The Chaser Report - The Right Of Reply | Craig Reucassel

Episode Date: May 26, 2025

Charles and Dom are joined by Craig Reucassel, who has some stern feedback in regards to how he was brought up in a previous episode of the podcast. Charles attempts to explain his preposterous analogies, which unfortunately results in the use of more analogies. Plus Craig answers some actual questions about the War on Waste.---Follow us on Instagram: @chaserwarSpam Dom's socials: @dom_knight on Insta or @domknight on XSend Charles voicemails: @charlesfirthEmail us: [e-mail] our caviar addiction: https://chaser.com.au/support/ Send complaints to: [e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello, and welcome to this very special episode of The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Yes, now the extensive listener feedback we've had in the past week, Charles, lots of it. Yes. A few people suggested that it might be a nice thing occasionally to hear from some of the other members of the Chaser team. Yes. And it's with that in mind that we, shall we say, we recorded a slightly,

I don't say critical, but we made a few references to a colleague of ours, didn't we, Charles, last week. Yes, Craig Roocastle. Fadney member of the Chaser, along with the two of us. And amazingly, he has... What is he up to nowadays? He's very busy. He's got a lot on. And yet, and yet, he's chosen to exercise a right of reply in person.

Yes, absolutely. I'm here for a right of reply. I would like to point out, firstly, just that this is obviously all been recorded for my legal team. That's right. I did not get the subpoena to be here. We need to clarify a few things so I know which court to go to in this right of play. I just want to remind you that as one of the founders of the chaser, if you sue us, it a sense you're suing yourself.

Do I make any money from this shit podcast? I mean, I'll be amazed if you two do, but I certainly don't. I want to make it clear that I just want to make it very clear that I did not stumble upon this as a regular listener to the Chaser report. It's because Dom, foolishly, after defaming me, told me about it. Yeah. It's so easy to make that mistake. I mean, you know, with Bruce Lerman, they went on the same podcast. It was a terrible decision.

So is your idea that you're going to follow the same legal strategy as Bruce Lerman, Ben Robert Smith, Christian Porter? All of the good blokes. Other people we all need. Well, that's why I just want I need to clarify a few things. So because, yeah, the other days you're talking about it. Just before we get on to that, Most episodes, we criticize you. As I said, I wouldn't listen to it.

You're kind of a co-stop, and if you did listen, you'd know that we always have to awkwardly pause for ads like this. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore? FIS is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply.

Details at FIS.C. Anyway, Craig, you were saying Yes, so what I was saying is that you were talking about the birds on Lord Howe Island The crinkling birds were found with the plastic inside them What a disturbing story Yes, yes You did, and I just want to play you some audio here

And then we'll discuss afterwards Because naturally I said this Sent this straight to my legal team But they had a few questions to ask first I don't want to draw your attention to this Because this is a bit of a problem It says here, we are not winning The War on Waste

Fighting a Korean Senator Peter Wish Wilson And that means Do you know whose fault this is? Yeah, that's Craig's fault And I think, actually just thinking about it That means that Craig is not some sort of Napoleonic figure He's Harold Like he's, he's King Harold

Being defeated in the Battle of Hastings by William, The Conqueror This is a very strange metaphor So yeah, I said this is my legal team said Is this defamatory? They said, we have no idea We need a much deeper understanding of history. So can you just talk us through, Charles?

Oh my gosh. This is the most devastating thing you could possibly have said because I was sitting here on this very couch going, where is his mind going with that? So I don't know as much as you. So many people out there because when did this become a history podcast and when it become an ill-informed history podcast? Yeah, the ill-informed bits consistent regardless of the topic.

So what are King Harold? Take us back to the Bay of Tapestry, Charles. Well, I don't know whether you remember, But like in the lead up to the Battle of Hastings, right? Harold, like this is in 1066, there was a series of battles. So England was under attack by the Vikings, right? And so he actually had this huge battle up north and very sort of almost apocryphally got there really fast. Like the Vikings invaded and somehow in what should have taken like two weeks to assemble his forces in about two days he got there.

