial about climate change. They just said, well, it doesn't exist.

That's not like them. Honestly, yeah, it was very on brand, but it did make me go, oh, well, if I think the climate change doesn't exist, They probably believe the corona doesn't exist either, so... You might as well go and confirm that with George Christensen. I'm pretty sure that's right. There's lots of speculation that George Christensen, because you know how he's supposedly not running again? Yeah, yeah.

But he will run again, but as a Parmy United Party candidate. You know, that's the hot goss up here in Canberra. All right, well, I think we can trust Charles to come back later while he's still on this New South Wales band to provide us with more Canberra Goss? Charles, can we count on you coming in and calling us at 11 a.m. tomorrow? Yeah, yeah, but I'll be drunk.

Right. Nice to know you're still alive, mate. Barely, yeah, yeah. Oh, and there's plenty of tickets to our show tonight. Cut him off. Sorry, we can't hear you. You're going through a tunnel. At the Canberra Theatre Center.

War on 2021. Wow, oh, it's so unfortunate. Every ticket sold comes with free. Omicron. Just before we go, I think I've had enough. I've had enough of watching the news. I'm sick of it. We have to do it every single day for this podcast.

And because it's depressing. Gabby, the news is good for you. Every day, it's getting worse as I get older. And I'm not sure whether that's because the world is genuinely getting worse or whether my comprehension skills, despite what my year two teacher said, keep improving. But I may have found a remedy. I've found a way to come. people's souls down.

Oh really? So no matter how sad these stories are, I don't have to worry about it. Yeah, okay, okay. You don't have to feel the pit of despair when you hear a headline anymore. I've fixed it. I've fixed the problem. Really? So even though the headlines are bleak, we won't have to stress out.

Yeah, because unlike those crazy kids on the project, I have found a way to actually uphold their actual motto and bring you news delivered differently. Oh, God, that's a big call. Also, in a way that doesn't make me want to put cyanide in my afternoon cup of tea. I bring you Newzical. Musical?

Yeah. How many of your musicals are just something that rhymes with the word musical? None of them. Radatoozical. Okay, well, two of them. No, musical is a legit pun. I mean, this might be about to revolutionise the podcast.

Yeah. True. I mean, watch out, Rebecca Dayuna, I'm coming for your job. So these are some real news headlines from this week. Yeah. And I'm going to deliver them to you differently

so that you don't feel depressed every time you hear them. Well, let's throw to Gabby Bolt in the Chaser Musical Newsroom. Oh, yeah, musical salon. Yeah. You ready? Rising rents in regional and inner city areas. Pushing people towards the brink of homelessness. Oh, no.

Wow. Don't you feel less depressed? I mean, at least we finally found something actually cheap in Sydney, which is that keyboard. Well, I feel you haven't quite got there. I'm still actually quite sad. Okay, fine. What about this one? Okay.

Taiwan scrambles combat jets. As Chinese planes breach islands, air defence identification zone. No? I mean, look, I think it's better. I think it's an improvement on the unfiltered story which should make me think that we're all going to die in a flaming wreck. I spent at least half that headline going, wow, that's a really dodgy keyboard.

Okay, well, I mean, distraction is not always terrible, right? No. I think I've got it with this one. Hold on. Okay, okay. Okay, okay. Mold gets into the blood and up in the brain. The potentially lethal consequences of poor.

indoor air quality. No? I don't know that I'd use a minor key if you want to do this. No, because it gives you the emotions of the blood moving up into, if it's mold going into your brain. I mean, I'm definitely feeling something in my brain right now. Fine. Okay, I've got one more.

All right. Let's bring it home. You're not going to feel depressed when you hear this. Matthew McConaughey decides not to run for Texas governor. Oh, I mean, that's just objectively good news, isn't it? It doesn't work if it only works on good news. Let's just try something really depressing, Gabby. What about the incredible decline in the quality of the media

and the total triviality of almost every headline you ever read? Oh, you want me to... Maybe in C-flat? It's B. You want me to capture all of that in one little... Yeah, I think if you could just somehow just get our misery, the banality of all human communication in 2021, into a jaunty song on that keyboard.

I think that would help. That helped me. Okay. Everything's fucked. It's all just fucked. Nothing makes me happy anymore. That genuinely cheered me up. Yeah, I'm actually feeling great.

Because at least we're being honest about it with a jaunty beat. I feel much better. Thank you for solving the gradual and tragic decline of the media. I guess from road microphones. I can't believe we used this expensive road microphones to record that. Do you want to know, actually, Cassio, if you're listening, we used our expensive road microphones to record a Cassio PT30 from 1982, too, which I don't believe you can buy anywhere online at the moment.

So if you happen to have another one, I wouldn't mind another one. The PT stands for pretty terrible. We're part of the ACAST, Create a Network. Catch you in the afternoon edition. Gabby, play us out. I still feel depressed.