People of Earth, attention.
For Subtitling Services, contatct: waqas.zahoor89@gmail.com
♪ Mad as hell. ♪
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
Thank you. Thank you. Hello. How are you? Happy new year.
Or, as Michaelia Cash might put it...
How are you? Good to see you. Mwah! Happy new year.
(LAUGHTER)
So, everyone enjoy the Australia Day, Invasion Day,
Whatever Won't Offend Anyone weekend?
(AMBIVALENT REPLIES)
Yeah? Yeah, look, no, I was a bit ambivalent about it as well.
Frankly, I can't see
how we can celebrate anything on January 26 anymore,
for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, I lost out on Young Australian of the Year...
(LAUGHTER) ..again!
I mean, this is the 50th year in a row now.
(LAUGHTER)
All power to Samantha Kerr, but I do that!
(LAUGHTER)
Through a hoop every day here at the ABC, for you.
The second reason I can't celebrate Australia Day anymore
is that from now on, it's always going to be the day
that Sophie Monk and Stu Laundy announced
their relationship was over.
Now, as we know, the pair met just a few months ago on The Spinster,
and, from where I was sitting, the relationship looked rock solid,
but on Friday, with a very heavy heart,
Sophie Instagrammed the sad news, saying:
Well... I know. (MIMICS KENNETH WILLIAMS) "I know."
(LAUGHTER)
Well, speaking on behalf of Australia, I waive that debt.
(LAUGHTER)
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
I honestly don't want that answer.
What I want is a day when the whole country can come together as one
without the cloud of these sorts of sad events hanging over it.
And I know when it comes to Australia Day,
it's different for each of us, because, as Donald Trump says,
there are two sides to every simplistic argument.
And, as we know, in both groups, there are those who are alt-right
and there are those who are alt-wrong.
But I want to focus on those who in the lead-up to our national day
were trying to effect a change for the better.
Now, as we know...
(LAUGHTER)
As we know, troublemaker youth radio station Triple J
decided to shift its annual Hottest 100 from January 26
in support of the 'change the day' movement,
and this left a gap in the 'making a list of songs you like' market,
which was very helpfully filled
by the alt-voice-of-youth Cory Bernardi.
(LAUGHTER)
Now, Triple M did one too, but Cory's was ad-free.
The Australian Conservatives 100 playlist really rocked, too,
in my opinion.
It had Savage Garden's To The Moon And Back,
the Hilltop Hoods' 1955,
Midnight Oil's Power And The Passion.
And unlike the Ms and the Js,
Cory got to engage with the artists he was featuring.
Savage Garden's Darren Hayes, for example,
tweeting when he heard the news:
(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)
The Hilltop Hoods posting:
(LAUGHTER)
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
But Midnight Oil's Peter Garrett taking a contrary view,
issued this statement about being included,
saying it was "lovely".
(LAUGHTER)
But none of this fazed Cory.
He is, after all, one of the Conservatives' faze-less men.
(MUTED LAUGHTER)
As he said of the artists he had used to further his agenda:
Exactly. I mean, Solid Rock is just a good song you can dance to.
♪ Saw the white sails in the sun Yeah!
♪ White man, white law, white gun Yeah! ♪
(LAUGHTER) See? It's infectious.
And as Cory says, ultimately:
And hopefully, more and more people can enjoy Cory's craft
by doing just that.
Now, the other positive contribution came from former PM Tony Abbott.
He, uh... (LAUGHTER)
He saw there was division across our country
and decided not only to pour oil over troubled waters
but set fire to it as well...
(LAUGHTER)
..assuring Ray Hadley and those in Sydney,
who presumably have the radio on in the background
while they're doing something else, that...
What happened on 26 January 1788
was, on balance, for everyone, Aboriginal people included,
a good thing,
because it brought Western civilisation to this country.
Now, um... (LAUGHTER)
Now, I don't want to presume
to speak on behalf of the Indigenous members of our population,
but I'm not sure Western civilisation
got to Australia in 1788.
