The Chaser Report - Appraising Nemo

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

Ahhh, the Great Barrier Reef. It's one of Australia's most beloved landmarks, cherished worldwide, and invaluable to our nation's identity. So how much does the piece of shit cost? Thankfully, that question has been answered by the good people at Deloitte. ---Order the 2025 CHASER ANNUAL: https://chasershop.com/products/the-chaser-and-the-shovel-annual-2025-preorderListen AD FREE: https://thechaserreport.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @chaserwarSpam Dom's socials: @dom_knightSend Charles voicemails: @charlesfirthEmail us: [e-mail] CEO’s Super-yacht upgrade Fund: https://chaser.com.au/support/ Send complaints to: [e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Charles, I've got some wonderful news that's going to make you and every Australian care about conservation. Oh, okay. And that is, Charles, the Great Barrier Reef is very important. You probably aren't aware of this. It's actually worth saving, okay? Oh, okay.

I know. And the reason I know this is because, Deloitte Access Economics has done a study. Oh, yeah. And previously there I was thinking, let the thing die. Can we just stop banging on about the Great Barrier Reef already? Yes. But they've worked out, do you know how much it's worth?

They've actually put a price on them. They've put a price on it. They've valued the Great Barrier Reef. They put a price on it. Do you reckon it's because, you know, what's his name, Chris Richardson, who runs Deloitte Access Economics, went on a family holiday to the Great Barrier Reef and I wonder how much this costs. Tell on the price, son.

Yeah, this is very beautiful, but what's the price? Can you imagine? Economists going there and they're going out on the glass bottom boat and they're just, they can't enjoy themselves on this. They actually work out the net present value of the entire Great Barrier Reef. Do you think that also happens at other places like Ayers Rock? Do they turn up to Ayers Rock and go, oh, the splendorous beauty is worth? Yeah, and just kind of going, what's it worth traditional owners?

What if we bought it off them? Okay, so tell me how much it's worth, but also tell me, I need to know how that is calculated. Okay, so the amount they came up with. I mean, can you try and guess it's in the billions? Oh really? I want to surprise. Okay, I reckon it's worth $27.35 billion. Charles, that's not enough.

It's $95, $95 billion. So Elon Musk could buy $5. yeah absolutely yeah probably actually more yeah and going on from there they say that it's nine million dollars a year is what it generates so it generates nine so there you go it's a reasonable rate of return kind of about 10 million sorry it generates nine billion a year right yeah to get about 10% return on the ownership there and but also it it fund it directly is responsible for 77000 jobs yeah and that makes it the nation's fifth largest employer oh and they've gone and worked all of this out

this is the headline of the Deloitte.com perspective article it's in their perspective section Oh this is horrible Don This is genuinely horrible Need a reason to save

The Great Barrier Reef We've found 56 billion of them And that of course is The US dollars I presume They do note on the way in To be fair That it's justifiably

Considered both priceless And irreplaceable And then the next sentence After they've said it's priceless But what is it worth it's extraordinary and I mean the thing I don't know Charles is if this was commissioned by the Australian government because if it was it's probably just been created by AI

that tends to be their way of doing things but they've done a whole study so do they like does this represent the collapse of moral philosophy like is this I think it's an upgrade is this a sort of turning point in human civilization where

you know something is beautiful and un, you know, able to be... Like, this is Hab-Mess, isn't it? Like, didn't... Hab-Mess actually said that we would end up... Capitalism would just end up at the point where everything ended up having a price tag on it. What was that line about the price of everything and the value of nothing?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. But, okay, but here's my question. Here's the big question that it comes down to. Is this an appallingly crass idea by Deloitte that shows that they clearly... don't understand anything and that, you know, it's, as you say, it's just the economists, the terrible economist who just prices everything when they, it's rather than look at the beauty of it.

Or are they being realistic about the shallowness of humans, and particularly Australians with our sort of property price? And is this the only way that we can actually... Because actually, you know what... Be convinced to do something about it. This immediately leads to is I think the price of barrier reefs is way too high. We need to... Well, we're driving.

We need to drive down the price. It's worth a lot less as the coral die. Because I think, you know, in the same way that the Great Barrier Reef is actually quite shallow, I think Australians are shallow enough to sort of look at a high property price. I don't think that thing's going to be worth $1 billion when all the coral dies. So, I mean, okay, here's one person who they've gotten on board to this report. And I won't try to do an impression of his accent, but I wish someone, if you imagine this in his accent, it's Al Gore.

