The Chaser Report - The Silent Episode | Sami Shah

Episode Date: June 1, 2021

In sympathy with Naomi Osaka, Charles and Dom decide not to speak. Plus Craig attempts to solve the Wuhan Institute of Virology's image problem, Sami talks up Melbourne's lockdown liveability, and Intern Lachlan gets in on Harvey Norman's blocking action. And Rebecca de Unamuno brings you the very finest unreliable headlines. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report, but it's a bit of a different Chaser report today, Charles. Normally this podcast is full of talking, but not today. No, Naomi Osaka has pulled out of the French Open because he didn't want to speak to stupid journalists who did clickbait things. And they find her $15,000 and threaded to chuck her out of all the, the tournaments, and so she's withdrawn and said that it's her right to maintain her mental health and be silent. I mean, I think it's a great vision of a world where no sportsperson ever speaks.

I think it would be a net positive for the world. I mean, especially if NRL players were required to be silent. That's right. Forever. Forever. Not just when they're a big press conference. And thinking about Australian cricketers as well. I mean, if we hear not one word out of Dave Warner ever again.

Yeah, he's already said too many. There's a net positive for the world. I mean, we've already had a billion sports stars saying, oh, yeah, the boys gave 110% today. Yeah. It's a go of two halves. Just stop. Just stop.

Just stop forever. Naomi's got the right idea. So in solidarity, we decided that this will be a silent podcast. We have nothing more to say. Yes. both for this episode and for all future episodes. This is it. We stand in solidarity with Naomi Osaka.

What's on the show today? Well, we're going to cross to Melbourne. We are. With Sammy Shah, find out how Melbourne. find out how Melbourne's going. Yes, I really hope he's coping well, but something tells me he may not be. Also, our intern Loughlin has been playing all kinds of pranks with a fake Harvey Norman Twitter account. I'm going to put him on JobKeeper if he keeps it up. And Craig is dropping by again. Plus we've got Rebecca Dana-Muno with the Chaser News headlines.

Amazon is suing Harvey Norman for stealing its business model of exploiting workers, unfairly wroughting government subsidies and selling shit products at Redmond. ridiculous prices. The chaser tried to reach Harvey Norman for comment, but Harvey Norman blocked them. The ABC has been humiliated this week after suffering a huge fucking win against Christian Porter's defamation suit. Christian Porter is celebrating his momentous achievement of begging the ABC to back down by taking two weeks paid mental health leave. Naomi Osaka has announced her departure from the French Open. After the announcement went public, tennis officials have been desperately trying to extend the same option to Nick Curios.

That's the Chaser News headlines, more news, less often. I'm Rebecca Deunamuno. Today's episode of The Chaser Report brought to you by Harvey Norman. We'll beat anyone on price and any staff if they ask for a higher wage. It's time now to speak to our good friend Sammy Shah. He's down in Melbourne, which means he's probably incredibly depressed and miserable. Hello, Sammy. Dominic, how you doing?

So what's it like in Melbourne? Oh, it's pretty great. You've got some good food, good vibes, good clubs, good dances, good concerts, good life comedy. It's all happening. It's, I mean, I don't understand what people live anywhere else, really. It's such a great city to be in. And you under lockdown? Under what now?

Lockdown. The whole city is locked down. You're not allowed to go out. No, I'm pretty sure I would have heard of that was happening. No, it's pretty great here. I was just out right now. I went and met up with a bunch of strangers in the park and we all made out.

And then it's like a practically like an orgy really now that think about it. Then came home and it got changed. Went to a nightclub. After that, I went shopping. Just not even for anything specific. It just roamed on a mall. Just touching surfaces. It's, you know, how I spend most weekdays here in Melbourne, really.

Yeah, that's... I can't do it, Charles. I'm losing my mind. Sammy, is this. It's a safe space. It's okay. It's not easy. Like everyone else in Australia thinks that in Melbourne,

this is something we're used to, but we're not. And we're all kind of losing our minds now. And I've been making the same PJs now for five days. Five days, I haven't taken off my PJs. And they're trying to smell bad, but I don't care because at least I can still smell something. You got this, Sammy?

You know what? Fuck you. I don't have this. I have nothing. You know, You know what I have? I have a federal health plan that's rolling out of vaccine at a rate so slowly that my parents in Pakistan, that's right, the third world country, the developing nation of Pakistan got vaccinated long before I did. My brother, in America, remember the country we were all laughing at how badly they got COVID last year and they're vaccinated now?

