The Chaser Report - Passports Please | Tony Burke

Episode Date: August 3, 2021

Tony Burke is the federal Labor MP for the Sydney seat of Watson, most of which is currently under the hardest lockdown rules – he explains what life's like on the inside, as well as why a photo-op with Guy Sebastian wasn't enough to help vulnerable arts workers. Plus, we look at vaccine passports, poo-powered planes and the current self-isolation regime at Charles' house, while Zander reports on the athletes' muck up day at the Olympic Village. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of The Chaser Report is brought to you by Australia Post. We deliver sometimes. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report for Wednesday the 4th of August 2021. Charles, I'm a bit annoyed with you. Oh, why? Because you introduced a few days ago the Morrison's certainty principle, which says that if Scott Morrison says something is going to happen,

it certainly can't happen. It's impossible. Yes, exactly. It's an iron law of political science now. But yesterday, he came out and outlined a scheme with more details this time about how we were going to return to normal life via vaccine passports and sensible restrictions on the unvaccinated. And I'm quite sad to think that that will actually now never happen.

No, it definitely won't happen because he's now announced it. It's a real, I know a lot of, of people in the national cabinet were begging him to just not say it. In fact, actually say, oh, actually, it'll all be good. We can just have our freedom. We don't have to do any specific things about it because then it could have happened. Well, because he said yesterday, and I quote, I think the next most achievable step, because Australia with our international borders up means vaccinated Australians would be in a much lower risk position and restrictions were to kick in and go to public transport,

go to the theatre, the 40 family get-togethers, all of that now rendered impossible by that principle, Charles. But I'll tell you some really good news, though Dom, about that, is that the reason why that's now impossible is actually not necessarily just because of him. It's because

the Delta variant, there's a new study out by the CDC, which shows that even in the vaccinated, they transmit the virus just as much as the unvaccinated people. So, you know, they don't get as sick. So

vaccines are still good. still go and get your vaccine. But, yeah, like all this stuff about, like, that's why both in America and in the UK, people are actually now bringing in new restrictions, even though they've got their quote-unquote freedom. So, yeah, it's dead on arrival. Literally, at the same time that he was announcing the vaccines,

the scientists around the world were realizing that it was a completely impossible thing to do. Charles, I mean this with the greatest respect, But while you were saying that I actually went to a reputable site, CNN, to check what you were saying. And it's completely true. You are actually spot on. Which means that the upbeat tone that we were going for yesterday is officially cancelled. Charles, it's cancelled.

No, no, no. But Dom, you've got to realise, I think only like 20% of our listeners live in New South Wales for the rest of Australia who don't actually have COVID endemic in their communities yet. then they can go to, you know, out and party and everything like that, not because they've got vaccine passports, but just because they don't have COVID. Well, it's on the march in Queensland and Victoria, as we speak. Charles, don't worry.

Well, fingers crossed. Fingers crossed, they join us in our struggle. Right. Well, in our mission to have a more upbeat and restoring note to our podcast rather than simply wallowing in the mass despair of these times, that project is now officially cancelled, but it was good while it lasted. Charles, for one day.

Yeah, no, look, and, and props to Scott Morrison for actually turning up for one. So at least, at least we got that. At least he appeared somewhere. Well, if he has a vaccine passport, we can just go and look at the steps and figure out where he's been. Maybe we'd just send him somewhere else, give him his vaccine passport and say, okay, see you, Tony Abbott style. Why don't you go to India for a while? Speaking of Tony's in federal politics, Charles, Tony Burke,

the member for Watson and the manager of opposition business are going to join us to tell us about what's happening in western and southwestern Sydney where his electorate is and I've got some pretty awful relationship news that I need to bring you, Dom. Pretty bad. Looking forward to that. Looking forward to delighting in your horrible situation.

