The Chaser Report - Concrete Over Sydney Harbour

Episode Date: February 5, 2023

Charles concocts flawless policies for his political career as leader of Australia's Un-Latham Party. 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 podcast. Oh, no, what's it called? The Chaser Report. Keep that introduction, Lachlan, it's The Chaser Report, and it's my second episode back, Dom Knight, and Charles Firth is three episodes in, and has already forgotten the name of the podcast. So, business as usual.

So, yes, very exciting, and we start a new week with quite amazing news that I am running for Parliament. Listeners of the podcast on Friday would have heard that bullied me into doing it as a way to... And that's because it was a good idea

that you had. Yes. Way back in the day, I just want to tease out the details of it because we need to try and come up with the manifesto which was,

and this was entirely your idea and you have so many excellent ideas, I must say, to be fair, that you would basically cancel out Mark Latham by running and all of your

platform would be whatever he does, you'll vote the opposite. opposite. And I want to find out, like, the limits to that. If there's something so obvious and so self-evidently good that even Mark Latham votes for it, do you still have to vote no? So that it's as though Mark Latham isn't there at all. Yes, that's right. That would be a clever strategy of Mark Latham, wouldn't it be, to sort of gain traction by doing good things for a little while. But you don't want him to gain

a resolution. Let's say there's a resolution in the upper house condemning, I don't know, genocide or he would he'd vote against that so oh yeah okay let's say in favor of free speech that he wanted for his markovans outsiders or some bullshit so he can say horrible things about trans people or something okay all right it's got to be safer doesn't it to just do the opposite yes exactly if um it's it may it means you're on the record voting for some truly appalling things yeah look but i i think the risk is actually quite small like you can sort of hypothesise about that. But I don't think he's ever going to

actually... I mean, Charles, it would be an unexpected problem to have and a nice problem to have. Oh, Mark Latham's going to vote for this thing. But then also he might you'd have to make sure you voted after him on the floor every time. How would you do that? But on the weekend, I started working on my

pamphlets, right? Okay. And I think we've got to flesh them out a little bit more because like, that's good. Like, that sort of is a solid half sentence that encapsulates my entire term as a politician. But I kind of feel like we need to sort of crystallize it a bit more. Yeah.

So that, you know, and just be a little bit populist so that I bring in a broader audience. So we get the... Okay, so it's not just unlatheathom. It's not just anti-Latham. Right. Well, because there's a few other things that I just want to add to that list. Okay. The first one being, because I don't know whether you've remembered this,

but like for the last six or seven weeks, the kids have been at home, right? They've just gone back last week, and it was so blissful that I think that one of my policies should be to abolish school holidays. Like every adult, let's face it, the only people who'll hate that policy are people who can't vote anyway because they're under 18. That's a pretty impressive policy. Any parent would just go, yes, let's definitely abolish all school holidays. I just wonder, though, can you be certain Mark Lathen would have the opposite stance?

I think you, with something like that, I think you'd trick him into having the opposite stance. Because I'm just worried that if you start coming up with populist policies, you'll dilute the brand. Yeah. It'd be if Mark Lathen went into the parliament and accidentally gave a speech about tolerance and kindness. Like, I don't know, maybe he'd had a really depressive day or something and just kind of went from there. So you don't think I can abolish school. holidays. I think if Mark Latham's in favour of keeping school holidays, thank you all right.

It would be, because doesn't he always talk about men's rights and things? That's pretty on brand for One Nation. I'll ring him up, find out, do the opposite. That's good. Well, maybe the thing to do would be to just get a whole bunch of positions on his policy. There is one position, though, that both you and Mark Latham have in common. There's one thing that you've both said in part. public, which is that you've both in a public space, called me ugly.

Oh, shit. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So this is one issue with your pain. But I think that age has done you a very kind turn, Dom, and that you... Do you think? Yes.

