Take me back to when The Chaser started as a newspaper. What drew you towards the idea of working with the rest of the guys on something like that?
Yeah, it was a satirical newspaper that started in 1999 – a whole other bloody millennium! We were just a bunch of mates at Uni messing around, to be honest. I don’t think it had an initial aim. I think some of the guys wanted to do TV at some point but I certainly didn’t – that wasn’t the intention of it. We just got together every couple of weeks and not sleep for 60 hours and put a newspaper out that was highly defamatory and had no restrictions. It was quite fun, but I wouldn’t say sales were great but it did lead on to people approaching us about a TV show, so it worked in a way.

How long were you working in that print format before you noticed people paying attention and wanting more?
Well it seems like it had a short life now that I think about it. It started in 1999 and we had the TV show in 2001. Andrew Denton approached us and asked if we wanted to do an election show. Actually I don’t actually remember if he asked us that. I think he asked us what we wanted to do and we said ‘election show’ and amazingly he managed to get it up at the ABC. I remember finishing up the first series and thinking that we’d never be allowed to do that again.

Well, you’ve been at it for a while now! A decade and half on here is another election on the horizon. What can people expect from The Chaser’s Election Desk this year?
Well the difference is that now we’ve got the biggest desk!

Oh, I heard about this!
We have the biggest desk of any show. We looked at the last election coverage and noticed that all the commercial show’s desks were growing incrementally each time. This time round we decided that we were going to smash them – we are going to have a bigger desk than any of those networks. It is ridiculous – it’s the stupidest desk you’ve ever seen. Otherwise we will try and do a similar thing to what we always do. We’ll have a mix of sketches and media reviews, going out to politicians – the thing about The Chaser is its always a mix of things. If you hate one thing it’s probably not going to be around too long before you get something else.

People around the world are familiar with you guys thanks to the situations you often put yourself in. How do you go about topping previous escapades and do you ever worry that consequences will catch up to you at the next stunt?
Well, I don’t think we are thinking that we are ever going to top APEC. The other thing is that we don’t ever know what will happen. The whole reason we had Chas dressed as Osama Bin Laden is that we thought we had no chance of getting through even the first ring of security! You never know when something is going to go well or will go badly, to be honest. We just have to keep going out with ideas and see what happens.

With an election you have to be current with your topics – how hard is it to work with a limited timeframe for finding what’s funny and resonates with people?
It’s always a massive balancing act. There’s always a mix of things where you are making a satirical point or you are just dressed as an idiot chasing somebody down the road. It is hard – I’ve been trying figure out if there is a skit to make the negative gearing debate interesting and I am not succeeding. Some of the policy stuff that you really want to drill down into is hard to make content out of.

Is it almost a waiting game for a politician to make a gaff for you to jump on?
No, not necessarily. The reality is if a politician slips up – and I’m not saying it won’t be on our show – it will be on every news outlet ten times. It’s more about finding our own angle on things. Often when we turn up to a press conference we are working on a totally different parallel to the other people. We are working on our own idea that will be part of something bigger so you can’t wait for a politician to stuff up because it will be up on Twitter in 20 seconds.

In terms of using satire, how crucial it is that an organisation such as The Chaser puts itself out there and creates content that takes the whole process that is a bit lighter than others?
Look, I think that the reality is with satirical takes or a comedic approach is that it gets to a different audience. You get people engaging with us who don’t typically watch the 7:30 Report ­– you get some of them – but you get maybe a younger audience who wouldn’t watch that sort of stuff otherwise.

Now The Chaser is one of the more accessible sources of political commentary in Australia. How has the audience and following changed over the years? Has it altered your perception of your role in the process?
No, I don’t think we ever really think about that. We are just trying to cover ideas and make all the people in the writers room laugh and to see if we can pull it off.

You’ve chased numerous elections in your career to date – from your perspective has the way politics operates changed in the time you’ve been working?
Elections are always an insane – politics in general is not always like that. Elections are always an insane few weeks where everyone crams on a bus and follows politicians around. I think it has become a bit more intense because there are more media sources in a way. I was in the media pack yesterday with Turnbull – not only were there the TV cameras that were there in 2001, but also all these different people with iPhones filming stuff and getting into backstage. I don’t don’t know if they are from media organisations or are just punters following along but everybody is filming it now instead of just news cameramen. That being said it’s still just an insane pack that mauls through the middle of a shopping centre knocking people over.

What are your thoughts on this current election and the people gunning for the top spot?
Bill and Malcolm are probably more ‘together’ than in the Latham years, perhaps a bit more boring. But there are always enough people around in politics to keep you interested.

Do you ever find yourself surprised by a politician after all this time?
Clive Palmer was an interesting breath of fresh air in terms of insanity, and Jacqui Lambie says what she thinks even if she hasn’t thought. I think there are always those hangers on – like the Hanson years – there’s always these fringe elements going on. There are always even people in the main parties that are a little bit more interesting and off-script than others. I think if I was in America following Trump I’d be more shocked, but there are always shockers out there.

Obviously you guys are never content to stick to politics. What’s planned for the future?
Well later this year we will be finishing The Checkout, because it was put on hold because of the election. We are a third of the way through the series. There are a lot of other ideas kicking around but I don’t have the confidence to say what it is at this stage.

What keeps you driven and inspired in this line of work?
I think it’s the same thing as always. It’s nice being in a room throwing around ideas and then everyone agrees that yours is the one – there is a nice rush from that.

The Chaser’s Election Desk will air weekly on ABC TV from Wednesday June 8 at 9:00pm. There will be episodes on June 8, 15, 22, 29, and July 6 in the lead up to the election.