And he actually managed to defeat. King Harold. Yeah, King Harold. I normally fact-checked this stuff in real time, but let's just let him get going. He defeated the Vikings and sent them on their way, right? And he was sort of a little bit chuffed and going, oh, yeah, okay, well, I got this, right? And then William the Conqueror realised that Harold was up north fighting the Vikings and went, you know what, let's fucking, let's go across and, you know, like the English

are now vulnerable, right? And so William came across and Harold, again, miraculously, within a. few days managed to bring like 10,000 troops down from the north, but foolishly, and so then William arrived in, what was, oh, that's right, the name of the place was Hastings, right? I can't believe this is still going. So far, and it was sort of like, the character you said I was, has won all the battle. Yes, he kept on winning.

It was amazing. I said, you're making the analogy with Craig's early victories in the TV series War and Way. Yes, exactly, like, you know, we thought that you were Harold. So then what happened to Harold? Yeah, and then what happened to, yeah, yeah, he launched the war on Ways. for example and you go oh wow

we got rid of plastic Don't bring a different analogy into it quickly you've got to finish your history lesson please don't confuse us more so fighting the Vikings

was like getting rid of plastic straws right and then came down south right and this was like

saving the planet right and what's the what's the book Planet A we're trying to save Planet A so William

so William goes across and very foolishly everyone thought, decided to set up, like, he built a castle, like in a few days, he built a castle in Hastings, right? And he's a French guy from Normandy, yeah. And everyone was going, this is the stupidest strategy on earth, right? Because Hastings was out on this Ismuth, there was only one supply line running to London, right?

So you're just going, this is the stupidest place to sort of draw the English into a battle. And so Harold went, this is a really stupid place to be drawn into a battle. you know, like, I'm going to do it because William's on the back foot. And then they managed to just like, well, you know the rest. Like William 1. And Harold got an arrow in the eye. That's all we've got time for on this episode of The Chaser Report.

I'd love it to see you, Craig. This will increase the ratings because the rest is history. Yeah, it's like, oh, that's true. Unfortunately, it's going to increase my legal fees by so much. It's like for them to listen to this and take it understanding. I think it will be genuinely confusing. No, no, so the point is. So the point is you are Harold because despite having, you know, earlier victories,

when it actually mattered. Yes. Like when it came down to. Plastic mutton birds. I lost. And the great garbage patch. Yes. And everything like that.

And you foolishly launched this war. You launched the war on waste and then you led us to defeat. Yeah. But isn't this more like, and I don't, oh man, I wish I knew more of this issue. Don't you do a historical analogy? Yeah. Isn't this more like the hundred year war? It's just like I was a general, a hundred year war.

Yes. And I'm being paid to do the hundred year war. Why would I want it to end two years? I'm just slowly drawing out the war and waste. This is a master plan for another few years of war of waste. I hid some plastic in some birds. So in some ways you have a vested interest. Yes.

In the continuation of waste. Yeah. It's a collab. Why ended up to one documentary? I'm just going to keep going And so are those birds In many ways I'm like William the Conquer and the Vikings

I had many different fronts Are you Are you the Like is the mutton bird part Part of some sort of war on the way stunt That you've done Yeah we put it in there We decided to feed them plastic

To see Exactly Exactly Yeah Oh that's going to be true Was it 648 pieces of plastic It was extraordinary We filled a Sydney tram

with 10,000 mutton birds. No, so, yeah, look, oh, gee, it's so hard to know whether to see you. I don't know whether you've been defamed by that. I mean, Harold, very famous. Well, the good thing is that no one knows whether I've been defamed by that. I think you haven't managed. Charles, by virtue, using an extremely confusing analogy.

I think it's fair to say, your claim isn't on very solid, he's protected me. So far, the principle that if you launch defamation, you end up losing is, I think, that's been upheld. I won't see you guys for defamation. Well, you're a little bit like Ben Robert Smith in Afghanistan, really, aren't you? I mean, if there's going to be a video released within days of losing the appeal that shows you actually doing the thing you deny doing in court, yeah, that would be exactly the same.

