The Chaser Report - Australia's Net Migration Should Be [INSERT NUMBER LATER]

Episode Date: August 23, 2026

Charles and Dom are back for another week and excited to talk about the exact number of migrants that should be let into the country. Charles believes that fewer should be let in, while on the other side Dom believes it should be even fewer. Plus, what if the entire world was made into one nation? No, not that one. ---Listen 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.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. On yet another day when the top story in our fair city, and probably the entire country, is the Sydney Swans, which is far too depressing to talk about it on comedy podcast. Yes, which is why we're not going to talk about the Sydney Swans. We're just acknowledging at the start of another week that there is news in the world, but that given the growing problem of news avoidance, this very newsy,

podcast is once again not going to be all that news. At least not in terms of that story. And so instead, let's talk about a far more cheery topic, which is immigration to Australia. Come back, swans. No, I'm not going to say it was forgiven. That's not true at all. Okay, we'll take some ads and then Charles will get fired up about, are you joining One Nation this morning, mate?

We'll find out after the commercial messages. So before those ads, Dom, you asked me, are you joining One Nation, Charles? I did. And the answer is no. Or is One Nation joining you in the position you've always held since the days of Arthur Colwell as Labor Party? What I'm saying is I think the Labor Party is joining One Nation. That's my hot take on this morning.

So we're recording this Monday morning. And just a few minutes ago, Pat Conroy went on Radio National. Oh, yes. And even though he has, he's not the immigration minister, Tony Berkey. is what does Pat Conroy do? He's a sort of Labor right hack, isn't he? I'm not sure. Look, I have to be honest.

Your knowledge of the back bench and the minor corners of Labor is far greater than money. Well, I don't think he's a back bench. He's a minister for something. I'm familiar with a Stephen Conroy. The man who magnificently, you know, implemented the NBN in such way that it could never be made worse by a subsequent government. So Pat Conroy is the Minister for Defence Industry of Australia. Defence industry?

Yeah, so that's a junior portfolio. That's just, it's sort of defence material in Australia. Do you think every time he gets introduced to people who don't know who he is, they think, oh my goodness, the Minister of a Defence for a millisecond. Yes. Industry comes crashing in right afterwards and go, oh. And because, I mean, I don't want to, I don't want to poo-poo. I don't want to dismiss.

I don't want to be negative. Yes. But which defence industry, is that Australia's defence industry? I think what it is is the Minister for Pumping Adelaide. Isn't that? The Minister, is he from South Australia? Oh, that's a good question. No, he was New South Wales.

He's also the Minister for Pacific Island Affairs. That's one for another time. He was in sort of the student movement at the same time. We were all going through. It's about your age. He's got an economics degree from Sydney, any. So, Dom, he was on the thing. Now, immigration is not part of his portfolio.

He could deduct the question. Instead, half the interview was him on the back foot trying to explain technical things about, migration to Australia and just getting lost in the detail of why migration in Australia is this number but not that number and, you know, little tricky questions that Labor Party people find really hard to answer at the moment. Like, do we have enough immigration? Do we have too much? Do we have too little? Like, none of those questions are answerable because the Labor Party doesn't know what the fuck it's doing, right? Like last night, Chris Bowen came out and declared that

the Labour Party was basically aligned with One Nation on the number of numbers of people who should come in. Did he? Yes, because I don't know whether you saw. No, I didn't. I've been avoiding all news. Oh, over the weekend, it's fucking hilarious. David Farley went on Insiders.

And David Farley is the new One Nation member in South Australia. Remember that guy who got elected? But he actually turned out to be a bit of a rogue One Nation thing, which I know every One Nation member turns out to be a rogue One Nation member eventually. That's how the party works. It's like an iceberg melting, isn't that, the One Nation? A little bit of it. It carves off after a while.

So, but in the, because migration seems to be, like the press seems to be completely obsessed with numbers when it comes to migration. Well, that's the thing. What should Australia be doing? It's like, it's all about the numbers, right? And so David Farley went, oh, I reckon it should be 150,000 people. not including skilled migration. And then David Spears goes, well, hang on,

skilled migration's like an extra $100,000 on top of that. So that's basically what the government's. It's the same policy as the government, right? And he went, oh, yeah, it probably is, right. And then Labor that afternoon came out and said, oh, yeah, yeah, we're basically, like one nation is basically on the same train as labor on migration. Yeah, I'm looking at this in more detail.

Yeah, so David Farley, he is an unusual situation. Barnaby Joyce has had to correct somebody else. I said to clean up off somebody else. Yeah. I'm reading this from the Herald. He's had to come out and defend David Farley. Yes. And saying it's 130,000, it's 130,000, 130,000.