And we're here in the lucky country, aren't we, Charles? in the lucky country and there's no vaccines to be. I mean, there are vaccines to be had, but now I don't trust them anymore. Sammy, Sammy, Sammy, we're all in this together. How, Charles, how are you in this together with me? How, as you walk to your work and walk back? Do you have a mask on right now?

No, what are they? Aren't you in a shared space with Dom? Are you both of you wearing masks? No, no, we packed them away months ago, Sammy. Then we're not in this together, are we, Charles? I'm alone. I am all alone. But as against that, Sammy, you are in the most livable city in the world.

There is that. And to be very honest, that's why we've been having this problem. Because people keep coming to Melbourne from other parts of the country, other parts of the world. Nobody's moving to Perth or to Adelaide or to Brisbane or to Sydney or any of those places. No one wants to go and be in a city where you can't get a fucking Lhastah. at 3 o'clock in the morning. They want to be in Melbourne. You know how Adelaide looks best as a city?

In the rear view mirror. It's a city designed to look good when you're flying away from it. You look outside the window from your plane and you see receding in the distance. There's a reason why Melbourne keeps having outbreaks is because we're better than everyone else. And I'm going to keep saying that because it's all we've got left at the constellation right now. It's generally true that everyone interesting from Adelaide moves to Melbourne. Could this be a form of revenge from South Australia to hobble? Melbourne to bring it down to Adelaide's level.

It is a beautiful city with all these cultural sites like the KFC that they have and then the Maccas and then the drunk guy who punches the homeless guy and then they both beat up the meth guy and it's just, you know, it speaks so much to the cultural vibe of Adelaide that I would much rather spend another 10 months in lockdown in Melbourne smelling my own pyjamas than ever spend a day more in Adelaide ever again. Well, you've got your wish, Sammy, I think. You can't go anywhere. No, we really can't.

We'll enjoy crying yourself to sleep tonight, Sammy. It really is the only way to guarantee you a good night's sleep anymore. Today's episode of The Chaser Report brought to you by Harvey Norman. Want to buy a washing machine or a dryer for a billionaire who doesn't pay their workers enough? Harvey Norman is the go. Craigs flawless solutions. Caution might contain... floors.

So guys, last time I chat to you on Craig's flawless solutions, we talked about the Middle East conflict, and I do note that after we did that, there was a peace deal came through. And obviously, that's got around because this week I've been contacted by the Chinese government to solve our little

problem with this. No, this is a good one. Okay. Seriously. So you might have noticed that this week there's a lot of talk, there's a lot of concern that maybe everyone who was kind of saying all the people we were calling crazy and saying that the virus might have come from the Wuhan Lab are starting to be seen as maybe they're not quite so crazy. Even the American government is kind of starting to back this particular approach, right?

And that's because it turned out that everyone in the Wuhan Lab was sick in November, right? Yeah, I don't think that's a good idea, good fact for them. So, yes, so they're just getting ahead of the game here, and just they've got me in to say, you know, if this gets ahead of itself, if people think that actually the coronavirus came from the Wuhan Lab, how would we deal with this? This is a kind of problem. Hypothetically.

Hypothetically, exactly. Craig, can you come up with a flawless solution? And I think, I'm just going to run it past you because I think I've come up with an absolute cracker, guys. It's a really good one, right? Yeah. So, coronavirus, they've got much worse shit there, right? Much worse.

Of course they don't. Exactly. So what I've said to them is, look, if you release one of your way worse viruses into the world, no one will be talking about COVID-19 anymore, will they, hey? Hey? Suddenly, it's like everyone's moved on. That problem is gone. Solved, flawless solution.

What virus are you thinking? Look, they've got some crackers there. The ones where, like, these bugs are your legs off and shit and, you know, crazy. So I mean, visual. Oh, visual, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And something where you just generally could not say, oh, it's just bad to the flu.

What, because your tongue's fallen off or something? Something where, like, and something that's so bad that hairdressers in the Gold Coast couldn't say, I wouldn't cut your hair if you get the vaccine, that kind of shit, that kind of bad. So, look, I'm not particularly, you know, I like determine that. But I just wanted to run a post you go, I mean, I haven't had any flaws, any solutions yet,

but I was just wondering if you thought there was any problems with them. Well, well. One comes to mind. One? Just one. That's good. Let me just, I'll just go. Note this down.

We'll all be dead. Well, that's even better. I mean, you can't criticize the Chinese government if you're dead. I mean, to be fair, that has literally been the Chinese government's approach to dissidents for years. It has, yes. We could all be jinjong. Yeah, that is literally the approach. So they will agree with that.