And Zander is still in Tokyo where things are starting to wind up, but he's still battling on braving COVID to bring us the latest reports. But first of all, let's go to Rebecca Day, know in the Chaser Newsroom. After another delay in his case, military movie enthusiast Ben Roberts Smith

is unsure when he'll be able to shout, You can't handle the truth, at lawyers in court. So far, Robert Smith has been able to successfully reenact other famous courtroom scenes from movies, such as Legally Blonde, but still wants to pay tribute to his favorite character from a few good men, the disgraced war colonel. Following announcements from Telstra that their pay phones will be made free to use,

Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce is eager to save thousands of dollars a week on adults-only phone lines. Joyce hopes to spend all future free time inside the payphone boxes and has signed legislation demanding that they make the booths big enough to accommodate at least two more people and a swing set. Producers of the show The Voice have found themselves strong. scrambling in the search for a new celebrity to sit in the judging chair in a desperate attempt to avoid Delta. The new host will be chosen via a blind audition with producers only selecting whichever celebrities have the saddest singing backstories. That's the latest headlines

from the Chaser Newsroom. I'm Rebecca Dayuna Muno, and if you hear a better headline, I'll beat it by 10%. This episode of The Chaser Report is brought to you by Australia. A great way to send the letter, as long as you don't care whether it arrives or not. Australia Post. Proud sponsors of The Chaser Report. So we're in the sixth week of lockdown here in Sydney, Charles and I, but we're not in the part of Sydney that's under hard lockdown where you can't even leave that area and there are all kinds of additional restrictions where the Australian Army are patrolling at the

moment. But Tony Burke is the MP for Watson, which covers part of Western and South Western Sydney, for those who know Sydney places like Ashfield, Bankstown, Campsie, Lecomber, Punchbow, where Tony lives. And he's joining us now from Parliament House. He's just come off the floor after question time. Hello, Tony. How you doing?

Yeah, good. So wait a minute. Is the whole of your elector in lockdown or is it just parts of it? A bit over two-thirds is Canterbury Bankstown, which is in the most serious form of lockdown. I've got a little bit that's in a West Council. and so that's locked down but not to the full extent yet and I've got a little bit in Strathfield and Burwood as well

I've got a friend who lives just on the border of like in Asheville like on the border of one of those LGA and he says he can't go out for a bike ride because no one knows where the LGA borders are no one knows where you know you go from relative freedom to army going to shoot you in the face so he just doesn't go for bike rides anymore The local government boundaries, like there's a section not far from me where the local government boundary is the storm water drain.

Right. So like these are not easily remembered boundaries for people. And part of the hassle for everything has been people just the rules are really hard to keep up with. They change a couple times a week, don't they? Well, sometimes they've changed during the day. So what you hear in the morning might not be right in the afternoon. And, you know, I've been holding a series of community zooms where we've just been getting state government officials and we're about to get some federal officials on as well,

just to answer questions. The criticism, they say, oh, look, we have trouble with compliance. People aren't obeying the rules. I find it hard to understand the rules. I speak the same language as the people who are giving the rules. The first challenge is just working out what on earth the rules are because they're they're changing all the time. But don't you think that that in itself is a huge economic stimulus for the area?

Because there must be thousands of people employed to translate all the rules every day into what, 90, 100 languages, you know, another thousands of people just to write out the new rules and do the new PDFs. You've got to give it to Gladys Peridiklian's government that, you know, there's a real stimulus measure going on there. Oh, no, you're right. Volunteer work is going through the roof, going through the roof,

because that's what everything you just described is. Oh, right. So it's just local communities doing it for themselves. Yeah, that's what's happened. So right through to a whole lot of the public health information, we've just been spending our time providing the community language campaign because the government hasn't. Like, just part of your job is to keep your people alive and healthy.

And if the government's not doing it, you can spend a whole lot of political capital, which we've done, just demanding they should do it. But if they won't, then you just got to do it yourself. How are people feeling, Tony? Certainly where we are, there's just a bit of a sense of despair and this is becoming unending. But I imagine in the part of your electorate that is locked down, that would be even worse. People at first were shocked, then confused, and then angry, just angry.

and I think the anger, when it really spilled over, was when construction got shut down. Look, this part of Sydney, it's not just different in terms of language and in terms of how recently people have come into Australia. They are, the households are different and the occupations tend to be different. So there are very few jobs in my part of Sydney, obviously there are some, but very few, where people can do their work from their laptop. You can't run a distribution centre from your laptop. You can't drive a heavy vehicle from your laptop.

