The Chaser Report - Victorian Leader, Stairman Ow | Matt Harvey

Episode Date: November 15, 2022

Comedian Matt Harvey gives Dom and Charles the lowdown on the Victorian Election. Will the dictatorship come to an end? 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 The Chaser Report. I'm Charles Firth and with me today is Dom Knight. Hello. And all the way from sunny Victoria, Matt Harvey. You say sunny Victoria. Today we have atrocious weather.

Yeah. I know we're not flooding like you guys, but... Oh, that's true, actually. You know, Victoria wins at this point. I just, yeah. Like, let's take the rare victory that your shithouse weather is slightly better than our shithouse weather. Yeah, I mean, we're on the right side of the Great Dividing Range, so we don't get a lot of that here. But, no, look, apparently it's election weather down in Melbourne.

And I've got to say, we've got a cruise ship here in Sydney that I just think if you wanted to spice up the election a bit, we could just get it to sail up the Yarra and just disgorge some people. Yes. See what happens. Look, we can probably take half of them, and then we can just each state against each other and see how they respond and see if the lockdowns go down. I mean, we're used to taking your cases anyway. That's true. Thank you for that. Touche.

I'm glad it's no longer a bit of subject, because there was a point, Charles, where it was a little bit awkward to talk to people from Melbourne who were like, I can't believe you put us through this again. We already hated everything about New South Wales and now this. But we're friends again, aren't we, Matt? I mean, as friends as Sydney and Melbourne have ever been, I guess. Which means not very much. So you've been looking at the Victorian elections. Yeah. It's a bit of a nail-biter.

I've been reading The Herald's son about it. Oh, yeah. And they came out day one saying it's going to be a hung parliament apparently. Dictator Dan's on the nose. Oh, man, the Herald Sun have really been having a time. They get to delve into fan fiction and the conspiracy fan fiction. And they just really get to build their own world. I just feel like someone does.

down there is aspiring to write a novel at some point, and they're just using this as an excuse to, but they went straight to stairs. They went straight back to Dan Andrews fell down the stairs, and then we've tracked down the stairs. We found them, and they're not very big stairs, are they? They weren't big stairs. I think there is a conspiracy here. You can't break your egg tripping over something small.

Well, this is the thing. Thank goodness they had the guts to actually look at the big issue in the election, which is the staircase in question. But my question is, why did they come out swinging so early in the election on this huge issue? Like, surely this is, this is dynamite. This is the sort of, you know, children overboard moment that you were at least three days before the election that will tip the election in favour of future Premier Matthew Guy. Well, Dan Andrews isn't tough on crime. No.

But the Harold's son's come out and got the real villain and all this, the stairs. The stairs. What's Dan Andrews starting to get about the stairs? He isn't locked up the stairs. Is he cracking down on stairs now? What's happening? Yeah, we're going to level... Should we contextualise it for people who don't live in Victoria?

Which is, on last Sunday, about a week ago, the Herald Sun's Sunday paper came out with an expose... Front cover. With a photograph of the stairs that Daniel Andrews fell down, which actually took him out for about six months because he broke his back. It's sort of implying some sort of conspiracy that because the stairs weren't very big.

They're only about two stairs, to be fair. Therefore, it was a lie that he had fallen down those stairs and broken his back. What's the conduct? Why would they want to do that, Matt? Can you explain why they would want to claim that the Premier somehow didn't want to have the best job in Victoria for six months? And instead of wanted to be recovering. Well, at the time, there was strong accusations that he was hiding from the public and that he just needed to be put away and put aside so that people would forget all about what he had done. What he had done to our state.

He's very conspiratorial thinking. Was the Herald son reading too much Twitter or something? Or Facebook? I would assume deep Reddit and probably Facebook. 4chan. Mum's not Facebook. A little bit 4chan, yeah. I know that they're in certain Facebook groups because I know I'm in local community groups

and I see stuff posted in there and it gets to the Herald's son very quickly. So I know that they linger in certain Facebook groups and they find the most salacious. stuff and they run out there and get it all. So, and does this explain why the Victorian Liberal Party has lurched so far to the sort of crazy right during the election? Like, my understanding is they're a little bit on the nose because a lot of their candidates are really quite conspiracy-minded people. Well, again, it's the stairs, Charles.