So, you know, a person who's pretty unimpeachable. environmental... Until now. Credentials, until now. This timely report is a much-needed, holistic view of the incredible economic value and opportunities provided by the Great Barrier Reef. Any failure to protect this indispensable natural resource would have profound impacts

not only to Australia, but around the world. Now, is this the An hour gore who's gone, you know what, I can't convince anybody. Yeah, it's just expedient, isn't it? So who is the environment, I actually do suspect that you might be right, that actually the Australian government is so just shit at actually knowing the value of anything

that, yeah, it's got to be run through treasury. Like, human beauty has to be run through treasury to see whether it's worth doing. Well, maybe this is the whole point is. We have this asset that's very valuable. We all own as Australians. So who is the Environment Minister? We're not going to get our bond back, Charles.

Who's the environment? If we're not going to get our bond back. The thing is, it was the previous owner's. We put down the bond. Oh, okay. We don't need to get it. That's good. Getting anything.

Oh, no, Chris Bowen. Chris Bowen's the minister for environment. Or is it, or is it Murray-Watt? It's Murray-Watt, isn't it? It's Murray-Watt. Okay, but he's a Queenslander. I think some of them believe in the environment, do they? Yeah.

So what do we do? I would have thought the Murray-Watt was. Now that we know that we've got this $95 billion asset. Yeah, okay. Well, obviously, rent it out. Like... I think that's sensible. And negative gear it.

Oh, my God! Oh, yes, I've got a negative-a-0. This is. How we solve everything. Yes. So who would want to rent the Great Barrier Reef? You know the problem with negative gearing. The government revenues are going to plummet when we start negative gearing it.

It's a tax loophole. But, yeah, so how would this work? So we negative gear... Well, it's an investment property. So we need to invest in it, too. We'll use the money for the negative gearing. So we want to lose money off, don't we? We've got to put a coat of paint.

Like, I think this is the solution to the coral decline. Yeah, it's got to be... Painting new coral. Sort of shitty improvements. The tourists aren't going to know. You could put in little plastic coral. And people wouldn't be able to tell the difference. And I mean, some of it would break off and add to all the plastics in the ocean.

But look pretty good. Yeah. I think we need to, like, who do we rent it out to? Could we use it for golf? Could there be a sort of Great Reef golf course? Like, you could actually just sort of reclaim, like on top of the coral reef, not as a permanent thing. You just build a golf course. Yeah, an apartment.

A floating, yes, a floating, you use the coral, particularly the dead bits. Yes. You just drive piles into the coral reef. Because the corals and you build on it. It gets all solid when it dies. Yeah, that's right. So actually, that's what we've got to do. We've got to excel.

Yes, accelerate the death so that it acts like a concrete. That's right. Because while the coral is still alive, you can't just jackhammer into it. Yeah. To put piles for apartments and golf courses. I mean, in a sense, it's like, it's a lot easier. And all the hassle, you go to a reclaimed land in, you know, Dubai and Saudi and places like that. Because it's really shallow, yeah.

Think how much more than $95 billion it will be worth if you could build all the way along. And you know what? It's a little way off, it's a little way offshore. So you could have, like, it could be the new Florida. Yeah, no, it's perfect. It's like the Florida Keys or it's like Mar-a-Lago, Lagoon on one side ocean on the other. The Chaser Report. More news.

Less often And the thing is Long term It's kind of perfect Because it's getting warmer and warmer Yes So it'll actually Like

Like the water will be more and more It'll be like an indoor swimming pool It will be like Saudi Arabia 15 or 20 years So in 20 years the whole of the Gulf Will be so much hotter That it will be uninhabitable And so all that money

All those people are going to come further south And where can you have a completely the artificial reclaimed environment, the Great Barrier Reef. And just doing some back of the envelope, what are we talking? 100 million apartments? Yeah, I mean, it's worth trillions. So you saw, it's wrong. Deloitte, it's 95 trillion is what it should be worth.

It's solving. Well, how many apartments? We only need, say, it's very long. We probably only need a couple of million apartments anyway. I mean, isn't it hundreds of kilometres long? So a couple of million at, let's say, a million age, that's 200, 2,000 million. This is good It's $2,300

$2 trillion Yeah So actually we can Totally make money out of that Yeah Hey you know I've just realized something Truly extraordinary

Because actually What it's saying is 90 billion dollars That's actually That's the That's the unimproved That's the unimproved value Of the land

Yeah The actual Improved value of the land Will be in the trillions So Charles Look at this picture here On Wikipedia It's 2,300 kilometres

300 kilometres long. Oh, this is brilliant. And look at this little strip off the coast. Charles, do you remember in an earlier episode, in several episodes of the podcast, do you remember MBS's dream, the line? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's 170 kilometres long. Yes.