Anyone want to drink from this leg I found? Anyway. No, no, like I'm the old man who's just been. Oh, my. No, no. No, I'm going to do it. We'll get to that That's the end part

No but I So okay so no defamation claim there Because you know I do agree We haven't solved the war and waste It is ongoing and you were Now that I understand the analogy You're correct I had failed in the war and waste

I mean And those birds should sue me if anything Yeah exactly But there was another So there was another part of the podcast But I thought maybe it was in a defamation claim Right but a misleading, deceptive conduct.

Oh, dear. Okay. Those are words that have historically proven quite awkward. Yes, exactly. For people in Australian comedy, let's just say that. Let's, so... I'll have to do another writer of plot. Do you know how Charles has been doing this wankanomics show?

Yes. All over the, you know, constantly. And it's like this thing where he takes down people that use that wanky kind of business language, all that kind of corporate speak and that kind of stuff. And it seemed like he's on, he's on his own in many ways, war on wankinomics. Yeah, war on wankinomics. Yeah, war on. Thank you business.

Yes, that's true. That's true. In many ways, he's the King Harold of the War of Wrake Business Language. I think he's the King Harold. I think James Leffles, William the Conqueror, anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who is the guy that carried King Harrier? The horse.

James is the horse. And the horse doesn't get in the eye. But then, do you imagine then how disappointed I was. And I went to saw Charles. Yeah, we both went to the other night. Thousands of people in this, you know, auditorium. It's a huge audience. It's sold out.

Just, yes. They're so in the palm of the hands of Charles. It was masterful. Masterful. And yet, and yet, listen to Charles on this very podcast. And the reason why, just to sort of circle back on that whole story. Charles Firth, using Circle Back himself, unironically, unironically. You have been preaching all of this.

And yet you yourself are part of the problem, Charles. He circled back. He circled back. And I particularly like that in exposing that egregious, Charles, egregious misuse of language, Craig circled back to a previous episode of the podcast. Very, very well done. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore.

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He's looking in his mind going Which battle Which battle in history It's a bit like Charlemagne This is a bit like Charlotte But no I sort of see this as I'm a bit like Pope John Paul II Right

Right In you're an old wizened male He's kind of looking more out of that You often overlook pedophilia Yeah, exactly Like, you know, the church preached You know, doing good things And instead just cut it up, covered up

Pedophilia, right? And I find myself awkwardly stuck In that sort of thing Where Wangan obviously is preaching one thing But I have a history of I think the awkward thing here Is a terrible metaphor The awkward thing here is the analogy

Which we're just going to cut out Lockely, I think you're the best person who's to get out. No, no, Lockley. Circle back, circle back, Lockely. No, no, you've got to leave it. That's not good for anybody. This show should be way more based on Charles' analogy. Well, it is increasingly, Craig.

The direction of the podcast seems to be. And the strangest thing is, so we did this customer feedback last week, which Charles very correctly pointed out in the subsequent episode was entirely invalid because the only people who heard it were the very strange and problematic people. But the point being made, people listen. Probably many people that being our listeners. Our listeners were giving feedback, so they already liked us. Yes.

Which is why a lot of people wrote back and said, we love Charles's rambling. Yes. So it's now become a feature. He's been encouraged. Which is funny. But that's good to give you got good feedback about the podcast. I was going to come to that now, actually. If you think about it in terms of you've polled those who listen to the show

and there's some positive feedback there. But I would say the people who like your show the most are the ones that don't listen. Well, they get, to be fair, the best. experience. Because I must say, I assumed most of our listeners hate listened to the show. Yeah, it was very strange. I mean, admittedly, there's only, I don't know, maybe what, 40 people by this point of an amount of artists, 50 people.

Yeah, we've had really nice comment. It's really touching. I had some good feedback too. Having not listened to the show in a little while, I was really, I liked, there were a lot, I'll just play some of the, I thought was really good in the show. When you think of Swedish design, you think minimalist, functional, stylish. But now the Volvo EX90 has won the World Luxury Car Award for 2025. I really enjoyed these short little breaks from your content you put in there, guys.