The stairs have been getting very active and they've taken out several sensible candidates who are going to run. And so they're being threatened, not just by the Labor Party, but by, the teals who are having quite a good run at some of their sort of more blue ribbon seeds. Well, yeah, I think they're very worried after the federal results. And the teals who, when you look at them, are really potential Liberal Party members who just enjoy climate not being disastrous all the time. Radical.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think that's how we refer to them here. Matthew Guy has come out. And what's his face? Keane has come down from New South. South Wales to show support for some of the slightly more progressive candidates. Yeah, they're talking about introducing some renewable support. I trust Matt Keen to be going down and meddling with renewables.

Yeah. He's the treasurer of our state. He should be here, protecting us from boats. I think what they should do is they should roll out some stairs for him, Danny Victoria. That's what they should do. Yeah, some welcoming stairs. Can I just say on the stairs? I don't claim to have a very intimate knowledge of Melbourne.

Yeah. But if I were the Premier of Victoria, and I was wanting to fake, tumble down some stairs to take me out of politics to give me a break for six months, why not use the fucking massive staircase on Spring Street? Like you just get a stunt man to fall down the stairs, like a 20 stairs. Body double. Body double. Because all dictators had body doubles.

I think the problem with that one is the time the Parliament stairs were being occupied by conspiracy theorists. No, they would have seen it. And you keep rolling out of the tram tracks and just there and the tram runs you over Get the Heritage tram to run you over And just fake it properly in front of the cameras You don't fall down too

It's so embarrassing Two stairs Who does that? I think the other thing is Remember Melbourne is incredibly flat You go to Melbourne It's just there's no variety Oh that's so no one's used to

No one's used to going down two stairs So I think it's really plausible that this sort of two-stair thing would be something Daniel Andrews just hadn't encountered before in Victoria. I mean, if the point the Harold Sam was trying to make was, ha, how uncoe is it to fall over two stairs? I'm there with them. I actually think that's a fair point.

It's genuinely embarrassing. Do we want an uncoordinated premiere? Do we want an uncoordinated premier? Now, how can he balance the budget if you can't balance himself, that kind of thing? But if the point is, he couldn't possibly have fallen over on these stairs, he was lying to us. why would he do that? What's the motive? It's just bizarre. Is that really what they're trying to say, Matt, that somehow the stairs couldn't possibly have heard him and that Dan was just basically, I don't know, Hawaiiing it for six months while Molino was running the state. Yeah, look, you know, it was a soft coup by Melino, I believe. He probably pushed him down the stairs.

Melino is a wizard, if anything, I believe. Let's go direct to the results. What's your prediction? Is it Matthew Guy by four, by ten? By all? Like how hard he's pushing, I've got, so there's an ad that I saw online. And given how hard he's pushing for the support of conspiracy theorists, that's sort of the undertone, but also he's pushing for the support of construction workers and unions, surprisingly, unions and union members to support the Liberal Party. Remember when we hit the streets to protest against Daniel Andrews' world record lockdown? Remember when Andrews forced us to get the jab or lose our job. Now even our own unions are admitting he's a prick.

Don't let him get away with it. Put Labor last. Authorised by Seymquist and Liberal Melbourne. Right. So there, he is claiming that ad, which is authorised by C-Questin for the Liberal Party in Melbourne. Is that seriously an authorised Liberal ad? Yeah, that's an authorised Liberal app. Wow.

Because that's exactly, like that's basically the same rhetoric as the people who are on the Parliament stairs. Yeah. Who I'm pretty confident when never voting for Daniel Andrews. by the way. No, no, no. So he's really reaching into that market. He's really trying to pull them over to say, we're all together. But he's also, you know, because those protests were very, you know, the fact that we had all this construction going on and then they were sort of trying to mandate stuff on the construction sites and they had to eat their lunch outside. And then the CFMEU base, I remember got heavily, heavily attacked or enhanced interrogated, I believe, is the term

were used now for a little bit. And that was their whole thing for a little while there is like, well, we are with you. Remember when all this happened? Natural partners, CFMEO and the Libs, yep. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Remind you, I actually, I don't believe those, because you saw all those blue-collar workers protesting against the mandates and things are there.

Yeah. Have you ever seen a tradie all turn up at the same time? They can't organize a protest. The Chaser Report. News a few days after it happens. Charles, I'd miss the days when we had a lavish budget for stunts. Because I would 100% get a stair car to chase Daniel Andrews around. I just find it past like, can you imagine he's doing an event?

