The Chaser Report - We Made an Intern Watch Sky News | Dylan Behan

Episode Date: April 28, 2022

The 2022 Federal Election has begun! Bring on The Chaser Report: Election Edition!Host of NewsFighters podcast Dylan Behan joins the election desk to showcase the worst and worser of the media's election coverage. Meanwhile Charles has forced John Delmenico to watch all of Sky News this election, to find out how unbiased they really are. Plus Dom unpacks Peter Dutton's war rhetoric, and Charles brings his daily Election Wrap. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In an election that will determine the fate of the entire universe, there's only one podcast holding politicians accountable. Scott Morrison, Anthony Albanese, who will boom? Find out on The Chaser Report, election edition. Hello and welcome to the election edition of The Chaser Report. It is Thursday the 28th of April. I'm Dom Knight. Hello, Charles Firth. Hello. 23 days until the election.

That's a lot of podcasts we've got to fill. Yeah, man. And nothing's happening. What's going on? Yesterday we had the whole segment on Catherine Deves, the liberal candidate for Waringa. She's had a bit of a rough time. And I suggested she was going to lose.

I suggested she had no fans in the electorate and that it was a done deal, right? Yeah, yeah. Now, that was really unfair. There was a clip doing the rounds on social media yesterday, where one of her supporters, possibly her only supporter, tried to get together some of the volunteers

to give a big cheer in favour of Catherine Deaves. I'm going to play it in a sec. You'll hear a woman exhorting a crowd. There's about 10 volunteers in blue t-shirts. Lovely. When you listen, it sounds like there's like one volunteer or maybe half a volunteer. I have a listen and just get a sense of some of the excitement

that Catherine Deaves is generating in Tony Abbott's old seat. We love Catherine. We love Catherine. She is our candidate. Okay, one, two, three, go. She's our candidate. Yes, for a Warringa. That's it.

So the team's revolution. Look, it's underway. Give it time. Every, every title wave, Charles, starts very small. What she needed to do was get some of the sort of transgender community on board, because they're very good at... Yeah, they're very vocal and angry, aren't they? They don't know what her name is, at least.

There is stuff to talk about. I've had a look at some of Peter Dutton's words over the past few days. Let's just say we should be very, very frightened indeed, Charles. Oh, well, that's a reason to stick around, hearing more about Peter Dutton. Well, Dylan Bean, who's worked with us as an editor on many Chase election shows, he sifts through the news to find absolute gold, and he's going to update us on some of his favourite clips of the campaign. He does the Newsfighters podcast.

Plus, we've been forcing one of our interns, John Delmenico, to watch Sky News, the last few weeks to sort of find out how the election works from that perspective. And he'll be in, I'm not sure, I mean, is he going to be all right? I don't know. I mean, he certainly helped Scott News' ratings. That's right. But first, let's check in with Charles' daily campaign update. This is the election wrap for Thursday, the 28th of April. Up, up, up, inflation is out of control, the economy is tanking, and wages are going backwards.

But according to Scott Morrison, it's not his fault. To provide that immediate cost of living relief. And as we know, this has been driven by events very far away from Australia. So suddenly, the man who says he's the best at managing the economy says this aspect of managing the economy has nothing to do with him. The inflation rate now means wages are going backwards fast. But Labor says they'll increase wages. So can we get a clip?

No, they're all too boring. You just get a clear clip of Albo saying you'll put up wages, that must be. Okay, okay, okay. Everything is going up except people's wages, so we need a plan to address real wages. Oh, God, you're right. That's shit. Told you. So shit.

But Morrison says Labor's plan for higher wages is a false promise, because it's not up to the government to set wages. Instead, it's up to the Fair Work Commission, which is appointed by the government. Meanwhile, there are concerns about Peter Dutton's whereabouts after he failed to turn up to a candidate's community forum in his electorate last night. Police have been notified and say they are looking for a man in his late 40s matching the appearance of a potato. And finally, one third of the world's reptiles are about to be driven to extinction through climate change. Not that you'll hear about it in this election. God, I'm depressed. That's the election wrap for Thursday, the 28th of April.