you can't do age care work from your laptop or stack shelves from a laptop. So these are people in the categories that still have to physically go to work and are doing that not only within the local area but around the whole of Sydney. That's the nature of work in the area. The second thing is people tend to earn less

and the third thing is the households don't just tend to be larger. They're also intergenerational. And so you get two issues out of that. First, the intergenerational issue means you would have heard a lot of the times when they've described an elderly person in the area dying of COVID. They've said who caught it from a household contact. Now, that's because the people going to work, more often than not, will have both their

children living with them and their parents living with them. And that's the nature of the household. But it also changes homeschooling because you more often than not will have more people in the house, then you have rooms. So even if you can get enough devices, homeschooling if everybody's hearing everybody else's classes and talking over the top of each other is a different thing. Home schooling, if English isn't your first language, is a really hard thing. Like, we're doing some homeschooling, and we've only got one in that situation. But if you're not a trained teacher, it's just really hard. And so for this part of Sydney, there's a whole lot.

of added challenges. Given all that, do you think that it would be much fairer if everyone in Sydney had the same rules? Do you think that part of the anger comes from the fact that there's all these different rules and it's all very complicated, but also it's really unfair? Yeah, a lot of the unfairness of the conversations comes back to one word, which is Bondi. Well, no, hang on a sec.

Let's be fair. Let's be fair here. Everyone in Sydney has the same right to walk along and swim at the beach is in their electric. Sorry, to assume at the beach is in their LGA. I'll take you to the Cook's River sometime. Paradise. For all the harshness and the rules and the lockdown that people are living in through Canterbury Bankstown and across western and southwestern Sydney,

every weekend when you then see the photos of the place where rules don't appear to be being observed, and it's Bondi where it started that they refused to lock down people feel aggrieved and we're doing what we can to calm it down now and to make it work but when the troops on the street boots on the ground announcement came

the response from people that was coming through on the phones was so they won't lock down Bondi but they'll send the military in on us but that was how it was felt and when Gladys sort of blames the families for mixing with each other and sort of she just keeps implying

that essentially no one's following the rules in your electorate. Does she have a point? Or is she actually just gaslighting the victims because it's not like they are breaking the rules. They're just, that's their situation. What's the truth? You'll find some people breaking the rules in every part of Sydney and you'll find some people breaking the rules in my part of Sydney.

So I sort of start with that. But they say, oh, look, it's spreading and, people are moving around in this part of Sydney in ways that they did it in the northern beaches. But the reason why goes back to the sorts of jobs people have. These are not jobs that you can do from your laptop. It's also the example I didn't give. We've got a lot of people who don't just have a single full-time job where they're juggling between two and four insecure jobs to try to make up the hours. And when one job, the hours fall away, you try to pick up the hours somewhere else. And if you can't pick the hours, you try to get another job.

They're going to work where they've got approved jobs. But they don't have the luxury of a single full-time employer. And let's just be clear, approved means essential. It means it's the jobs that actually keep the rest of the city running. Yeah, and that's been one of the things. I must say I have liked over the last 18 months. There's a whole lot we haven't liked. One of the things I have liked is the fact that we've really worked out who's essential and who's not. A lot of us haven't liked where we technically land. Turns out not of any essential workers on the northern beaches. Surprise, surprise.

Tony, you're also the shadow arts minister. When we talk about people with insecure jobs, that's a sector that's really copped it over the past 18 months or so. How are the people in that community feeling at the moment and what more could be done for them? I'm really worried about a whole lot of people in the arts community. There's, yes, there's a lot of anger, but there's also increasing sense of despair from a lot of people. And it's not just, you get a combination of financial insecurity with loneliness,

but also the nature, particularly in the performing arts, the nature of the job, is social interaction. and is drawing energy from a crowd in different ways. It was the first sector to be locked down. When it happened, we were saying, well, hang on, normally, if someone in the performing arts doesn't have work, they go to hospitality. Hospitality is just shut down too. You need to have something tailor-made for this sector.

For 100 days, they said they didn't need anything. Then they did an announcement with Guy Spassian, announced a whole lot of money. Twelve months later, they only spent half of that money, and they've structured JobKeeper, well, not JobKeeper, they've structured this new form of payment in a way that is a disaster for the arts because you're only eligible if there's total lockdown. That's the first term.

