The Chaser Report - The Joke That Collapsed A Government | Mark Humphries

Episode Date: August 9, 2022

Mark Humphries shares the news that he will soon be hosting the Midwinter Ball and seeks advice from Charles and Dom. Charles shares an anecdote of the time he wrote a joke for the event that was so funny it lead to the collapse of a government. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Hello, and welcome to The Chaser Report. It is Wednesday the 10th of August. Charles Firth and Domite with Mark Humphreys once again. Hello, Mark. Oh, boom, boom, boom. Let me hear you say, Wayo. As your serve improves, since we last spoke. Oh, not radically.

No, but, no, we did mention about playing tennis against Peter Fitzsimon. He also invited me to play basketball recently, and I think I feigned illness because I just didn't want to work out, I didn't want to find out what part of my basketball game was going to collapse. Your body would have been destroyed. Like, he is so big and so strong. But you would be good at basketball, wouldn't you? You're about eight foot.

Exactly. I would be good unless Peter Simon was on the court. I can just imagine him smashing the ball out of your hands. Exactly, that's it. Tough it up, Humphrey. Exactly. He suddenly becomes de Kembe Motombo, yeah. We've got some big news about matters in Cambridge.

All right, so one of the big fixtures of the parliamentary career, the comedy career, the satire world, the midwinter ball. hosted this year by Mr. Mark Humphrey's apparently. Yes, that's right. I've got the call up. And so, yeah, next month I'll be doing, I think they said 20 minutes? I was like, oh, what? 20 minutes.

That's quite a lot. Yeah, that is a lot for you, isn't it? Because you do, what, one, two-minute sketch every two weeks. Yes, that's your job. 20 minutes back to back. I don't know what that's... That's a whole year's work. I should be working right now.

So, but I'm looking forward. I want to do it because I always love the White House press correspondence dinner, and that's the way I'm sort of approaching it as a sort of roast of... Well, this is the thing that kills me about the midwinter ball, is never having been to it, is there's this great event in America. I mean, certainly the press dinner is one of them, but there's also the thing called the Al Smith dinner, which is only during the campaign, so it's every four years,

just before election day, both presidential candidates go, and they have to do a comedy set, And it's the only time you ever see political candidates anywhere in the world being required to audition as stand-up comedians for the job of leader. It's great. And Obama was very good. And even George Bush nailed those ones. I watched a bit of Clinton and Trump.

And I thought they both had good gear. And, you know, they obviously... I don't remember Biden's. Did Biden do it? It didn't happen, I don't think. Maybe Biden just did it solo. I think Trump boycotted it or something like that. Because it raises money for charity, so he wouldn't have worked it.

If there's not a way to funnel it into his own. But it always breaks my heart that probably the most endearing thing, because you hear the jokes coming out, and the leaders make fun of themselves, and he always think, well, if we'd actually heard, you know, even Scott Morrison or Julia Gillard, people who weren't necessarily all that popular, making fun of themselves,

Tony Abbott apparently used to be quite funny on that. Get out of term. Yeah. But wouldn't we like them if we saw the jokes that they made at their own expense? Totally. Well, I think with Morrison, I think he did reference the, you know,

the shitting himself at Engadine thing. I think then, I then think he's subsequent, went and brought that up many times. Yes. There's a way to deflect. That's it. You know, getting questions about foreign policies and stuff. It's better to talk about actual shit than shit performance as Prime Minister, I suppose.

But then, of course, there was Turnbull's impression of Trump, which leaked. Because that's the whole thing, is the whole idea is that, yes, it's Chatham House rule, and we can't talk about it, but it's sort of just a bit absurd. But there was that really quite good impression that Turnbull did of Donald Trump. And I think I might have mentioned this before. Turnbull does very good impressions. is if you listen to the audio book of his memoir, which I'm... Oh, yes, we did talk about that.

He does a killer Christopher Pine. He's very, very funny. He'd still be there, though, wouldn't it? If he's done impressions, you know, on the TV... The Max Gillies and Prime Ministers. Yeah, but this is very exciting because it's part of the role. I have to introduce the big three of Australian politics. I have to introduce Anthony Albanese.

I have to introduce Peter Dutton. And I have to introduce Marsha Hines. And so she'll be performing on the night, which is wonderful yeah that's how good it is but charles you've done it before yeah and won't be invited back for no no did you emce the ball no i didn't emce the ball uh well maybe craig and i did one year like years ago julian used to it because i i used to when i was doing evening radio i would occasionally cross to the host and find out try and find out what the jokes had been and they would never say in radio then they'd tell me later um but it was always very sad

But, no, the last time I went to the midwinter ball was in about 2012. That's been a long drought, Charles. Why am I like that there? I will never go back again because I created a proper national controversy that lasted several days that basically taught. Hang on a second. Did you write jokes for anyone by any chance? Yes. Did you do a bit of comedy brainstorming?

Yeah, I did some. comedy brains. Do we need to give any context about the midwinter ball, just of who's there? So it's sort of, it's pretty much Parliament plus the press gallery, all dress up and have a sort of dinner for charity. On both sides of politics, right? They all go and get fancied up, yeah. Yeah, so I can't remember who was on my table. It was like Bill Shorten was on my table. I'm sorry.

