The Chaser Report - VictoriaStan Revolts

Episode Date: December 1, 2022

Dom wants to talk about Australia beating Denmark at the World Cup, but Charles and Andrew hate football, so they talk about revolutions and dictatorships instead. Apologies for Charles' audio. 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. Dom Knight here with Charles Firth, apparently in a car somewhere. Charles, where are you? I'm currently in Canberra on my way to probably the biggest city in Australia for the war on 2020 Club tour, which is, of course, Wollongong. Longong, really.

I mean, it's... Very, very big. We're coming home. The Chasers World Tour Andrew's hackles prickled up there. Andrew Hanson's here too. Hello, Andrew Hanson for the Chaser, the original former chaser.

Hello, look, speaking of tours. Oh, no. Mine goes on sale tomorrow as well, but I'm not going to... I don't know if I'm doing Wollongongong. I don't know, Charles. Should I do Wollongongong? I mean, I haven't added it yet to the itinerary.

The way we do our itinerary is we go lock in Wollongongong and then design the... entire tour around fitting in with Wollongonga. Yeah, because it's kind of like the L.A. or the New York, I guess. Well, the London. It's like the... It's Broadway, really. It's where it's Star. And then you might

do, you know, what's the equivalent of the West End, do you think? Maybe somewhere... Bathurst. Bathurst is basically that, isn't it? Yeah. It's that one listener, Emily, who emails us will enjoy saying that the special West End. Hi, Emily. Come to my show in

Bathurst next year. Are you? Are you a going to play Bathurst really. Gabby Bolt sold out Bathis but she's local. She did. I'd love to do Bathurst. Is there a Bathis Comedy Festival? I would do it if there was one. There would be one if Gabby started one. I think she's only person who could. She should launch one. I would definitely be a part of that.

So where can people buy tickets, pray tell Andrew if one, and what's the name of your show? Look, my name, it's a show about coping with these incredibly expensive times we live in and my show's called Andrew Hanson is cheap and it's my guide to sort of how to survive you know through which I do through you know idiotic songs and sketches are the tickets cheap are the tickets are the tickets

are cheap the tickets are cheap and you just look up uh you know well the first ones that go on sale a Sydney comedy festival and Canberra comedy festival and then on on Tuesday Melbourne and Adelaide festival we're going to go on sale how ambitious and um are the jokes cheap as well they're so cheap Dom they've I've striven to but they are bargain basement jokes rushing out, because I used to do warehouse commercials. I know a lot about how to be cheap and offer things that are crazy prices. So if you want some affordable comedy, you know, from the most cut price member of the Chaser, that's where you get it.

I think the most cut price touring member of the Chaser, I'm pretty sure I'm the most cut price member of the Chaser. No, that's wonderful. Well, the podcast just devolving into plugs really rather than any other. Speaking of which, don't you put an ad here? But I can't believe, but I cannot believe that we've, you know, spent so long with the podcast and not talked about the biggest event. Probably in the history of Australia, which is that the socceroos have made the final.

Hang on, let's just check if Andrew knows what we're talking about. Chad, have you heard of the socceroos, Andrew Hansen? A socceroo, what manner of creature is that? You know that it's not trendy to pretend to not know about sport, Andrew. is it's very fashionable. No, no, okay, look, I admit I've heard of the Sokaroos. I didn't, I wasn't aware that they were playing or whatever. You'll have to tell me about that.

Seriously, you're not aware that currently the FIFA World Cup, the world's largest sporting event, is taking place. Oh, yeah, no, I was aware of FIFA, because I'm across the controversies of FIFA, but I hadn't connected FIFA to the actual Socaroos, because I'm never sure, I'm never sure which sport these, but the only advantage to me of them being called the Socaroos is finally there's a team who I know what sport it is,

you know, whereas other people are saying, Eagles are playing or something. Oh, the panthers are doing this. Or the wallabies. You have no idea what they did. They're all named after bloody animals. And I don't even know whether they're talking about the golf or the curling. I wouldn't have a clue.

