The Chaser Report - We Fixed Corruption

Episode Date: July 24, 2022

Corruption is a sport for all - with no boundaries of entry, basically any minister can do it! So John Delmenico talks Charles and Lachlan through the latest corruption scandals shaking up all levels of government, as he wraps his head around the rules of the game. Plus, Lachlan stole noodles. 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 for Monday the 25th of July. I'm Charles Firth and with me today are John Delmenico and Lachlan Hodson. Howdy? How was your weekend, guys? Oh, I have the weirdest story from walking into work today. As I was walking into work today, I got accused of being a criminal. What?

Oh, hell yeah. Yeah, no, it was, like, walking to work, and I was stopping off to just buy some stuff for lunch, and I saw a small little corner store that I've been to often, I usually go to, and I was buying just a 10-pack of me-gorang noodles. Yeah, you're poor, yeah, yeah. And as I, you know, I'm paying at the self-checkout, a worker there taps me on the back of the shoulder, and he goes, you're the noodle man. And I'm like, well, sorry, what's going? on the noodle man who's the noodle man and they take me into like the other part of the store and they show me a wanted poster of someone who has apparently been stealing me gourang noodles from this store and they're going you're the noodle man you're the person who's stealing all of their

noodles because i was dressed in a black coat and it looked a bit like this photo and i had to sort of explain to these people i'm like no i pay as much as i would love to not pay for these noodles I do, anyway. Yeah. Are you sure that they weren't referring to your penis when they said you're the noodle man? No, because the photo of the guy's penis looked nothing like mine.

And the weirdest part was, after all of that, after they took me away from the self-checkout, they then didn't charge me the noodles. Because they'd accused you unfairly. Which, in virtue, turned me into a noodle thief. Yeah, that's right. That is very ironic. But can I just ask?

And, you know, I want to do this in a culturally sensitive way. Yes. But is the problem that all white people look the same? That's what's going to confuse me. It's because I know how you dress and how you look. And anyone who's seen you in sketches also he would know. I can't believe you've got profiled as someone who would like shoplift. Looking at you, I would profile you as someone who would do white collar crime.

Like you look like he steal money from the poor. No, well, every time that I'm trying to fly, on a plane, I always get the random baggage check because of appearing, you know, rather school-shooter-y kind of thing. Yeah, no, see, you're very lanky, right? Yes, quite. I think Lachlan, just for the audience, to paint a picture, he's blonde, lanky, lanky, like thin.

I reckon you look like an ice addict. Like, I think it's totally fair. That checks out because whenever I stand at an automatic door and I stand on the pad that senses you, I have to kind of jump a little. just to get through it. But I'm not the noodle man. I'm not the noodle man and I resent any accusations.

And I hope that sucking on those noodles gave you a little bit of extra pleasure. Jesus, Charles. Coming up on the rest of the show, other people have been accused of crimes. Other people have been in a noodle, you could say. Yeah, they're not using their noodle. Oh, yeah, nice. That's a better segue.

And so we've got some people all over. Australia who've been in trouble. Allegedly, John's going to tell us a bit more about that. Yeah, there's a bunch of state politicians who've gotten in hot water. We're going to have a bit of a... I like it. We're going to have a bit of a corruption, you know, a state-based corruption

rap. I'm excited. It's my first time watching state-based corruption. All the juicy gossip straight after these. The Chaser Report. Less news. More often. So John. Yeah. How old are you?

You're about 12, aren't you? I'm 25. You're 25? Yeah, I'm just the most, like, even compared to Loughlin and Zander, who are younger than me, I'm the most Zuma energy of the group. No, that's true. I do have the soul of an old man, yeah. I also paid the least attention to politics my entire life.

For listeners who don't know, I started paying attention to politics about two years ago, which was Alfred already started writing for The Chaser. Yes. We do exclusively hire people who aren't political and don't. know anything about our chosen field of satire. So you've only recently stumbled across state politics. Well, yeah. So, like Gladys, I sort of paid attention to not really just enough to get jokes out of.

And then I'm from Canberra where when there's usually a corruption allegation, they just don't investigate it and they move on. Yes. Good system. Yeah, it's great. So I was really excited last week when, out of nowhere, three different corruption bombshells happened at the exact same time. Sorry, did you say three? Yeah, three.

Wow. So, like, I was repairing because there was stuff saying that Mark McGowan might get investigated. And I was like, oh, that could be interesting. Michael who? Oh, Mark McGowan from W.A. Oh, Mark McGowan. From where? Western Australia, the sovereign state to our left.

Okay, no, no, no. I remember hearing about that one in school, yeah. He's the Saddam Hussein of Australia. He got, like, 96% in the last election. He did. Like, 96% of people voted for it. Yeah, he got the percentage where usually, the UN would investigate for corruption.

