The Chaser Report - Scott Morrison Is Australia's Elon Musk

Episode Date: November 30, 2022

Dom unpacks the news that Scott Morrison may be censured for swearing himself into multiple ministries. Meanwhile Charles wonders who will win in the battle of Elon Musk vs Apple. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gattigall Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report. Charles Firth and Dom Knight here. Charles, so much news around at the moment. I mean, Scott Morrison being censured by the Parliament. Yes. This is huge news. It's dramatic.

Do you think it'll get up? Well, why wouldn't I get up? I mean, they've got the majority in the Parliament, don't they? Yeah. Does it have to go through both houses or is it just like... I don't know. No, does it do anything? It doesn't sack him or anything, does it?

It's just, it's a slap on the wrist. It's a slap on the wrist. But isn't the problem here that Scott Morrison doesn't really give a shit about what Parliament thinks at all? Well, he'll at least then have a legacy if he gets censured. That's something you can put on his CV. That's true. This is a bizarre thing.

It's good for us. Scott Morrison being in the news. Drives clicks. It drives engagement. People hate him. It's something you can focus on. You can sell merch. So I'll talk about that.

We'll talk about Elon Musk. latest series of Twitter rants, and his battle with Apple, because his plate's already not full enough that he has to take on Apple at the same time. So look, the Scott Morrison whole parliamentary censure thing, it is amazing how good Scott Morrison has proven to be at staying in the news despite being a humble backbencher representing the seat of Cook. Well, the thing that I loved about last week was, you know how he took on five secret ministries that we found out about in September? Well, it came out last week, I think, due to Nicky Saver's book, isn't it?

Yes. And I think there was also a report made in Parliament that he actually also wanted to take on a sixth ministry, the agriculture ministry, which I think is something that the National Party might have had a few thoughts about. I don't think he ended up actually taking it on. But the fact that he wanted, like he just thought, oh, five secret ministries isn't enough. We need six. I need six. Like, what was, like, it's just wonderful. It's very hard to stop.

They're very Moorish. And why didn't he fess up? Why didn't he fess up? Oh, and there's also this other thing. Why does he let it dribble out? Because what is the one thing we know that typified Scott Morrison's time as Prime Minister? He never liked to sort of do any work.

He didn't like doing anything. Coming out and saying, look, there was another one that would be doing something. Yes. And actually, this is the great irony of the agriculture thing. Didn't he decide not to go ahead because he would have had to do things? Yes. He would have been responsible for things, agricultural minister.

as it's too much work. It seems like it's an even lamer sanction than the impeachment. You know how Donald Trump got impeached twice and it did absolutely nothing because the Senate blocked it? This seems like, what is the point of a censure at all?

Is it just everyone going, yeah, you did a bad thing? Like, is that... When's that ever going to stop a parliamentarian? Is the assumption that he somehow has shame? And he goes, well, I'm going to resign and I couldn't possibly... I've besmirched the good name of Parliament.

Since when does Parliament have a good name to besmirch? Like, what's going on? I think what it does. though, is it forces Dutton to show his hand? Like, is he somebody who's going to censure Scott Morrison for doing something that was clearly wrong? Or is he going to go, no, no, no, he's one of us. Is his party political?

But surely, hang on a second. Are you asking whether a former Queensland cop is going to make, he's going to turn on one of his own to uphold the integrity of the institution that he serves? Or is he going to just stick with his mate? Yeah. Are you really in suspense about that? Yeah, no. Do you not know what Peter Dutton's come out and said on the record about this?

Oh, what is he said? He's not going to be supporting the central motion. It's a political stunt. Yeah, man. This is Albanese being a head kicker. What happened to the kinder gentler parliament? What? The kind of gentle apartment that just turned a blind eye to corrupt behavior and unaccountability.

The kind of gentler parliament would say, Scott Morrison, have a seventh, have a seventh ministry, Have an eighth. As many as you like, it's fine. Yeah, that's good. But the best thing is Nikki Savver's book is coming out. So we'll be able to read all about this thing. Or has it already come out? I don't think it's out yet, bulldozed.

