The Chaser Report - Teaching Penny Wong To Say 'No'

Episode Date: June 16, 2024

Charles has made an incredible discovery -- Penny Wong cannot say no. Or answer any question directly it would seem. 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. Now, Charles, you said you had an idea for this episode, but you didn't want to tell me what it was. At what point, how many minutes in are we going to be before you reveal all? No, I'm revealing it right now, which is Dom. I want to set you a challenge. Right.

Which is to say the word no. Can you say the word no? No. Thank you. I've got a two-year-old. I hear it a lot. Okay. See, that's not a hard word to say.

Is it? Is that not a... I mean, that's a fairly easy word to say. It's like it's got two letters, right? Like, it's not that hard to just go, no. Yeah, it's actually quite liberating. No. No.

No. Yeah. So, I just want to ask to go through an interview that Penny Wong did on Sunday morning. Right. And see if we can spot her saying no. Let's have a listen to whether it's possible for her to say no, right? That's what I want to do. You're looking at me sceptically.

I haven't been on social media all day. I have no idea what this is about. And Penny Wong, as we know, is an extremely skilled and careful user of language. That's why she's our diplomat in chief. Yes. And, you know, the Premier of China is here at the moment. Like, she's got to be careful, right? But it's got nothing to do with that.

Although, actually, she got asked a direct question about the pandas, the answer of which should have been no. She couldn't say it. It's very funny. She can't say the word no. It's a real problem. What an obliging lady. Let's find out how that sounds after this.

The whole controversy around Penny Wong in the last 24 hours has been that she went on insiders and she got asked lots of things, mostly about pandas and Chinese visit and, you know, we're getting along with China now. But then inevitably it got to the whole. Gaza, Israel, sending arms to Gaza type problem. And it's very simple, right. The Greens have accused the government of sending arms to Israel, or at least participating. Helping Israel arms.

Yeah, exactly. Helping arm Israel. Being part of that whole, you know, vibe of helping Israel. Yeah. And pointed out that in vibing with the Israelis on various sort of parts for missiles or parts for planes or whatever, that essentially they're participating in genocidal sort of stuff which actually breaches several treaties

that Australia is party to. Are we party to the no genocide treaties? Yes, I know. Huge mistake. Oh, no, and it goes back years. Where's the flexibility? Oh, I know, exactly. Why would you want to bind future governments?

No. On that sort of rule, when you just say all you need is a little bit of circumstance. In fairness, I think it was sort of, you know, in that giddy period after World War II. Oh, yes, when there were moral absolutes and killing millions of people was saying it was unambiguously wrong. You know, and, you know, like there were limits to, you know, letting civilians get in the way and stuff like that. Like, you know, you couldn't justify things. There was a whole thought that maybe if we came together as an international community, we could, you know, it's quite funny to think about in war.

I'm going to go to war. I don't know. And you remember how they're going to do it with the U.S. went security council. Remember that? And if all the great powers, if all the most powerful countries in the world and France got together around the table, how did France get in on that,

by the way? Anyway, that would stop all future wars. But they didn't think about what if the people in the security council are the ones making the wars or the ones allied with the people making the wars. They didn't think that through, did they? Yeah, yeah. But actually, it's the permanent members of the

Security Council who are the actors who play with all the other countries. Oh, Russia's declared war. Whoops, the Security Council's no use on this one. Anyway. So, diplomacy is a tough art. It was, I mean, it was a funny period, wasn't it?

Yeah, it's sort of like, you know, well, you said you've got children. Yeah. You know, when they're growing up and they, you know, believe in the tooth theory or the sand. Oh, yeah, yeah. Or, you know. Or universal human rights. Yeah, or yeah, exactly. Or something will be done about climate change.

You know all the, my kids, my kids are in their teens. They still believe that something will be done about climate change. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's right. I know that somehow billions of humans will stop putting them their own self-interest first that they're something for the collective good. And get this, I found out the other day that my kids think that somebody's going to one day solve the housing crisis.

That they're going to have houses. Yeah, they think that they're going to get houses rather than just be on the streets. But they can stay with you. You can't they, till they're 40 or 50. No, I've said to them the day they turn 18. It's out of here. Where? Because I've been practicing this great word called no.

But where will they go? They'll have to stay here. The street, they'll turn tricks. Okay, all right. Back to Penny Wong. Look, you can see, we're currently recording this in my house. My 15-year-old has set up what is rightly described as a, like, shit show of lots. of plants, I assume he's going to eventually twig that the best plant to grow is marijuana,

and he'll be raking it in. Oh, he'll be a landlord. So he's kind of good at hydroponics and shit, isn't he? Yeah, yeah, that's what he does, yeah, he does hydroponics. But he stupidly uses it on, you know, aeroids and Monsteras and all these beautiful plants rather than the good shit. Although that said, Charles, to be fair, these days, if you're going to start a business, I am.

selling fancy, like, pop plants to rich people? It's probably about as good as marijuana. Like, Monsterra is almost as good as marijuana. Sell pot plants to homeowners. Yeah, that's right. Just go door to door. What you do is you go to a shady alley and boomers come and buy plants from you.