So that's not a flaw. That's a... Tick. Okay, I've got another one, which is, don't you think it's just slightly, slightly unethical? He didn't say ethical solutions. Yeah, yeah. Stuff creates ethical solutions. When does an ethical solution work?

I've tried climate changes. We just ignore that. I've moved on. It's just flawless solutions, okay? Look, I'm not saying that, you know, it won't cause some problems, but it will definitely solve the problem that they have. But what if the governments of the world all hate China, then for two reasons, like that, you know, they unleashed the coronavirus and then this other

No, but I think, you see, you're analysing that the wrong way, because this virus would be so bad that it would seem churlish to say, we hate you for these two reasons, because the coronavirus would seem so small in comparison. So we're talking one of those body-eating viruses, like smallpox? Head-a-bola or something. Yeah, head a boll. Like you turn into a fountain. Exploding it be good.

There is a flaw, though, Craig, which is that, as I understand it, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, not amazing at what they do, right? So what they'll probably do is release a good virus that kills COVID-19 and makes us all healthy and happy and then looking even harder

for the source of that virus that doesn't happen again. Wow, I should have suggested that. That's a way better solution. Today's episode of The Chaser Report brought to you by Harvey Norman. leave in government handouts, except for us. The Chase's report this year has an army of interns who do things for us.

Charles, all these people employed legally? No comment, Dom. Lachlan is in the room. Lachlan, are you employed legally? Contractually. Contractually. I am not allowed to confirm, sorry, Dom. So I'd like to just note that there may be labour law violations on our part

before we get on to talking about Harvey Norman, Lachlan. What have we been doing? So obviously Harvey Norman's been in the spotlight a bit recently. Jerry Harvey, I mean, he's a model employer, isn't he? I know, well, he's what you base, your... Yeah, exactly, my whole business model. Yeah, he had a vision, and the vision was of himself being a billionaire and not giving back any of the jobkeeper, so he's delivered on that vision.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, and there's been all sorts of protests because of exactly what Jerry Harvey's done. It's just been a really tense time for the Harvey Norman marketing team, and they responded to this criticism very maturely, which was by blocking every single person on Twitter who said anything about them. Oh, really? Yeah, absolutely anyone. And they blocked so many people to the extent where eventually their account got deleted.

Wow. So they got Donald Trump. They've almost sort of, it's like a self-owned. They've self-blocked. They've chucked to Christian Porter and just completely self-owned themselves. Yeah, well, so with their Twitter gone, I thought that I'd swoop in and do damage control for them. And I set up what is now the only R.V. Norman Australian Twitter account. Very well done.

I mean, who would have thought that at Harvey, N-O-R-M-A-N-N would be free? So I announced that Harvey Norman, to try and fix up their PR mess, they would be having a huge 100% discount on all products for the next 24 hours. What a great idea. But I realized that wasn't what would help restore the situation. No, no. What Harvey Norman needed was real-life marketing. So I thought it was time for the return, the surprise spruker.

Oh, wow. So, are you saying that not only have you set up a fake Harvey Norman Twitter account, but you've also set up a fake surprise spruca. Absolutely. Double or nothing, Dom. Let's have a listen. All right, shoppers, come on down to Harvey Norman, where it's absolute JobKeeper madness.

We're on a total Twitter blocking bonanza. Discounts, discounts, discounts. We've got discounts on fridges. We've got discounts on fireplaces. Hell, we've even got discounts on our... workers. We've gone absolutely crazy on Twitter blocking anyone. We'll block workers, we'll block union members. Hell, we'll even block ourselves. There's absolutely no one who's off limits when it comes to blocking. With pay rates like these, you literally cannot afford to

leave the store. No, folks, we've gone absolutely insane. Just make sure you don't mention the union or you'll be sent walking out the door. And if you want to see the footage of him actually doing that outside of real Harvey Norman, go to the Chaser Facebook page. The Chaser Report, now with extra whispers. So, Don, before we go, I should just mention that I have been flooded with comments from people about the legal advice I gave yesterday on the show about defamation law. So thank you to everyone who contacted me and told me how wrong I was. I was happy to be the first.

I may not be here tomorrow. but have a good one. And that was Charles Firth's last Chaser report. You can find more news at chaser.com. Of course, there's always Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the TikTok. Please leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, specifically Apple Podcasts. That is enormously helpful to us because it creates the fake impression that people enjoy the podcast. Our gear is thanks to rode microphones, and we're part of the ACAST Creator Network.

Thanks for listening. See, yeah.