The Chaser Report - Peter "Treaty" Dutton

Episode Date: September 4, 2023

Dom and Charles respond to Dutton's calls for another referendum on Indigenous recognition should the current one fail to get up for some reason. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello, and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles, although actually Dom. Yes. I'm not going to record this podcast today. Why? Why not? You're talking to a microphone. What are you doing? No, no, no. What we're going to do is you can do this podcast today, but it will fail.

Well, it will. Yeah, sure, if it's just me. Yeah, exactly. and tomorrow we'll record the podcast again and I'll do that one. Are you Barney Chatshall's making an analogy with a contemporary event

where you've translated the logic of something into the world of podcasting? Might she be referring, Charles, to the very sensible suggestion by Peter Dutton that if the voice referendum were to fail an object to which he's been working single-handedly for months now, he will have a second referendum

to change the constitution to recognise Indigenous people. Yeah, because, but see, No, that's exactly what I'm saying, is if we record tomorrow on my terms, it'll be better than recording now. More after this. So this is what's happened. Peter Dutton has come up over the weekend, and I think made everybody unhappy with this proposal. He's made the people who don't want to give them a thing, those ungrateful First Nations people.

He's made them unhappy. He's made the liberals who support the voice people like Julian Lisa can't believe that he said this. It's like, it's not that I'm opposed to recognition. Yeah. It's just the form of recognition where you have to do something. No, well, it's the form of recognition that is driven by what indigenous people want, right? Like, what he's objecting to is that, like, he literally, it's just literally, he doesn't like the fact that it was come up with by someone other than a white man. Well, Charles, no, I mean, I think to be fair to Peter Dutton, I think what Aboriginal people want, he's entirely by the buyer.

I don't think that's not getting in at all. I think what this is to do with, he doesn't even figure in it. Is that it's Albo's idea. Even though First Nations people came and said we would like a voice, a treaty and the Maricata reconciliation process, they went through a huge process to work that out. And Albo said, okay, I will give you those things if I become prime minister, starting with the voice. It doesn't matter. It's just that Albo thought of it.

If Dutton had thought of it while they're in government, he'd be doing it. He doesn't care about the detail. This is the thing. So Dutton's saying, no, it's really important that we have a constitution. that recognises Indigenous people. And then the question arose on the weekend. So why, in your 10 years in office, did you not think to just do that constitutional referendum

while you had the chance? Because it would have failed because constitutional referendums didn't make it up in Australia. Scott Morrison wasn't in favour of that. He wouldn't have wanted to do that. But this is the thing, you've got to realise. He's the most... Peter Dutton, for all his sort of, like,

I am pro-Indigenous people, is the most anti-pro-Indigenous person I know. You know what I mean? But pro what? This is the thing. I mean, even John Howard wanted to change the Constitution to in some small way acknowledged that when the ship's turned up, the place wasn't empty. It's amazing how, as soon as they lose power, they want to do these amazing things. Well, you know, do you remember he worked on the preamble with Aidan Ridgeway?

It was the same thing, really. They wanted to do the Republic referendum. And Howard, well, you can have your referendum on that, but also we're going to have this little preamble. Preamble. I think Les Murray Road. it was a white man I think it went I remember it actually

it was come on Ozzy come on come on come on it wasn't it it was more like timey kangaroo we can't put that

any more of that in because I have to pay Ralph Harris's estate royalties and fuck that so no the thing is he wants to acknowledge the reality but they're not

do anything like this is the difference to be fair to Peter Dutton it's a very clear position we want to acknowledge that there were other people here when we arrived

but we wouldn't want to doing it. And maybe the preamble should be, sucks to be you. Like, hey, yeah, you were here first. Sucks to be you. Finders, keepers, First Nations weepers. Is that the, is that what it is? So that's the difference.

So Peter Dutton would be very happy to have another referendum. Yes. But can I just say, because I think the other hilarious thing is that Peter Dutton's other criticism of the voice is that it's all inside bubble, inside Canber. It is a very Canber bubble

point. And I must say... Uluru being. inside the camera problem. The idea of having yet another referendum and getting everyone to turn up yet again for some sort of AEC driven vote is such a Canberra solution to the problem. It's so sort of like, I know what we'll do. We'll do more politics. We'll have more opportunity for racist people to be reply guys on Twitter. You know what I'm surprised by, given the history of the coalition on these issues. I'm honestly surprised he's not aiming for a postal survey I mean, that's just, we know that's the most slow and torturous way to do anything.

