The Chaser Report - Build Baby, Build!

Episode Date: September 6, 2026

Apologies to anyone who isn't from NSW, 'cos this one's all about Sydney housing! Dom and Charles put on their consultant hats to help the NSW Housing Authority cram more apartments into every square millimetre of land not already owned by Harry Triguboff. Plus, is all we actually need in this trying time a little bit of faith?---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. Build, baby build. Charles, that's what this episode is about. We know that we need houses. We know that we need houses to be built rapidly wherever possible. Yes.

What I have for you is an analysis from the New South Wales Government's housing delivery authority, they've been through and looked at all kinds of places where we can build. I mean, you know, types of land that might be suitable for, you know, potentially 78-story towers, I'm going to run me through the categories. I want to know what you think of each one. Does it go far enough? And are there other places we can think of to build? Can we, in the kind of chase the report, executive brainstorming suite, you know, as consultants,

coming up with even more. Normally, we charge a lot of money for these insights, but for you, dear listeners, it's free. They're the only price is these ads. Okay, so, I mean, Sydney clearly and other cities, but particularly Sydney, needs more houses, and it needs them yesterday. Charles, it needs them yesterday. Yes. I've always said that.

You have. I've always said more houses. You said it yesterday. Yes, and it went back. So the housing development authority has been set up to try and figure this out. And there's an article about this in the Herald from a few weeks ago, guy called David Barwell, basically saying that pretty much anywhere, any well-located parcel of land is not off limits.

They're all potentially going to be the places where we build. So the first... So this is one of these abundance people who believe that the way you've got to behave is get rid of all regulations because somehow that will unleash. Well, there are regulations. A much nicer environment. They're not building anywhere, but they're building almost everywhere. as we'll see.

So they're not, so, okay, to give you an example, they're not flattening heritage suburbs and building towers there, which are people who don't like Federation housing, that's sort of bad news, right? Like places like Haberfield in Sydney, the whole suburb is heritage listed,

they're not changing that. But the first thing that they're doing and the first item on the list, and I'm not making this up, church land, Charles, there are lots of churches where they want to build. And there's even a group

called Faith Housing Australia. They've found 747 sites owned by various faiths where you could build up to 20,000 homes. And is this, because for listeners outside of New South Wales, there's been a spectacular collapse of Bathler just in the last few days. Yes. And it's one of the biggest property developers in New South Wales. I think there's something like 23,000 dwellings that are yet to be completed, that have started, and that people are basically, you know, waiting on where, and it looks like it's not going to be particularly easy to save, right? So I feel like faith-based building is already something that you have to do in New South Wales.

Yes, that's right. Even just committing to building something doesn't mean it's going to be built. You're just, you're sort of buying an apartment on faith at this point in New South Wales. Yeah, you are. There's a lot of faith in the process. And what there isn't, clearly is enough. prayer. We need more prayer. There's a lot of praying that the subcontractors will turn up. There's a lot of praying that people will actually be paid.

Yeah, and that the developers will survive, even though they're getting lots of green lights. So to give you an example of what they want to do, 172 homes on St. George's Anglican Church in Hurstville, 150 units. And would those homes be tax-free because it's religious homes? I'm sure the government would be planning to tax them. 150 units at the mascot Wesley Uniting Church. 178 homes at Norell and Anglican Church. The most controversial is a 20-story 186 apartment development at St. Francis Xavier Church in Lava, Bay. That's Catholic Church, isn't it?

Yes. Sleepy area in Mississippi. I've always said that the Vatican City lacks a tall tower. It does. St. Peter's Tower is the highest tower. It should be a spire of St. Spicerreiber. Yeah, because it's a high city.

Where's the 100-story building? Yeah. Leonardo da Vinci or whoever built it or was it. Michelangelo? I can't remember. Someone. Yeah. One of them.