And so there's a stair car just pulls up in front of the camera. He runs away in terror. There's a free idea for you, Matthew Guy. Is that mean? Is that like, or is that an assassination attempt? Yeah, pretty much. It's an arresting developer is what it is. They did drive around with a, I think they'll get in trouble for that one because they did drive around with an ambulance.

Oh. Yeah, they had like an old school ambulance and they were driving around and it was like a kick out, Dictator Dan. Because he broke his back. Yeah. Because that's what dictators do. Dictators are known. Yes. So just taking six months off the job and transferring power to someone else and not being seen.

Oh, classic dictator behavior. I mean, remember when Hitler did that in 43? Yeah, yeah. I'm out for some of my. There's been a stare incident. I think the clearest indicator of his dictatorial power is that he has allowed a vote to happen. And, you know, because most dictators get voted in by about 90%. So I think if we see high numbers going towards dictator Dan, then it's clear.

Yeah. It'll be an indication of his authority. Yeah, it'll be a clear indicator, yeah. Yes, yes. And you just wait to see on election day, you know, in all the liberal electorate suddenly, stairs will appear around the polling place. Can we talk about Matthew Guy, though, because I've heard a lot of, of people discussing his performance as

opposition leader. Yeah, he's interesting. I'm keen to get a bit of a portrait of the man. I don't know much about him, Matt. He shares your name. Well, it's interesting because not only do we share the name Matthew, but he's gone for a bit of a rebrand. Oh, really? They're sort of top-down in rebranding liberals in Victoria. So there's people like David Southwick who are running

without Liberal Party logos on their sign. So that's all happening again. Dave Sharman at that in Wentworth. here in the federal election. So if you're not sure which party he's with it, you might accidentally vote from. Oh, yeah, David Charmer, yeah, yeah. Matthew Guy's Facebook page, his personal Facebook page, he removed that he's the liberal leader.

Oh, he's just Matthew Guy, vote for Matthew Guy. He's also gone from Victorian liberal leader Matthew Guy to Matt Guy. Oh, I can, I've just looked at this now. Yes, I'm looking at it right now. He's, he's disassociating himself from the ruin Matthew Guy brand. Yeah, yeah. Because I think you're fine that Matthew Guy. guy ran, disastrally ran the party from 2014 to 2018.

Yeah. This isn't Matt if you guy. This is Matt guy. He's ever heard someone say, I like that Matt guy. Probably talking about you, Matt, yeah, yeah. And he's gone, oh, I'm that Mac guy now. Now, they're probably doing about Matt Keane. That's why Matt Keane's down there.

Friend of the podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Matt stick together. We are talking about the Victorian election here on the podcast. Yeah. But is, is it essentially going to be a rubber stamp for dictator dam? I mean, are the polls in anyone?

close? Well, look, the polls have shifted slightly. So the age we're talking about, uh, the Labor has lost some of the numbers. Are they down to 90% or something? And, uh, the Greens are running at about 31% according to some of their polling. So wait a minute. The Libs might not be the opposition party. No, no, which is

interesting because, because the Greens are such a, well, I mean, we say the Greens are such a strong force here, but Queensland's got more Greens members than we do. But anyway, if you say it enough times other people will believe it. So we just keep saying that we're the progressive superpower. We've never talked about the Greens. We've got to do an episode on the Greens in Queensland because it's an anomaly. We'll get back to that.

But anyway, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'll be curious to see how this election goes because the Liberal Party, just the other day announced that they will be preferencing the Greens over Labor. Really? Yes. Because their whole thing is put Labor last and just getting labor out at any past, even if it means the Greens get to go in.

So I think. Green Premier. Yeah, yeah. Because they're pitched to be the same as Labor, but without Daniel Andrews. Is that basically where they're going? And also... It's pretty close to it. They're the same as Labor, except they'll preference the Greens first.

Yeah. They'll preference the Greens, and the Greens who are preferencing Labor. So initially, everything will flow to Labor in the end. Okay, and then you've got to tell the tale about what happened with the preference flows from the Animal Justice Party. So in Victoria, they still have group ballots, right? Which actually means that they're the sort of last state where Glenn Drury, who's that preference whisperer, used to go around and always collect preferences from all the little minor parties, usually the sort of right-wing minor parties, and get them all to cross-preference each other.

