The Chaser Report - Get On The Feierabendbiers!

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

After a coupla days off the mics, Dom gets Charles up to speed on all the news from Australia, including a major shakeup to Sydney's NIMBY-est suburb, and the only piece of news from the productivity roundtable. Plus, Charles uses German engineering to make the workplace more efficient. ---Buy the Wankernomics book: https://wankernomics.com/bookListen 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 Gadigal 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. We are back in the saddle. It's the pathetically infrequent podcast. We're being like other podcasts. Dom, Dom, Dom, Dom, Dom, Dom, don't undersell this podcast. Our listeners are privileged to have the privilege of

listening to such an amazing podcast that now is so exclusive, it only really drops in your feed once a week, unless, of course, you're a subscriber in which case you also get a weekend bonus episode. Just for now, it's a temporary situation because Charles is having vast success with his wankanomics thing, and quite reasonably he's focusing on the thing that, you know, he's going gangbusters, which is fine, but we're still doing it. I mean, look, most podcasts are weekly. I don't know why we made this thing daily to begin with.

It was insane. We're just being like the other podcasts. But I think that the whole value out of this is that it's daily. So we get to complain about how the world works every day. That's true. And sort of drive people into a general malaise, which we, you know, have lived in alone for years. It's harder to do that weekly. I agree.

I agree. It is much harder to just keep that consistent mood breaker. Because people are listening first thing in the morning. We know this from the listener survey. People are getting up and listening. And then there's immediately going, oh, crap. That's what we're here to do. We're here to do this.

It's a great service we provide. So what's been happening in Australia, is anything, I presume we're now in a sort of utopian left-wing paradise, is that what's happened? Are you telling me that Australian news isn't making the headlines over there? No, has anything happened? I don't know anything. Actually, I'll tell you what happens is over here,

everyone thinks that Australia must be some sort of utopian socialist paradise. Really? Because I think that the Albanese government might be the only, social democratic government in the world that isn't about to bring in a far right government any minute now like in the UK Nigel Farage is definitely going to be the next prime minister and frankly having seen the labour government here I can kind of understand why in some ways I think if I was living in the UK in four years time when they have their elections even I would go you know what like he's not Kirstama I think Kirstama might and

up being seen as the Scott Morrison of UK politics. That's quite extraordinary because he won such a stonking majority and Farage got a tiny number of seats but the UK being the UK that because they've got five-year elections and nothing matters at all. But it actually makes Albanese's achievements seem quite remarkable to increase his majority in the second term and to not have massively underwhelmed people because it's been, how long has it been? It's what, a year?

It's just over a year now this time of government's been. been in place. And no, I go, I mean, just from listening to the rest is politics. I mean, Alastair Campbell does everything you can to try not to express his disappointment. But I mean, they're talking about, and they talk about immigration and they need to stop the boats and so on. And it's kind of like, it's France. They're coming from France. Kier, do a deal with France. Mate, will you just do something? And, yeah, and Farage seems inevitable to them too. So, okay, well, let me just feel you in on Australian news. We'll take some ads and then I'll just give you some highlights of what's going on.

Yeah. So the biggest story, at least in Sydney, this is an absolute bombshell, Charles. You're not going to believe this. My daughter's come to sit on my lap. She's so interested in the podcast. The biggest news in Sydney, this is massive, is that the Minns government has announced a new train station in Woolara. Oh, wow. In Woolara.

Oh, my God. Yeah. The whole city is talking about this. Chris Means is building a station in Woolara. And basically, just to give the set the stage of people who don't know. know Eastern Suburb's politics. We're talking about the richest bit of Sydney, where all the poshos live, they got a line, the Eastern Suburbs line in, I think, the 70s it was built. And they actually built a station at Wallaro. If you take the train along, there's platforms there,

there's a little opening, but basically rich people stopped it halfway through. The local mayor or MPs, or whoever it was, said, we don't want stations because they'll bring poor people in, or whatever they said. And it'll hurt property values. For the same reason that Bondo Beach doesn't have a station, the one place of everyone wants to go to when they visit Sydney. It was stopped by James Packer, the son of the richest man at the time. He just said, no, we're not having a train station. I'm not having people coming from the rest of Sydney to my beach. Anyway, he's also announced he's going to build 10,000 departments next to the station. Charles, how do you think everyone's coping with this news? Well, I suspect there'll just be balanced coverage. I mean,