But no, it turned out completely different people out of nowhere. So obviously John Barilaro, we knew was coming. But then there's been a bunch more. So the first one in about is the Dan Andrews government. I am. Where it turned out a minister who had resigned had been found guilty of what was referred to as blatantly corrupt stacking of branches.

And that it was like very obvious and everyone knew what was going on. And they just did it. guy resigned at one point, and they're not pressing criminal charges, but they did say it was definitely corruption. Definitely. I don't know to accuse anyone of anything. Can I be just quite honest?

But it is definitely breaking laws. But I don't understand what the problem with stacking branches is. I just honestly don't. In what universe is it wrong to recruit more people into your own party? But why

is that in any way corrupt or... I don't know the details of this. So I looked into this stuff because I was really confused because at first I thought it just sounded like how politics works because the allegation was that they hired a bunch of their friends so that they could get political power which I turned out is actually what they're alleged of doing. But isn't that how all political power?

Yeah, that's what... And then I looked back at previous cases of what branch stacking like things in Victoria where there was one where there was an attempt by the little party to basically throw anyone who wasn't... religious far right. I see why that would be, like, actively kicking people out to replace them is a bit more than just hiring in. But then the other one I found was in, like, diverse areas, the Labor Party made efforts

to bring in diverse community leaders. That one was also branch stacking because they were friends with the people that were brought in, despite the fact that they're also the people who had the best qualifications. Albo, back in the day, that's how he gained political powers, that he made really good links with the Greek community, and then they invite hundreds of people in. And the Greek community in Marrickville is really politically powerful because they brought a whole lot of people into the Labor Party. Like, what is wrong with that?

Isn't that exactly what political power should be? So I think for this, I think for this one specifically, what's happened is that they were intentionally choosing people who would help them gain power and take out a different faction. and that it was an intentional factual play So what? Politicians are supposed to go around and recruit people who don't support them and get them into the page?

So that's my thing is I get why theoretically this is corruption but it also was shocking to me that this is a massive story because it's not like this isn't how literally everyone who doesn't pay attention to politics just assumes politics works I'm just going to be confused about what is the big stories

like with the John Barilaro ones right? So in New South Wales, there's two stories. John Barilaro, his ICAC investigation into the job that he created for himself in New York, started giving up evidence. Well, we've all been there, haven't we? Exactly. Well, so my thing with Barilaro is, so we went into this, into last week,

knowing that he created a job for himself and evidence was going to start coming out for it. And the whole thing that kicked it off was the allegation that somebody had their offer rescinded. And therefore, and then John Marilaro took the role. Yeah. So there's three big pieces of evidence last day that came forward.

So the first bit of evidence that came out was that they never actually offered the job to the person who allegedly was offered the job, which this was the one, this one according to the media isn't shocking. Makes it more above board, doesn't it? Makes it slightly more about board. It's still corruption in terms of he made a job for himself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But also, it sort of makes more sense.

Like, if Job Marilaro was to hire himself, it wouldn't make sense for him to hire someone. else and then rescind that higher because then you're just adding steps to the process and making it look worse. Sorry, you guys don't write crime fiction but it's called a red herring. It's to throw people off the scent.

The second bit of evidence came the next day this is the first massive shock evidence according to the media that he wanted the job. There was evidence that he wanted the job that he created for himself and gave himself

I don't understand how that's shocking I just assumed that he wanted the job I think you're fine in most cases people don't want the jobs that they have Charles do you want the job that you have? No definitely not I hate this job and I created this job You also created this job and you hate it

I think that that is shocking Yeah no one wants to work I'm surprised that he didn't give himself No job but also give himself no job but also give himself $10 million. Yes, exactly. Yes, he wanted to work for the money that he created. That's not corrupt at all.

Have a leaf out of Eddie O'Beed's book. He just got money for doing no work, which is a much better system. If you're going to be corrupt, do it properly. Yes, and look, I think it shows just how badly the lives in New South Wales and the coalition in New South Wales are going. The fact that it can't be properly corrupt? I mean, Josh Bramberg just had a job open up at Goldman Sachs

that no one knew was a job offer in a beginning. Like, most politicians just go into a job where they do nothing and pay a shit ton of money because they're just a public face. Surely, John Barilaro would have been smart enough to know he could have just gotten one of those jobs for way more money. Not John Barrelat. I guess it makes sense.