Albo's getting us all to turn up on a particular place. October the 14th text you write yes or no on a piece of paper. But wouldn't it be better if they just did it via snail mail, posted everybody a ballot. It wasn't, it wasn't mandatory to fill it out because it doesn't actually matter. Like, you know, with same-sex marriage where you could just ignore it and the whole thing would maybe go away or didn't go away. Yeah, postal survey, they've already invented the worst way to make it.

decision in the slowest and most hurtful way to make a decision of. I'm astonished that's not what's being

advocated here. You know what they need to do? They need because the polls aren't looking good

Don't. But the voice no. No. The polls like the news poll came out yesterday

on Monday and it was what 36% now support yes and 51% support no. I mean that's not

looking good you wouldn't say it's looking good but Charles that poll was taken this is the key point

before everything changed. Before... Before Farnham. Farnham! Before John Farnham got up and gave the You're the Voice song to the Yes campaign. I don't know. I've got mixed feelings about this, Dom.

Because I admit, it's a rocking ad. It's a great, like, you know, it touches all the right sort of points in the ad and stuff like that and makes you realise, yeah, there has been progress in Australia, which I never realized until I'd seen that ad. But it does mean we're going to have Walter. wall, you're the voice for the next six weeks. Like, that is literally going to be the soundtrack for the next six weeks. I mean, to be perfectly honest with you, this is the first good thing John Farnham has ever done

in his entire career. I was overseas, right? I lived in England in 986 and 97, which was a country that had the good sense to subtly suggest to John Farnham that he could just fuck off to another country and never come back. And I'd never heard, I'd never heard whispering Jack, I'd never heard any of this sort of stuff. I came back to an Australia that was absolutely swamped with Farnham mania.

where everyone was just singing your voice all the time where Whispering Jack had been number one on the charts forever I was like, what the fuck is wrong with? This is the worst song in the history of the world. This is basically someone showing off at karaoke only you've made it the number one song in the country and by the way we don't have karaoke yet. Like just when you think it couldn't get more history on it and stupid

there's a fucking bagpipe solo, Charles, it's a bagpipe solo. So, I mean, couldn't they have said, oh look, Farnsey, thank you so much for offering it to us. Yes, yes. This is not about you. This is about First Nations artists. We might actually go with Yothi Indi and do Archie Roach. Treaty.

No, don't mention Treaty. You know the original lyrics. Treaty, yeah. But it's Treaty, yeah, Treaty Now. And then when they remixed it, they took the now bit out. Did you know that? That's really sad. So it's like Treaty Yeah, which is catchier, but takes away the sort of point.

So no one wants to say Treaty Now, because Treaty Now is going to make the case, except for the First Nations people who've asked for it through the Ullery, process. That's what the no campaign is saying. It'll be a treaty. Can I counter at that point, Dom, with... It might actually be easier to argue a bigger ask. Well, at this point, yes, because no one still knows what the voice is. Whereas a treaty, you do actually know what that means.

Yeah, it might actually be easier to just go, yeah, yeah, yeah. What we want is a treaty because we want to actually resolve our difference. We want to recognize that indigenous people were here before white people. And then we want to have a treaty that actually helps... concretely come to an agreement about what that actually means. But this is the whole point, right? Is that once you acknowledge in the Constitution,

and particularly if you, I mean, the voice form of recognition is creating an institution. It's not actually a long statement about the fact that there were First Nations people here before we arrived. But presumably, once you put it in the Constitution and say, look, when the first fleet turned up, there was someone here, the whole of Australia becomes illegal at that point, right?

Like, in international law, if there's no terranulius, you need a treaty, don't you? Yes, you're right. I'd never thought about it. If you say, legally, there were people here, then it is an invasion, and it's never been resolved. So the only way to resolve it would be a treaty. So what Peter Dutton is doing is arguing for a treaty. He wants a treaty.