There are quite a lot of them too. What do you call them again? Well, they're called ads, but if you subscribe to the premium edition, you wouldn't get them. Well, I was hoping there's so many ads in this that I might see somebody from this podcast. I mean, most podcasts, you know, have, um, there's, attractive content and then they have the ads to and you've got to enjoy the ads to get to the content. In our one, we put it out every day

but to give listeners a chance to listen to lots of ads. Yeah, and we make them nice and short so they can fit as many ads in as possible. Do you think that's the reason why hardly anyone takes us up on the ad-free version? Because actually they're tuning in 40. I would pay, I would pay quite the premium for the Dom and Charles free version.

Actually, that's absolutely, let's do that. We'll make that a hundred dollars a month. We'll get locked with the cutter version. The host free version. It's about one minute long, just with three ad breaks. Yeah, that's absolutely genius. And we'll get one subscriber, Craig, Rookas. Well, I mean, look, the strategy has worked very well, though,

in that we have recruited one more, listening to one episode of the podcast to try and review these clips. Merely by defaming them. So, look, while you're here, can I ask, can we do anything about this? I don't want to get all serious after the next round of ads. And as we said in that episode, There's microplastics at the top of the human layers, at the bottom of the ocean, in our brains.

Yeah, plastic is, to be serious, plastic is desperately difficult. One of the things you did talk about was, one of you actually mentioned, oh, could we turn this back into oil? And there's actually something that's kind of been done at the moment. There's a new process to turn plastic back into oil. And what it tries to overcome is the problem where you have, normally have many different types of plastic, HTTP, PT, and all that kind of stuff. You can't necessarily do it. But through different methods, you can turn it back into oil. Now, there's some trials going on in that Australia.

I will say that there's some skepticism. Some people kind of argue it's another, you know, it's like nuclear fuel. It's like nuclear power. It's another excuse where you basically go, you know, like some people argue that recycling was just a conspiracy by the big petrol industry to kind of make it seem like plastic could be recycled. And I don't quite buy that. But it is the case that if you go, hey, we've got this new way where we can recycle.

And you go, okay, you can recycle. cycle 20,000 tons, that's like less than a percent of what we're putting out there. It's kind of a car. But that could be scaled up. I don't know. It's a difficult one. And the difficult part is about it is that a lot of the other solutions in plastic, things like bioplastics and that, you know, people go, oh, great, we're not going to use fossil fuels.

We use bioplastics. And bioplastics is a big solution. We can do that. Instead, you know, we use natural things to make plastic. They are not necessarily a solution either because you... Why not? Well, firstly, they have the same, you know, if you throw bioplastic, into the water, as it's all you're so plastic,

they can have exactly the same condition as plastic. So, you know, an animal can still kill the birds. But even beyond that, well over 90% of bioplastics go into landfill, right? We don't actually have a system to recycle them or deal with them? But don't they just break down much quicker? So this is the great irony. This is hypothetically better for the world. Well, hypothetically, if you could compost it,

but most composting facilities won't accept it and there's problems with that as well. Oh, really? But even then, even though we don't actually have that waste system. So there's a very cruel irony about this, right? Everyone's obsessed by saying, plastic, oh, the worst thing about plastic is that it's still in landfill a thousand years later, whereas this bioplastics, oh, it'll break down in landfill, how good is that? Ironically, the best thing about normal plastic is that it doesn't break down, and the

worst thing about the other bioplastics that they do break down. Why? Because, okay, landfills, we don't want to put food into landfill because it's organic. It's organic as a break-down in landfill, and when you break down organically, it creates methane, right? So actually, a piece of plastic, a normal plastic, just sitting there for a thousand years, actually doesn't do much more. All of, I'm not saying plastic's not bad.

No, but it's better than damage. The pro-plastics advocate, crazy. Bluecastle here, if you've just tuned in. But if you, yeah, but if you then put in. If you put bioplastics that do break down into landfill and, you know, then it actually is breaking down as other organics do and creating methane. So it's, from a greenhouse gas perspective, that can create, can create,

Yeah, I mean, again, you have to do an entire life cycle assessment of the, it depends what you put into it as well. Depends what you, if you're using a waste substance as opposed to a fresh cornfield in America, which is where lots of bioplastics come from, it could be different. I'm not going to say, in all cases it's worse, but I'm just saying that the thing that's most often quoted it is, which is that, oh God, plastic just doesn't, it'll be in landfill a thousand years later. It's like, that's actually not the worst part of plastic. So what is the, I mean, is there a sort of push to do the same thing that we have with carbon pricing, plastics where you actually try and build into the cost of manufacture, the cost of recovery and recycling or how, what will actually shift the way? Because I imagine these are extremely complicated systems that exist all around the world

and can't just be gotten rid of. If you need a different way of recycling each sort of plastic. Yeah, this is it. They're complex systems and you're right. There's no financial incentive to make a change. So there is a plastic tax they're kind of bringing in the UK. But there's nothing quite effective enough at the moment. Does the bottle container thing work here?