But, you know, they were all like, oh, what a genius. He was able to build a dome, right? Oh, that's engineering genius. That's engineering genius from 400 years ago, 500 years ago, right? What about a completely glass sky sky sky? Why don't we just knock that down and build a good apartment block? That's true. Like they have a mascot.

Yeah, Michelangelo, you're absolutely right, was one of the major architects of it. Well done. And instead of having. Instead of having domes, what you'd have is you'd call it the dome. And that would be, you know, the dome apartments. Yes. What a good idea. See?

Keep the branding. Yes. But you could pack in a lot more priests. Yeah, you could still have a basilica. I'll tell you what, you wouldn't be able to have a school within 100 yards of that dome, would you? So, well, this is the thing I'm wondering, Charles. So in Lavender Bay, 20 stories, 186 apartment development, residents don't like it. I mean, in some context.

more surveillance for the Catholic Church could be a good thing, though. Yeah, I think that's right. It should be made of glass. It's going to loom over it. They're saying here it's looming over the Levinter Bay Catholic Church. I don't know anyone involved in that specific church, but there are plenty of places, Charles, where, you know, hundreds of residents watching around the clock could have actually improved matters,

surely. Yeah, I think that's right. And why, like, I feel like the underlying assumption of the complaint about Levinter Bay is that the Eastern suburbs is sacrosanct. and we can develop everywhere else. We can develop in the eastern suburbs and out west or whatever. Sorry, in the western suburbs or down south or southwest or whatever. But no, no, you can't touch Lavender Bay.

Well, this is the Lower North Shore. Yeah. Oh, if you have that mentality. Where's Levinter Bay? It's right next to the Harbour Bridge. So they've already had quite a lot of large development in the suburb. It's a couple hundred metres from the Harbour Bridge. I mean, it's already overlooked.

You know Prime Real Estate? Kiribili House, that's old. That's true. house. You could easily have an aluminum. Public housing. Public housing is out of fashion now, though. Nobody wants public housing.

Get rid of it. But what about the Harbour Bridge? Why can't the Harbour Bridge have lots of apartments built on top of the roof deck? Especially in the towers, in the little, you know, in the pylons. The pylon apartments. We know a longer need. That steel frame could have apartments built all the way through it, couldn't it? Yes.

Like it could be solid. Although you'd get woken up every morning with the fucking bridge climbers. It's true. On your ceiling. Think of the water view. Trampling over your roof. I love the notion of filling in the hole. Because, you know, in ancient Florence, they'd build shops on bridges.

Why don't build apartments on bridges? And look, yeah, harbourfront real estate is so valuable that I bet you it would be worth the price of concrete. Yep. Filling in bits of Sydney Harbour and putting apartments here. Actually, that's true. You could build, let's be clear. We're not barbarians here. We're not going to fill in the harbouring.

what we're going to do is build a deck on stilts on top of it, like an oil rig. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So the harbour's still there. Yeah, it's heritage. Yeah, the fish still get to play and frolic underneath. Yeah. Jack Money would be proud. Yeah, yeah.

It's basically a green band. It protects the harbour. Yeah. All right. So the next thing on the list, Charles, shopping centres. What would that apartment block be called? The one in the harbour. Harbor View.

Packer. Oh, bottom of the harbour. The one that goes to the bottom of the harbor. That should be the packer apartments. You'd have an elevator, wouldn't you? You'd have a glass lift that went to the bottom of the harbour. Yeah, the titan. You'd have an accounting firm with an outlet down there.

Yeah, I love it. All right. So shopping centres, this is a bit of a no-brainer, building on top of places like SuperCenter at Moore Park. No, no, no, no, no, no, I'm sorry, Don. Heritage. Yes, the SuperCenter is, that's going too far. That should definitely be Heritage.

Like, I'm surprised that's even. and being suggested. I used to shop at that IKEA. It's a sacred. It's a sacred. You can't have people. Imagine the impact on Captain Snoze. The poor Caput.