No, it's, what she does is she leaks all the revelations to get publicity for the book. We're going to try and get her on the podcast. Nikki, if you're listening, we want you to come on and share all this juicy delight with us. But it is, it is so wonderful for Anthony Albanese's that he's had a solid, what is it, six months now. I think it's a six-month anniversary, whatever, it's nine months, of Morrison being in the news over and over and over again for doing an objectively terrible thing. They've just had an investigation by a former high court judge,

which found that he unambiguously did the wrong thing. Yes. And he's still defending himself, still hasn't apologised and hasn't resigned at all. Why wouldn't he just resign? Like what? Because his pension would be going down now, wouldn't it? Wait, or no, your prime minister. He'd have to go and find a job.

If he quit as back then, he'd have to find a purpose. He did find a job. He did find a job. He got that job as a speaker. No, no, Charles. I don't think he got a job. I think he offered himself as a speaker. I mean, a lot of former prime ministers, residents make a lot of money.

Bill Clinton, Tony Blair. I just can't quite imagine Scott Morrison conveying, you know, commanding the same sort of fee. Yes, and also, like, say you're interviewing. viewing Scott Morrison for a job. And you go, what's, what's your favorite expression? And he goes, oh, that's not my job. But also, he'd be appointing yourself to your job.

If you hired Scott Morrison to be, like, let's say, like, Gladys Barajiklian, she runs, I think, the corporate department of Optus or something. Yeah. You'd go out of the country. The apologies department. You'd go out of the country for a day, Scott Morrison would be CEO behind your back. Yes, that's right. Yeah, he'd just appoint himself.

Yeah, without telling you. I mean, it is the one thing he's, he's proven really effective at doing. Yes. And managing to get these things past the Governor General. I mean, what did the Governor General do? The Governor General just go, oh, well, I suppose I'd better sign you in for these six. Like, this is the thing that no one seems to be asking.

But it, no, but isn't the point, just quite seriously, that the Governor General is required to act on the advice alone of the Prime Minister, right? Well, this is the hilarious thing. Yeah. So the Governor General's choices are either to be completely in effect. and simply just say yes so that it's not a monarchy running as like a coup or to have a coup.

So you're either useless or you're genuinely frustrating democracy. As Governor General, you either have no impact at all or you genuinely... I think the theory is what you're supposed to do is just ask questions. Just go, really?

Is that the way we're doing things now? Come on trap. I mean, he could have said exactly what King Charles, I'm still not used to calling him in King Charles, said to Liz Truss, which was, oh dear you again. Like Scott Morrison wants to go to the fifth ministry, oh dear you again, would have been a perfect response. But you know that Scott Morrison appointed himself Governor General.

Like... What happened? Yeah. I mean, when he went and asked the Governor General whether it was all right, he just had to ask himself. Actually, I think they might need to investigate this more fully, Charles. Because from what I understand, there was another chair of the Bell Inquiry in Scott Morrison's behavior. There's one S. Morrison. I think his report's coming out and will

exonerate him completely. You think maybe the reason Peter Dutton's backing Scott Morrison is because he's worried that Scott Morrison's appointed himself as opposition leader? I think he has. I think Scott Morrison is the opposition leader. And that's why Peter Dutton can't move against him. You know our show, Warren, 22. It's now, the main cast members are Scott Morrison, Scott Morrison, Scott Morrison, Scott Morrison. Did you know that? But he wouldn't turn up and do the job, though. Oh, no, no, no, he just turned up. It's just symbolic, yeah, yeah, thanks to check.

In the event of a crisis, they really need to come up with a test for Scott Morrison, no, no. Oh, like some sort of a litmus, like a COVID type. Yeah, you put something in your nose and see if Scott Morrison. How would it work? See if you are Scott Morrison. How are we still talking about this guy? He lost an election for being useless. These only people went, no, we don't want any more of you.

and he's still, like, satire only lives when the Albanyi government hasn't done enough quite to be satirisable yet. It moves merch, and there are, there is plenty of old Scott Morrison merch at chasershop.com, if you're interested. The Chaser Report, news you can't trust. Now, in other news. In other news, I really want to talk about Elon Musk. Yes, while we're keeping up with batty narcissists. Because he has decided this week to go to war against Apple. Really?