Yeah, the bottle container, that's a perfect example is, right? By putting a 10 cent return fee on plastic, you know, on cans and bottles and that, you do lead to a much higher return rate and a much more likely to be recycled. Can you get the 10 cents back if you return a mutton bird on Lord Howe Island? I have not looked into that, but there you go. See, series four. I knew those muttonbergs would pay off for us. But yeah, plastics are deeply depressing.

of the most frustrating things making war and ways programs is, is so often having this moment of hope and going, oh, here's this solution, here's this alternative, here's this thing, and then following it down to the end and going, ah, shit. We haven't even sorted out soft plastics, right, the whole red cycle thing. Soft plastics are one of the most nightmares things. That's one of the ones where you're going to go, if we can turn it back into fuel, which can then be turned back into something else. I mean, maybe if, instead of storing them in a whole bunch of flammable warehouses all

over the country. We just got a lot more mutton birds. We're running out of mutton birds, this is one of the big problems. I think we're running out of mutton bird jokes as well, Don. Perhaps a little bit. They do seem very recyclable. I may have over recycled.

All right, we'll put them in the last film. Nothing if not recyclable. Indeed. And that's why we've done more than a thousand episodes of this podcast. Well, thank you for, you know, listening to one. And so, because the other thing, So you're involved in organising a party recently?

Yes. Yes. One of my children. Yeah, one of your children. I didn't know whether you wanted to mention that you had children. But, so I just kept it vague when we're talking about it. Instead, you made it sound like I was having some kind of drug party. The standard practice on this podcast is to exploit your kids by actually bringing them onto the podcast.

Yeah, that's what I did. But the question, because there was a lot of irritation around the requirement that that party have reusable cups like it was sort of a nightmare no the reusable cup part is totally simple it's all going to be so how does it work if you've heard of glassware right you use glass and you wash them but don't you just end up with a whole lot of people glassing each other if you're no rowdy party for your children no no no I mean he's four years old hopefully there'll be no glassings so it hasn't happened yet hasn't happened yet but the more frustrating part of that is just having a theme, which kind of theme of clothing,

which is very hard to fulfill I've discovered from my normal approach of op-shopping, which is leading to, I think, the purchase of, whilst not having any single-use, cutlery or, you know, cups and saucers. What do you call? Glasses. Right, yeah. I think there's going to be lots of single-use. Costumes.

Costumes. Ah. Oh, do you say, if you chose a timeless theme like the bad last, hastings for the party exactly. Then everyone can just get their normal shit like that

that's right oh I'm going his William the Conqueror really? I'm going his King Harold because he won the first

battle and he won the second battle I didn't read on isn't he a big hero in English I think it's been at least 20 minutes of each conversation

explaining just how the analogy works. What is the thing? I can't even explain it so complex oh okay it's an entire world has been created

an entire fantasy world Craig's son is quite brilliant and has created this whole universe really. If he was really brilliant, he would have created something that allowed me to go in jeans

in a shirt. Can we invite him onto the podcast to explain what Charles meant? I think that would be a very useful service. We probably should. All right. Well, thank you guys. Very nice to see you, Craig. Thank you for clearing things up. Looks like I won't see you in court. I think at the end of this...

Are you going to sue me? No, I've decided I won't see you guys in court because having just seen you on a podcast, I remember how much I hate seeing you. And also, there's no ad breaks in court. So probably is enjoyable. That would be great. If we could get Volvo out,

to sort of pop up and fund out a fence, that would be very helpful. All right, we'll catch you next time. We're part of the Econocles Network. See ya. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore?

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