back in a sec. The Chaser Report. Election edition. With a six-week campaign and precious little policy to discuss what on earth of media organisations has been doing to fill all that airtime. To tell us, Dylan Bion, joins us now,

our good friend and host of the News Fighters podcast. Hello, Dylan. Hey, Dom. Hey, Charles. How are going? Very well. Election seasons in full swing, which means, of course, it's lots of corny,

staged photo ops put on by the major political parties that are just tricked into making the news media deliver equally corny puns. Now, I thought I'd start off by playing some of my favourites from the campaign so far. First of all, I think Craig mentioned this on the show earlier in the week. Early in the campaign, Scott Morrison visited an aluminium can factory, which meant Mark Riley at Channel 7 just couldn't help himself with this one. Scott Morrison knows that for him, this election remains far from in the can. In the can, not bad.

Not a bad start there from Mark Riley. I thought Campbell Can Do Newman had just killed the can puns forever, but apparently not. Morrison's team seems to be very good at this. In fact, if you've been following international politics, you would have seen French President Emmanuel Macron was re-elected this week.

So, of course, Scott Morrison's team sent him to a French bakery in Townsville where he was filmed making macaron biscuits and croissons, which led to these great puns. Scott Morrison is delivering election sweeteners up and down the East Coast. Making one French favourite while congratulating another. But if you think making macarons is difficult.

There we go. Healing relations with a Macron will be trickier. Scott Morrison calls that criticism half-baked. Trebonne. Merci. Did any of the pastries call him a liar at any point? Yes, he wasn't making any submarine sandwiches, I saw that. But I think that the best pun run of the campaign so far has to be when Scott Morrison decided to do a photo op at a like an outdoor fishing and camping shop to tie in with is, did you hear about this announcement?

$20 million for quote unquote, fishos, boathies and campers. I have no idea what a fish. A fischo. Oh, Shobo and the fishos with some casho. Anyway, the media caught this massive catch. The Prime Minister fishing for votes. Today he's fishing for votes. Scott Morrison hoping to lure more Australians to vote for the coalition.

In the New South Wales Central Coast, Mr Morrison hoping voters take the bait. Winning over the public can require a bit of bait. Hoping voters would be taken hook line and sinker by his announcement. By casting $20 million. Casting for the votes of weekend warriors. Although he wasn't keen to be on the hook for any questions on the pledge. Oh, what's Labor doing? The Liberals are totally outpunning them this election.

I think I just choked on official. Was that PVO in the middle there? Oh, PVO and Mark Riley, love a good one. He was particularly pleased himself. That's how I could pick him. What's Labor doing? They're just going to aged care facilities. There's nothing there.

The best they could do was when, at the beginning of their campaign, Anthony Albanese was pictured with some newborn chickens at the Easter show. And then, yeah, our mate, Peter Van Oncelain, was the only one who could come up with anything. He had this. It would deliver a Labor. a victory, but it's too early to start counting chickens. Oh, God.

If you go to aged care, I mean, that is Labor's big issue. It's just like out of puff, you know, near the end, the terminal. Actually, the way I suppose COVID's going, it might actually be a very uncomfortable analogy. Speaking of which that was, of course, the big story of the week, which I'll go into a little bit. Now, the print media had some good puns about this. I think the front page of the telegraph was Alba Sneezy. Did you see this? Oh, no, really?

Yeah, which actually, I don't know if you are, James Collie, the comedy writer, he writes for the weekly and stuff. He put that on social media as a joke and then the next day it was on the front page, the telegraph. So I think they owe him some royalties for that one. Oh, gosh.

No, the broadcast media didn't really have any good puns. They just acted like they were in a lot of shock that a man who left the house in 2022 somehow caught COVID-19. What a shock! The media seemed so shocked by this. Tonight, an election shock. Anthony Albanese tests positive to COVID-19. Good morning. Anthony Albanese's election campaign has been delta-blown.

Anthony Albanese's election campaign is in turmoil. Well, certainly testing times for the Labour campaign. Albo in ISO. Fighting infection and the election from his living room. Australian electioneering entered a phase never before experienced in our 121 years of federation with a political leader forced to campaign on. online at home. I can't believe that 120-odd years of Australian democracy,

no one's campaigned online before. What were they doing in the 1910? Exactly. Look, to be fair, I think Malcolm Turnbull did spend a lot of the 2016 campaign online, but he was just checking his share portfolio in his Cayman Island bank account balances. Yeah, there was a whole article from the Herald about how they'd had all these plans in place because Albo was inevitably going to get COVID, like the week before. I read that and thought, okay, this is definitely going to happen.