surely the Herald will be a bit torn by this. On the one hand, you know, They definitely, you know, are friends with all the people in Wallara. And so they probably live in Wallara. That's their core demographic, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So they're going to be against it. On the other hand, the opportunity to talk about 10,000 separate apartments and the property prices of each one in their own individual columns in the Herald will be, you know, I mean, that's content for years. Yeah, and it's web ads for all the new developments for years.

It's genuinely a dilemma. absolutely and is the idea that it's going to be affordable eastern suburbs housing so like they start at five million dollars so so chris minns has been out saying look we've got to stop young people being priced out of the inner city why can't everyone live in walara and then all the property experts have said this is going to drive prices up massively around walara because it's going to have this amazingly convenient station so actually all the apartments and all the houses are worth even more because they'll have a fast link into the city god that would be that would be a huge dilemma to Nimbies in Wallara, wouldn't it? Because on the one hand, you're wanting to just oppose development because the povos will start living there. On the other hand, you're going to get rich if you agree to us. Genuine dilemma. I think if only if they had made it a metro, they'd called it a metro, I think people

would have been on board with it. So that's the biggest story. In other news, things are really changing. Things are really happening in Australia, aren't they? In other news, you're not going to believe this. An NRL player has been charged with. with drug offences. Oh, wow.

Yeah. No, it's not even worth giving details on this. I feel, are we recording a sort of generic episode that we can put out? Yeah, that's basically. You know, each year. Yeah, that's basically it. And that's just kind of it. We don't really have anything much to worry about.

Oh, and the productivity roundtable finished. You know, what happened with that? I know you were very excited about that, weren't you? We might have buried the leave a little bit here. Yeah. Look, I don't feel, I have to confess, I haven't really paid enough attention. are to the Productivity Commission. How can you not be glued to the productivity roundtable?

Yeah. I mean, like, because I mean, I know the cricket was on and that was all exciting, but surely everyone, you know, was sort of, I mean, did they cover the Productivity Roundtable on Kio? On Kio, yeah, that would have been very exciting. Yeah, pay-per-view type of thing. Labor's bringing in a longer way to overhaul

to national environmental laws before Christmas. Sorry, sorry, I'm just going to have to stop you there. I've got this wave of incredible tiredness, just as you started. I'm just going to, can you perhaps not tell us the details about it? That's fine. We won't talk about your phone. They found a group they can tax. They found a group that everyone agrees that they should tax, which is, you know, genuine, there is tax reform.

There is one thing on which everyone agrees. What? Guess what it is. There's one thing where there's actually a consensus to slug a particular group of people. Okay, um, oh, I don't know, poor people. No, not poor people. Is it, oh, is it immigrants, maybe? Perhaps some.

There's a popular target. No, it is, it is people who drive electric vehicles. There's a road user charge is coming in. Oh, see, see, I actually approve of that because I don't have an electric car and you do have an electric car. Yeah, that's right. So it's, um, the system which incentivizes changing to a greener system, they're now going to tax people who've done that. So there you go.

They haven't come up with a model yet. The High Court's overturned Victoria's rules. So they're trying to come up with a national approach. And they've punted the whole of the rest of tax reform down the road. That's the one thing they've agreed on. And if I can quote the Guardian here, there will be a longer term process to consider major tax reform. But they'll slug the event.

Oh, God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Well, actually, that is actually good news in some ways, Dom, because I've been over here in Europe. And I feel like, I mean, I've been here for like almost two weeks. So I feel like I'm a bit of a European citizen now. And I've sort of, you know, we're a globalist, don't you? I'm a globalist and I sort of, a cosmocrat, really.

Cosmocrat. Float around the world. Yeah. But there are some amazing workplace, cultural things that happen here. which I really think Australia should import immediately. I mean, Charles, no idea. I mean, we're looking for good ideas. The Prime Minister has been very clear.

