The Chaser Report - Albo Reads Room, Then Buys It

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

Dom Knight and Charles Firth return to the pod to dissect Albo's recent purchase of a $4.3 million home on one of the most objectively beautiful parts of Australia, the Central Coast. Is this Albanese throwing in the towel, or the move of a political mastermind? One thing is for certain: the Central Coast is a great place and the people who were born and raised there are completely fine. 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, the daily podcast that's always daily. Yes, yes, we are actually doing a new episode. I promise this isn't some weird stitched together. We've always been my thing, although frankly that was a better way of producing the podcast, and I think we'll probably switch to that very soon. However, we are in the same place talking about the news again,

and Charles, this is because we've got to take responsibility. Oh. It's all our fault. Oh, really? It is all our fault that Anthony Albanese just made his political life a lot harder and his actual life a lot easier by buying a $4.3 million beach house on the Central Coast at the very elegant Copacabana Beach, I believe it is. Yeah, bit bogan.

Well, I want to get on to that. I want to get on to that because that might be the thing that saves him, but we'll get into explain why this is our fault and wherever else the conversation goes in just a moment. Do you think we earned $4.3 million from that ad break? Charles, it's very clear what's happened here. It's very unfortunate. It's very awkward.

Obviously, Albo, the Prime Minister, listens to the podcast. And he's heard you, you, Charles Firth, on a number of occasions, call the next election for Peter Dutton. And he's just gone, look, may as well start the retirement plan now. Yes. And thus, potentially risking any chance that he ever had of winning next election. election, but by during the time of a terrible housing crisis, flaunting his muller. But also, I think, you know, like he's sitting there at the lodge, presumably, you know,

watches TV a bit, and sees on the news, this rumor that the government is considering abolishing negative gearing. Oh. So first things first, what he does is he has to sell off all his investment properties. Like, part of it is you've got to consolidate your holdings if something like that's going to happen. That's right. And, you know, this treasurer guy, Jim Chalmers, is considering that. You know, that must have put a bit of a jolt through him.

Yeah. You know, because, you know, if only he had power over that situation, maybe he'd make a different decision. I mean, I think it's the case. I think we know now that there's not many situations over which Anthony anybody has power. Perhaps this was the only thing he could actually do. It was probably going, oh, shit, you know, I disagree with that. If only I was in a position of power that I had some influence over that,

But of course he didn't, you know, like, so he has bought a $4.3 million house. Now, Labor has been out today saying that, look, this is the politics of resentment. You shouldn't resent someone just for affording a house. Which is a great argument also used by Malcolm Turnbull. So that's where they want to be. Yes. He's worked hard. He's had a success.

I kind of feel like this is the captain's pick moment for Alba. This is the same thing as picking. you know, knighting Prince Philip for Tony Abbott was, which is, that's true. Like, you shouldn't resent somebody. And I think part of the thing is, you know, like amongst the people that Alba interacts with each day, it's probably true that a $4.3 million house is a bit of a scummy house. It's a modest purchase by Labor. And this is one of the strange things is last time I checked, you know, Labor's property portfolio,

the Labor MP's property portfolio was, you know, competitive with, if not even greater than that held by the Liberals. So whatever you say about the Labor government, they haven't been very good at winning office in the past three decades, but they've been bloody good at buying expensive property. Yeah. So I think you're right. I think he's gone, got to get my ducks in order.

Clearly don't have a job in the next election. Do you think he's throwing it? Do you think part of it, him knows that he's got some power? Do you think he has any awareness that he's got power over? What happens in the next election? Well, I think the thing is... Or do you think he's given up? It's a very strange thing to do, then.

When you've had that many years of opposition and that many years of frustration, and don't forget that when Labor was last in power with the Gillard Rudd period, he was on Team Rudd, so he was in the opposition even when they're in government for quite a long time. He's just reflexively thinking like an opposition leader, isn't he? Maybe he doesn't, yeah.

He wakes up and he just goes, oh... Yeah. He wakes up in the law. Wakes up in the law. Yeah, or Kiribili House. A Kiribili House and goes, shit, that must have been a good party. Yeah, and you've got to take it from the perspective of, and this is the thing that people who aren't from city might not understand, is that, and this is what you were alluding to before, we've got to contextualize this, right? He's from Sydney.

Yes. To a Sydney sider, any property on the Central Coast, no matter how big is modest. Is Bogan. Is Bogan, it's day class, say, it's to be pitied. He's actually, I suspect this is a bid to reach to sort of middle, not middle Australia, but middle Sydney. The average Sydney side would go, oh, poor elbow can only afford 4.3 mill and on the central coast. Yes, this will totally, like, a lagra spender might be in trouble. Allegra spender would be very sad for it.