He wants a treaty. That's what they call him, Mr. Treaty. Mr. Treaty. Peter Dutton, the man. Because once you've recognised it, you've got to fix it. And what his plan will be is to become Prime Minister. and then as soon as he loses power again, he'll then say, oh yeah, let's have a treaty.

You know what I mean? No, you won't do it at your first term. No, no, well, there's too much other work to do for, you know, fixing Labor's big black hole. Big black hole. More in a moment, by the way. The Chaser Report, news a few days after it happens. So, yeah, so it wouldn't happen in a first Dutton term,

but surely Dutton's only getting one term. Oh, no, and also you can't do it in this. second term. No, and I'm not saying, I'm not saying consecutive. I mean, after Dutton loses the election to the Plibersec government, he'll presumably go to the backbench forever. So the time to advocate, look, just on that Plibersec point, I'm not sure that Australians in what, we're talking probably 2027, are going to be wanting to elect a pro-coal

and gas government. So I'm not sure it'll be a Plibercic government. I think it's more likely to be a Chandler, Mather. All right, so you're so optimistic about the next five years told you nothing. I'm reading dystopian fiction at the moment where I'm increasingly convinced that neo-fascist geoengineering is going to be the way out of climate change. Well, got to have something. So, Charles, I'll tell you when Peter Dutton will advocate for the voice and for the treaty, because it's very clear what the answer to that question is.

The moment he has left politics, I call it the Turnbull model, Yeah, the Turnbull model. The moment you're there. Malcolm Fraser model. The John Hewson model. Don't, I mean, the only person, the only people who stuck to their guns are Tony Abbott and John Howard. Nothing will convince them to do a thing for Aboriginal people, no matter even. Howard's been out for decades and he still isn't going to give them any.

I think actually Howard's gotten worse, hasn't he? Like, didn't he want recognition for Aboriginal people and now it's sort of like, no? Oh, only because, only because he felt he had to to try and win the election. Oh, right. He wasn't committed to it. He was what are you talking about? So that's the thing. And Malcolm Turnbull wrote the most eloquent,

eloquent piece for the Guardian of all places, I think it was, about how he couldn't possibly... Or was it at the Herald? So one of those two lefty rags, how he couldn't have possibly done it as Prime Minister. The country wasn't ready. No.

It just was very hard. Oh, yes. And I remember him using the term, it will be a third chamber of parliament. The exact argument that Dutton is using now made by Turnbull, but Charles, he had no choice. The nation wasn't ready.

No, he was ready. No, we weren't ready. No, exactly. The thing is, you know, because the long stretch of history from 1788 through to 2015, Nation not ready, then eight years later, Nation definitely ready. Yeah. I mean, I feel for Turnbull. He was ahead of us on every issue.

Oh, yes. If we just let him have his way. Well, yeah. You know, like the idea that we want to dial up speeds for our internet rather than fiber optics speed. I mean, he wanted us to have fibroptics, but we weren't ready. And, you know, you look at, you know, the kids nowadays, and you're constantly saying, get off the internet, get off the internet. Well, that's what Malcolm Turnbull was telling us 10 years ago.

He worked very hard to knobble the NBA. And sure, he was forced to do that by Tony Abbott as a punishment. Having a posting, but which was a very delicious punishment, by the way. If we ever do have a neo-fascist state where people are punished in cruel fashions that are designed to be as torturous as possible, Tony Abbott should run that system just based on what he did to Turnbull. Like Turnbull, who boasted that he'd brought the internet basically to Australia with Aussie mail, right?

Like Mr Big Tech visionary, made to personally ruin the NBN, step by step. Just imagine the soul-crushing thing of him having to turn out next to all those big reels that weren't going nowhere and getting shit internet to everybody. What an amazing fact. Anyway, look, we've got a few weeks left for The Voice to be won. They've started putting ads out there. Is Australia fine, they're going to start paying attention? attention and say yes, or, as seems more likely at this point, is Australia finally going to

start paying attention and go, no, no, we're not going to, why would we do that? Well, I think let's break it down state by state, right, Don, because everyone's looking at this as the nation has to decide. And sure, constitutionally, they actually do. It needs to be a majority of people in the majority of states. But, you know, the crucial thing is, I think you can fairly say that Victoria is a sort of communist hellhole. Well, it's Chairman Dan.

