The Chaser Report - Sorry, New Zealand | Matt Kean

Episode Date: August 18, 2021

Today's guest is NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean – sure, he may be in favour of building a coalition to take action on climate, but can he convince Barnaby Joyce and George Christensen? Also, we apologise for New Zealand's snap lockdown, Lachlan looks at freebies for getting vaccinated, and Charles gets overly emotional about a sandwich. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of The Chaser Report is brought to you by Spotify. Do you like music? Do you like podcasts? Do you like ads? Well, two out of three is good enough. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is the Chaser Report. Hello, welcome to the Chaser Report for Thursday, the 19th of August, 2021. And Charles, we've got to talk about it.

It's just devastating. We've got to talk about the most important story in the country. New South Wales 633 cases. It's terrible. It's a disaster. What are we going to do, Charles? No, no, no, no, Dom, Dom.

There's a much, much bigger story that's happened. There can't be. Who died? No, no, no, no. There's a new sandwich shop on our street. Like up on the main street. Really? Yeah.

And I'll tell you what. It is good. It is really good, right? Okay. Let's just park the 633. Yeah. Tell me about the sandwich shop. Why is it so good?

So it's in the same spot. There used to be a book shop there for about four or five decades. So it's in that slot there because you don't need books anymore. And I had a bacon and egg roll from there the other morning. Absolutely delicious. Crispy bacon. Beautiful runny yolks in the eggs. It was just perfect, right?

And then this morning I go and get a blat. from there. Oh, I love a black. No. See, this is the thing, right? So, very good cooking, right? But I think the sandwich shop owner might be a psychopath. Oh, right?

Because, so first of all, I'd say, can I have a blad? And they go, a what? What are you talking about? And a bacon, lettuce, avocado, tomato. And she went, oh, okay, Rodio. And look, you know, but it's like there's a bloody on the menu, it says bacon, lettuce, avocatatatatat. avocado tomato, but she doesn't call it a blad.

She doesn't even know that it's called a blad. Right. But then worse than that, so she hands me this box with a nice sandwich in it, right? I open it, right? Nice fluffy bread, all this sort of stuff. Beautiful bacon. But the bottom layer of bread is like around one way. And it's got this sort of domed top on the bread.

and the top layer of bread is the other way around. I have never been served in my 45 years on this planet. I've never been served a sandwich where the top and bottom layer of breads don't match up. It wasn't a square piece of bread. It was just madness. This person is clearly a psychovet. Charles, we've talked about this.

You have a tendency to turn every single story. into just a downward dwindling spiral into terribleness and misery I thought this is going to be a good story you said there was a great new sandwich shop I went with it because it wasn't talking about COVID and yet now somehow

the fact that near us because we live near each other the sandwich stop doesn't know how to do a proper sandwich that's even more depressing to me than 633 Charles it's even worse you built my hope and then you crushed it you crushed my hope you stomped on it and then you served that upside down I am not like I'm not comfortable sending my kids outside anymore

not because of the coronavirus but because there's this sandwich maker on the loose who puts the top layer of bread around the wrong way it's horrible I'm particularly glad that we just spent three minutes discussing a sandwich shop that is hyper specific to the two of us and no one even knows where we live when on today's show we have the Environment Minister from New South Wales Matt Keen talking about building a consensus to actually do something about climate change I think to be honest, I hope that that interview is also going to be all about your sandwich, Charles,

because I think the minister needs to know. I'm going to put those questions to the minister. But then, and also we've got Loughlin has done a bit of research to find out how to make money out of being vaccinated. Amazing. Because there's all these little benefits and everything like that. We should get to that, Charles. But before we do, any more comments on the sandwich?

Well, I mean, I must admit I did end up eating it. But the whole way through, it was very skis. scary thing to do. Again, the bacon was very crispy, probably a little bit too much avocado, and the bread was way too fluffy. They needed to get some sourdough. Announcing the new podcast from the Chaser Podcast Network, Charles's lunch, in the podcast. Fascinatingly, everyday Charlesville live podcast, what he's having for lunch. He'll review it in great detail and express how it makes him feel. Coming soon to a podcast app near you. But first of all, let's go to Rebecca Day and Muno in the Chaser Newsroom.

