The Chaser Report - Scott Morrison Fights a Child

Episode Date: April 6, 2022

John Delmenico takes a look at the PM's latest interviews with the ABC and the team at 6News, in which the PM loses moral high ground to a 14 year old. Meanwhile, Charles has an announcement about a surprise buyer of the company, and Aleksa has an update on the World Cup. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report. It is Thursday the 7th of April 22. We have a huge episode today. We have Alex Avulovic, John Domenico, Gabby Bolt, Charles. And I'm Domney. Everybody's here. Well, Loughlin's not here, but he's got to edit it up.

It's going to be absolute hell for him. Welcome, everyone. That's right. And we've got a very big announcement to make, which is that the Chaser has been, acquired by Elon Musk. Oh, finally. Yay. Wait, I thought you were a bit upset at him because he called you a pedophile on Twitter.

Well, you know, we sued him. We failed. He's allowed to call me a pedophile. That's just how things are all. Fair enough. But, yeah, it's, there are going to be a few changes around here. He's taking a position on the board. And from now on all employees, we'll have to be bullied.

And that's a change? So there's no real change there. Also, this will interest you, John. You write a lot for the website. There'll now be an edit button on the chaser website, which means that you can fix up all your fucking typos for once. I mean, that's also literally your job to do. But I also know because there was famously a Tesla employee who was fired

because they ran a review channel on YouTube and the idea that there could ever be. criticism freaked out Elon Musk, so he fired them on the spot. Oh, there will be no criticism of the Chase. Yeah, so do I need to go back and delete all the Elon Musk articles? Oh, like the one where I said that here was the country. Oh, yes. I already did that for you.

There are a lot of those. Thanks, Scott. Can I say on behalf of our development team, we have had an edit button in the pipeline for ages. It's not like this is a new idea of Elon's. Yeah, it's not a button. That's the problem. I think it's more just our staff.

Yeah, yeah. We've always had an edit, but it's now going to be used for the first time. Oh, that's a, that feels scary for the, this company. Another thing, all our satire will be fully electric. So completely phasing out all petrol-powered satire. Great. I was getting real tired of coal-powered satire, honestly.

Oh, yeah. I've actually set up a new partnership between and Loughlin's producer note segment and Elon Musk's The Boring Company. Good one. Hey, Lockwood. We are moving our office. That's the other thing. What?

Okay. Yeah, we're going to be the first satirical company to set up on Mars. Yep. Sick. Well, he's also, I understand he's also taken over the news headlines department, Charles, and every single satirical article is just going to be, this person is a pedo. I mean, I've already started work on some articles about Grimes and just how horrible she is.

Yeah. I'm excited for Mars, though. They're like all our competitors are here on Earth. Yes. Is the Tudor opening a Mars office? No, the Tudor did it first. They did it first, yeah, unfortunately. They did it first yet after we did somehow.

How did that happen? Can we actually, can we just tweet Elon Musk and see if he wants to buy 10% of our company? Can we just tweet him for like, give him a discount, make it $1 billion rather than $2.9 that he paid for Twitter. Has he bought Twitter as well? I didn't realize that. Yeah, it was a two-for-one deal. You buy Twitter, you get the Chaser for free. I suppose both of them are dying platforms

that are infuriating to engage with. Coming up on the show, what have we got? Scott Morrison's had a few interviews going into the election and they've gone terribly. Oh, great. Well, that'll be interesting. And Alex, we've got an update on the world up. World Cup fever, baby.

Oh, wow. Australia's going places. The Australian women's cricket team, Meg Lannning and the team, incredible performance. No, no, no. I'm talking about the boy World Cup. The real one. Oh.

You know? Oh, that's... Is that a bad way to... The shit one. The one that Australia won't be competing in because we usually... The one that gets more money for some reason. Yeah, yeah, the rich one. The rich one for the boys.

That's the one I'm talking about. Yeah, the boys, honestly. But before any of that, though, let's check in with Beck in the Chasing Newsroom. Scott Morrison has pledged to sign a document declaring he is not racist. in a move that would never be done by anyone but a closeted racist. The Prime Minister, who celebrated stopping immigrants with a trophy, has defended himself, stating that he hates people of all races equally. Barnaby Joyce has joined the cast for Married at First Site,

with producers hoping that he will bring some degree of sanity to the show. Currently, critics are outraged at the appalling display of commitment, saying it's probably the worst representation. of a relationship ever put on TV, with the same criticisms also been given to maths as well. In other news, Will Smith has won a Grammy for having the best rock hit. Following his slap of the comedian last week, the actor has apologised for accidentally making the Oscars interesting. Those are the latest headlines for The Chaser Report. I'm Rebecca Dayunamuno. So, John, you've been tasked with listening to interviews with Scott Morrison.