Because she holds that eastern suburbs seat with all the millionaires and billionaires. And they'd all be going, poor guy. I mean, one of her colleagues owns, I don't know, more than $10 million house and went worth also bought a more than $10 million house in Palm Beach and has various other property. Look, by Labor standards, by modern labor standards, that's a very modest portfolio. Albo, I mean, he's actually a fool. He's played his hand badly in the Sydney property market.

Yes. Only $4.3 million for a beach house. He plays the property market like he plays politics, really. The thing is, he's marrying a coasty, and I think that's the thing. And look, producer Lachlan has been pointing out what a win this is for the Central Coast. I love that when you come with the Central Coast, your standards are so low that elbow buying a property feels like vindication. To contextualise Lachlan, and I don't know, this might be defamatory,

so we might have to cut it out, but Lachlan is from the Central Coast. Well, Lachlan, you can cut that out if that's defamatory. Up yours, lads, Seney Coast forever. The other thing that the Central Coast, the vibe that you get, especially from Copacabana is, it's a bit stabby. Oh, really? Yeah, I think, like, maybe, I don't know, like, Kobe Cabana, or the Maccas at Copacabana would definitely be a place,

like the car park would be a place where you pick up ice. It's not the hottest spot north of Vavana, this particular Copacabana. No, it's the ice capital. Now, I used to go there as a kid. I remember going to there as a kid. I mean, it is the birthplace of racist rants that go viral. on social media. Yeah, that train line.

The Central Coast train line has been basically 70% of the content of the Daily Mail for the last 12 years. So in other words, this is Albo being a man of the people, in a sense. So in actual fact, do you think what will happen electorally is they've actually focus group tested this? Maybe they have. And gone, actually, we're slipping in the outer suburban seeds, which is true. We need to reel in the Bogan vote.

The aspirational Bogans. Well, perhaps that's what... Yes, because what it is, is the poor Bogans at the moment, presumably living in their cars, if they can't actually afford any house, even a rental accommodation. But they're going, you know, the dream. It's like a modern day version of the castle.

Yeah, it is. But instead of the vibe of the constitution, it's the vibe of... Being jealous of the Prime Minister, I suppose. Let's take a quick break, and I'll just Google property in the Central Coast because, you know, I'm from Sydney, and that's the same thing I know how to do on my phone.

The Chaser Report, news you know you can't trust. There's a broader question here, Charles. We've questioned, I mean, look, if you look at the photos of it, it's not a subtle property. It's a little bit of a statement. It's a pretty fucking good property. You're like, it's a property that goes, fuck you all, I've succeeded. If it wasn't in Copacabana, it would be amazing. Yeah.

And that's the thing. It's so much a leaving politics house, right? I mean, Kevin Rudd bought. something up the coast, somewhere in the Sunshine Coast or whatever, it was very much a fuck-off property. He's much richer than, or at least certainly, Theray's, his wife's, much richer than Albo. Albo's probably the poorest P.N. We've had in a long time. And Peter Dutton, we must know, is much wealthier than Albo. So Albo, in many ways, is a failure, isn't he?

I mean, if you can only afford a $4.3 million. Are you doing about property or just, like, the last two and a half years? Well, that's a great question. But no, the broader question here is the context of this in the overall cost of living crisis, the property crisis. Ordinary Australians not being able to afford a home. I mean, and this is impacting on Albu, apparently. He's only going to get $2,500 a week rental for this property. Oh, really?

He's barely going to cover the mortgage. I mean, that's buying Copacabani, you're an idiot. No, that's terrible. And so what is this? So he's going to rent it out to Povos, if it's only $2,500 a week. People on the doll, I think, yeah. So, which he hasn't put up enough to... Yeah.

So what does that say about the Pam's willingness to, you know, solve the property crisis more broadly? What's the message on Labor's sort of stance? I think what Labor's been saying today is that you should judge the government, not on Albo's purchase, but on what they've done over the last two and a half years for the housing crisis. Right. Right. So, which I think means that they don't want you to vote Labor or something. It was a very odd thing to say.

They've taken a lot of prime properties off the market. And look, I think maybe what they're trying to do, Charles, I think I've got it. They're worried about Peter Dutton. He's been dog whistling on immigration. We know he's saying that all the migrants are coming in and buying all the good houses. But they're not because a lot of them being bought by sitting Labor MPs. Labor MPs. They're buying mansions around.