And find out what she had for lunch yesterday. In a bit to get recognised as a proper government, the Taliban have begun to pump funding into their marginal electorates. The Taliban have given their supporters car parks, canoe sheds, bottles of wine and swimming pools, all in the hopes that the Australian Liberal government will see what they are doing as standard government behaviour. Channel 7 has announced its soap opera Home and Away

is being renamed to Home due to COVID restrictions. The change is designed to better reflect the world during these challenging times, however the network acknowledges it may come as a shock to the tens of people still watching television. Australia has been struck by a brutal second wave of DIY lockdown mullets. The homemade haircuts are rapidly increasing in popularity due to men having no clue what to do with their appearance other than an ironic retro-bogan throwback.

Fashionologists are describing the craze as the worst crisis. of a mid-lifetime. That's the least depressing part of the Chaser report. I'm Rebecca Deunamuno. The Chaser Report is sponsored by Spotify. Ah, a big man's got a problem with the ads, does he? Well, what are you going to do about it? Listen to the radio.

That's what I thought. Know your place. Usually when we say this sort of thing on this podcast, we are introducing someone who's playing character or doing a silly voice, but this actually is New South Wales Environment Minister Matt Kee and Matt thanks for joining us. Hey, Dom. Hey, Charles.

Thanks for having me. Now, you've made headlines during the week because you're calling for a new style of politics in Australia to address climate change. And I want to get to that in a sec, but first of all, the IPCC report came out last week. It's 3,900 pages long. As Environment Minister, have you read the whole report, all 3,900 pages of it?

I'm going to get in trouble here, but I have not read it all. But I have had a very good briefing from my department, and I've read the executive summary. Well, hang on. No, come on. You're the environment, Mr. You're being paid by the people of New South Wales to do your job, and you don't even bloody read the whole report. Well, I mean, I've read the key bits of the report, and I follow your podcast.

Oh, have it? You've read the key bits of the report, have you? you. Okay, well, I've got the report here. Okay, let's just go to a random page. Page 304, what does it say on page 304? Matt, team. Well, from memory, Charles, that's the part that says what the plan that Barnaby Joyce is looking for. So when he's saying, I'm yet to see the plan, that's the part of the report, which says Bobby, it's all laid out for you.

Oh, wait a minute. So when he said, what's the plan, what's the plan? did he not know that there is a 3,900-page report that outlines a very, very well-costed plan? Is that what's going on with Barnaby? Well, he forgot to look at page 394, as you said, Charles. And, you know, not only did he do that, he forgot to look at the other 10 years' worth of reports that have been churned out by the world's best scientists. But that aside, this was just another example of a plan for Barnaby to say,

that's the plan we need. So just talking about Barnaby for a seat, do you have to go to meetings with him as Environment Minister? Like, do you ever sort of cross paths? Charles, I've never met him. Oh, you've never met him? I've never met him. You know what?

When he was on the backbench and, you know, after his sort of time in the wilderness, he used to write me these letters as when I was as the Environment Minister and he'd cross out Minister and he'd say, Mattie. This is very familiar from the deputy, well, the member for New England. So I feel like we have a very close bond. Yeah, right.

She got to Armadale and have a beer with him. It's probably the only way to actually change his mind. Just go there open. Just as soon as you pour a schooner, right, from what I understand in the seat of New England, Barnaby appears within seconds. Well, Dom, as soon as Arny Gladys lets me leave, Hornsby, that's on the first thing I'm going to do. Drive to New England, have a beer with Barnaby.

Are you allowed to call her? I feel like it's going to Well, I feel like she's not going to be tuning in to this podcast tomorrow. Yeah, you're safe. If what she doesn't know won't hurt her. All you need to do is just print out the IPCC report on 4,000 pages of printer paper, put them in the seat of the car and just drive up. But look, I'm interested in this notion of the plan because from what I understand,

Matt, you actually outlined a plan for New South Wales to, you know, hit net zero, which is this the plan Barnaby should be reading? Well, I have this radical idea that Barnaby seems to be very offended by that the elected officials' job is to actually come up with the plan and implement it and then they go to the public or they go to the public and say, here's our plan, and then they implement it. And if the public don't like it, then they voted out.