Yeah, you guys give me the worst stuff. So there's an election coming up. And after a nice weekend where I completely didn't look at any news and was actually happy for once, you guys told me to watch Scott Morris interviews this week. So I have. On Tuesday night, he was on 7.30 with Lee Sales. So if you're a prime minister and you wanted to look good at interview,

How much time would you guys spend learning the name of the network you're on? Well, it's a trick question, because if it's the ABC, I hate it. So I'm clearly not going to be saying that. All right. Well, I've got a clip here. We'll be appearing on the EBC and everybody's programs over the course. The EBC. EBC.

Elon Broadcasting Corporation. Yeah, he's purchased that too. You're wondering, yes, the entire interview was a train wreck, as you can probably guess from not knowing the name of the ABC. He must be in a panic. He must be sort of thinking, because everyone's attacking him from his own side of politics. His poll numbers are woeful. I would forget the name of the ABC. I think he was just getting a clever loophole.

Because you know how last time he went on 7.30, he pulled out the last minute. He could just say, if he didn't want to do it, he could just say, let's say he didn't want to do it because, one of his senators unloaded on him massively in the Senate shortly before the interview, he could just say, oh, I didn't say the ABC, I said the EBC. It's definition proof. It's pretty good. I think you guys are giving him too much credit. I think it's more likely that he genuinely forgot the order of the alphabet.

I just think like it was too much. Well, that would explain the vaccine rollout. Fuck, is it B first? I can't remember. We're going to do this in alphabetical order. Scott Morrison gets the first jam. Yeah, Esch comes before M, doesn't it? So there was a lot of stuff about the bullying

where he mainly just said there's people who have an axe to grind and it was an election coming up. That's why Bill criticised him, including Macron, which was last year and... That guy's got an axe to grind. Yeah, definitely an axe to grind within factional Liberal Party. Yeah. But also, ahead of a popularity...

Actually, it'd be a guillotine, wouldn't it? Ahead of going to the French public and wanting to be re-elected, the most popular thing he could do, would be to attack Scott Morrison. Does that bode well? I mean, I'd be surprised if French people know who Scott Morrison is because he's an Australian Prime Minister and we're not actually relevant anywhere else.

But we know who Macron is. Yeah, that's because Macron is like interesting. A delicious snack. God, no. So if you, again, if you guys are Prime Minister going into an election and one of the main criticisms of the party you're against is that they're parachuting people into, seats in Sydney

would you copy that in the same seats oh well what's the other option in this multiple you then you pick candidates from the area no no don't you know don't they might be great to put our mates in that area

so this was put forward because Scott Morrison has been alleged of parachuting someone into Parramatta which is the exact same seat that a Labour Party just did but He says it's completely different. That's principles.

Why did you decide to intervene and dictate this pre-selection process yourself with a small group of people rather than leave it to local branches to pick candidates? It's the same sort of faceless men scenario that the Liberals used to tear shreds off labour over. But the other, all the members that, not just I, this process was done by myself, the Premier. They see our faces all the time. And the other one was Christine McDivin, who was the first ever female president of the president of the Premier. president of the federal liberal party. Now, she's certainly not a faceless man.

She's a woman who I've worked with over a woman. Yeah, guys, doesn't count as a faceless. She's a faceless woman. Yeah. The way I prefer them. He did say. They can't talk back if they don't have any mouth. You guys are claiming there's sexism here, but Scott Morrison very strongly throughout

the entire interview said that it was actually because he likes empowering women. and this way they got 50% females in the selection. Oh, okay. So it's sort of scomo the feminist. He did at one point say, people keep telling me to stand up for the women in our party and protect them, and that's what I'm doing, which I think he's gotten confused

because if no one was talking about pre-selection, they're talking about alleged rapes. And he was like, oh, protect women, the ones who are going to vote for me. Surely the best way to protect women is to not put them in the Liberal Party where they'll have all these horrible things happen to them in Parliament House

and then not be protected? Or is it that he was protecting them from not being shot when they didn't shoot them at that rally? That's what it is. I'm also really glad that he's really up on feminism now

so he understands that what women want is for a big strong man to protect them. That's exactly what's wanted. Obviously it's not the only thing that Scott Morrison's been criticised on. What? He's also, yeah, shockingly, he's also been criticised about his flood response, but, and also the weird claim he made

that people told him not to give any money to flood relief, but he was fighting against the public on that one and going to do it anyway. Oh, yeah, that's right. So there was a question regarding who actually that was, they asked. Oh, brilliant. Last week, you said, I know I've got critics who say you shouldn't be spending money on helping people during these crises. Who said that?