Yeah. He had a conspiracy theory that Apple had dropped all their ads from Twitter, which apparently is not true. Well, but if they haven't, they probably will, given that he's turned Twitter into a assessed bit of kind of right-wing, unfettered, whatever. But as of Tuesday, Apple was still serving Twitter ads. But Elon Musk came out on Tuesday and said, Twitter's dropped their ads.

So Apple are actively advertising on Twitter. There's very few people still doing that. Apple's like one of the three that's left, and Elon Musk is attacking them. Yeah. Well, and I think it must be that Apple is about to pull all their ads. Yeah, right. He's sort of advertising that it's in process, right?

Elon Musk is in a lot of trouble, right? And one of the institutions that he's most in trouble with is the European government. Oh, yes. So Europe has all these laws around digital privacy. that means that you can't just get somebody's email address and put it on a database and then send that database over to America, right?

If you, a German, your email address has to stay on a database in Germany and only be used strictly in a way that, you know, German law allows, right? All, and there's a whole lot of stuff about online content, so, you know, in Germany for some reason, I don't know, you know, there's a whole lot of laws against, you know, having the swastika symbol and having, you know, various sort of neo-Nazi conscious. Elon wouldn't like that. I mean, he's a free speech absolutist.

Exactly. And strange enough, that absolutism tends to apply only to right-wing symbols of hate. He's a great believer in all. But if you impersonate Elon Musk, that's not free speech, that's fraud. So there's a whole lot of laws. And these laws are taken seriously by European regulators. Literally, other companies have been sued for billions by the European, you know, parliament, like the regulators there, because they're enforceable laws.

They're enforceable laws right now. So Twitter have sacked a lot of their moderators. They are now deeply breaching a lot of those laws. European regulators have already reached out. Apparently what happened is Tim Cook, the head of Apple, reached out quietly to, Elon Musk and said, now, this places us in a difficult position, because if we keep your app on our app store, then that means that we are potentially going to be sued by the European regulators and find billions of dollars as well.

And potentially have their entire app store, you know, affected. Yes, exactly. So a bit of risk management. Do you want to just clean up the hate speech thing and the digital privacy problems that you've created by taking all your engineers? And this has already happened with the app called Parlay, the other right-wing app, which got taken off the Apple and Google stores, and which Kanye West is now buying.

Because he really is the craziest man in the world. And instead of, you know, taking Tim Cook's call and going, okay, well, we'll sort that out because, you know, there are a billion iOS devices in the world, and, you know, that is a useful market for Twitter to be on. that's a useful app store for Twitter to be on. Well, especially given that his big idea for Twitter is that it become the everything app

and expand the things that's able to do. So very much only, you know, smartphone platforms. So instead of that, Elon has decided to publicly attack and name and shame Tim Cook over, you know, his claim is, well, it's a monopoly, let's break it up. We shouldn't have to pay 30% to be hosted in this store. But, you know, essentially he's just decided to go to war with Apple.

Now, Apple is the richest company in the world. Their market capitalisation is, I think, something like $2.5 trillion. Who's going to win? But also, who needs who more? Like, whose entire business is dependent on the other? Like, Apple doesn't need Twitter at all. If Twitter, if Apple pulls Twitter from the App Store,

Twitter immediately dies. Because every journalist in the world has Twitter rather than Android, has Apple rather than Android, because their phones are far more secure. Like, you'd be a stone cold moron to not have an iPhone if you're worried about, you know, your phone being broken into it. Anyway, the point is, what's going to happen? Who's going to win in this bluster off?

Is it going to be the company that just systematically makes billions of dollars each year by doing things very well and focusedly, or the guy who just changes his mind and blusters every first? But Charles, I mean, look, it's fine. It's fine. Apple might pull Twitter off the app store. There's still Google. There's still Google in the Android platform, which will do the same thing five minutes later.

Yes, yes. But you know what? You know what Elon Musk has proposed to that problem? He has said that he will create his own. His own app store. His own app store. Of course he will. Because what he needs, the thing he most needs now is a new project.

He needs a brand new business. He needs, he needs, well, maybe that he, We'll save Twitter because if he then rushes off. Because I've heard, I've heard that apparently at Tesla and Space X, the whole of upper management is basically all about preventing. They're just, the management teams are Elon prevention officers. I'm sure that. Who surround him and make him feel like he's getting stuff done

so that all the engineers can actually get stuff done. And Twitter not having that setup and him has sacked all this in the management. He's actually running it and it's a complete disaster. Maybe this is a brilliant stroke of luck by Twitter because he'll now go off and set up an app store and leave Twitter to actually be able to thrive as a company without him. Well, I mean, showing exactly the same spirit of genius that led Donald Trump to start his own social network.