We're getting the best ideas from around the world and not making much progress with them at any summit anytime. The Chaser Report, news you can't trust. This is the idea. And look, it addresses productivity, but it does it in quite a novel way. It's from Germany, right? And I only found out about it a couple of days ago.

But it's absolutely true. I've looked it up. So in Germany, you know how companies are actually managed by workers and bosses? So the company boards have to have workers and unions involved in running the companies, right? Why? Surely the workers, aren't they the enemy of the company? Isn't that the way well, the whole idea is that you have this sort of corporatist, collegial sort of, thing and then you don't you don't end up with American style capitalism where the workers

just kept on getting chastable. This is like that crazy idea in places like Germany where like the fans own the football club rather than a kind of a petrol league sporting state of billionaires like Saudi Arabia. Very odd model. I don't understand why you'd have the fans owning the club that they love. It's bizarre. It's almost like, you know, if you lose two world wars, you suddenly start taking, running your society a bit more seriously but anyway uh point is that one of the consequences of having workers

on the board is that um in a lot of factories across germany it's completely common to to offer beer on the production line really right and yes and i mean especially in bavaria it is you know there's laws around yeah like oh there's enterprise agreements around you know each worker is entitled to one beer per day can i just can i just quickly because i I'm not a cosmocrat like you, Charles. I'm not a globalist. Is this a cheap stereotype, or is this literally a thing that is real? I can't tell.

I honestly can't tell. This is honestly true. Wow. It's honestly true. I mean, it's not as extreme as you'd say. It's not like they get into the office at 8 a.m. and chugged down a beer. It's more towards the end of the day. It's like there's a saying in some factories, no beer before four is basically the sort of...

That's really a good rule. Yeah. Yeah, but the point is it is part of the culture that, you know, of course, you sort of have a beer as part of the price. I'm looking at this up. There's a word for it. Yeah. Fiatur-bend beer. Oh, what is it?

Fiatur-bend beer is an end-of-work beer. It's just a standard thing. Yeah, right. Wow. Yeah, it's a standard thing. And there's also some, like, beer factories actually allow their workers to have unlimited beer while on the production might. How many fingers wind up in the beer? Is that what craft?

I suppose it sort of, yeah, well, maybe the whole point is, well, I don't think there's many knives involved in beer. Yeah, that's true. No, sharp objects. That's lucky. They'd fall in, though, wouldn't they? Yeah. But I feel like it's a real commitment to the craft to drink beer all day. It's like a continuous loop.

Yeah, that's great. Yeah. But no, no, but the point is that I think that this is a productivity improvement. And I think the reason why is because we always think of productivity improvements. Because the whole idea about productivity is you want things to happen quicker, right? Yes. And we look at it from the perspective of businesses. Like in Australia, it's always like, well, how can a company improve their productivity by making workers work quicker?

Right. But there's another way to think about productivity, which is how do you make the day go buy quicker? Well, the answer is, have a beer. You know, so it's a more worker-centric form of productivity. And I think it's that sort of innovative solutionizing that will actually lead to Australia becoming, well, at least a distinctive country in the world, if not. I mean, I think it's just a more productive. I think that's sort of where Albanese needs to take his thumping majority and just take it on this different path. We don't go, we're not going to be just a slave to capitalism.

We're going to be a slave to. We're going to be, well, we're going to be a slave to actually. coming up with, you know, and maybe, I mean, if he wants an edge in this whole thing, maybe it's the elbow bidder, you know that beer. Oh, yes, he's got his face on the beard, isn't he? Yeah, yeah. Albo lager, maybe it could be mandated that that's the beer. Oh, that's horrible beer, isn't it?

I haven't tried it. Yeah, let's not do that. Don't suggest that. So, look, that's very interesting. But, Charles, if we're getting productive, okay, this is a system that's worked well in Germany, free beer for workers, whether it's after 4 o'clock or not, how do we super-charles? You, Charles, you've got to think like a 2025, you've got to ideate.