So this is quite a radical idea in the Westminster system of government, Barnaby clearly doesn't share it. Yeah, well, the standard practices I understand it, is that whenever climate policy comes up, it's a great chance to get rid of your leader. Isn't that what happens generally in both parties? Well, that has been the recent experience, but I don't think it has to be that way.

I think that what we need to do is build consensus. I think we need to find common ground within the parties and amongst the parties. And that's what we did in New South Wales. I mean, we legislated the biggest renewable energy policy in the nation's history here in New South Wales, everyone came on board apart from Mark Latham and One Nation, and quite frankly, if they opposed it, it must be a good policy.

Yeah, but the Nats aren't on board, are they for a lot of this stuff? I mean, like in your speech that you made earlier this week, which created headlines, you call for a new politics, which is all this consensus building stuff, but you say people should be punished at the ballot box if they don't sign up to net zero by 2050. But that is, that's not Barnaby Joyce. Like, are you saying that people shouldn't vote for Barnaby Joyce? Well, I mean, it's funny you raised that because the Nats in New South Wales actually have been the key drivers about climate policies.

And not because they're woke greenies, far from it. I mean, I don't think anyone's ever accused John Barilaro of that. He supported our renewable energy zone strategy and our net zero plan because he saw it meant jobs in the bush, investment going into the regions and a more prosperous future for everyone in New South Wales. Okay, so that's at the state level. But what about it at a federal level? Like there's George Christensen, Barnaby Joyce,

these are not people who are signing up to what you're talking about. Like, are you saying that people should vote against them? Well, I'm saying that I think we can all do our bit to help us get to where we need to be when it comes to reducing our emissions. And that includes choosing who we bank with, where we invest our superannuation. Obviously, the next step is when you go to vote at the, a ballot box. Look at who your local candidate is that's sticking their hand up and ask them whether they're going to take climate change seriously and put in place the policies needed for us to

not only protect our environment, but protect our economy. Have you suggested to George Christensen that he offset all of those flights to Manila? I mean, it'll be expensive, but it'd be good for the planet. Well, I hope George is adhering to the health orders at the moment, not traveling more than five kilometres outside his jurisdiction. But I mean, this is the point. We all, the citizens have a role to play in helping us get to next year. It's not just going to be up to the New South Wales government or the local government or the federal government. They've got really important roles to play and I'm not dismissing that. But I think each and every one of us can do our bit. One of the ways we can have our say is at the ballot box. So there's a lot of

science that says that the Australia's, the federal government's climate target for 2030 is less than half what it needs to be. Do you agree with that? I think we should listen to the science. I think It's, you know, we listen to the best experts when it comes to dealing with this pandemic. Hang on, hang on. But surely, like, you know, like, surely a job half done is better than no job at all. Like, you know, look at the COVID. Look at New South Wales. Like, we just didn't quite do the job well enough. And, and, uh, fine. It's fine. Look, I know people talk about this not being a race. But let me say when it comes to climate change, I think, it is a race. You're not going to win the 100 metre sprint at the Olympics if you're walking

it, okay? So I hope that answers your question, Charles. Now, you want to listen to the scientists. Craig Kelly knows a scientist who reckons you can solve climate change with hydroxychloroquine. I think Craig Kelly, look, as a politician, he makes a good used furniture salesman. And I think Craig Kelly should stick to his lane. You know, that's what he was good at before he got into politics. Is he still in the coalition or is he now an independent? No, thankfully, thankfully, I no longer have to apologize for being a member of the same political party as Craig Kelly.

I mean, for a long time, Craig Kelly was trying to tell people like me that we were the outliers in the Liberal Party. But I think Craig's worked out actually he's the one out of step, not only with the Liberal Party, but the rest of society. Now, so essentially under your plan, the Coal, in New South Wales is dead, right? Isn't there a point for some of these politicians who are sort of saying,

well, hang on, these are tens of thousands of jobs that you're sort of threatening? Like, isn't it pretty bad to, like, even if you agree with the science and everything like that, don't they have a sort of a point, which is you shouldn't just sort of throw people out of jobs? Like, there are actually lots of...