And then a few days later, the Herald was all like, Oh my goodness, he's got COVID. What are the odds? I know. The funny thing was, yeah, Labor was so well prepared for this. All the Labor MPs were like, nah, this is actually a good thing. His front bench team has stepped in to run the campaign events, adamant that the development could end up being a positive for Labor's electoral fortunes. The ABC has spoken to several MPs within Labor who say that this will have an impact

or could have an impact on their campaign, but will not be detrimental. Anthony Albanese is still in isolation. Does that hurt his campaign? Some people are arguing somewhat cynically that it helps her because it gets him out of the limelight after that bad first week. Knowing voters will see little of Anthony Obnesee for the next week. Is that a good thing or a bad thing for your campaign? I don't mind if they see more of the Prime Minister.

I think it's a positive for our campaign. The more they see of Scott Morrison, the more they'll realise that this government has run out of puff. I mean, the word positive should be used very carefully in their situation. But also run out of puff. He said about Albo. That was a great pun. I know everyone in Labor's like, oh no, you mean voters are going to see more of Penny Wong and Jin Chalmers for a week? That's terrible. Hey Albo, would you like another week off? How are

feeling, mate? No, no, rest up, rest up. Every Labor backbencher an MP is using this as their big shot to get in the news. And Jason Clare, the shadow minister for housing, is front zinger man of the week against Skomo's Solomon's deal with this. When we needed a leader, where the bloody hell were you? If you want to build trust in the Pacific, you've got to do a lot more than just play the ukulele. This bloke is so out of touch you'd need the Hubble telescope to find him. There's future shadow minister for sick burns there. I think he should be an insult comic.

Well, we've found our next... Hang on, hang on, hang on. Let's break this down. Out of touch, you'd need the Hubble telescope to find him. Why does that make it out of touch? Yeah, it's a mixed metaphor. It's a cheesy mix. Although, maybe it's because the Hubble telescope was famously broken for very long.

I don't know. But no, Jason Clare has clearly made himself the next Bill Shorten. Like, famous for Zingers, probably opposition leader, probably lose by record numbers. Absolutely. And of course, it couldn't be an election campaign without the old former prime ministers being wheeled out and hitting the hustings. And John Howard was out last weekend in his old seat of Ben Long. Now, Howard is 82 years old now. There's no denying he's getting on a little bit.

And I'm not quite sure he's paying attention to the news very much these days. In fact, I think he may have completely lost touch with reality. Have a listen to this. Scott Morrison, a man who's demonstrated a mastery of the detail of government. Yes. Yes. Not sure what drugs John Howard is on there, but I would like some. And speaking of former Prime Minister is out on the campaign trail,

Kevin Rudd was out this week, and he said this. Yeah, no idea what that is, something in Mandarin. Kevin Rudd just showing off his bilingualism yet again. Although to be fair That is one of the more coherent communications From Labor From the cross-edge campaign

I understand it better than any other Yeah I mean that is actual mastery of the thing John Howard should take a look at that video Anyway that's my wrap of the last week of the campaign I guess check out my podcast news fighters I'll be wrapping the campaign every week And I just put out my 100th episodes

So congratulations And look if anyone finds any excruciating puns Make sure you hit up Dylan on social media There's said to be plenty around And before you got, can I just sort of sidestep a little bit and just bring up one thing? Because you mentioned the Alba Sneezy Albanesey. Yes, yes. Have you been out on like the M5, the M4 recently?

Like every billboard is, won't be easy under Albanesey, right? That's the Liberal Party's main slogan on all the big billboards, right? Why doesn't Labor just come out with a billboard going, it'll be really easy under Albinisi? I don't understand. Or Albanyesee, too easy. What about easy-peasy, Albanyi? Easy, peasy Albanese. Like, it's more of a leap to say it won't be.

Like, if your name rhymes with easy, use it. Fucking use it. Small target, Charles. Small target. Oh, yeah. Why don't we just get on the phone of Peter Vett? I don't know if you can pitch it.