You're incredibly handsome now. You're a silver fox. That's what you are. You need hair for it to be a silver fox, Charles. Well, your beard is a bit gray. Back in school, as we've discussed on the podcast before, you had a very handsome man from your year's school who you said was amazingly handsome,

and then I was the opposite. Admittedly, he then went to prison. So I have that over him. And Mark Lathen said on the 22nd of May 2017, to me, in a reply, never bred anything as ugly as your scone, would have had to put foal down at birth. Maybe I shouldn't run against him

Maybe you should run or a unit ticket So Charles, how are you going to win? Do you think it's enough To convince the people of New South Wales Just to say I'm going to be the opposite of Latham? It's definitely not And so I have instead decided to Like it's still got the Latham thing

But I've got a new policy Which is I'm going to solve the housing crisis Oh my goodness Yes Because you know I recently did this whole thing talking to experts and like callers and so on on the radio about the worst thing about Sydney

and it was absolutely housing like this is the thing that entire generations of voters are upset about is not being out of afford housing you would actually be achieving something you would do more than your sister Charles yes that's right you would actually better your sister with her impressive CV and an AM that she got last week if you solved the housing crisis yes exactly and it's what you know just because every single expert

whoever has a look at it goes oh it's an intractable problem that will take decades to solve, doesn't mean that I can't solve it by being elected an independent upper house politician. How would you solve it, Charles? Is that something to work out? No, no, no, no. Isn't the best way to just wait until you get elected?

Oh, yeah. I will solve, big conference. The promise is I will solve the housing crisis. I'll work out the details after the election. That's great. What would Albo do? Yeah, no, I've got, no, I actually have a two-prong strategy which will solve this housing crisis.

So the first one is very obvious, which is just some basic renters rights. So instead of having a lease for six months or one year, which is what is standard here, in the rest of the world, you know, in Europe and things like that, you have five-year leases, which the tenant can break at any time,

but the owner just has to put up with. Like even if they sell the house, it's a house, it's a home, it's your home. You get to just keep it, right? that's the first thing is and you're not allowed to then put the rent up during you know your lease if you're going to fucking rent out a house

you rent it out and you admit that you're then not using it for the next five years because Charles hang on a sec that sounds like it would actually help renters yes but aren't most voters aren't like the overwhelming number of voters negative gearing multiple houses and thereby

that'll be massively unpopular and you'd lose and it might it'd fix the problem sure from policy perspective. Yes. But wouldn't that cost you the election? Because you'd be stopping homeowners from gouging renters. No, because all those people can vote for Mark later.

Okay. The Chaser Report, news you can't trust. So you're right. Like all the sort of negative gearers can go off and do that. But then the other thing, for the people who want to actually buy a house, right? So because 30% of the voters now are renters, right? So it's not like, it's the thing. But then there's this other pool of people who want to actually get into the, you know, actually buy a house, right?

This is my solution. And I think it's genius. And I've never heard anyone else say it before, which is you have a new form of property. Right. So the moment you've got Torren's title, which is like your own and you can do whatever you like with your house. And there's strata title, which is your own and you have to put up with your annoying neighbors telling you what to do. your house there should be a third type of title called first title yeah okay if we can name it after me that's probably Charles Charles title right okay yeah and what it is is

its owner-occupier title it's basically the only thing um that you're allowed to do with the property is occupied you're not allowed to rent it out to anyone it's illegal you can't get any tax benefits for doing that there's no you know you can't get investment loans for it it's just only if you're an occupier plus um if you leave you you know you you got to sell it you got to sell you can't just sort of have it vacant right so it's just own your occupier title it comes encumbered with that thing and then no no investor would want to buy any of those houses because they can't actually raise the money to buy them or and there's no tax benefits for it And it would massively, like, suddenly people who actually wouldn't be, want to buy a house, wouldn't be crowded out by all the fuckwits who keep buying up investment properties.

That is a very, very clever idea. I really write that. The only question is who's going to build these houses? Because I tell you, no property developer is going to want to build that. Well, here's the clever thing. You just mandate it. Every new development has to have 30% owner-occupier title. First touch, Charles title.