There's some pain. There's coal mining jobs. Isn't that a point that we should be doing something about? Well, I think the first thing I'd say is that it's not our plan that is killing the coal industry. Those coal jobs that are at risk, they're not at risk due to domestic policy. They're at risk because of decisions in boardrooms in Tokyo and Seoul and Singapore right around the world. I mean, today, 50% of the world's GDP has committed to net zero emissions and they're putting in place the policies to achieve that. That means there's, you know, a limited time frame on the exports of coal.

So those jobs are at risk, not because of domestic policies being enacted, but because of these global megatrends. And we need to embrace that reality. So Craig Kelly can stick his head in the sand and pretend like this will all go away. But I think the job of people like me is to identify the risks, put in place the policies that will mitigate them. And can I give you an example? I mean, there's no place better able to benefit from this transition than the hunter.

I mean, it's got a deep water port. It's got a highly skilled industrial workforce. A lot of the transmission and electricity infrastructure is already set up there. So, you know, we can create you industries around green steel, green ammonia, green hydrogen, which is going to be required to power the rest of the world. So why wouldn't we grab that opportunity? I mean, you say that and it sounds good. but what if I say to you the words clean coal?

Doesn't that mean you're wrong? But that's like an oxymor? But it's clean. But it's cold without the bad stuff because I used the word clean. See what I did? But that's just a marketing exercise. And, you know, there are people in politics that are better marketers of these things than me. I like to stick with the facts and the reality.

And the reality is that we're not only a sunburnt nation, we're a sun-bless nation. We've got the best renewable resources in the world. and we should be harnessing that. That coal industry is at risk because of forces outside our control. Let's recognize that. Let's also grab these new opportunities that are emerging. When you meet with Barnaby Joyce and I really hope you do, what are the chances you can get into install a solar panel on that hat of his?

Well, I mean, the key thing about solar panels is that you need cheap land and a large space to deploy it. Now, I reckon that hat, that's a very large space. There's nothing, I mean, unless someone's going to take it up with advertising, a solar panel would be pretty good. I don't know what he's going to use that cheap, reliable, clean energy to do. Well, no, I think he's 100% powered by ethanol at the moment. Well, I think if we could harness Barnaby's anger and frustration at climate change, there's a, you know, we've got a renewable resource there to power the entire electricity grid forever. It would be great.

What we do is we keep on just riling him up. That'll be a sustainable electricity source to power the grid forever. Now, I've got to ask you this final question, just before we go. What's the mood like in cabinet meetings at the moment? Like, I know you've had the whole cabinet in confidence thing. But, you know, like, does anyone dare bring up the whole let's wait 11 days before we do anything about this Delta outbreak thing? Or is that sort of a bit of a taboo topic at the moment?

Yes, notwithstanding Cabinet in confidence. I think Cabinet is genuinely concerned. I mean, no one's seen Delta. I mean, Alpha was very different, and the techniques we put in place to manage that successfully did not work when it came to managing Delta. There is genuine concern. I think there's a genuine view amongst my Cabinet colleagues

that we need, the priority is to deliver, you know, a safe landing to the whole community, and the best way to protect the economy is to protect people's health. The sooner we get this on top of this, the sooner we can start getting back to normal, but you've got to crush the transmission in the community first. Look, it is great that we've got some politicians listening to scientific consensus and actually acting on the basis of what they say. It won't ever happen in federal politics, but it's nice to hear it happening on a state level, Matt.

Thanks for joining us. Thanks, Tom. Thanks, Charles. Are you sick of following outdated religions that can't keep up with who you're allowed to make fun of? Hell yeah, I am. Introducing the new Chaser Religion. Wow!

The Chaser Religion is now seeking members to mindlessly obey our Lord High Truthsayer, His Holiness Pope Charles the Firth. Well, you had me it mindlessly obey. The chaser religion doesn't discriminate against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transsexuals or transvestites. It doesn't even discriminate against women. Yeah, wait, what's the point then? The chaser religion doesn't even support pedophiles.