It's total lockdown. Now, the arts are still shut down even after lockdown because the social distancing rules. But the payments disappear at that point. But the other thing is the way the payments worked in JobKeeper, which had problems, it excluded a lot of people, it gave Jerry Harvey extraordinary amounts of money when he was already making profits. There's a whole lot they did that was wrong.

But one of the things that worked well with it was that a business that was allowed to open but restricted in how profitable it could be. So say a venue that wasn't allowed to be full anymore, could only have 50 people or fewer. The wages budget was effectively being paid by JobKeeper. So you could still get the staff in. they could have meaningful work you'd have a smaller crowd and you'd still have a profitable gig

so like I went to a I remember one early on I went to a Polish club one in Newtown and an Alexi Astronaut gig at Lazy Bones in Mariccalf and each time those events and that work and those jobs were only possible

because the way the wage subsidy had been structured by doing it as a payment from government you can't use a payment from government to work your business to work for an employer. And so breaking that nexus between the employer and the employee means not only is lockdown harder, but as we come out of lockdown, whenever that might be,

the social distancing rules are still going to smash the sector. Anyone's work, whether you're the artist or whether you're crew. If it involves touring, sorry. So this is where I want to come in because I've got a live show national tour booked at the end of the year, war on 2020. one, go to chaser.com.com.u slash live for tickets. But the whole point is, it's a complete disaster, right? And I've decided after this, I'm getting out of touring because there's no insurance

scheme. And you keep on going on about the government needs to bring in some sort of insurance scheme where if, you know, there's these COVID events, because no insurer will underwrite you for the COVID thing. The government needs to step in and say, well, if that happens, we'll have you back. We're not looking for profits. It's just like the risk is all on us. This is like one of those moments in an Alan Jones interview when he agrees with you

where I just say, that's right. But you've been going on about this for months. Why don't they do it? It seems like such a no-brainer. Even Hamilton, even Hamilton, which is a big showpiece of the NSW government, and they bid hard to get it. even that didn't get any um pay out insurance

that's right in dollars because that this is where this was the problem when they made the announcement the guy special I shouldn't blame Guy for it it wasn't his fault who was trying to be helpful but the announcement 12 months ago when they announced the rise grants and that funding an insurance scheme

would have been much smarter because there's no point giving a million dollar in grants to festivals that are commercial and go ahead like it's a nice thing to do they'll do something extra with it And insurance targets the ones that you need. So if I give the example of Blues Fest,

Blues Fest has now been, was cancelled Easter last year. But they had pandemic insurance. So they were covered. After that, you can't get pandemic insurance anymore. Well, sorry, you can. You can get it for COVID-20. You can get it for COVID-21. You can't get it for anything that already exists.

So you can't get it for COVID-19. The film industry made the same. argument and the government established an insurance scheme for the film industry. So if any of these big productions hit the fence, they've paid into the insurance scheme and they get the money when it's needed. And the difference that this makes isn't just when it's paid. It's bigger than that because it determines the exact decision that Charles was talking about. If you know you're able to insure, you're willing to take the risk.

Yes. And there's enough risk in the sector already. You've got the risk as to whether people will turn up. You've got the risk as to whether you've set the ticket prices at the right level. Whether we're funny enough, you know. But it's funny enough. No risk at all. No one's going to assure you for that, Charles.

But I mean, Tony, it sounds like a good plan. But now that you've outlined it in such detail and make the argument and made the argument, it's never going to happen now. The government's not going to do it. It's like the $300. There's no way they can agree with that. You've wedged them on it. Now, you're wrong on this.

What will happen is potentially the exact opposite. So we called for wage subsidies, and they said wage subsidies are very dangerous. They then introduced a wage subsidy, and they said, we've done this, and Labor opposes it. So what you can... So we've got a chance here. Yes. We need to... We just know the cost of the chance will be the prime minister saying, I know Labor has always been opposed to an insurance scheme.

Well, Tony Burke, and I put it to you, why are you against the insurance scheme for the industry? That's right. That's where it will land. That's what, that's the after dark interview that will be begging for me. Now, Tony, one more thing. Look, we follow your socials. We see you with a lot of guitars. I know you love music.