Judging from what usually goes on come Australia Day,
I'm assuming that we mainly got the beginning of the Middle Ages,
before personal hygiene and the invention of the printing press.
Now, like Tony, though,
I don't wear a black armband while reading history.
I wear a blue singlet with "Love It Or Leave" written across the front.
(LAUGHTER)
And to be honest, like Tony, I tend to read mainly crime thrillers.
But the point is... (LAUGHTER)
..not what's fair or decent or honest or thoughtful
or to have any empathy
or to question what we've been unthinkingly doing for 200 years,
it's to hold on to those few remaining things
we have in our society that conservatives can conserve.
They lost the marriage debate last year.
The least we can do, I think,
is let them celebrate terra nullius in peace.
(LAUGHTER)
So, what do we do moving forward?
Well, I think we keep the name as it is and, rather than change the date,
perhaps we should do as the Herald Sun has suggested
and simply MOVE the date.
It's a subtle distinction, but I think it'll make a big difference.
Move the actual date of January 26
to another part of the year - say, uh... say, October,
which is, let's face it, a bit light on for public holidays.
And historically, this would be very, very significant,
because no-one's altered the calendar since Pope Gregory XIII,
and I think this would be a great show of strength and leadership
for Malcolm Turnbull.
I mean... (LAUGHTER)
I mean, we'd probably end up having to have a postal vote on it,
but I think it'd get through.
(LAUGHTER)
And while we're there, I think we should all get rid of Easter,
because, from what I understand anecdotally,
people aren't using it to go to church.
(LAUGHTER)
Ditto Christmas, Anzac Day and the Melbourne Cup.
If you're not into it, you shouldn't get a day off work.
Oh, tell you what - let's move Australia Day to February 29.
Then we'd only have to worry about it every four years.
Who's with me? Yeah! (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
And coming up a little later on,
strawberry ice-cream disagrees with bird.
But right now, it's time for us to look at the problem
of not what it is to be Australian,
but the problem that arises
when you're Australian and another nationality as well,
a subject that requires a little bit of plain speakin'.
(BLUEGRASS MUSIC, PIG SQUEALS)
(LAUGHTER)
(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)
Is that, um...
Is that cultural appropriation?
I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry.
There. That's better. (LAUGHTER)
Well, recently re-elected mono-citizen and the Federal...
(LAUGHTER)
..the Federal Minister for Transport...
Yeah, I'm not sure that's the most appropriate photo
for the Minister for Transport.
Can we do something about that?
(LAUGHTER)
Yeah... Yeah, OK...
(LAUGHTER)
Are we done?
(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)
That's OK. That's OK. I'll go with that.
Anyway, the Minister for Transport, Barnaby Joyce...
I've forgotten what I was gonna say. (LAUGHTER)
Oh, that's right.
Yeah, Barnaby Joyce has been made Minister for Infrastructure.
Now, personally, I don't agree with that.
I believe that you should not be given a portfolio
unless you can pronounce it.
(LAUGHTER)
But the good news is that Barnaby is no longer a New Zealander.
The, um... the bad news is
that the dual-citizen-ship continues on its voyage of the damned,
with the High Court up to its eyes with nays.
For example, they have to decide which of these two candidates,
who in the last election received a combined tally
of less than one-tenth of the informal vote,
will take over Jacqui Lambie's appropriately vacant seat
in the Senate.
The contenders are the mayor of Devonport City, Steve Martin,
from the still as not yet completely rolled out Jacqui Lambie Network,
and the woman touted as "the next Pauline Hanson" -
although, I don't know why,
as the old one isn't completely clapped out yet...
(LAUGHTER)
Anyway, she's Kate McCulloch.
Now, Steve is next on the JLN ticket,
and he seems a fine fellow,
with a long record of commendable public service,
culminating in his appointment as mayor,
which, ironically, might render him
as constitutionally ineligible as Jacqui was,
or, as Jacqui herself put it...
I've been found to be in-illegible by way of dual citizenship.
(LAUGHTER)
It's true. She was in-illegible.
I know that I always found her very difficult to read.