Oh, look, all the time. Who said that? No, I'm sorry. You shouldn't spend money. You should try looking at my Facebook feed from time to time. It's probably just as nasty as you as people. Is he gloating that his Facebook feeds nasty? What pages does he like?

I love it. I got the nastiest feed you'll ever see. If you want to see people asking me to not help, all you have to do is check my audience on my social media. I've got to say, I've given this one. Like me. This does check out. I want to know who the fuck this all the time person is.

He was asked directly, who was it? And he said all the time. Who the fuck is this person? What a name. I fact check by going through Scott Morrison's Facebook feed. I couldn't find a single comment of anyone saying, don't give money to floods. I found a boss that said to give money to floods. Oh.

But like, I couldn't find this all the time person. So if anyone knows who they are, please let us know. And I just want to let you know that I want to know what that's short for. There's one last thing from this interview here specifically that I think shows why it's a train wreck and why a lot of his has been. So Lee Sales brings up the simple fact that for the last 30 years, every election, both major leaders do two sit-down interviews with 7.30 and it's a tradition because it's the biggest news show in the country. And so she asked Scott Morrison, will he do it? I invite you while I'm here. Would you be happy to do a couple of interviews on the...

Well, we'll be appearing on the EBC and everybody's programs over the course of the campaign, Lee. And we've always made ourselves pretty available. Well, that's not a direct answer, actually. We'll be doing two interviews on prime time on 730. The election isn't about the 730 report. It's about the Australian people. Wow. So he couldn't even answer that question directly.

Wait, did he say EBC twice? He said EBC again. That's where I got the first question. And it hasn't been called the 730 report for eight years. The evil broadcast is. He promised not to defund the ABC. Also, he's playing that he's made himself widely available to the ABC. He literally skipped out on this program last week.

No, no, no, no, no, John, he means content. He's made his content widely available, which is why we cannot stop shitting on him. Widely available, whenever Paul Murray wants to do an event in a pub with people who only like Scott Morrison, he's always happy to come to that. Well, if you guys are struggling here, And you're looking childish on TV.

Clearly, the next solution which Scott Morrison thought of was to go on the YouTube channel Six News Australia with 13-year-old journalist. It's Roman McKinnon and 14-year-old journalist Leonardo Paglisi. Which happened last night. So I've got it this year. If you were PM, would you do any of these following things when talking to literal children online when it's being recorded?

Beautiful. Would you laugh at them? No. Probably. Depends what the kid did. Wait, am I, Scott Morrison? We wore a funny hat and he was trying to make me laugh. Did you wear a funny hat?

No, this is like a serious sit-down interview. Okay. Would you laugh at them and their questions? No, not while it's being left. No, no. Okay. Would you cut off their questions if you don't like where it's going? Oh, yeah.

Well, you're a apology, but no, you shouldn't. And it's easier to cut them off when they're kids. That's the thing. They're asking for it. Would you directly light their face? Probably. I mean, that's normal with children. We do children that Santa is real.

If they fail, back-checked you, would you argue about whether or not you were lying? Oh, wow. Really? I can't wait to hear this. Would you get mad and combative when they bring up polling numbers? Yeah, with the 14-year-old. That's the best way to deal with the 14-year-old is to get combative.

No, I disagree. I think the best way to deal with a 14-year-old is deal with it how 14-year-olds do. They need to do a fight at the canteen, all right? Yes. Just throwing a couple of milks. I can't wait for Leo to knockout Scott Morrison. Yeah, it's going to fucking ruin him. Well, also, I've got those,

would you complain about the juvenile topics that journalists bring up while talking to literal children? Sure. About the topics that they want to talk about, like lying. It sounds like it just stuffed it up completely, isn't it? Isn't the whole point about going on one of these things? It's a sort of cute moment that's warm and fuzzy. It proves how.