And then you'd end up with a sort of alt-right person in South Wales Parliament. A Franken member. Yeah, exactly. And he did it for the Shoes and Fishers Party one year up here. He did it. What was it called? A Better Future for Our Children. Oh, a better future for our children.

Yeah, there's a number of the sort of things. And everywhere else in the country, parliaments have gone, okay, let's get rid of that behaviour by not having these strange negotiations where you sort of lock up your preferences beforehand and there's real value in doing that. Now, so Glendry has been down in Victoria, negotiating all these complicated preference flows. Matt, what happens on the day that they have to put the preference flows into the Electoral Commission and lock them in? It says he was working with the Justice Party, Hinch's Justice Party, Health Australia, Liberal Democrats, New Democrats,

Shoot his Fish and Farmers and Sustainable Australia, and Transport Matters, so a bunch of quite right-wing parties. So he thought he'd been locking in a bunch of preference deals, and just as it was all about to be announced, the Animal Justice Party redirected all their preferences to progressive parties. They've moved them all towards Reason Party, Legalise Cannabis, Victorian Socialists, and Labor and the Greens.

Yes. They're going to get all of the Liberal Party votes. They're going to get all of the Greens' parties' votes, I guess, and they're going to get all of these. So it may be a 97% landslide based on all these preferences flowing. The brilliant thing was that the guy who's leading, the negotiations for the Animal Justice Party, he went, oh, sorry, I've got a personal emergency,

I've got to leave now. So right at the point where they were supposed to be showing, showing your hand, showing your hand and showing what you're about to submit, he just disappeared. Right, so Glenn Jury then puts in all the things, giving all those preferences to the Animal Justice Party, and the Animal Justice Party just completely welches on the deal. It changed everything, yeah. that's quite well no they did it for the animals yeah it's fine yeah that's right it's it's ins versus means that's amazing um am i writing saying just for context that is it still the

case in victoria that you can vote let's say one for derrin hitches yes party and then you'll end up voting for the socialist alliance then the preferences go to wherever they've so because that's been finished everywhere else hasn't well yeah you you could do that but we do have if you vote below the line you get to choose and so i don't still don't understand how people like that have a place in politics when all you have to do is tick five boxes. Five boxes is more than enough to ensure that your preference goes somewhere, unless you pick five extremely horrible parties. I don't know. You're talking to two very lazy people here. Yeah, it's true. Can I tick them over I got a number of them? I hate having to write the numbers in order.

If given the choice between numbers are complicated. You know, the numbers two, three, four and five to me, it's too much effort. I mean, I just always draw a penis, right? That's the best thing you can do with your vote. No, that means you you vote for Peter Dutton. That means,

yeah, it means your vote is correct. Okay, so what's your prediction? Who's going to, like, you've got to give us a prediction.

Despite everything, Dan Andrews is going to take it. I think maybe the Greens will pick up some seats. Nah. Nah. No, you don't agree.

No, I think, hung parliament. I've been reading the Herald son. It's hung parliament all the way. Daniel Andrews is on the nose. Daniel Andrews cannot possibly be premier in the next term of a parliament with stairs around it. I'm sorry, he's just not going to happen.

They're going to install a ramp. I don't know if you've heard that's in the budget. We're going to get some ramps going up and down, probably demolish all the stairs on Parliament. No, no, that'll be an overpass. That's a big construction. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's the big construction plan.

That's why he's so obsessed with construction. Yes. Needs to learn how to remove. That's why he wants level crossings abolished. Yeah, exactly. That's why we need to make everything flat. Yeah, we want everything to be flat. Right.

That doesn't quite make sense better. Level crossing. I mean, that's true. That's a situation with no stairs, well linked to an actual policy. I've been seeing on the social media, the obsession about level crossings is quite bizarre in Victoria. It seems like the entire state is a wonderful utopia, except for a couple of level crossings where you've got to wait for a train to go past occasionally on the road. No, but there were hundreds of them. He's abolished about 700 of them.

Matt Guy's policy is to build them all back, you know. That's what I heard. A little bit more crossing to pick Tadaday. All right, thanks, Matt. Our gear is from Road, and we're part of the ACAS Creator Network. Catch you tomorrow. Bye. Cheers.

Cool.