(LAUGHTER)
But if the High Court goes up to Steve Martin and says,
"Hey, Steve, how can you be a senator when":
And if Steve gets ex-CUSED, then Kate McCulloch gets in.
What's she like, former adviser to Jacqui Lambie, Dolly Norman?
Um, Shaun, it's true that Jacqui and I had our differences,
but I have to say that Kate and I have our sames.
I mean, it's like we're as thick as two thieves in a pond.
(LAUGHTER)
I met her while we was picketing Muslim schools in Burnie
over the Chrissie hols, and we got on like a mosque on fire.
Oh! (LAUGHTER)
I tell you, Shaun, she is a really beautiful spirit.
Well, I think we have footage of Kate
being a really beautiful spirit.
Muslims do not fit in in this town. We are Aussies, OK?
They're wrecking Australia. They're taking us over.
They've got terrorists amongst 'em.
I went to Bankstown, got money out of a keycard machine.
I couldn't believe it. They followed me!
And I thought I was gonna be mugged.
We can't see them when they wear their habibs.
(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)
Yeah. Yeah, it's a fair enough...
..I think a fair enough comment about the Habibs.
I, uh... (LAUGHTER)
I thought that show was borderline racist.
Um...
(LAUGHTER)
Uh, do you think Kate will be able to leave her mark in the centre,
or will her lack of experience, polish, decency
and, I suspect, humanity allow her to fit right in?
(LAUGHTER)
Shaun, I have no doubt that, like Jacqui and Pauline
and Dio Wang and Ricky Muir and Malcolm Roberts
and that bird that flew in through the skylight
and shat on Lee Rhiannon,
Kate McCulloch would take to the business of the upper house
like... a duck to a postman's leg.
But what the Senate ends up looking like moving forward,
well, that depends on what we can piece together
from the High Court's depilatration.
And, uh... (LAUGHTER)
And if we can't piece together the High Court's depilatration?
(LAUGHTER)
Then... we piece the Kraken!
('MICKEY' BY TONI BASIL PLAYS) (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
No, no. Hold on. Sorry. Hang on, hang on, hang on!
Hang on. Just stay. (LAUGHS) Hang on a moment.
I thought this might happen. Excuse me. I just have to make an apology.
Um, it has been brought to our attention by management
that our portrayal of the mythical Kraken is an offensive stereotype.
(LAUGHTER)
Use of greenface has no place in this show or on this network,
and from now on, the Kraken will be played
by a genuine and culturally appropriate real octopus
caught humanely off the coast of Greece.
Dolly, if you wouldn't mind doing the feed line again?
Oh, yeah, sure. Thank you.
Then we piece the Kraken!
('MICKEY' PLAYS) (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
Yassou! Yassou! I have a lovely octopus for you, beautiful lady!
And for you, sir, a beautiful Greek salad.
S' agapo! S' agapo!
Eat! Eat, my friends!
And then we dance!
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
Life is good, yes!
Mmm.
(LAUGHTER)
Meanwhile, Midwich cuckoo Malcolm Roberts,
as we know, was told last year
he was ineligible to sit in his One Nation Senate seat.
Fraser Anning takes his place,
because he's next on the One Nation ticket,
but has now left One Nation.
One Nation's Pauline Hanson writes
to the new Senate president, Scott Ryan -
who replaced Stephen Parry,
who also turned out to be a dual citizen:
Now, Senator Anning says this isn't true,
but if Pauline's successful, it means
that the next on the One Nation ticket is Pauline's sister -
she could take up the seat and then resign,
allowing Malcolm Roberts to take back his old seat,
the circle would now be complete,
and Malcolm Roberts would again be free
to bustle in the world of federal politics
and pursue his dual agendas
of denying climate change and the ABC's right to exist.
(LAUGHTER)
But what if, like most One Nation candidates,
Pauline Hanson's sister decides
not to do what's expected of her by her own party
and instead remains on as senator?
It's a question I might well ask
the licensed handler for Pauline Hanson's sister, Dolores del Rio.
(LAUGHTER) Is this to be... an empathy test?
Capillary dilation of the so-called blush response?
Fluctuation of the pupil?