I've always found the Australian men's cricket team very hard to decide what they do. All I know is they're men and they're from Australia and they've been named after an insect called cricket. Can I just be honest and say, I am already incredibly bored by this conversation. Can we talk about something more interesting? So dull. It's so dull. I switched off at the mention of Socoroo. You were the two worst possible people to talk about the World Cup with. It was so exciting at 4 a.m. I was feigning enthusiasm. I didn't watch the...

There's only like one point in the entire fucking game. What a stupid game. It's built on the backs of like 600,500 dead migrant workers. It's just a morally despicable game. If you're going to watch a morally, despicable game you might as well just watch the australian men's cricket team because at least they're entertaining soccer is fucking bullshit man let's talk about china or something let's talk about something more interesting you both disappoint me enormously no i agree who's got who's bringing something to talk about anyone or do we finish here i want to talk about what's going on in china because this has the feelings of like another 1989 there's only a couple of times in your life where you live

through moments where there is a genuine sort of revolutionary fervor and what is going on in China is extraordinary like they're living in the most authoritarian state with the most strict social controls of any state that's ever existed in the history of humanity it's controlled using you know high-tech methods of of coercion and control right and people are just going fuck it we're just going to protest anyway. We're just going to actually throw barricades at police officers. We're going to risk being locked up for possibly decades, simply for holding up blank signs. The whole revolution is based on this old idea that, which was a whole Russian proverb, which was you don't need to actually write down what you're protesting about, because

everyone knows what you're protesting about. So everyone is amazing. It is absolutely amazing. And that's going on there and then in Iran at the same time. Yes. People are just going, we have had enough. But no, it is amazing in China that they're holding up blank pieces of paper. I want to brainstorm today how we can get Australia to be in the same sort of revolutionary fervor as China. Well, I can start you there, Charles, right away, because I live in a state that, you know,

you say China's the most repressive regime ever known in the history of humanity, but you forget that I live in the state of Victoria. Oh, no. It's exactly the same. Victoria, Stan. Yes, that's right, yes, yes. And, you know, as the Murdoch press have pointed out,

you know, we too are run by a dictator who recently won a suspiciously large number of votes, like all dictators do. It was. They run these sham elections, you see, don't they? I mean, no one in the media predicted it. That just goes to show. that it was fake, it was a dupe, the fix was in, it was rigged.

Well, it must be, you know, I mean, how else do you explain it other than that people voted for him because they, you know, I mean, there's no other explanation. No, but if they did vote for him, it's because they probably felt some sort of coercion. They probably felt like they had to, otherwise they'd be killed or something. Well, I did, I did, you know, I turned up at the booth and, you know, there was this Melbourne barista standing there with a huge huge beer who pointed a coffee machine right on my head

and told me I had to vote for Daniel Andrews or else I would get a blast of espresso Was it a bespoke vote? Was your voting artisanal? Yes, absolutely. Yes, I had to ride on a piece of sourdough instead of a... I presume in Victoria you vote by, I don't know,

using sealing wax or something or maybe you can knit a ballot paper. Of course, yes, it's environmentally friendly, No, we're not allowed to use any manufacturing here. I'm just thinking, in Victoria, if you held up a piece of blank paper, it would be a considerably better product than the Harold's son, wasn't it? It would, and it would probably just be interpreted as a great piece of public art and you'd receive about $20,000 in funding.

You'd have an art subsidy from Daniel Andrew. Andrew, are you, when you went to vote, I know this is an awkward topic, were there stairs? Because my theory is that the way that they rigged the election is by having it in lots of venues with stairs and we know that stairs are the most devastating political force in Victoria and we're in cahoots with Daniel Andrews. He prevented him from being able to vote.

He wouldn't be able to vote for himself if there were stairs involved or at least more than one stair. Because I think he had two. Two or three. Was it? Are two stairs even a flight? Can we call it two stairs a flight? It's a short flight, isn't it?