When is your lockdown album coming out? I mean, Taylor Swift's done two. Yeah, we can see in the Zoom, there's a piano in the background. when's your album coming out? We've had a parliamentary band that I've organised for the Labor Caucus for a while. That's called Left Right Out. But we, during lockdown,

not everybody can get here, so we have a different band that we have formed that is sadly called Rockdown. Oh, wow. We, yeah, it's bad. But you have the benefit of knowing you will never see a performance date. You will never see a year,

advertised, that these are names that can exist. Fingers crossed. We make up for a lot with enthusiasm. But, yeah, there's not many bands that cover the cover guitars, keys, obo. Obo. Who's the nerd that plays the oboe in the Labor caucus? Terry Butler's our oboe player.

You work with what you got. So, yeah. Thank you, so. much, Taney. Yeah, great to talk to you about. Thank you. This episode brought to you by Australia Post. Some things are worth waiting for.

And waiting for and waiting for and waiting for. Australia Post. Proud sponsors of the Chaser Report. Now, guys, I've got Gabby to come along to this because I need a bit of moral support. Right. What have you done now, Charles? Well, my wife is cheating on me. Oh my God, what?

More importantly, why is this happening on the podcast right now? Have you called her? I feel like maybe we should not do this on the public podcast. I don't know what this is about, Charles, but I want it to be very clear that I'm keeping your wife in the divorce. We've known each other much longer than you've known Amanda. You've only known over like 25 years. Does Johnny come lately?

Wait, can Amanda come to my house? Because I need a parental figure. Hey, no. Back off, everyone. She's my wife. So let me get to the cheating part because it's sort of almost not the worst part of this whole saga, right? How? You're supposed to be in lockdown?

Yeah, well, it's sort of, it's a bit complicated because not only is she in lockdown, she's actually in self-isolation, which is a terrible thing to happen to her, because she was at a supermarket and it was like, it was like a three-minute window in which they might have crossed paths. And so therefore, her next 14 days involves sitting in her room and remaining completely distant from everyone else in our house. It's a horrible thing to heaven. How would it be legal for her to cheat on you when she can't see another human soul? Well, this is the thing, because it's very strict, right?

So the first thing that happened, the first thing was that I got chucked out of my bed, right? I have to sleep upstairs in my 10-year-old's bedroom. This is like 14 days of putting up with this. Then when we have dinner, she gets. the TV. Like she, she gets to take her dinner and then just, she just pisses off and eats it in front of the TV. Whereas I have to make conversation with my kids. Charles, I must say, on behalf of men everywhere, congratulations on finding a way to make what is clearly a worse situation for your wife about your suffering. That's, um, it's a boss move. No, it doesn't end there. It does not

end there, Dom. So say I do want to actually have a conversation with it. Right. So we both got to put on masks, and then we have to stand outside in our courtyard. She's allowed to go out in the courtyard. We're like a British couple where we sit at each end of the table, like about five metres apart from each other, and sort of shouted each other to have a conversation in the freezing cold because of bloody winter. What I'm hearing is you have a spacious house. Yeah, I was going to say, how long's your table?

Anyway, point is, it's been terrible. There are a few benefits. I mean, it has done wonders for our relationship. I think we've been getting along better than ever before. Like every time, you know, I get home from work, you know, I'm really tired. And, you know, she's wanting to have a conversation. Sorry, legally, you can't have a conversation, wife your wife. No, the thing I take away from that is actually, why are you tired?

Yeah. You have conversations for a living. Surely one more isn't like the worst thing ever. Anyway, the point is she's cheating. How is she cheating when she can't see another human soul, Charles? Because we were halfway through the mayor of East Town, right? that's the Kate Winslet drama, right? Great show.

Great, really creepy, really weird. You wonder what's going to have. Every episode, you know, you just want to watch it, right? Right. And I found out that while I was up in my son's bedroom sleeping on the bloody floor, she has completed the first series. She's just watched it all on TV in her room. I mean, what the fuck?

Because she's in isolation and bored out of her mind for 14 days, during which you can leave the house and do whatever you want. Yeah, Charles, I've got to say, this isn't the worst thing ever. I mean, she needs something to do. No, this is cheating. Can I just have a little bit of support here? I don't think you're getting the right vibe here, which is that she's the one in the wrong,

and I am the aggrieved party. I mean, I can understand her perspective in this because I find my relationship with you, Charles, much better at a distance, particularly the fact that given that we're talking only over the internet, you come with the volume switch. And frankly, having known you since you were 12 or something, you have always needed a volume situation.