And if they just keep this going. They're coming here and taking our beachside mansions. Labor Party MPs are. They're taking out. They're filling up the trams and the buses and peak hour. That's right. If you look at any of their Instagrams, they're always. the stations trying to, you know, woo voters.

They're crowding public transport. And let's not forget that Labor's been trying very hard to pass its property changes. You know, it wants to do something about it. And I mean, I saw it in the paper this week. They wanted to help as many as 40,000 Australians into a home, as many as 40,000. Have we talked about that scheme? Because you do know, like, so that's the scheme which is called Help to Buy. Is that what it's called?

Yeah. Is Albao personally just going to buy 40,000 homes to people? And the funny thing is, you sort of go, because the Greens wail on about how stupid and ineffectivity is, right? Because the idea is the government will buy up to, I think, a third of your home or maybe a quarter of your home. Yeah. And you pay the rest, but you're only eligible if you're low income. So if you're a... Do you think Albo's eligible?

If you're under 90 grand as a single person or under 120 as a couple, that's when you can access this help-to-buy-buy-buy social housing, though. Maybe he's eligible. Maybe he's one of 40,000. He might well be. Could he be? But then the other little thing is it caps what type of house, what size of house you can buy. You can only buy in Sydney up to like 900 grand.

In Perth, it's something like 600 grand. What on earth are you? you buy us any for 900 grand well this is the point right so the whole point is it's got all these different things now the point is uh if you had a 10% deposit or like a 40,000 deposit which whatever it is um you would end up we in housing district like more than half your income would go to your mortgage under basically all scenarios right that economists can model so you're saying that even the 40,000 even the very small 40,000, are going to be basically put in housing distress.

Yeah. And so it's a scheme designed to, you can announce 40 million placements for this thing because it's a scheme to never actually be delivered because everyone looks into it sounds good, but nobody actually ever is eligible in the way that you would want to live. I do take issue with the notion that 40,000 sounds good, but yeah, the government helping to buy your house, sure.

But the whole thing is, the funniest part, about this is why am I so certain about that this policy will definitely fail, which is that the policy already exists. It was put in in New South Wales by the previous liberal government, and it doesn't work. Only 800 people have taken up the scheme, which is very similarly designed to what the federal government is wanting to roll out. It doesn't work. It just never has, it never will. It's a nothing burger announcement to pretend that you're doing something about housing. Well, they aren't because the Greens are stopping them, that's what I heard.

I hope the Greens are blocking them. Labor would be unleashing 40,000 homeowners, but for the Greens. Yes, you're right. So where does this get us? Look, I suppose, but that's why you take direct action. Maybe Albo is learning from his student politics days, whereas a bit of a socialist, a bit of a lefty, bit of a direct action. You think he's actually squatting this.

And he's going, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to solve the housing prices. People can't afford homes. I'm going to take direct action and buy a home. That's what you do. That's direct action. Well, actually, that's a very good point. If you don't have a home, right, if you're one of the many people who can't afford to live,

if you go and live in Anthony Albanese's new house, he's not going to be able to evict you. If you go up there and basically turn on a webcam, the optics of evicting you. But he already has evicted that guy. I know. We hate him on the podcast. But doing it again. No, I think you've got to realize, Albo, it's always. over. He's, it's not going to, like, he knows that it's over. He, like, he'll just be a dick the

whole way to the end. Like, that's one hypothesis. The other hypothesis, Charles, is that Albo has precisely, and this would admittedly involve a larger degree of Nowson kind of calculating this to what we've seen thus far. Yeah. He's precisely calibrated the exact level of selfishness that he needs to unlock between the next election. And he's worked out that, you know, anyone who doesn't own a house, you know, I'll vote for the Greens, whatever. Yeah. But, in the marginal seats he needs when the people in those electorates in, you know, out of Sydney, wherever they are,

I'm going to look at a PM buying a 4.3 million dollar house in Copacabana in kind of Bougainzville Central Coast and go, good on you, mate. Yeah, I want that. I want to be that. And so the rest of us, that doesn't matter. He knows, and again, this is attributing a lot of insight to Albo

very late in his prime ministership. He hasn't shown a great deal of it. This is the property. I'm going to show that I'm one of you. I'm a negative Geera, I'm a Waterview owning Bogan. Is he going to get like a powerboat? There is one fatal floor. And look, I don't doubt you're completely correct.

I imagine you've talked to his chief of staff earlier. Sure, of course. Yeah, I'm very well connected. Yeah. But there is just one tiny floor, just tiny, tiny, tiny floor with that plan. Really? Is that no one ever would want to say the phrase, I want to be Anthony Albanese. We are part of the Iconiclass Network.

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