But also, Leo's quite a good job. He's 14 and he's better at researching shit than I am. Are you telling me that he treated this like it was, I don't know, a rollout of life-saving vaccines? Well, I don't know. I've got a clip here of one of Leo's attempts to ask a very serious question and how Scott Morrison responded. Cricke and, of course, they're their own out. That's not a good start.

If you're starting with Crike and you're talking about credibility, it's not a good start. You can make that claim short, but at the same time they put together. I can make it. I can assert it strongly, I can tell you. Absolutely, absolutely, you can assert it strongly. And we're giving you a platform to assert that. No one's stopping you from asserting that. Everything that you said is on the record.

The ABC has fact-checked you, rather, about... The ABC is crikey. Let's add a few more then. I'm sure there's... The Australia Institute is probably going to be the next one, I suspect. Oh, wow. Imagine being rationally talked down from an argument by a 14-year-old. Yeah, I was quiet.

Like, Leo's negotiation skills are off the chart. I want him to come to my house and talk me out of an anxiety attack. Yeah, no, you are allowed to have a tantrum here. We are allowing you that platform to have a tantrum. But here are some facts. Facts, blah, blah, blah. You're not going off to a great start. Can you imagine if that happened like a dinner party and some friend's parents would

talk to a kid like that? You would literally say, can you not talk to my child like that, please? No, that would be the gossip of the party. party. Dom, I would just, I would never stop talking about that. If I ever witness your kid rationally talking you down from an argument at the dinner table, I am telling everyone. So one thing that you guys are missing as well is because this is audio, you don't actually see the visual. This, during that question, which goes for about a minute and I had to cut it short, I cut it down a bit. Scott Morrison's got the biggest smirk on his face, like what he's

about to say is going to be a dunk on Leo and then it fails and then you can just like sort see him get mad afterwards and it goes and like that exchange goes on for longer and pretty much every single exchange sort of turns into Scott Morrison trying and failing to just bully a child brilliant so if you want to I do suggest genuinely check out six News Australia's YouTube channel to watch the full interview because it is genuinely crazy I'm so excited I can't wait so Scott Morrison basically tries to dunk on a 14 year old and misses the basket every time, you're saying? Yeah, and that was, yeah.

I just can't wait for Scott to announce that his election advisor is actually healthy Harold. Can we get Leo on the podcast? I think he should. Actually, there is a chance, so, Lachlan, keep this in if this ends up happening. And check your feed later here this afternoon for an interview with Leo.

Once he finishes, school. School. Genuinely, if the episode's late, that is why. That's hilarious. None of the medical advice contained in the Chaser report should legally be considered medical advice. The Chaser Report. So, Alex, what's happening with the World Cup? It's really, really depressing stuff.

Last week, the Socoroo's lost against Saudi Arabia and Japan. Look, we've still got a chance to qualify, but it'll be tricky. We'll have to put in the work. And I was here to work out how we do that. So I've just been Googling, you know, soccer roos putting in the work in Qatar, in Google search. And there's just really depressing news out there. The first one is that we don't have much for a chance of winning. And the second one is that 6,500 market workers died in construction

since the World Cup was announced in Qatar. You are kidding. Yeah. 6,500. Yeah, just since they announced the World Cup building these stadiums. This is a tragedy. We're not going to win the World Cup? Yeah, yeah.

I mean, two tragedies at once. It's so fucked up. But, you know, I couldn't help it, and I started looking more into these foreign workers. It's fucked up. Do you know what's happening in Qatar? This is the place where, when you go, There, because a lot of workers travel from India and Pakistan, places like that.

They take your passport from you and so you can't leave. Is that right? Yeah, you can't leave. And your employer guarantees you being there. So even if you manage to wrestle your passport off them, you'll immediately get arrested because you're not at your job. You're not at your job. But it's a while.