And what you do is you make it a subscription service because everything is a subscription service. Yeah, yeah. That's a very good idea. And also, you don't sell them the plan. You license them the plan. So that you can retain the rights to the plant. drug dealers do that? Why don't drug dealers have

subscriptions and licensing? It's a good model. They'd be like Adobe. Most drug addicts I've ever known tend to sort of operate in a subscription style way with a drug dealer. Once you're on, it's very hard to not subscribe. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, that's chilly. Anyway, back to Penny Long. It gets on to Gaza and David Steers. Spears. David, whatever his name is. David Spears says, Australia does sell parts, of course, to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that's used by Israel.

Is Australia being consistent with that treaty, right? Like, that's the whole nub of the matter. He's like, is there, you know, is Australia complicit in supplying stuff that's participating in genocide, right? So the whole point is, all she has to say is, no, actually we're not. But, you know, like, fuck the Greens, we're pro-genocide, right? Instead, she says this. We have not exported weapons to Israel, either since the conflict began or, in fact,

for the last five years. But this is... You're sort of avoiding the question. Okay, so Spears says but part, and she'll go say, no. Like, obviously she's saying, well, we're consistent with the treaty, which means we're not exploiting parts. But we've got a treaty obligation not to... Yeah, and she wouldn't, she'd be clear.

She'd be going, well, like, if we're, you know, not selling parts, then she'd just say no, because otherwise the Greens are totally wrong. Like, she's accusing the Greens of being wrong. So the answer must be no, right? Instead, she says this. I do think that the Greens propaganda about this has been... just so irresponsible, and you really can't come to no conclusion other than they are using misinformation in order to, frankly, incite conflict here in Australia.

And I think that is really reprehensible. So the thing is, she can say very clearly stuff about the Greens, but did you notice what she actually said in that quote that I just find? Well, it sounds to me as though the Greens are about to unleash war on the streets of Australia. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Adam Bad's always had that glint in his eye, isn't he? Well, I think this is the thing. I mean, who is supplying missiles to the Greens?

That is the question. And also, I think if you're looking at Australia's complicity in this whole, you know, Israel, Gaza, whole thing, it really is the Greens that are the problem here. It's not Australia selling parts to Israel or Israel itself. It really is the Greens, isn't it? I mean, the Greens are the problem. From what Penny Wong's saying, it's quite troubling. Yeah.

But she's a very experienced diplomat. Yeah, exactly. But, Charles, there's an issue here that I don't want to be unkind, and I certainly don't want to be unpatriotic. But do we really, is it really the case, Charles, and I haven't looked at this story, is it really the case that any Australian technology is of any use to anyone anywhere at all ever? Are you telling me that there's a part that is made in Australia that is in some way useful for anyone else's war effort, even our own? Yes. Because, look, I understand the whole point.

made that we're not supposed to help with genocide or whatever. But there's part of me that goes, they're buying our stuff and it's of use. This is a good news story. Like, this is quite surprising. Yes. It certainly goes against my preconceptions of what we would have to offer. I would have thought, okay, we sell some steel or whatever and maybe it gets made into weapons by people with, you know, manufacturing capabilities that can do anything at all.

Yeah. We export uranium, whatever. Yeah. But they're actually using our stuff. And you know, because I know a bit about this, you know what they're selling. What are they selling? There's a little compartment in the F-35. Oh, let me guess, it's an ashtray.

It's a little pop-out ashtray. It's got from like a king's water's water. Better than that, it's to hold your begemite. The Chaser report. More news. Less often. They're selling the little begemite holders. Is it a selfie stick?

Because we invented the word selfie. Oh, yeah. So the, you know, Tom Cruise-style airline pilots, you know, fighter pilots. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. Hills hoist? Is it a Hill's hoist? There's not many.

Is it Wi-Fi? There's not many Australian inventions. I think. No, no. No, it doesn't have to be an Australian invention. It's just being made here. It would just be part of the military industrial complex where they go, we've got to make everyone complicit in the supply chain.

Oh. It would be something, it would definitely be something made in Adelaide. And it would be like, a bolt or something. Why don't you make anything in Adelaide other than wine? And mistakes. They made a fucking submarine. Our entire submarine industry was there.