Involuntary dilation of the iris?
No, no, it's just... it's just a regular interview sketch,
with a movie reference, for some reason.
Ah.
Demonstrate it. I want to see it work.
I want to see a negative before I provide you with a positive.
(LAUGHTER)
OK.
Uh, Dolores, if Pauline Hanson thought
that Fraser Anning was a bankrupt,
why didn't she withdraw his candidacy before he accepted it?
Why wait until he left the party
to suddenly be bothered by his constitutional ineligibility
to become a senator in the first place?
Mind if I smoke?
(LAUGHTER)
It won't affect the interview.
I wouldn't accept it.
Also, I'd report the person who gave it to me to the police.
(LAUGHTER)
Your sister wants to get Malcolm Roberts back into the Senate.
She likes him so much, she's willing to use you as a Trojan horse.
I wouldn't let her. Why not?
I should be enough for her.
(LAUGHTER)
Would you step outside for a few moments, Dolores?
(LAUGHTER)
She's an idiot, isn't she?
(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)
Impressive.
How many questions does it usually take to spot them?
Well, j... (LAUGHTER)
Just the one - "Are you from One Nation?"
(LAUGHTER)
It took almost three for Dolores, didn't it?
Mmm. Well, she doesn't know.
She's beginning to suspect, I think.
(LAUGHTER)
And still to come, a...
(LAUGHTER)
..a brand-new political party that may well unite us all.
Shaun, the Dual Citizens' Party believes
that dual citizens should have the right
to be representatives of our country
regardless of whatever other nationality they might have.
Our key policy is, immediately following the next election,
to use our numbers within both chambers of parliament
to reverse this outdated law and usher in a new dawn
for those whose status as dual citizens is no fault of their own,
or if it is, then is no impediment to leading the charge
against it preventing us holding office.
Yeah, yeah, but how are you going to elect your members to parliament
when being a dual citizen is unconstitutional?
(LAUGHTER) Oh, yeah.
Didn't really think this through properly, did I?
(LAUGHTER)
Still to come later in the week...
WOMAN: I'm Automata Bethlehem,
presenter, broadcaster and positioned ABC talent.
I enjoy having tied-up shoelaces.
The only problem is - I've never learned how.
"Single knot"? "Double knot"? What are they talking about?
That's why I'll be visiting some of Australia's top cobblers
and talking to them slightly off-mic...
Wow! That's really interesting!
..to learn the ins and outs and up-through-the-rabbit-holes
of lacing up your footwear.
So the next time you kneel down to do up your shoes,
you'll know how to do it and how to 'do knot' it. (CHUCKLES)
Join me on Automata Bethlehem Ties Her Shoelaces.
(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)
VOICEOVER: 2018 is set to be another big year in Australian politics.
For expert analysis with no fear or favour
and continuous round-the-clock commentary
with the promise to hold the government to account,
turn to... Tony Abbott.
Continuous national coverage.
Mmm. Well, good to see you again.
Or, as Michaelia Cash might put it...
Good to see you again! Mwah!
(LAUGHTER)
OK, now, who likes the expression 'mansplaining'?
Who likes that? Who enjoys that? (AUDIENCE MURMURS)
Yeah, it's great, isn't it? Not annoying at all when people use it.
(LAUGHTER)
Of course, I didn't always think that way.
It used to really irritate me
that someone could be so completely lacking in wit
that they would actually use it in public.
That is, until I saw this little variation of the phrase
deftly deployed to vanquish a political opponent.
Here's Bill Shorten talking about Malcolm Turnbull
after Malcolm said something about something or other.
Nothing like been Malsplained by the Malsplainer-in-chief.
(LION ROARS)
(WILD CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) Yeah.
You see, it's funny because he uses the word 'Malsplained'
instead of 'mansplained'.
He changed the N for an L,
like in Malcolm's name, which has an L in it.
Plus, he's made it sound like a compliment,
but he's really being sarcastic.
So it's actually an insult.
(LAUGHTER)
And that's why it's funny.