Are you sure it's a religion? And if you confess your heinous crimes to us, we won't cover it up. Then why would anyone join? The chaser religion. Join today. Nobody else has... Charles, I think you've seriously misunderstood. of the target audience for this product. The Chaser Report, news you know you can't trust. We're doing our bit to get Australia vaccinated,

particularly our younger team members. Lachlan got the jab. Hey, Lachlan. Hey, Tom. Yeah, I got the jab. How sick are you? Oh, absolutely woeful. I had probably three hours of sleep last night.

It was dreadful. Really? From Astra or from Pfizer? Rabies. I thought that was lip gloss. Now I'm just realizing it's. It's foam, sorry. It was funny.

At first, I sort of wasn't sure about getting the vaccine because there wasn't really anything in it for me. But then I found out about all these amazing free rewards that you can get. Like, I'm finally stoked because I'm finally getting something out of the vaccine. Oh, yeah, well, other than avoiding death. Great. Yeah, I was going to say other than immunity. What's in it for you?

What are the perks? Yeah. So basically, it started in the USA, but there's a whole bunch of companies that are offering incentive programs to customers if they're vaccinated. So rewards and promotions where if you can prove that you've been vaccinated, they'll give you something for free. And like, I love a discount. I love a cheeky bargain.

You do. So I found a whole bunch of the weirdest rewards that some brands have offered for people for getting vaccinated and I thought I'd share some of them with you. Excellent. Cool. Yeah, so as I said, it started in America, these promotions. In Illinois, there was a gun range that would offer customers two free hours of rounds at their gun range per jab.

Get your shot and get to have a shot. I see. Have a shot to get a shot? We'd rate that in this country. That's a very Scott Morrison. You've got to have a shot to get a shot. I mean, at this point in the pandemic, I would actually quite like to shoot guns and just have at the other end of the rifle range.

They're not going to hand out guns to people in this country right now. Not right now. I mean, if you want guns, that's what the ADF are roaming the streets for. That's true. Another one of the big things that happened were vaccine lotteries. So companies would put your name in a lottery if you'd been vaccinated, and there was a reward for whoever's name was drawn out. One of my favorite ones that they did was the American National History Museum

offered the winner of their vaccine lotto a selfie with the big whale in their museum. Just a peculiar little thing to offer your fans. That was the hot ticket, was it? Yeah. Oh, I think that alone was what got the American jab percentage up across the 50%. See, that's what we need here. We need, first of all, we need to reopen the museums. Yeah, I was going to say, it doesn't quite work here yet.

Although I will say, if they do reopen everything, what they should offer in a lottery similar to the whale thing is just a tour of all the big stuff. Yeah, you get to see the big banana. Yeah, and the big ram, the big marino it's called. And the big shrimp, it's hot, big brown. You'll like this, Gabby, because one of the few things that some Australian companies did offer, the first people to get onto it here were Qantas and Virgin who would offer you free frequent flypoints for getting vaccinated, which is so convenient because of all the travel we're doing right now.

Yay. Yay, can you spend them in the airport shops? You can't actually. Can you? Yeah, yeah, Qantas points you can turn into things will actually use like iPads. You know what did actually get me? If the airports decided to make everything duty-free like it is when you first go overseas, like a taste of international travel would be just give me the vodka for half the price, you know?

People have actually done that. They've done flights. They go in a loop, not from Australia, but overseas, where they go in a loop from the airport out of that country's airspace and then back again so the people can go duty-free shopping. Just because during the pandemic, people still want to buy cheap stuff. Why bother wasting the fuel? Kwanis actually did, Kwanis ran flights that went in.

in a big loop and they were hugely subscribed last year. I don't want the flight. I want the cheap stuff. I'm so sure that that's like the definition of a first world problem. Oh, I miss flying. What kind of Jeffrey Bezos situation is that? I can pretend that I'm rich with culture again by sitting on a gross airplane and never even getting the satisfying part of going somewhere.

No one likes the flying part. The Qantas mystery flights were you'd get up and you'd get up and you'd go around for a few hours and come back down. The Tiger Air experience was you'd turn up to the airport and then just wait in queue for four hours, find out your flight was cancelled and then go home. I've got two more little promos that were offered. There was one, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. I'm not kidding about this.

This is completely true. There was a strip club in Vegas called Larry Flint's Hustler Club. If you want to Google that and check it out. I don't need to Google that to believe it. Would you want to Google that? Not only would this club offer you a free drink if you could prove you were vaccinated, but they would offer you a free private dance with a vaccinated dancer. I mean, you'd want to be vaccinated.