And, yeah, Joyce said, and I quote, asked whether Farley had misspoken. Yeah, well, that's not unusual. Show me a political grade where people haven't made, you know, made a mistake. I'm not going to throw anybody under a bus. When people are new in Parliament, they can signers get things. God knows I've done it, he said. When Barnaby Joyce is down and out and lying on the curb. Amongst the planter boxes.

One reflects. One reflects on one's mistakes in life. But look, Dom, I've got a little thing that I want to say about the Labor Party, which is that they might as well be one nation. If whenever they get asked about immigration, they do a thing called answer the question about immigration. Now, clearly they don't want to answer any questions about immigration. Like clearly it doesn't work for them.

One Nation is kicking goals. They're like the Sydney Swans of Immigration. They're just like... Oh, are you sure you want to use that analogy? Yeah, I was going to say, you know, they're apparently winning, you know, but yeah, okay, let's... Yeah, okay, let's not get that. But, you know, like... But subject to an ongoing police investigation.

But, you know, like... Because they did have a win. They won. They won. Yeah, yeah, exactly. North Melbourne. I think it's actually a fairly sound analogy. One Nation of the Sydney Swans of politics.

I just went ick. It was hard to... It was horrible. It's hard to go, is this the logic apply, which it probably does. Anyway, my point is that what is, what's driving this sort of feeling in Australia that immigration might be a bit too high or there's something wrong with immigration, right? And the answer is lots of things, you know, the answer is obviously cost of living, you know, the economic pressures, the disenfranchisement of, you know, politics, the people, the feeling

that people can't do anything. Like there's lots of dissatisfaction with people's lives. I'm sure lots of different factors, right, for lots of different types of people. Like, there's lots of different ways in which you can feel fucked. But the great thing about immigration is you can then blame somebody who isn't even in Australia yet for all those things. So it's a really, it's a lovely feeling to go,

well, actually, it's this external thing that's the problem, right? Now, the Labor Party doesn't want to really talk about, you know, It doesn't want to mount the case. Oh, no, we should just be in favour of immigration, right? They just want to sort of middle their way through, like they middle their way through everything, right? So what I'm suggesting is every time they get asked a question about immigration, what they should do is they should actually do what the Mamdamis of this world have learned to do.

Oh, the new mayor of New York. Which is go. Go free childcare. Oh, sorry, sorry. Yeah, just go, yes, go, exactly, go. Oh, school lunch. Oh, no. You can have that in Australia.

There's a whole lot of things that are driving. people's dissatisfaction with our immigration system. And they're because of daily pressures on people's lives. And that's why, as the Labor Party, we're focused on bringing in free, you know, childcare. This is why we're focused on making sure that, you know, people's lived experience in Australia, the people who are here. We're focused on the people who are here, not the people who aren't here.

One nation are focused on a whole other people who aren't even here. We're focused on people who are here. And we want to, you know, build up society. And it would involve all sorts. doing something. But if you made it about, well, what actually is going on here is, there's just, people feel like there aren't enough opportunities for themselves, for the people who are already here. And what we want to do is create more opportunities. And then they could weave in things like, and that's why we just want sports betting to let rip,

because we're giving people a chance, a chance to win the Quinella at Randwick on the weekend. You really are, you really are a Labor man through, right you. Let's take a little quick break and then I might rebutt slightly. The Chaser Report, news a few days after it happens. Now, Charles, the first question I have in response to this is, does your strategy for Labor involve saying any numbers at all about what the numbers should? No, you'd never, especially if you're not the immigration minister, just literally talk about, oh, immigration, well, we're about opportunity for people here.

I'm not really interested in people who aren't here. You know what I mean? And you go no numbers at all. As long as you're clear that at no point the Australian government needs to worry about anyone or anything in the world that isn't within the borders of Australia. You just go, yeah, you just go, but it's just 101. It's politics 101.

This is the surprising thing. You go, they've got a whole lot of people who are paid very vast salaries to think about how to communicate. And yet you find minister after minister being shot down in the press getting into these arguments around numbers, when they should just stop talking about it. Like, it's just feeding the frame. Like, they're literally accepting the premise of Pauline Hanson's question.

But isn't the problem being in charge? And then just allowing politics to just stay still there. Isn't there a massive problem with that, though? Which is that if you say, look, look, okay, they're focused on immigration. They're obsessed with these numbers, people who aren't even here yet. We want to make life better for the people who are here.