This is good. I think this is the key to you having a happy marriage is being in different places, you know. And I don't know, Charles, I think another key to a healthy marriage is being able to enjoy things without the other person having to actually have anything to do with it. Just find another TV show that you like, Charles. There's so much on Netflix.

All of it's garbage. You can just pick it up and just watch from wherever. I think that is what I'm going to do. As soon as her lockdown is over and her self-isolation is over, I'm going to head out the fairfield, get myself some COVID, have her 14 days and catch up on all the Netflix. There you go. Yeah. You can't, she can't beat you to the series if you've already watched all of them.

Exactly. Thank you once again, Charles, for making yourself the victim. Today's episode of The Chaser Report brought to you by Australia Post. We deliver messages telling you you weren't home when you were. Australia Post, proud sponsors of the Chaser Report. Here at Sky News, we make informative content every day. Which Labour leader is the most worst dictator? Why is hating black people necessarily racist?

And how can we get so many YouTube views every time we run a Q&on talking point? But there's one thing that I value more than any of that content. The money we make from it. We can now see the damage. caused by our statements, particularly to our profits. Oh God! I wish to apologise to those potentially affected by my words. The sponsors.

But big ups to those who stuck with us through thick and thin. Combank, Sony Music, Carby Norman, and many, many more who will always pay to associate themselves with our message. Go woke, go broke. Oh, God. I also wish to apologise to the fans. We are sorry for any pain we've caused you. We promise when we come back to YouTube, we will do better at not getting banned.

The Chaser Report. Less news more often. Well, we're on the homeward stretch in Tokyo now. Zander is still there, still. bravely filing reports for our podcast, despite everything. Hello, Zander. Hello, hello, hello. Has your COVID gone away?

Oh, look, it's here, it's there. It really, I think the Olympic spirit is helping me hold out. That's good, because, I mean, there are always so many, it's always such a come-down after Olympic Games. I think long COVID would be a fantastic way to keep the memories just going for months. Exactly, and that's what I'm really thinking of, you know, that sometimes it can just flare up again, so I'm thinking as soon as the high is done after the closing ceremony,

I'll be in ICU the next day. Sounds like a plan. Yeah, but it's been great. The Athletes Village is starting to shrink now as the athletes who have to go home after 48 hours after their last event are leaving the event. So obviously as more people leave, there's less risk of getting COVID, but also it means that the party atmosphere is lifting up again

because, you know, it's a less crowded place. You can party more because there's less risk of COVID. And really, it's just getting started. I did admire the Australian sprinter who vowed to leave no Asahi beer undrunk in the whole of Tokyo, I think that that's the spirit, really. That really is the spirit. And the interesting thing is, is that obviously some athletes

have started to fly back to Australia, which means they've done the cheeky starting to steal, all the complementary items. Nice. So it's, you know, you walk through the empty rooms, and you see all the soaps are gone, all the shampoos are gone, and all the Asahi beers are gone from the fridge. So it is

pretty interesting to see how everyone's clearing this place out on their way out. Has anyone broken up the card board bed and brought it home with them? You'd think not. However, watching some people try to get these beds in, because obviously sleeping on a plane is uncomfortable, right? So some people, some athletes, I can't name them, but they thought, you know what, if I cut up this bed, I'll be able to extend out my leg space on the flight. And it was amazing watching them do arts and craft the other day. Impressive. Wow. So is it a sort of, like, how do they fit it in their, do they use origami skills to

fitted into their suitcase it's kind of like a flat pack you know there was i heard a lot of the swedish people were giving ikea tips and it was just a really collaborative effort of you know they were like okay if you cut off this part of the bed and then you make a slot here and you make a slot there and so really what they were doing they were constructing these flat packs for the plane um in order to you know build build beds very ingenious i heard um rowan browning that spinter actually turned his into a full bar yeah he did he did he flipped it up on the side got all the nice alcohol out on the top and really it didn't seem like he was sleeping the whole Olympics he was just having the time of his life so why need to bed anyway worst case you just

crash on the floor Aussie ingenuity it's good to see zandis Australia has done so well I'm honestly surprised that um no one's accused us of being massively taking drugs I think everyone just knows that our nation has nothing else except sport going on you know they're like that's fair like what else are you going to do if you live in Perth apart from run all day you know There's no reason to accuse anyone for dope being. It's the only thing they can do. If you're in Perth, you are going to try to run to Melbourne. That makes total sense.