Rod Quantock. The kindly captain. So that's going to happen. I mean, you can build that in. Chatswood Chase, apartments on top. Royal Randwick. Again, Chatswood Chase was one of the first shopping centers of Sydney. It dates back to the 1960s.

Like, I have a feeling it's like 1967. That's what's entirely brown inside. I don't think you can knock down there. Anyway, lemon grove. Oh, lemon growth. Oh, lemon growth. Okay, so you don't like that. Fair enough.

We'll take that off the list. What about this? University campuses. So West and Sydney Uni wants to build on its North Parramatta campus, 2,000 apartments with student accommodation and so on. Yes, but no, I know a little bit about this. And this is because they are trying to convince the government not to cut student visas. because the education industry makes so much money out of international students. But the whole anti-immigration push is meaning that the main place that the government's

getting savings out of migration numbers is by just refusing students' entry to Australia, right? And so they can get the numbers down, but it doesn't really do anything. In fact, it sort of is going to sink the education industry, the tertiary education sector. But one of the things is, all the universities, are going around to the government, to the federal government and offering thousands of dwellings and saying, and we'll put our students here. So it won't impact on the housing. But the thing is, the government's just going, we don't fucking give you shit. You can build whatever houses you want,

but we're still going to cut your intake. So what about this then, Charles? What about this? What if the students, as well as being students, as well as doing their whatever master's diplomas, what if they also work as builders laborers for 20 hours a week to build a house? I love that. Yes. I think that they're not students. They're labourers who also are doing a master's. Okay. That's good.

Although isn't the whole point that we don't want immigrants to come in and take our jobs that we don't. But it's all self-contained. They're building their own houses. If you want to stay somewhere, build your own house. Yeah. Okay. The Chaser Report. Less news more often.

Okay. Industrial Relics is the next one. a former paint factory in St. Peters. Apparently they're going to put podcasting studios in there, Charles, in this site. But St. Peters is right under the flight path. That's the worst day in the world. Yep. You need a very good soundproofing.

I reckon that whole thing has been suggested by an acoustic specialist. Who wants to sell? He's got a whole lot of foam to offload. So in Coromel, this is in the Illawarra, just the south of Sydney. There's a Coke Works. It's 18 hectares. Oh, I like that. That's very eastern suburbs.

Surely he puts that in Bondi. They should move the Coke Works to Bondi. They should call it the Bondi Coke Works. So this is, this operated for 100 years till 2014. It's got a brick chimney, a powerhouse and heritage Coke ovens. Sure that you could do a marketing deal with Coke Zero. It's not Coke in a Coke there anymore. The Coke apartment.

It's an industrial site. I mean, that, yes, why not? I feel like those things, like they announced them. This happened near our house. Yeah. At the bottom of like in sort of. like in the sort of bottom of Baltimore, a bit near the fish markets, is they, there was a tip there still is actually, a council tip.

And for years they were going, oh, we're going to build 100 million apartments on top of the tip. Right. And then they went into it and every government authority. So the state government was going, oh, I think the council can deal with this. And the council was going, I think the state government should deal with this. And the federal government was going, we don't think we should deal with this. And the reason is, because apparently those sorts of sites are just incredibly, riven with chemicals that will cost tens of millions of dollars, like hundreds of millions of dollars

to clean up. I feel like if a Cokeworks has been going for 100 years, you kind of, you can sort of almost guarantee it's going to have. Well, that's all right, because we don't need good housing standards, do we just need houses no matter what the cost. All right. So there's a possibly too hard basket on that one. What about this one? This is all still from the article. Golfing greens and I'll lump it together with bowling greens as well. Bowling clubs. Get rid of the hipsters at the bowling clubs. Yep.

You know how... Yes. Get rid of that. You just build apartments on top of the bowling club, so keep it as a facility. It'd be just as nice. It wouldn't be quite as sunny, but you wouldn't get skin cancer. Just put lighting on. Yeah, it's not very nice.