And Julie Gillard was on the table next to me. She was the prime minister at the time. Like, it was quite high power, you know. You were, you were in the corridors of power that night. You were really rubbing shoulders with the greatest. I was sitting next to Wayne Swan. That's another sort of it. Anyway, so the point is I had written this speech for a comedy character

who was from the organisation of Fairgo for Billionaires. And it was just after the mining tax sort of debacle that Raddening Gillard sort of tried to think. But it was also crucially about a day or two after the misogyny speech Charlie Gillard had given. Remember that magnificent speech? Hard to forget that speech.

She just released it as a book all these years later. She hasn't forget it either. She just unleashed on Abbott for being a sexist asshole and sort of really gained a voice in that moment. So as far as the context goes, so he's saying she was riding high. It was probably the greatest moment. Yes.

International intention had been placed on this prime minister. Yes. It was the highlight of her entire life. And she allowed Labor to be sort of defined as feminist, right? So we had this billionaire character, it was a comedy character, get up, and the whole point was that he was making jokes about, oh, well, we can't possibly tax mining companies because they're so poor. And, you know, you're just got to give the billionaires a fair go, right?

It was very rah, rah, rah. Heavy-handed sarcasm. We love heavy-handed sarcasm. But he was there, like, this. The sort of people who I had done the character for were the CFMEU mining division, right? So they were the sort of, they were, you know, a bunch of men. Yeah. Known funder of comedy, the CFME is.

And when you do, the one thing when you're doing those sorts of speeches, you know, where somebody's paying you to sort of do it, is you run the speech by them before you go out right. And I knew that there was this one gag that they probably wouldn't approve, but I just loved it so much, right? It's just not necessarily, you know, tell them that line.

Right. So did they sign off on the rest of the speech except for the line? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We actually, when we're in the limousine, you know, we showed them the speech. So you're getting paid well to advance the political cause of the miners and take down the billionaires and like try and get the mining tax over the line. So you've got a lot writing on this, Charles. Yes, yes.

Then our billionaire gets up. He was killing it, right? So this is an actor. He's an actor. He's killing it, you know, basically taking about all sides of politics because, you know, like everyone loves being mentioned. Mark, it's totally the right place to do a roast. Like, everyone just wants to be mentioned, right? But then we had this joke, fuck, I wish I could remember the exact wording of it.

Surely it's in the Australian, shall be. Yes, I'm just going to find out what it was. No, no, it was never properly quoted because it's right. Because it was about, it was, it was implying that. Yes. Tony Abbott, the then, oh, no, was he prime minister then, or was he? No. Maybe he was prime minister.

Oh, how'd it was. Surely you wouldn't have been in. No, no, he wasn't Prime Minister. Anyway, that Tony Abbott was having an affair with Peter Credlin. Right. Is that right? That's, so that's, yes. Which, of course, was completely untrue.

Completely untrue. But it was just an implicate, like, it was just a joke, right? Everyone at the event, from Labor to Liberal, laughed at the joke, right? It was a funny joke, okay. Uh-oh. It was a funny joke, probably quite defamatory in its imputation. But it was a funny joke. I know you're both sort of not believing me, looking at me saying it wasn't a funny joke.

It was a funny joke. Charles, it's just that we've known you for a long time, that's all. It was a really good joke. Anyway, I can't actually remember the joke. But I can probably, should I dig it up? I've probably got it something. Let's just pause for a moment and find out what it is because it's not making much sense without it, right? Yeah, I'll find the speech.

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Instacart. Groceries that over deliver. The Chaser Report, news a few days after it happens. Pitch the joke to us. Mark and I are CFMEU officials. What's it going to be? Okay, so it's very much based in the time, right? I don't know what's up with Campbell Newman.

He's not so much the Premier of Queensland as the Mayor of Queensland, isn't he? That's a funny topical reference. I think that's why he's been cutting so many public service jobs to bring the government down to a size he's more comfortable with. That's a bit of grown. Anyway, okay, then it goes, and federally, the libs aren't going much better. My mate, Tony Abbott, been a bit on the nose in the last few weeks, even rolled out his wife to help fix the polls amongst women voters.

I said, mate, first rule of politics, don't roll out the wife as the gold standard example of why you're good with women, unless you're absolutely 100% rock-solid sure that you're not having an affair with your cheaper staff. right that was the gag right i see yeah and and he delivered it well it the line landed nobody stormed out of the room put it that way that's a that's traditionally the bar yeah the bar for numerous his events and i remember that that night bob katter for example then took us out on the town and bob katter is an awful human being but an amazingly good drinker like and you know so

you're saying the joke landed with Rob Catter is what you're saying. Yeah, and, you know, it was just, there was no question that that night had gone trium, we left in triumphantly. The next day, the Libs are looking for some sort of way to imply that the Labor Party is, in fact, sexist. Yes. Misogynist. And that the CFMU are actually just a bunch of blokes who are misogynistic.