Exactly. If you're going to get across the Nullabal, you need both speed, efficiency and endurance. There you go. I certainly certainly be proud of. Zandi, I hate to say this, but you've actually done a very good job with these crosses. If you do make it back to Australia, we may even be able to find more work for you. I don't say this lately. Well, I mean, the Brisbane, 2032, really.

is coming up so I'm going to need a long recovery time it's been a pretty traumatic experience I think after all the counseling and debriefing I may just be ready for the 2032 yeah just head straight to Brisbane that's what we can be our Brisbane correspondent get any other they get to know the locals yeah and I can really you know map the changing landscape over time and I can stand outside and give you live crosses from the construction of the new stadiums every day I can be like oh new pylons gone up or looks like they're finishing on the new uh vending machine so I can really give you in-depth play-by-play of the development of 2032. And also Brisbane has a burgeoning COVID outbreak, so you'll feel at home.

Oh, I will. I will. This episode proudly brought to you by Australia Post. Literally the reason nobody collects stamps anymore. Australia Post. Proud sponsors of the Chase-It Report. Just before we go, Charles, I wanted to find some good news. A note on which to leave this podcast. And this is from the sun in the UK, a couple of days.

go, they report that pretty soon the move towards environmentally friendly fuels could see travellers flying on planes powered by human poo. That is great news, except for all the people living under flight paths. I like to think that it's a renewable system, that when you go into those weird little plane toilets, it'll just go straight to the engines, whatever you excrete. It's a closed system. That could mean that, like, you could end up with flights that just go forever. That would be amazing, wouldn't it?

You could just loop around. Yes. The UK, an enormous source of shit of all kinds, they want their planes to use 10% eco-friendly jet fuel by 2030. So I hope that they're collecting their shit as we speak. Is there a sort of quality of poo issue there? Like, if too many vegetarians get on the flight, does it sort of mean that you don't get enough methane or something?

Or is it the opposite? If you have too many... Maybe if you have too many beans. Yeah, exactly. Like, maybe you want more of vegetarian. Well, I don't want to know more about this. I think we should probably get an expert on to explain how it all works. Well, I've got some friends over at the sewer in Sydney.

Oh, yes, that's right. But I could ask one of them. Why don't we get one of them on the show? That's a very good idea. I mean, I must say, though, Charles, I think they need to go further afield than just, just, just poo. I think we also need vomit. I mean, imagine, and then the pilot would fly the plane in such a way that all the passengers vomited constantly. Yeah, if you're running low on fuel, just do a few nose dives.

Then the cabin staff come through and collect all the vomit bags, and then you refuel. I love this. I don't see any problems with this whatsoever. It is brilliant. I think it's a genius and visionary idea except for the small point that we're never, ever going to get to do in national travel again. But other than that, it's wonderful.

And do you think the airline manufacturers will change their name? Like, instead of Boeing, it'll be... Pooing. Pooing. And instead of Airbus, it'll be... Airplane. Yeah, or fart bus, maybe? Sure.

We'll brain some of the names later. Yeah. After this discussion, I'm sure you want to immediately go. to Apple Podcasts and leave us a five-star review. The code word for today is flying poo. Flying poo. Yeah, actually, and because will the Qantas Club higher status be brown?

That's what it'll be. Yeah, that's great. What I'm hoping, Charles, is that the Prime Minister's plane could use technology as well because you know how much Scott Morrison enjoys laying a big old log. Maybe if they can somehow take it from his pants

directly to the toilet. This could make Engadamacker's, like, one of the big energy companies. Yes, it could be a biofuel center. It's very near the airport. I like it. Follow us on all the socials. Go to chaser.com.com for the latest news. Our gear is courtesy of road microphones.

Thank you to them, and we're part of the ACAST Creator Network.