Yes, no one uses. Exactly. Truth social. Truth social. Where you post a truth. There's also, I don't know whether you've seen this, Charles, But someone wrote a really insightful op-ed piece for the New York Times a few weeks ago saying the real problem Elon Musk has to deal with here,

the real risk for him, is that if he doesn't clean up what he's doing, he's going to get dumped off the App Store, off the Apple App Store. A couple of weeks ago, this person was the former head of risk management and, like, security for Twitter. So this person worked for Elon Musk and knew exactly what the strategic landmark was, what the biggest risk was to Twitter's future. Yes. Elon sacked him or he resigned because he had it, Elon, whichever one it was.

If only someone had warned him, Charles. If only someone had just said, you don't want to lose your app. It should have warned him by tweeting him. Yes. Because this is the problem. You can't trust the New York Times. The failing New York Times. That's the failing New York Times.

What he should have done is this guy should have asked Stephen King to post a tweet about how the real worry was it was going to get dumped from the App Store. Yeah. But, I mean, look, I do agree that there is a bit of a problem that Apple and Google have so much power in the marketplace for everything. I mean, they control everything that's on our phones, a large part of the music industry, a large part of the video industry, all these things. Yes, but I think the way to solve that, Dom, is to get Elon Musk to set up her. Yeah, it's to attack them head on. Yeah, that'll solve the problem.

I was quite worried about Apple and Google. And, you know, Google News, Apple News, I have huge power over what we see and thinking. Yeah, you're right. Which is quite worrying, except when you consider the alternative, which is that Elon Musk has power over what he's seeing. Well, actually, Applin, Google, run the world in quite a decent way. In fact, I don't know anyone else who's currently running much of the world doing a better job than they are.

Have you stopped using Twitter as much since he took over? No. No, I still use it a lot because it's even more fascinating. I mean, he's showing all these graphs saying that the usage has gone up on. Yeah, because the thing, every time I log into it, It seems to be only about Twitter now. The whole of Twitter seems to just be talking about itself. Is that not unlike when the Chaser podcast talks about the Chaser's business?

No, but it's like it is just, Elon Musk is the new Donald Trump. I mean, Twitter has lacked. He's going to run? Sure, he's got time. Twitter has lacked someone whose tweets were so fascinatingly terrible that you couldn't look away since Trump left. And so Elon has, you know, he may as well own it, because he's the most interesting person on it. I mean, who would have thought he would attack Apple

and try and take them on using his favorite weapon of shit Twitter polls? So his poll at the moment, Apple should publish all censorship actions that's taken that affect its customers. 85% says yes. How many voters? 1.6 million at the moment? Yeah, so nothing. Absolutely. It affects nothing at all.

And he's going to publish the Twitter files on free speech suppression soon. and he says, this is what he says now, this is a battle for the future of civilisation. If free speech is lost even in America, tyranny is all that lies ahead. Okay, so do you reckon he believes that? I think he views it as a good thing because he wants to be the tyrant.

But do you think, is he just a cynic who is taking on the cause of free speech, bluster his way out of this tight spot? No, I think he's completely genuine, but that he sees, he's such a narcissist that, Him free speech just means doing whatever I want without anyone getting annoyed. Because he keeps on banning people who make mild criticisms or stuff like that. That's not free speech.

No. That's like it's a private party and he's got someone. I don't know what his logic is, except that every single transaction in his universe is entirely just to do with his sort of unfettered desires. This is the age really now. You know what I've just realized? You know how Scott Morrison took on all those different jobs? Yes.

Oh, my God. him up and he was full of bullshit and bluster and basically was incompetent yes but believed in himself that was his gift is he just believed in himself he's the fucking australian version of elon musk this is the world we live in now we're essentially we're run by um absolute narcissists who despite demonstrated incompetence at several things want to go and do another thing that is why i run the chaser i now understand it all makes sense agis from Road part of the ACAST credit network catch you tomorrow