I can I make it feel like... But yeah, no, no, you put the fucking bowling on the top of the skyscraper. Yeah, then you get the nice sun. That's a much better idea. Yes, okay. They would be... And you got views. Yes, it'd be very scenic.

I've got views of the coking works or whatever. The other thing is, can I say, I reckon all these suggestions are quite good, Dom. Well done on compiling this list. I didn't. But what I'm saying is, you know how it's like 78 stories is the limit in Sydney or whatever? We've got to get rid of that. I reckon we should be talking 7,800 stories. Yeah.

You know how they want to build a space lift? They need space lifts. You need one site. You need one site. Like this whole thing of, oh, we need lots and different places. No, just get one side. You really think. Build a fucking megalith.

Well, you know the line in Saudi Arabia. There's going to be whatever 100, 150 kilometers long. It should have been vertical. Yes. Yes. Think of the footprint. Finally, we'd been consulting to it, Dom. Yeah.

We could have solved everything. It would be very good. Could be very simple. So bowling clubs and so on. They've also hospitals. Who would want to live on top of the hospital? You know that church? in Leavenner Bay, that should have 7,800.

Because they would have good to harbour views as well. They would have very good hubbys. And then the final one, I think this is the one that is going to happen, all right? This is the obvious one that's going to get the green light. Drum roll, please. Pubs, clubs and hotels. What I'm hearing is one lift between your house and the pokies. And the pokies.

And no, and pokies in the lifts. Pockys in the lift. It's true. Every lift is a pokey room. And will I get to the right floor? And the gym. The gym is like there's a fitness machine, pokey. Fitness machine pokey.

So this is going to happen. It sounds like this is going to happen. There's lots of places. D.Y. R.S.L. Mortdale R.S.L. Cypress Community Club in Stanmore. They also want to do pubs like the Cabramatta Hotel, which I was at not long ago. The Strathfield Hotel. They're going to do it. So I think the publicans are the ones who can build wherever they want, aren't they? Yes.

They're the one that's likely to get it. So Justin Hems goes from being just, you know, somebody who runs Sydney to somebody who runs and owns every house in Sydney. Yeah. I love it. Yeah, that's right. You become Sydney. I mean, to my mind, if I could get a table at those restaurants, I'd actually been, I'd vote. If as a resident, I could actually get into these places, I think it would all be worth it.

It's a total and nothing on your rent. That's the other thing, Charles. You could actually, you could, because it'd probably be rent to, you know, builds rent. So you can't actually. have your ownership dream, but you put your salary into your house and you get to gamble it. And it's, yeah, it's double or nothing. Double or nothing on rent. Imagine the social cohesion if we're all renters, side by side at toddies.

Toddies. Yeah. Look, I think, I do think this is the one that's going to happen. If the hotel lobby want it. Yeah. The hotel lobby get it. I think they're going to get it. Yes, sir.

Anything you want, sir. Yeah. Okay. Well, that is fantastic news, at least for the people in New South Wales. Housing is solved. It sucks to be anyone not in New South Wales. Well, they can all move into New South Wales. There's been lots of houses and all the churches and all the pubs.

Imagine having to travel 7,800 stories each day on the lift. Actually, you know, churches are worried about declining attendance, aren't they? Yeah. Why don't they make more of a thing out of giving out the communion wine? Yes. Well, they're basically then a pub. Free booze. Yeah.

Although I must say with any of this, I really do think that they're going to see a boom. just in people praying and faith. Yeah. Because, you know, that's actually what you need in this housing. A little bit of faith in this household market. Yeah. Well, you can place your confidence and trust in the politicians who we have to try and come up with meaningful solutions,

or you could just pray to a deity and hope that that's more likely to get results. I think that might be more effective. Yeah. Okay. We're part of the Iconicles network. See you in the lift. Catch you tomorrow.