They've got skilled people. Isn't that the problem with our submarine? Oh, yeah. That's why we're buying the next generation. Like, we've decided to go over hyper, no, no, we talked a lot about this. We've decided to go over hypothetical decades off submarines rather than make another one in Adelaide. Like, that's a pretty big indictment of the South Australian submarine industry, with no

offense. But the Collins class, like if I had made the Collins class, I would, be saying, you know what, let's import the next batch. No, but we're extending their usefulness to 2039. All right, so we may or may not, we don't know, be complicit in what's... And sorry, can I just pull you up there? The reason what...

I reckon our subs, you know, they were substandard, but that's what you want in the sub. And they knew, like, the government under Tony Abbott knew that there was going to be... They had to get the submarines moving. And the whole reason the submarine industry collapsed It was, you know, they knew five years before it collapsed. The whole reason it collapsed is because Joe Hockey is a fuck-wit.

I mean, it's not a complete explanation. No, okay, yeah, okay. Anyway, point is, what I'm saying is, what am I saying? I'm saying, she doesn't seem any, she just doesn't seem able to say no. But I relate to that child. This is why I'm so overworked at the moment, because people ask me to do things and I don't say no when I should. But it's a big problem. It's very, very, very.

very stressful. Poor Penny Wong. Have you thought about it from her perspective? Oh, yeah, she's just a people pleaser. She's just, that's right. She can't say no. Oh, I see. This is actually...

She just needs a bit of therapy. She does. She needs to sit down. Just reassess her commitments and work out, like it's not a dirty word to say no. You know, like how they're taking the pandas back. We're getting the pandas back, yeah, apparently. No, no, no. We're not getting them back?

No, no, they're taking them. They didn't breed. I thought this was the big issue for this week is whether or not we're going to get more pandas or... No, no, they're taking them away. because they didn't breed. So it's like, you know, faulty goods or something. Are we not going to get pandas?

Well, David Spears asked that exact question. And he says, on a brighter note, Minister, will Adelaide Zoo be getting some new pandas? And the answer, in my understanding, is no. Right. But instead, she flubs even that. My family, like many other South Australian families, have enjoyed the pandas over many years.

I went to drop my daughter off at school and the class had done a panda conservation, a panda habitat project that was on the wall. And, you know, the pandas have been a great part of the lives of many Adelaide families. And so we look forward to them. That continuing, obviously, I can't make announcements ahead of time, but I can say to you, I'll be heading off to the zoo this wall.

You'll be there in a couple of hours. She doesn't answer anything straight. Well, surely it's for the Chinese Premier to announce the pandas, if we're getting more panders. And I mean, surely the simplest thing is if we just get robot panders, isn't it? Oh, yeah. We just get robot panders. Yes, with parts made in Australia.

Parts made in Australia. It can be used as weapons of war if needed. I think that'll just clear everything up. Genocidal panders. Well, potentially. Yeah. Well, we could export them to China and they could use them against the Uighurs. Oh, this is why Penny Wong's job is hard.

Yeah, okay. You try being Australia's foreign minister. Because I know how to say yes, I know how to say no. I've done a lot of therapy to be able to say no. Have you? Yeah. How do you say that? You need like three years at least of intensive therapy to not be a people, please, I reckon.

That's the whole problem with the federal cabinet is they're all completely, they don't believe in any sort of psychological healing. What they've done is they've lived a public life rather than be able to examine themselves. Although, Charles, on that point, looking at the latest polls, they're not pleasing people. But that's the problem with the people. But that's the problem with the people pleaser is, like, you don't get anywhere. Like, it doesn't please anyone to be a people pleaser. People pleases are annoying people. Well, on the bright.

Like, you know, the stalker in baby Randy, she was a people pleaser. I mean, on the bright side, Charles, none of this matters. Because we're seeing it to be consumed in the war on our streets fermented by the Greens. Oh, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, oh, so that's going to happen any moment. We've sort of buried the league. start and arm ourselves. We buried the lead in this podcast, which is that war is imminent.

War is imminent. And it's civil war. See, that's the thing we never saw coming. And Penny Wong's right to pick it. Like, it's the misinformation of the Greens that's leading to the destruction of Australian society. And all they're sort of like, oh, you can have renters rights and, oh. But again, in the politest possible way.

People should be able to be housed. As with our technology, I mean, have the Greens ever managed to convince us? anybody of anything, really? I mean, in all the long years, I mean, there are a few people who vote for them. But a mass mobilisation of people on the streets of all the things that the Greens know how to do. Getting Australians to rise up against their oppressors,

the track record, I think, is the politest possible way, it's slim. Won't they just follow the Bolshevik method and you don't need to convince anything? You just need, like, a few people with a few guns and then you just take over the whole country. Because the guns are made in Australia. That's the main point. Yeah, that's good.

Our gear is from Road. We're part of the iconic class network. I feel like this podcast at the beginning had more promise that it ended up having. You know what you should have said, would you have the idea? But no.