Isn't the problem, Charles, that they then have to make life better for the people. people who are here. And rather than going, well, you know, it's not your fault, it's not my fault, it's not any of our fault, it's all their fault. Just keep them out and everything will be fixed. You've then got to fix the problems. That's issue one. No, yes. No, you're right. And issue two, this is where it's even more difficult, Charles, if you just project it down the track. Yes. Is it okay, what's the biggest problem right now in Australia policy wise has been for years, not much has happened about it? Housing. Housing, right. Would one, what would one obvious way

be to fix the housing supply problem? What might you, for instance, I'll give you a little clue. What might you build? More houses. All right, but who's going to build the houses? Do we have enough skilled builders in Australia right now? All the big property developers, all big business. What are they saying we need more of? Well, that's why, Dom, this government is committed to increasing the number of TAFE places by 12 over the coming 14.

12. 12 more faith places by 2040. I mean, I'm... To give an opportunity for Oz. Builders. Anyone who wants to build a house, like anyone who wants to even, you know, pick up a trow.

Yeah. It's going to get to free TAFE course. I think that's pretty clear at this point. We try that. But you know who else could build these houses? I mean, just maybe, could, perhaps. These people who don't live here right now,

but have the skills and could be brought in as, I mean, he wouldn't want to call them migrants, but temporary helpers. Could they be temporary helpers? Could they be executive assistants? But there's a... Could we get executive building assistants who could come and help

build houses? Well, like that. So you just reframe migration. They're not. They're not migrants. But isn't that an awful thing to do? I really hate the idea that, oh, yeah, let's bring people in. Let's bring poor people in.

Use them for low paid trades and to drive down wages here. And then not even give them the certainty of, oh, you can now live here. Thanks for your contribution to our society. See ya. Fuck off. Charles. Oh, sorry. How could they leave?

We need to build the house. Oh, I see. How the house is going to get better. saying it's just a passive aggressive. You're just passive aggressive off the next 40 years. No, they're executive assistants. Oh, they're executive. Executive builders.

Yeah, okay. They're building, can't we go back to Kevin Rudd? They're building the housing revolution. You know, the type of person that no one's ever going to object coming into this country, middle managers. Executives. That's what you want. Executives. Okay.

But also, there's one more. And we don't call them working visas. We call them gold visas. Yes. Yes. It's not a visa. It's not a visa. No, no, no.

It's a master card. It's an employment contract. It's an Australia card. That's never gone badly before. All right. And the third thing. It's a Patriot Pass. A Patriot Pass.

Yes. That's pretty good. I love it. What about it? And so in effect... No. And what we do is we... You know how John Howard?

This is it. You know how he redefined Australia's migration zone? So it didn't include Australia. Because that would mean that people could have right. For people who are too young to know this, The way John Howard ultimately dealt with... People arriving on Pacific Island. Yeah. And he was on the shores of Australia.

He defined Australia's border as being, I think just around Canberra or something. Wasn't there a post office in civic? Yeah, you had to make it that if you're a refugee... It's like playing tip and you make it to bar. Like that... Yeah, yeah. So what we should, what Labor should do is they define the entire world as Australia. So they're already in Australia.

So there's no migration. Oh my gosh, that's very clever. They're already in Australia. They're not migrating. And you put one nation on the back foot. Because it's all one nation. Yes. The world.

Do you believe in chucking Australians out of Australia, do you? Wow. You see what I mean? And I was going to go back to another Howard era approach and say it's a mateship pass. It's not a working visa. It's a mate. It's new mates. A mateship pass.

And you're inviting them. You're not inviting them to migrate. We're inviting them to a bar. To a barbie. Yeah. They're coming to a barbecue. Yes. It's a mateship barbecue.

They've got to build the barbecue for you. They've got to build a shelter over the barbecue and connect the gas. So if you've got some skilled tradies, with, you know. But the third objection, I hope it's an electric barbecue. Yeah, Craig would want it to me. The third objection to your perspective. It's demonstrated by, I'm just reading this again off the live blog, none other than Labor front bencher Pat Conroy, where we started this conversation, who says that one nation's migration,

and I quote, policy incoherence demonstrates that they're not fit to govern. Well, hang on him on Radio National. I heard him on Radio National being incoherent about immigration. He said, if that's what is required to be in government, then Pat Conroy is not qualified to be in government. He said, well, what we've seen from One Nation is policy incoherence. We had two different figures yesterday contradicting themselves about what their actual position is.