You've got to ideate, okay. So what that means is straight to vodka, we don't even bother with beer. Yes. And basically the stronger, the better. I'm saying if beer is good for workers, then large amounts of spirits are presumably better. Isn't that more efficient? Yeah. Yeah, and I think the Germans actually have a word to that model, which is chundervaq.

Chundervacht. Chunderbacht. Yeah, chunderbark. Chunderbar Chanda mucho And Charles If that's the logic I mean if you're saying

Okay It's about the quality of life For the workers And maybe this makes them More productive What if we actually had Chemicals that made people more productive I mean beer does not make people more proactive

Let's be honest But amphetamines In the workplace I mean Crystalised amphetamins You know the kind of drugs And the kind of drugs Speeds for amateurs

Go straight to ice Yeah, what about the stuff that the fighter pilots take, you know, that keep them awake for 48 hours? Oh, yeah. I mean, that's productivity. Yes. Imagine how much they would have got done at the roundtable if they'd all take in those pills at the start. They might have come up with an idea beyond taxing EV drivers. They did agree on more things, but it'd be fair to say there's not a, I don't think there's a massive civilization-changing headline or if there is, I haven't seen it.

I wonder whether we need to sort of, you know how usually when there's taxation reform and stuff like that, there's give end to. take. Sure. Like, you know, you don't just go, oh, let's slug EV users with an extra tax and that's it, right? Like, there's a sort of trade-off that makes the EV owners go, oh, yeah, okay, well, that's reasonable. Maybe the point is what we've got to do is massively increase the speed limits.

For EV drivers only. For EU drivers, because the whole advantage of an EV is it's got incredible torque. Oh, they go very fast. Yeah, they do. So they can go around like 200 kilometres an hour. What a good idea. Yeah, and then they use the road less because they're on the road to less time. You'd have an EV lane.

Yes, and it would eliminate traffic jams as well because everyone would be speeding so fast. It's a very good idea. And also, they do that in Germany, don't they, on the autobarns? There's no speed limits on some of them. That's, again, Germany leading the way on that. And we combine that with the free beer on the autobarns. Yeah, you could have little roadside taps, couldn't you? Serve yourself.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah, I think that's good. Charles, there's just one more thing. Well, convert the service stations into dispensing beer. That's what you want. So you stop, you don't charge your car and charge your glass. But you just pour it into your mouth.

Yeah, that's right. So Charles, if there's one more thing I could just request, if you don't mind, it's a very good suite of compensation for the EV drivers. I understand what you're saying. Could we just stop the Elon Musk-related judgment? Would that be another thing we'd throw into the package so that people don't feel like they're basically driving a Volkswagen circa in 1940 when they're driving a Tesla?

Just asking for a friend. I'm fine. Because you've got a Tesla, don't you, Dom? No comment. Can't endorse any brands, Charles, I'm sorry. And you bought it, when did you buy it, Don't? I can't remember. It might have been after the Twitter thing.

Who knows? It was before Doge if I bought it. Before the Nazi? Definitely before the Nazi salute. Nazi salute? Yeah, but it was... Or was it sort of around the same time? It was after the unleashing of Invertercomers free speech on Twitter.

But it was because they had massive discounts, didn't they? Like, it wasn't the whole point that they couldn't get rid of them, so they paid you to take one off their hands, basically? They certainly had some incentives. They weren't selling very well at all. It's also because they were quite fashionable for a long time. And so I obviously couldn't drive anything fashionable. Yes.

And you always wear out-of-date fashion. That's right. So that totally makes sense. Yeah, yeah, no, it's exactly right. Okay, so what have we come to? I think we've managed to, so we're unleashing. Ironically, Charles, you know what? If Elon Musk's autopilot, if it actually ever works properly,

the self-driving, we can drink in the car, which means it will never be possible. Oh, well, that'll never happen. Yeah, yeah. Nice pipe dream, though. We are part of the Oconiclass Network. We'll catch you next week. And we'll actually start doing them daily.

Well, get on the beers at work. Oh, you're back next week. That's lovely. Yeah, I think so. Unless there's some other country that wants me more. Okay, I'll see you next week then. Okay.