Wouldn't you go to the Larry Flit Hustler Club against many things? It's many, many things. I like it because no matter how dirty you want to get, it's always important to be COVID safe. I love this. This is proving that we've been wrong about America. You know, America is full of innovation. I'm not entirely sure socially distant slap dancers

are going to take off but who knows? What do you mean? In this country, that would slap. Finally, my favourite promo was actually at a bar

in Melbourne who up until the TGA shut this promotion down they would offer any customers who had been vaccinated a free beer but not just any beer have a guess.

Corona. Great PR for both the beer and the virus. Oh, that's nice. What's the choice are going to give away to encourage

vaccine take up charles have you got anything to give last i checked this company was nearly bankrupt i've got lots of drugs but i don't really want to give them away and you've got a whole army of free lonely interns surely you could throw us out on the street getting us to give away free hugs or something like that yeah that's it's not bad yeah yeah free hug from an intern feels a bit sex trafficky yeah no i think Lachlan, just go and hug a member of the ADF and see what happens. Congratulations on doing you bit, Lachlan. Getting vaccinated both for yourself, the country and your future lap dancing career. Thanks, Dom. I'm doing my part.

When I get vaccinated, Lachlan, I expect you to be the vaccinated dancer when I go to the strip club. I'll work on my hip gyrating. Nice. Oh, God. This episode of The Chaser Report is sponsored by Spotify. So you're trying to listen to Kanye's new album. Nice, nice. Wouldn't it be a shame if someone would have just put six unskippable ads in a row?

Oh, yeah, love ads. Charles, before we go, we have a painful duty ahead of us. Something that we really need to do in our roles as the presenters of the Premier Daily podcast produced in Australia, except for the ones that write better. We need to apologise, Charles. We need to apologise to the country of New Zealand. What? Why?

New South Wales managed to cede their delta over there. Not only if we seeded it pretty much around the rest of the country, it made it all the way across the Tasman to New Zealand. Oh, that is terrible news. I am not smiling at all. I am not. That is just terrible. I would never wish that upon anyone, even New Zealand.

When asked why they needed to immediately go to a level four lockdown, DeSyndaerne responded with one word, Australia. But she really should have said Sydney. She just should have said Sydney because we know what it was. She should have said Bondi. I mean, we should get her on the, let's get her on the show. We should get her on the show. We should apologize in person.

But the other thing is Bondi has been setting trends for a very long time. I mean, surfwear, lifestyle wear, influences, and now Delta outbreaks. We lead the region. We do lead the region. And let me just say, I'm shocked that someone from New Zealand, was in Bondi. That's true. All right,

Jacinda Ardern, you are formally invited to come on to the Chase Report podcast. A lot of politicians do. I know you're busy, but when you've got a moment? I mean, she had time to go straight on to TikTok

or something and answer questions from people about it. So I think she's got time for us, surely. Yes, yeah, definitely, no, she'll be on there. Look, set your watch to it.

Tomorrow morning, we'll have her on the podcast. So it's very likely. Yeah. And in the meantime, time Madam Prime Minister, we are very sorry. Yes, no, that is terrible because I sort of

feel like, yeah. It was the one beacon of hope, but now that beacon has been turned off too. Although, I must say every time I hear about another previously smug and critical jurisdiction grappling with one of our outbreaks that we've said to them, I do, part of me guys, see, it's not actually that easy, is it?

Victoria slash ACT, yes, Queensland slash New Zealand. Such shit, everyone else. Ha, see? Where the people were. sitting in the bottom of the deep hole full of spikes and just getting everyone else to jump in. Welcome aboard.

We're the fuck with. We're the people who used to sit at the back of the bus and spag on everyone else. Yeah, and that spag now contains COVID-19 Delta variant. All right, leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. If you'd be so kind, and today's code word is on the side of the virus. The side of the virus. There's been some very funny reviews this week, by the way.

Please add yours and read it up for them all out on Friday. episode. Our gear is provided by road microphones. We're part of the ACAST Creator Network. Catch you tomorrow. See ya.