They can't build it in Saudi Arabia. Yes. They could build it. And in fact, 10 times longer. They will build. They will build it on the Great Barrier Reef. Now, we believe in the environment. No one's saying concrete the whole thing.

No, no, you just sit underneath. You'd take photos of it. You would. Yeah. And the reef can still say, the dead reef can still be underneath there. And in actual fact, like, it's protecting it in a way. Video of it is much better than actually going to it because you get wet. Yes, you just need an AI experience.

Like, you just need a sort of immersive experience with cameras and like a cinema. And actually, with all the money you make, you could do one of those cool sphere things that they have in Vegas. Yes. And so it would be immersive. You would You could even dip it into the ocean You've got really big digital screens all around here So it's so good

It'd be exactly like being in the reef And just like the line You could build a train Going up and down the whole reef Yep definitely And you could even have a little You could imagine having an underwater train I'll tell you what

And it could be high speed It could be Australia's very first A fast train Yeah yeah And you could have a beautiful view Of the ocean From this underwater train Yes

But just you'd have to make sure That the side facing the reef Didn't have windows because that would be depressing. But you'd look out the other side. You'd want ad placards on the train anyway, so I wouldn't be able to see ours. Just put ads all the way out of.

Look, Deloitte Access Economics. Yeah. It was a good start. But I think we've unlocked the real value. They've really missed the mark there. And I think, as you mentioned earlier, it's probably because they put it into AI. And see, our thinking is something you wouldn't get in that.

You wouldn't get that. Okay. So let me just try. I will try this. If I just ask chat GPT. It's not going to know. It's not going to have as good an idea as I was. I just want to know the cash value.

That's all. Did they write? Yeah, just see whether the chat chat. Oh, this is good. This will be a scoop, Dom. Let's see. Because you're just going to ask chat GPT how much is the Great Barrier Reith worth. And it will save the same number as Deloitte did because it's the same fucking source.

Yeah. Okay. Hold on. Okay. So, this is the answer from Chat-GPT. It says evaluating economic impact, searching for updated economic value of Great Barrier Reef, verifying current situation,

verifying primary sources. Isn't Chetepti slow in the worse? $95 billion. $95 billion. It's worth $9 billion a year. Its source for that is Minister for the Environment. Well, this is just the Deloitte study, isn't it? For context, a 2017 Deloitte study put it at 56.

billion dollars so it's actually rising in value it's like sydney property prices okay i've just asked chat gpti how much a 2300 kilometer long strip of high-rise apartments would be worth and it says okay let's just assume each hundred meter segment has a thousand apartments sure that's not too bad that is worth 16 trillion australian dollars i've just made us so much money and that is five times australia's total GDP you know dom i'm feeling like you're you're going to get AM for this episode. Yeah, I think we both deserve to be in the order of Australia.

This is amazing. I mean, caveats from chat GPT, this is wildly simplified. But yeah, it's eight times the total value of all residential real estate incident. It sounds about right. Yeah, I think we're really

onto something. This is unlocked. And I, look, I think let's end where we started, which is, is rock. Oh, look. You know, like, that Dane tree rainforests, that sort of boring rainforest with all the trees?

I just want to be, no. The Tasmanian wilderness? No, I'm going to jump. I'm going to jump in, Charles. I'm sorry, that's not okay. It's not okay for you to say. Firstly, you called it as rock. Secondly, Uluru has traditional owners.

So what you should be doing, you can't just demolish the Uluru. What you want to do is just ring it with apartments. It's a loop of apartments all the way around. That all have a view of the rock. And like Sydney's heart, bar, you'd be privatising the view. Yes. Yes, exactly.

You're not privatising the rock. No, the rock stays intact. Yes. No one's damaging the rock. Just that if you want to see it, you'll have to stay at the Soffatel. And look, if we decide the rock's got to go, we can always ring up Rio Tinto. I know a few guys there who know how to get rid of a rock that's supposedly sacred. They really put the gorge in gorgeous, don't they?

Okay, I think we should go. I think we've made enough trillion dollars for Australia. Thank you, Deloitte. Access Economics. You've certainly helped us. You've unleashed. Yeah, you've unleashed a whole way of thinking. Yeah.

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