Election News, you can't trust. The Chaser Report. Now, we've got something very special for you now because we've been making John Dillmenico, who's one of the chaser interns. We've been making him watch Sky News for the last few weeks. How's that been going, John? It's been torture, way worse than I thought it was going to be.

I assume it was to be, like, watching Fox News, where Tucker Carlson, for how bad she's insane he is, he's still a good, attaining host. Yes, yes. But that's not the case when it comes to Sky News. They're all extremely boring. Can I just check, do you respect Chris Kenny? No.

Okay, so he hasn't been completely twisted yet. I was genuinely concerned when Charles set me this task, because I'm doing it for the entire election. And in America, they had an experiment that had just come out where they got Fox News viewers to watch 10 hours of CNN a week. And it genuinely made them within a month a lot more left-leaning. Ooh, right, okay. And so my concern is that was a month of CNN from Fox News.

I'm doing like twice the amount of content per week for six weeks of Sky News. of Sky News. Well, there is a reason why we got the person with the bald head in the office to watch the Sky News thing because it's sort of, you know... I'd fit in with the crowd. Yeah, exactly.

It's important to note that any therapy you require for this in future is not covered by any chase or insurance policy. Yeah, I already asked. So, yeah, so I thought it'd be a good way to start the election podcast because we haven't really talked about the parties individually yet,

and I thought, what better source than Sky News? in that it's the only source I'm watching now. So I've got how they talk about the Liberal Party and Scott Morrison. He's determined and competitive. Albanese can claim wins over Morrison on his broken promise to set up a corruption watchdog. This campaign to smear Morrison as a liar and a misogynist, they're crazy Christian, a guy who can't take responsibility,

all that trash. Most of it lies, you know that. He needs to get away from all these woes. policies. Always people should be putting liberals first, obviously. Wow. So they're really unvarnished, don't they? They're just straight out. Vote. Vote live. So, yeah, so they're very directly telling everyone how to vote this election. It's the first thing I've learned is that I assumed it would be like, have your opinion. Maybe if you're looking this way, go to say, no, they're just telling everyone how to vote. The only confusing one is

they're saying in Queensland, that's a tricky ticket because you've got too many options. Yeah, too many amazing options and it's the only place where the independence are good, according to Sky News. But everywhere else, at most, you can put a UAP vote or a One Nation vote first and then Liberal Party second. It's quite good though, isn't it? Because, I mean, at least there's no suffuge, right? Like, there's nothing insidious going on. They're just, it's basically just 24 hours a day boosting the lips.

You know how election ads have little authorisations at the end of each thing? Does each program end with it authorized by the Liberal Party? One of my favourite things about this election, though, is that. that when it comes to defending Scott Morrison, because there's not much to defend with and they're not as intaining as like Carlson. They sort of just don't. It was quite funny when they were listing

all of the criticisms you could throw at Morrison and go, well, obviously, most of these things are wrong, I think Andrew Bolt said there. Well, my favorite one is Andrew Bolt who clearly likes Labor more at this point. After the budgets, he was like, Labor's is fine, by the Liberal Party, there's horrible because they want to bring more foreigners

into the country. And after that, he's been pretty anti-Scott Morrison. Well, actually, the debate was fascinating. I wrote an article about it. And Andrew Bold actually said, you know, Albanese was better than Morrison in that he had more vision for the future. He was more positive. And the biggest compliment he can possibly pay a Labor leader, he wasn't as scary as some of the others. Well, I thought let's have it to listen to how they normally talk about Labor, though.

To the Albanese, look, he's not a bad bloke, Alba. He's a pretty authentic when you meet him. My grave concern is the fact that he'd be a lapdog for Gigi Ping. He simply is an economic moron. An alternative prime minister who was really playing out of his league. I might need to get the L-plate, the lunar plate out for Anthony Albanese. His biggest problem is that he's Anthony Albanese. Suddenly a coal evangelist, hallelujah.

You know, they don't even take their shirts off. You think, you know, if you're going to be half serious, at least get a bit of chest hair out. No, I get it. How hopeless is the Labor campaign? So if Albo gets needy wins, is that what we're saying? Yeah, that was Matt Canavan at the end there. Matt Canavan is a constant person on Sky News. Coincidentally, Matt Canavan is up for losing his seat.