So it's basically slavery. Yeah, yeah. I know a few law nerd types and human rights people who call. going about oh modern slavery but yeah it checks out it's actually slavery it's a pretty wild place because foreign workers make up 88% of the population so oh wow i think 12% of the population is catari which is really confusing i mean like these guys don't do shit right every job's done from like you know from construction to the service sector to care it's all done by foreign workers these guys just chill and it makes you wonder like whenever i see like far-eyed anti-immigrant

people in the west because i'm just like they're all like immigrants are taking our jobs they won't assimilate. I'm thinking like, they got it all wrong. It's a threshold thing. Once you reach 88% immigration, that sweet spot, you can just do slavery again. Like, they really shouldn't be complaining. They'd be like, more. Yeah. This actually makes a lot of sense because famously Qatar's World Cup choice was the one that brought FIFA down and led to a lot of the bosses getting arrested because it was just such an obviously corrupt choice. Because they bought it. Yeah, much as they buy all this labor. One of the criticisms at the time was Qatar didn't have a soccer team. team which there is that I'm sure they could get a migrant soccer too that's what the

world cup is they're just a bunch of migrant workers coming into play soccer in the country oh it's wild I did I did a lot of research um so I want to take you guys on a trip to exotic South Asia so you can see what it's like for one of these migrant workers and Lockland please don't don't put a racist soundtrack under this it's it's serious so so here's the situation you're you're from Bangladesh listener you are from Bangladesh you can't find a job You know, but construction is booming in Qatar because, you know, they're building a weld cuff in the middle of the desert. It's a lot of work.

All you need to do is pay a $5,000 migration fee, so Qatar will let you in. $5,000. Yeah, yeah. It's huge. Like, you don't make that kind of money in Bangladesh, especially if you're unemployed. But you'll be making big bucks in Qatar, and coincidentally, the migration agent can give you a loan. So you can pay it off. It's fucking sick.

You're set, right? So you take that low You get to Sunny Qatar And straight off Is it alright if I just keep running Yeah this is amazing And straight off the bat As soon as you get there

Your promised pay is cut by like 30%. They take your passport Like you mentioned You can't leave the work compound You're sharing room with 10 people So you're stuck there Building stadiums The Searing Desert Sun

That's where these 1⁄2,000 people died You're spending years Just paying off the debt And interest you pay to just get there But there's The most ridiculous thing about the stadiums, I didn't make this up. This is fucking insane. Do you know who designed the stadiums in Qatar?

Albert Speer Jr. What? That is not true. I was going to say. He's the son of the 90 architects. And I thought it would be too ridiculous. Yeah, the most renowned architect of the Third Reich. His son is building these stadiums where these six and a half thousand people died.

Third Reich once removed. Yeah, exactly. Um, it's, it's fucking insane. It's like they're trying to make the worst, the worst World Cup in the world. I suppose it's sort of like, only six, five, only six thousand five people have died. Well, the thing is, a lot of human rights places of question that figure, because this is what's released by the Qatari government. And they're like, it doesn't account for Filipino deaths or Kenyan deaths and like

deaths not in construction. Like, I mean, construction's fucked and it's mostly men doing it. But it's, hang on. Why doesn't it count Kenyan or Filipino deaths? I guess. Oh, well, they're not people. It's built by a Nazi. Why do you think, Charles?

I can't believe the Nazis would be racist. There's no room for nuance in Nazi thinking. And also, these are just deaths in construction, and those are men dying. But it's like much worse for female workers over there. Because generally, instead of in construction, you're a nanny. So you're working inside the boss's house. So you don't even get that 10-person bunk. You're just always on.

And, like, they take your passport. You can't leave the house. and so many people get sexually assaulted. But the clincher is since premarital sex is a crime in Qatar, the boss can hold it against you and get you imprisoned if you don't do what those. If you do what they're doing. Yeah, yeah. So it's so fucked.

But most importantly, we still have a chance of playing there. We lost against Saudi Arabia last week, but we just have to win against the UAE on the 7th of June. I don't want to win. Debbie, don't be a spoils for. You're the reason we lost against the UAE on. Saudi Arabia last week. People like you.

It's sickenes me. Where's your national pride? Can we reflect that when Australia ran for this same World Cup, like we really campaigned very hard to host this year's World Cup, we got one vote. We got one vote.

All those people who argued that Australia should have boycotted the 1936 Olympics in Munich. They were just wrong. Yeah. The best way to show up the Nazis is to thrash him at their own games. I mean, we didn't do that, but like... We're definitely, and the soccer rules are definitely not going to thrash anyone.

No. Because they suck, because they suck, but... But you know who is? Every single Katari employee. Yeah. Our gear is from road microphones and we're part of the ACAS creator network. And if you want a fancy stadium, hire the son of a prominent Nazi. Yay. Brought to you by Elon Musk.