Like Gladys Baradiglian isn't too corrupt for that, but he probably is. Is there a sort of, anti-conservation society or something in New South Wales John Barilaro was famously the guy who wanted to kill all the koalas to extinction. Okay, so I think we've proven that

dictator Dan, that wasn't corrupt. That was all, like that shouldn't be corruption. And then John Barilaro... John Barro, not very corrupt, unless John, do you have an extra piece of evidence? The third shock thing that came out, now you guys might want to prepare for this. In the job role that he made for himself to take over,

he made it so that he would look like the best person for the job based on the requirements that they would want from someone. But I suppose what it does do, though, John, is it goes towards the fact that it was clearly very pre-planned and well thought through. It's the most ever put him to some of it. I'm just wondering, what were these requirements that he was meeting so well? Yes, yes, must want to kill koalas. I've got a long history in dispatching the special units force. Unsuccessful defamation cases, tick. Tick.

Again, it makes more sense they never offered the job to their person, was that one of the requirements was to prioritize a former minister, which, of course, he would have put that in the system. It makes sense if you want to wrought a system and not offer it, you wouldn't set it up so that somebody who has all the other qualifications would accidentally get the job. I do like to think that. After he put all of that in, he went,

oh shit, what if Scott Morrison applies for this one? The Chaser Report, news you can't trust. To me, the biggest shock of the last week, though, was when they announced that a ICAC investigation to New South Wales government has found a completely other person and a completely other controversy, guilty of corruption.

A guy called John Thedote has surprisingly just come out of nowhere and we found guilty of corruption. I have a clip of what happened here if you don't know what's going on because I didn't know what was going on. From my perspective that the truth has been ignored? The truth, according to ICAC's 200-page Operation Whitney,

was that the member for Dremoyne improperly lobbied councillors to get his family property in five-doc rezoned. Yeah, so he, by the way, was not involved in any sort of ministerial process and it wasn't part of his job at all to be dealing with. property staff, but he inserted himself into a discussion about his local area and tried

to get specifically the land where he had properties rezoned to a higher value area. So is this person a minister or? Yeah, so he's currently a minister in the South House of government. Okay, okay. I think he was the former sports minister or something. Again, he's like, he's a character no one's heard of. I just assumed that this could be another John Barilaro, but it turns out it's completely separate person.

Well, I like that corruption's a sport that's wide. enough that you've got your big leagues, you've got your major, like, state leagues. But then you've also got some little... Little athletics. Little athletics. Yeah. So the...

Undenines corruption. Yeah. So the clip I played before, that was from Channel 9 News, who were interviewing him the day of the ruling, like almost immediately after the ruling and the ruling became public,

he was in the room. To the point where this happened. Dominic Perotay phoned Mr. Cedote this afternoon. while 9 News was in the room. The Premier asked him to resign from Parliament altogether. Mr Sidoti told him in the most forceful of ways to forget about it. I'm not going to do what those prior to me did

and just go and curl up in a corner. There's no way. Absolutely no way. I've worked too hard and I know what I've done and what I haven't done. He worked really hard to get that rezoning, but he's not going to quit now. Well, to be fair to him, the rezoning didn't happen. again because he is not the minister in charge of that stuff and he was just forcing himself into a situation

these guys are just second rate compared to the previous generation the Eddie O'Bids no everyone who's in jail like the corruption nowadays and it's changed like back in my day we had proper good corruption my favourite thing about that is the fact that he clearly also would have known what it was going to if he's organised an exclusive interview with Channel 9

from like an hour or so after they release the findings to the point where if you're Don Perritte, imagine what he felt when he then found it on the newsletter that day, that by the time that he found out what the findings were and we're calling to resign, not only do you have this guy for some reason refusing to resign, which is going to fuck everyone over in the Liberal Party. He's also currently in an interview about the fact that he lost.

I love this This is my favourite one I'm not going to know There's a real shamelessness This is This is very Morrison-esque actually To be honest There's a real sort of like

I'm not quitting I'm not going anywhere I know I'm shit I'm not going to bring down The rest of the fucking pack I don't care I've worked too hard To sit here

And just You know Lays my bum off I'm just gonna sit here And lays my bum off Like well I assume Every politician Is in some way corrupt

I also assume that once you got caught, you just had to leave as part of the deal. But no, they had to now throw him out of parliament with a parliamentary vote and bring bipartisan support against this guy. But I hope he doesn't leave. I want him to stick around as long as possible. Yes.

Because the longer he stays, the funnier this is. He's just playing corruption chicken at this point. Let's get him on the show. He sounds like a fascinating character. Let's get him on the show next week. Can we go with this week? We'll try to get him on the show this week. We'll try to zone him into this podcast.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why we should get him on, absolutely. Yeah, we're going to get him on. Okay. Friend of the show. Well, thank you very much, John. The most shocking thing to me, John, was that you were shocked about the corruption. Oh, no, I knew there would be corruption.

I was just more shocked that the only things that you would just assume happen were all the things that media were say were shocking. Our years from Road And we're part of the ACAST creator network We'll catch you tomorrow