Chairman Dan, they'll deliver the voice. They'll be a yes, sir. And things were looking a little bit wobbly in New South Wales, but I think that's now shifted. I think, you know, we're going to get New South Wales across the line. You're very optimistic about Western Sydney, but okay, yep. No, no, but this is the thing. There are a whole lot of migrant communities

who during the gay marriage plebiscite were very anti-gay marriage. That's what I was trying. It was very conservative. Do you think on this one, they'll be, yes. But actually, they tend to be far more pro-Indigenous recognition, is my understanding. Well, presumably because if you've recently arrived to this country, as many people in Westerns that you have, you basically first thought is, why the fuck can't you do a better job with that?

That's shit. Yes, exactly. Whereas we, having been here for generations, are used to doing nothing. Oh, no, exactly. We've got this amazing blind spot right in front of our eyes. Yeah, yeah. And then, so then you go around and, you know, launching the... the campaign in South Australia?

I think that that's enough. I think the mere fact that Albo turned up in South Australia. I go, thank you, Mr. Albert, easy. We'll vote, yes. So there you go. Oh, that's three. Then Tasmania, look, the Tasmanian

indigenous community is split. But I actually think that that's probably a win for the yes campaign because presumably there'll be a whole lot of racists who see indigenous people saying vote no and go, well, I'm going to vote the opposite of those indigenous people. Oh, I see, that's interesting logic.

Okay. So I think Tadzie might be the full. Well, I mean, the one thing we know for sure is it won't be Queensland. No, no, no, no, no. Certainly not Queensland. Thomas Mayo was on the shop podcast, which was on this feed. Was on this feed, yes. And he said, Queensland in the bag.

Okay. I know. I think he was just pretending. All right. W.A. I mean, W.A. See, this is where you go. Do we really need Western Australia?

I mean, never. Except for their money. The money. Yeah. And the resources. Yeah. I mean, the best thing to do with Western Australia, very clear. will be to let them secede, let them split off and become their own country,

conquer that country, and not give them... Subjugate them. Yes. So make them a vassal colony without rights. Well, even just a territory. I think this is the thing. They could be a territory, that's true. Because Northern Territory and ACT voters don't get to be part of the majority of states' calculations,

right? Yeah. Their vote is actually half, which is ironic, right, because the biggest concentration in any polity of indigenous voters is, of course, the Northern Territory. That's why that's why. That's why it's ignored and they haven't been even statehood. Yeah, of course. So if we just made, I think there's a really good,

maybe that's the next referendum. And I think a majority of states would get behind this idea is to make Western Australia not a state. That's a very good idea. And then also, you may have seen that a Labour politician from New Zealand in his retirement speech said, come on, we should become a state of Australia. Oh, yes, I did see that.

And if they came on board, that's a place that actually knows how to have a treaty and knows how to have reconciliation. Certainly far more than we do So if they can come in in time for the referendum I'd like to move quickly There's only a few weeks But they'd be a definite year state Well the way it works

In our constitution is all that has to happen Is there's a sort of standing provision The constitution that New Zealand can just say Yep, we're in We're in, you know what they should do Just come in and then go out again Just for this one vote Come in, go out

Come in, get rid of Western Australia as well Do the recognition Get rid of West Australia That's a great idea. They could be Eastern Australia. We should get an Antwumi on the podcast, constitutionally expert, to find out how quickly it could be done. Is it the case that if New Zealand agreed tomorrow to be part of Australia,

they could vote as a state? You know what? We really need to do this for the Rugby World Cup. That's what we really need. It's our only chance. Antoomi, talk us to it. All right, we've solved everything in this podcast, I think. Good for us.

Yes. I mean, they said white men couldn't do it, and they were right. until we prove them wrong. Okay. Our game is from Road. We're part of the Iconiclass network. Any feedback, if you listen this far, email us podcast at chaser.com. com.

And yeah, thank you. Yes, campaign. That's where you can email your thanks for our help in this matter. See ya.