You can't call it Charles title because people will think it's named after the king. Oh, yeah, I know, that's what, that's, that's the difficulty of having two famous charleses. Well, because I've talked a lot about this with various people, and people point to the Singapore model, and the great thing about Singapore is that... It's an authoritarian state, we're not allowed to complain. 80% of people live in a public-built housing, and 90% of them own it, because they have this, you buy it for, I don't know, three or four hundred grand, and the rules you can't sell it for seven years or something like that, or certainly not to... Yeah, right. To make a profit. So it's not unlike your idea.

So, yes, the only thing we need is an authoritarian state. Yes. And also, I think, reclaimed land, because a lot of Singapore is built on reclaimed land. So what we need to start doing is just, there's an obvious solution. Yeah, just fill in Sydney Harbour. Yes. Fill in the Yarra in the Melbourne River. All this extra land gets open up, and all the fuckers with water views get to a view of a skyscraper.

Imagine if Point Piper, we just had views of giant skyscrapers built in front of them. The whole problem with Sydney is. is the, you know, the prices go up most are the ones with harbour views. That would solve that problem because they'd no longer have a harbour house. Just had a view of a thicket of skyscrapers instead. Yes, I love it. You know what? You wouldn't even need to buy it.

You could just buy Malcolm Turnbull's house because it would be worth nothing. We concrete in Sydney Harbour. I love it. Yeah. And instead, there are still water views. It's just that the water views are enjoyed by the residents of the public housing who've paid extremely little for those units. And the best thing would be watching Paul Keating, you know, we'd have to video him finding out the plan because he would actually have a heart attack.

We could actually record him having a heart attack. But Paul Keating struggled so hard, Charles, so hard to go from Bankstown, from his working class routes to being an annoying culture czar who lives in Potts Point. Yeah, and then we can make Potts Point the new Western suburbs. There'll be at least another 20 kilometres. It would be a new inner west. What a great idea. I love the idea of Bondi being west, the western part of Sydney. That's right.

It'd be the centre. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Because we'd go out. The demographic heartland of Sydney, Bondi. It's a very good idea. Well, look, people keep leaving Sydney because housing is too expensive, which means Melbourne is going to take over.

Yeah. But if you just concrete at the harbour, you can bid a lot of cheap housing. Well, I reckon that'll be very popular. Especially around here with all the people who have harbour views. You know, I actually think, in all sincerity, if you suggested turning the east of Sydney into being exactly like the western suburbs, nobody would love that more than Mark. Latham.

Oh, no! Vote one, Charles Firth. Is it the Un-Latham party or the anti-Latham? Is it anti-or-un? What's better? I don't know. I don't know. Cancel Latham.

If you're a incredibly expert pollster slash political strategist, can you email me, editor at chaser.com.com. Oh, yeah, shouldn't we get Simon Holmes a caught on to get him to fund this? Yeah, okay. Yeah. Do you think he, do you think he'll give any money? I don't think he'll give any money to me. Like, what? Hang on. He's the type of person he'd give money to my sister, maybe. Isn't the, but isn't the fact, though, Charles, that if you, if you, if you, if you, you do vote for the opposite of everything Mark Lays and Holtz dear, aren't you going to be running as a teal?

Like, you're going to be the tealist of the teals. Oh, yeah. Okay. You'll be much tealer than all the kind of, all the libs. Okay. Well, we'll get Simon Holmes a court on and on the podcast, and we'll do something that I'm sure nobody else has ever done to him before and ask for some money from him. What about Mike Cannon Brooks?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, sure, Sun Cable went bust. But, yeah, I'm sure he's got loads of cash. All right. You're as good as elected, Charles, as far as. But will you keep doing the podcast once you're in MLC? I'll be like Howl in Henry IV, where I just walk past all my old friends and don't even acknowledge their existence.

You know what, Charles, in all sincerity, if you and I could both actually get elected to MLC, if I could ride your coat-tails on this one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Two, too quoted. That is probably the only sustainable business model to work in a full-time podcaster. I love it. Okay, we'll do it.

Done. Our gear is from Road, and this is part of the iconoclast podcast network now. And catch you tomorrow. Vote one for whatever Charles' party's called. Any ideas actually do tweet us because we'd love to know. Yeah, Andy Latham, unlatham. Anti-Latham.