Now, over the break, you may have heard
that in Melbourne, they had a little problem
with a group of mostly men with the same skin colour
who viciously attacked Victoria
for apparently having an African gang problem.
(LAUGHTER) Now...
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
Now, most of this criticism came
from the Minister for Home Affairs, Immigration and Border Protection,
Peter Dutton.
That's the wrong photo, isn't it?
(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE) That's better.
Anyway, Peter Dutton started off the year by saying something
that I guess a lot of us are too scared, educated or decent
to say out aloud -
that Victorians won't go to restaurants anymore
because of "African gang violence".
Now, you're probably thinking to yourself,
"Well, that's just the Guardian being sensationalist and biased.
"Typical leftie rubbish.
"What do the more reputable news providers have to say?"
Well, less-than-sensational Junkee has much the same headline there,
and a very non-sensational picture of Peter,
and ditto the very non-biased Pedestrian.tv.
In fact, if you check out the online address for this article,
it says:
(LAUGHTER)
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
Which, um...
..which gives you some idea of how even-handed they are -
offending not only Peter but also women generally.
But what about the real victims of this story - the restaurants?
(LAUGHTER)
Not only do they have Deliveroo and home cooking to contend with,
they've also got African gangs shrinking their customer base.
(LAUGHTER)
But what about the, as Peter Dutton calls them, "Africans"?
Does it help when the Minister for Keeping People Out of the Country
singles them out on the basis of the continent
they or their parents previously inhabited?
Is it racist of me to refer to them as 'them' and 'they'?
Perhaps I should have said 'you' or 'us'.
Was whoever put in the Pedestrian. tv's HTTP address
right in a universal way?
Aren't we all to some extent racist bitches?
(LAUGHTER)
Now, I'm just a TV comedian, I'm not here to tell you what to think,
but let me tell you why you shouldn't think the way you do
in a brand-new segment called...
(INDUSTRIAL METAL MUSIC)
Now, as a standard-bearer for white, middle-aged privilege...
(LAUGHTER)
..I know I speak for all of us when I say
I find it offensive on behalf of certain of you
whenever I hear someone using an expression like 'Asians'.
It's as offensive as referring to someone
as 'European' or 'Micronesian' or 'British'.
And so too with so-called 'Africans'.
What does it matter what landmass our genes came from?
Didn't we all originally come from the supercontinent of Pangaea?
Aren't we really all just Pangaeans?
(LAUGHTER)
What's important is not the tectonic plate we happened to be standing on
when our ancestors' cells mutated
and we could grasp a club and start killing each other.
What's important is the country we come from.
The colour of our skin, the shape of our nose, the size of our penises
are all irrelevant.
What's paramount is that wherever we've come from,
we abandon the culture and practices of those countries
that the rest of us find weird
and adopt instead the traditional Aussie values
of mateship, giving each other a fair go,
and going out of an evening for a meal
without being carjacked or having our homes invaded.
(LAUGHTER)
Mind you, I don't know whether it's as serious as is being suggested.
As Victoria's chief commissioner of police, Graham Ashton, said:
Exactly.
Because if you're gonna go to all the trouble
of putting a sheet over your head,
you'd want to go out to a rally or a cross-burning somewhere.
(INDUSTRIAL METAL MUSIC)
(LAUGHTER)
Welcome back.
Well, year in and year out, tourists come to our country
to visit the bit of it around the edge, just under the water -
the apparently Great Barrier Reef.
So called, I assume, because our forefathers thought
that it might be a great barrier to incoming foreigners.
But no, it actually attracts them - that is, until now.
Our efforts to heat the world up but not get blamed for it
by selling our coal to India and China
is working.
The reef is dying, and with it, any reason to visit here.
The government, however, is doing something about it,
pledging 60 million to future-proof the Great Barrier Reef,
in part by "creating a more resilient coral"
by "accelerating naturally occurring evolutionary processes".
But is it wise... (LAUGHTER)
..to speed up the genetic mutation of sea creatures?
Wouldn't it be easier and less expensive
to simply lower the expectations of tourists,
environmento-governmentologist Damian Scranton?
Absotively, Shaun.