Yeah, the line between official Sky News paid contributor and just Liberal MP is very, very porous, isn't it? He is genuinely on it every night. And my favourite thing is his shirts always change, but they're always brand new shirts that are clearly shirts to make him look like his working class. He has a custom embroidered high-vis vest with his name embroidered in. and the Nationalist Party logo. I couldn't pay attention to that interview because I was just laughing at his,

hive's vest while they were saying some shit about Labor. Okay, so we've covered Labor and Liberal. Do they say anything about those voices of candidates? The who? The voices of, you know those sort of the client? Oh, the Teal crew. Yeah, no, I've got some stuff about that group. So let's unite around the danger that is the fake independence.

Oh, yes, the so-called independence. Meanwhile, unofficial political party, climate 200. This is a hack. These are the 20 people. All of them white. All upper middle class. Australian woke financier Simon Holmes are cool. This is the most elitist thing I have ever heard.

All global warming catastrophes. Fake independence. They are an electoral fraud. I are almost all of a women. 17 of the 20. Global warming is a religion. And women, polls show, are overwhelmingly more religious than men. Oh, nice.

Yeah, so... Hang on, isn't the Liberal Party's supposed to be a broad church? Why aren't they running for the Lib? Well, that is a constant thing. So I had Howard on to talk about how the voices of moving is all just a big phony to destroy the Liberal Party. I don't think they're funny about that. That's clearly what they want to do, isn't it?

Yeah, it's like they have this weird thing where they somehow look at something which they can criticize. And my favourite part is they always take it from a really left-wing standpoint against them. So they talk about like no billionaires should be funding any political party or any media coverage and that they're all from privileged backgrounds. And it's like, I mean, fair, but it's also your Sky News. You're literally the problem.

Yeah, and it's accusing everyone of being white. You're just going, that is Sky News's liner. I think two of the hosts have said they have white privilege at some point. Like they're sort of just using the terms that they hate all the rest of the time when talking about the voices of movement. But they're obviously the biggest threat. for voices of though is the fact that if they get power that means that the people they work for labour are also getting told stuff from who they work for and the biggest threat to everyone

the Greens ah yes bar left party of simpletons and socialists even more dangerous lefty idiot in adam ban how about their anti-white race policies have the Greens gone stark staring insane they're a clear and present danger to Australia's future for extremists A party which stands against Australian prosperity. Utterly insane. Rains last? Absolutely. I'm just wondering whether that group of people has a problem with extremism. It seems...

I've been growing in concern while watching it. Because one of the things they keep talking about is that a lot of the Sky News hosts still believe that the 2020 election was stolen. The in the US. Yeah. And so they'll talk about it. They straight up use the phrase. don't let them steal this election save democracy and then we need to fight back in a bunch of episodes

and being like, oh, the independence and we're stealing the election for the Greens and it's all a coverer. And I'm like, do they just want a Jan 6th in Australia? Like they're just, they're actively saying that it's anti-democracy that the Greens exist and that if Labor wins a minority. They're even saying genuinely to them,

wherever you put liberal, put Labor one below it. they're like actively trying to stop the Greens so it's like the thing I've really learned so far is I went into assuming that they'll be all anti-Labour and all pro-liberal no but the thing is what I didn't realize was because Albanesey's also pro-Murdog yeah you know what this is why on the Murdoch party it's because the Greens have an explicit policy

of taxing billionaires yeah like that's a far bigger threat to scone his owners than Labor yeah so let me get a right so billionaires Can't control climate independence, but they can control an entire TV station. Yeah, they control an entire TV station. They can control both the major parties, and they can fund pretty much all the areas of democracy. But they can't find a single independent unless they're Clive Palmer. They're also all friends with Clive Palmer, and they speak very highly with him throughout the show.

Well, yeah, then there's Gina Reinhardt donating money to Barnaby Joyce. That's democracy in action. Yeah, but I may even take away from all this so far when it comes to like when you're trying to find out information from a certain thing is from pedicredlin. This is a commentator. You've got to keep your objectivity. You might have a horse in the race, you know, everyone knows my liberal history. You might have a horse in the race. You might want a particular side to win.