No, no, yeah, so look, it's a frightening place. It's a frightening. So we might have to begin the revolution here. Yeah, although I must say, I did like the shovel reported yesterday, actually, that Victoria is now the world's most livable dictatorship, which I think... At least you've got that, Andrew. That's very good.

As every Victorian will tell you, incessantly, of every possible opportunity We are so livable here I can't get over the livabilityness Oh my God Do you feel that people constantly bang on About livability reduces the livability

Because I do Yeah it's very irritating It's all yes And when they bang on about being the best place That kind of makes you stop thinking It's the best place Because you can't It's a very insecure city

Isn't it, Melvin I love it but it's really insecure It's like your friend who's just constantly boasting Because they're so completely neurotic about, you know, you're not having respect for them or something. Well, it is, it is. You know, ironically, I think the one thing that stops it being the best is that they keep on banging on about it being the best.

I mean, if they just stop doing that, it probably would be the best. Well, if they stop doing that, they'd be Canberra. Because Camber doesn't think of itself as the best, but it keeps on being named as the best city in the world. That's funny. Do you think it's the best? I mean, it's not pleasant to drive around. I'm currently in Canberra.

I went, this morning, I drove along empty roads. Because no one seems to. And that's peak hour, isn't it? Yeah, it's peak hour. Yeah, it's peak hour. Your presence alone turns into peak hour. My presence makes it go yellow on the Google Maps. That's right, yeah.

It goes from empty. Yeah. Charles, I saw some paperwork this week that said you were born in Canberra. I was born in Canber. You've always been a Canberra. It's nice to be home, isn't it? Yeah, I moved out of... I was born in September, 1975, and Gough Whitlam got sacked.

When was it in November? November. So I was about two months old. That was my first protest rally. We all went down to Parliament House. My mum heard that Whitlam had been sacked. And so I was there on the steps of Parliament House. You and Norman Gunston.

Me and Norman Gunston. We were holding. up white pieces of paper, just blank pieces of paper, because it was too oppressive to actually write down what we were probably. Maybe I just didn't know what we were producing. But then straight after that, after Whitlam was sacked, my starry-eyed Whitlamite parents, I think just said, this is enough. We've got to get out of Canberra. And we fled. We fled. You were refugees, political refugees, from the phrase of Canberra. I mean, in some ways, 1975 that, you know, Remembrance Day 1975 was our, you know, revolution in the same way that, you know, like crackdown, just like it's happening in China.

Do you think that's an offensive comparison to make? No, I think it's exactly the same. I think it's very fair, Charles. Yeah, I know, I think we're just, in fact, I think those Chinese people are probably copying. I reckon all those people will see the iPhone plant for furniture. They're just going to remember what happened to Whitlam. Yeah, that's right. We don't want a Whitlam to take place here at the iPhone vacuum.

Canberra is the Beijing of Australia and it's the capital it's cententially planned and whenever there are actual signs of life anywhere they bulldozing. Well, I bought some shopping yesterday and I was just returning

back to the hotel with two shopping bags and this tank came up in front of me and I just stared it down. Oh, that's Canber for you. That is Canberra. And that is? Actually, from what I hear, Canberra is tank-proof because they can't possibly get around the roundabout.

Their turning circles, not good enough. Genius. No, this is my point. This morning went out for coffee. Beautiful, like, went down to Kingston. There's a foreshore there now because they've built it sort of on Lake Burley Griffin. So it's like harbour views. There's no one there yet drinking beautiful coffee.

It is, it's the best place in the world. If it weren't for the people and all the sex creeps in Parliament House, this would just be Nirvana. This is lovely. I'm moving here. I'm moving back. Well, you heard it here first. Canberra is the best place in Australia.

Except for the politicians and sex best. Our gears from Road, we're part of the Ocast. Crater Network. Catch you tomorrow.