This need we have to be entertained by nature is typical
of the 'if it doesn't fizz, I'm not drinking it' generation.
You only have to go back two centuries
to find visitors to this great country of ours
being wildly impressed by quite boring things
like egg-laying mammals, baobab trees, and thylacines -
which were, quite frankly, far easier to kill than coral.
Better to spend our money and research on breeding a foreigner
who will be quite happy looking at some beautiful bleached white coral.
Oh, it's a lovely colour.
You go to Antarctica and show people a polar bear
and they don't piss and moan
about it not having tangerine and lavender stripes.
You want that sort of shit, go and buy a packet of licorice allsorts.
Thanks, Damian.
Of course, the best way to hothouse genetic mutation
is by creating a type of primordial swamp.
And fortunately, it's not gonna be too expensive.
Our main contribution to the TPP
is not only selling our natural resources
but paying for the customer to come over and dig it up.
Tuffy Gorgon has more.
TUFFY: The small Queensland country town of Nubb,
and the excitement is at fever pitch over the imminent Adani coalmine
and all the economic benefits it will bring.
Banking on that coal-driven future more than most is Craig Javello,
curator of what he hopes will become Nubb's premier tourist attraction -
Coal World.
But there are others, unlike Craig,
who have a different view from Craig on Adani's imminent arrival
than Craig.
Chris Popacork runs Dead Coral Land.
There's no way I can go head-to-head with a multinational like Adani.
If people want to see dead coral,
are they gonna come to a museum like mine,
or are they gonna go to the Great Barrier Reef?
Sorry. Uh, I wasn't listening.
When I started in the dead coral game,
there were no coalmines, no such thing as climate change,
and it was tough.
If I wanted dead coral, I had to swim out there and kill it myself.
Now Adani can come along and do it more cheaply and more quickly,
with the infrastructure that we're setting up for them,
on an industrial scale. (SIGHS)
Meanwhile, on the other side of Nubb,
this man can't wait for the Federal Government
to fund Adani's 1 billion rail project
so he can complain on talkback radio about the traffic delays
caused by the trains passing through the dangerous crossing
which he imagines will be here.
Hello, Ray! I want to complain!
Hello, Alan! I think it's terrible!
Hello, Smithy! I'll tell you what's deplorable!
But it's not all bad news.
Muriel Cancer has decided to close down
the century-old family bakery she runs
because of the new Coles, Woolies and Aldi being built.
With the expected influx of mineworkers to the area,
she says it's more lucrative for her to become a prostitute.
And it's a lesson for us all.
Tuffy Gorgon... Hey, find your own corner, toots!
Go on!
Well, not coming up because French And Saunders is on in a minute...
Actually, how much time do we have left, by the way?
Oh, yeah, well, that's not too bad. (LAUGHTER)
Yeah, we've got time to show these.
Alt-right celebrates Trump's first year in office.
And poaching baby elephants -
Maggie Beer shows us how.
Well, I'd like to sign off, if I may, with a plea for the media
to treat our prime minister with a bit more respect this year.
2017 was very much Malcolm's annus horribilis,
and it'd be nice if in 2018
we could make his annus a little less horrible
by treating him like the world leader he is
instead of some tedious political joke.
For example, Vladimir Putin starts the year
by plunging himself into icy water to celebrate the Epiphany
and gets a lot of support and some good press,
whereas Malcolm takes to the water over here
and gets fined 250 for not wearing a life jacket.
(LAUGHTER)
Now, personally I think he looks very Master And Commander here,
very much continuing the theme
of Liberal prime ministers ignoring water safety.
(LAUGHTER, GROANING) Now...
(APPLAUSE)
Where's THAT story?
And so we leave you tonight
with positive images of our prime minister
actually immersing himself in water and enjoying himself,
just like you or I would if we held the highest office in the land
and were told by our PR people
to go down to the beach on the hottest day of the year
so we didn't look so much like a toffee-nosed multi-millionaire.
(LAUGHTER) Goodbye.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
For Subtitling Services, contatct: waqas.zahoor89@gmail.com