It occurs to them, actually, that joke about the Tony Abbott affair, cannot be repeated. It's a completely defamatory allegation, right? So they start implying that the allegation was about some sort of, like, crude, sexual carnalingous reference to Peter Credlin and Tony Abbott. Right. And so they start talking about, oh, we can't possibly say what was said, but it was so outrageous that no one is allowed to even broadcast a riot.

And everyone assumed that, you know, there'd been some, you know, bodily parts, really, you know, crude sort of thing when it was just a very straight up, you know, allegation. Right. So, in fact, what you're saying is that your comedy craftsmanship, yes. Managed to undo the moral weight gained by the most famous speech in the past 20 years. But here you go. But I'll tell you what was fascinating about it was that suddenly all these people who I had

then subsequently had drinks with and chatted to in that room, claimed that they had, as soon as they'd heard about that, had heard that line, stormed out. Oh, yes, that's right. Right? So all these, I think including people like Julia Gillard and Bill Shorten and all these people who were just sitting there for the rest of the night, claimed that they'd stormed out and sexism was inappropriate in any circumstance and that they are as pure as the driven snob. Right.

So, and all that did was pour fire onto this stupid, completely. sort of harmless joke as if, yeah, something really bad was happening. And they just poured fire on it. And it made me go, oh, my goodness, you are so bad at handling the media. You're probably going to be rolled by Kevin Rudder than the next few weeks. And indeed, they would. That's, I completely, yes, exactly right. So we can trace, we can trace the moment when Australia's first female prime minister

lost the gloss. And the world started coming off. and she was replaced by Kevin Wright. That moment was you scriptwriting for a fake male billionaire. Yeah. The Patriarch is very good at what they do, aren't they? Amazingly effective. I do remember, yes, I now remember all the fall out of it.

Because they couldn't say what the joke was, it then kind of created the joke in audience's minds. And so I think the headlines, my memory was it was always like, it was a sexist joke about Peter Creadlin. That was the way that it was framed. Yes. And so it was for a while, I didn't even know what the joke was. And then once you told me, I mean...

You were a bit disappointed. Yeah. Well, it's just like, oh, that's an interesting way that it's been framed. Yeah, I mean, yeah, so that was the thing. And yes, I remember now, yes, all the Labor politicians sort of, yeah, I've never used the word crab walking, but crab walking away from me. Yeah, it's how the point is... I've just found out how to, because I couldn't find the reference to...

this joke online anywhere and I was searching for the wrong thing it was at the cf it wasn't at the midwool yeah it was at the cfmereu dinner there was a special cfm e u dinner oh okay and the way that i managed to find it charles was by um by searching for the name of the person who you made take the fall uh for the show oh right not by searching for you you're you were nowhere near it yeah yeah he's in everyone's interests there you go so um yes so amazing uh amazing moment in the history of the misogyn speech i presume julie again Gilard will have kept, will have printed the whole speech as part of her new book, do you think? Yeah, exactly.

But yes, I can find a tweet. Yeah, okay, yes, there is a reference to it from the time. The gag was, the quote was, uh, the gag was a stuff up, was adamant that neither the union nor the lab party had known of it before the performance. Uh, the spokesperson said, it wasn't Charles, uh, the spokesman said, we just went too far, the writing team misjudged it and we unreservedly apology, apologize to all parties for any offence. So Charles, it sounds as though you've sort of unapologised for that, right? Well, statute of limitations. But again, Dom, this falls into our sort of ongoing exploration

of, you know, the career of Charles. This is yet another chapter, another episode of the sitcom that we're all wondering. Whenever I see, Mark, randomly in the fore at the ABC, we just always refer to the project of the thinly-valued mockumentary of the life of Charles Verde. One day we'll write. Well, that's the thing, because I've said before, and I'm determined to do it that I want to make a podcast about the Logies, because everyone has been to Logies, has a Logies anecdote.

But the reality is I've probably heard more anecdotes about Charles Berger. You should hear my Logies anecdotes. Yeah, but it's like, because I feel like the podcast about you would be sort of almost like that kind of like, who the hell is Hamish or sort of thing, and yet we still have access to you, Well, the amazing thing, too, about Charles is that he loves. Like, you'd imagine something like that.

It'd be a little bit of shamefacedness at the end from the person going, all right, guys. But Charles would be like, oh, and you forgot this story. And also, I've realized my memory is very faulty, isn't it? Because you've got to Google and go, oh, no, it wasn't the meaningful at all that. Exactly. That's right. But there's enough, but that's the great thing.

There's just enough truth. Yeah. Well, congratulations, Charles. What you were right about was that it came at the worst possible time in the trajectory of the mislogeny speech. It was October 2012, right? So not far from the replacement of Gillard by Rudd and indeed deeply undermining the best speech she ever gave.

So anyway, I have hired Charles to be my speech writer for a little bit of balls. I look forward to. Oh, really? He's having an affair. Yeah, yeah. He's having an affair. Oh, well, there's a long list. All right, let's just stop recording and you can run us through it.

Our gears from ride with part of the icons, credit network. Catch you next time. What's better than a well-marbled rib-eye sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribby sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribai you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy zero-dollar delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply.

Instacart, groceries that over-deliver.