What we're focused on is delivering for Australian people. meaningful cost of living relief while bringing down migration in a reasonable, appropriate way, while making sure we've still got the skills that the economy needs. Oh my God, did he train as a lawyer? How many subclaws were in that pithy 14-line statement? You know what I think he's got? I think he's got someone new in his speech writing team, maybe someone from overseas with K. K. Rudd.

Someone with a bit... The pithiness of K. Actually, you know what would be. Tony Abbott has been such an extraordinary return to Australian politics as president of the federal liberals. I think Kevin Rudd, federal Labor president and chief policy, chief spokesperson. Yes.

No, explainer in chief. That's what we need. Would he get a mateship visa? Actually, maybe not. Should we just explore, just before we go, what are the downsides of making the whole world Australia? I feel like there's one major floor, which is that that would also include the United States of America. And I'm not sure we want that sort of – I mean, look, I don't believe in racism, but I don't think we want that sort of person coming to Australia. Sometimes we just have to call a spade a spade.

They'd probably call it a shovel. Yeah. Sometimes there's cultural fit issues. We're people who just hold different fundamental beliefs. Yes. It's not that they're bad. It's just that at the very core, there's a cultural fit issue where there's some, like, if they wanted to subscribe to our way of life, maybe that would be, but I can't see Americans doing that. But I feel like Americans, I think also maybe just honestly, and I like a lot of British people, but, you know, they've got a history of violence and they winge a lot and they take up a little bit of spots at Bondi.

But Charles, if that was part of Australia, we couldn't have the ashes anymore. Yeah, exactly. People from Wales and Scotland and Ireland can come, but not the English. Yeah, and look, look, I'm like, the rest of the world is fine because you get good food. Like, if you get people from the Middle East, you get good food. Reducing migration to food. When's that ever met it over some publication? I mean, what are you bringing to the mateship barbecue?

It's English food. You're not welcome. So we're just saying, you're allowed to be anywhere. You're Australian, if you're anywhere, other than America or English. I mean, in New Zealand already is Australia really. Yeah, I didn't. That's already sort of irrelevant. That was the proof of how well it works.

That was, yes, that also. No, but you know what has happened? Have you heard about this? No. There's actually a bit of a problem going on in New Zealand. Really? Because one of the first things that Albo did when he got into power in 2023 is the Prime Minister of New Zealand came up.

I think it was Jacinta Adirna still. Would have been, I think. Yes. And demanded. that they let New Zealanders have what they used to have, which was a pathway to citizenship quite easily. Like if they came and worked here, it was pretty easy to get citizenship ultimately.

And that had been tightened up, especially under Morrison. And so Alba went, yeah, whatever, like, happy to do that. What's happened since then is all these New Zealanders have arrived. Including Jacinda Ardo. Including her, Jacinda. Oh, that's why she did it. That's why she asked... Is this what this was all about?

It was all about... She just wanted her own. She didn't say, I want a pathway to Sydney Writers' Festival every year. That's it. So, and apparently New Zealand's now going, hey, you know that thing that we asked for? We need some of our workers back. Like, because people are just, like, immigrating from New Zealand in droves. I think it's like 35,000 a year or something.

Stay where you are, Australia. We're coming over. But I think that for us, because we, they're actually highly skilled, highly educated. Like, it's a brain drain, you know, basically. Yeah, yeah. And there's lovely people, New York. Yeah. No, I know.

You see that, Jacinda Ardern? She seems so nice. It's lovely, yeah. She's on the new series of Take 5. So I think that they're, I think we've just solved Australian immigration. I think we've actually solved it, didn't we? It does sound pretty good. I mean, Donald Trump will be happy.

And look, maybe the point is, if they get to the border and Americans can, We look up their social media. We make sure that they're not sort of on the Trump train, and then they come in. We do a little bit of background check. You know, if they express the sort of love of ice. No, you can't have a political test for this, because an American who seems liberal one day,

when we look at Lindsay Graham's record. They back flip, left, right and ten, no, no. You've got to be harsh. You've got to be tough, you've got to be cruel to be kind, Charles. Yeah. I just feel sorry. I feel sorry for all the sort of... I know. You're a big-hearted guy.

I know. But we've got to be tough. But actually, that's how they can go to the next election going, we're tough on immigrants. And point to America and say, we're not letting anyone in from here. Well, the real question will be about whether you want a visa or not, can you say what Australia's migration target should be in numbers? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. That's the ultimate test. If they start bringing up numbers. We'd have no more citizens, if that was on the...

It could be really flamics them, wouldn't it? All right. I think we've sold everything for 10. today yet again, Charles, well done. Yeah, well done. Okay, well, we'll be back tomorrow and we'll see you then. We're part of the Oconiclass Network. Bye.