But if you think your opponent is done and dusted off one mistake and you've won the election, you're kidding yourself. History tells you you haven't. Dearie, you go. Fair and balanced. That is the least biased thing I've heard on Sky in a long time. The possibility that Albanyi might not have completely destroyed his own campaign so far. Rigging elections since before it was called The Chaser Report. Now, Charles, you've heard of Godwin's law, haven't you?

It's not one of those science laws. It's an internet law that every online argument will eventually devolve into being about Hitler. Yes, yes, that is true. No matter what you talk about. You can just talk about, I don't know, your favourite cafe and at some point someone's going to bring in the Nazis. Yeah, yeah.

Vladimir Pitten's been using it to justify his invasion of Ukraine lately. And in fact, in high school debating, we did a bit of that. And whenever you brought Hitler into a debate, you basically lost it at that point, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But nobody told Peter Dutton, unfortunately,

because he's been out trying to justify reasons to re-elect his goal. Oh, God, he's not invoking Hitler. Here's what he has. Let's just say he's been making the same point on all kinds of news stations. Here's the first one. We're in a period very similar to the 1930s now,

and I think there are a lot of people in the 1930s that wish they had have spoken up much earlier in the decade than they had to at the end of the decade. Wait a minute, is he implying that Anthony Albanese is Hitler? Is it? I don't think so, although you never know with all the hits. I think some of the commentators on Sky News have been trying to make that case. Well, no, he's saying that we need...

And also, does he think that's a good thing or a bad thing? Yeah, that's actually a good point. No, he's saying that, you know, with serious threats overseas, we need to get out ahead of it. This clip, I think, might make his point clearer. It's China under President Xi, and as we found in the 1930s, if you just continue on an appeasement phase, which is what Penny Wong is proposing, then you will find yourself in conflict. I like that he doesn't actually mention Nazis. He just says, oh, in the 1930s. Yeah.

You know, that was 1930s. It was the jazz age. Yeah, and that, oh, Penny Wong happens to you. I have Chinese heritage. But Penny Wong, the idea that she would appease anyone or anything, she is a frightening woman. Whenever she walks into a room, people just scatter. Her death stare should be deployed militarily until we get the submarines going.

And then he went even further. Now, this one's a bit graphic. I know you've got sensitive sensibilities, Charles. Just cover your ears for this one. Oh, okay. We have to be realistic that people like Hitler and others aren't just a figment of our imagination or that they're consigned to history. We have in President Putin at the moment,

somebody who's willing to kill women and children. So that's... Hang on, hang on. So wait a minute, is it Xi Jinping or Putin who's Hitler? I think it changes day by day. And you might have noticed all the music kind of fact. That's because he was talking to Sky News at some sort of commemorative Vanzac Day type of event.

This is the day when he announced that war was peace and to prepare for... To ensure peace your head to make war. Something like that. In the same interview, he said that we should brace ourselves for a chemical attack on a major Australian ally. All of this is quite scary, but it makes you think, gosh, who's the defence minister who's meant to be protecting us

from all their threats for the past couple of years? Oh, wait a minute. It's Peter Dunn. And what's he done during that period? He's managed to organise nuclear submarines for, was it, 2040 the last day? I don't know, Charles. I think you might have also gone a bit too far with the scare campaign stuff over a few, because this is not new for Dutton.

He's been trying to scare people for a very long time. And in fact, Catherine Deves, the Liberal candidate for Waringa, tweeted in 2019, well, let's just say she called him Voldemort. Oh. Back in 2019, this was before... But knowing Peter Dukes, he probably thinks that's a compliment. He's certainly better looking than Peter Dutton.

I think it's very unfair to Voldemort. Voldemort could manage you up submarines before 2040. But, I mean, I've looked up Labor's defense policy. You'll never believe what Labor says. Is it Ditto? Yes, it actually is. We passed all the same things. So it's going to make no difference, according to Labor anyway,

whether we have Peter Dutton or Richard Miles or whoever it ends up being as Labor's Defence Minister. So basically we should brace ourselves for a chemical attack on a major Australian ally. Thanks for letting us know, Pete. Oh, that's good. Let's just hope it's New Zealand. As always, Gary is from Road Microphones.

We're part of the Acast, Creator Network.