The Chaser Report - Greens Destroy The Housing Un-Crisis

Episode Date: March 6, 2024

Max Chandler-Mather presents the Greens' solution for the housing "un-crisis" as Charles puts it. Meanwhile Dom debates the awkwardness of Peter Dutton attending Gina Rineheart's birthday party for only an hour. Plus Anthony Albanese is named a war criminal by the ICC. 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. Charles, three stories to cover today. It's a news bonanza. Either there's just so much news that we have to cover any things or none of them are quite interesting enough to warrant a full episode. However, these are big stories. The Greens have come up with...

They've solved housing. They've solved it. Yep, they've sold it. All right. Peter Dutton is... travelling to Perth for Gina Reinhart's 70th birthday party because she's a dear friend, Charles, a dear friend who warrants a one-hour visit to Perth. I feel like that is centriism encapsulated.

Like what he's doing is he's realising that he's doing something bad, and so he just wants to do a little bit of the bad thing. He's still going to do the bad thing, but he's just going to do a little bit of the bad. If he was planning to ghost without anyone realising, it really hasn't worked out. So there's that, and then finally, what's all this about Anthony Albanese being charged Like brought before the ICC, the International Criminal Court? What's going on there? Well, actions have consequences, Don.

Actions have consequences. Except with war criminals, basically. Is this because he went to Kyle Sandelands' birthday party? I presume so. I haven't looked at the detail. We should probably go through the details. We'll go through the details. In this news wrap after this.

Now, Charles, the Greens have solved housing, you said. Let's hear some of what they had to say about it. I'm proud today. to announce the Greens first policy for the next federal election, a public property developer. The Greens will scrap tax handouts for property investors that are denying millions of renters the chance to buy a home and instead invest money in building hundreds of thousands of good quality homes to be sold and rented at prices people can actually afford. See, Max knows what he's talking about.

He's got the vision, he's got the imagination to actually, it's 60,000 houses a year. The government's going to build them. And then some wonderful aspects of this policy. So if you want to buy one of these houses, if you ever sell it, you've got to sell it back to the government at the cost price plus inflation, right? Oh, what?

So you can't make money out of housing. You can't sit on the asset and what should appreciate massively? And the best one is, so all the interviews this morning when he was being asked about it was like, so, you know, what's to stop, you know, the system being gamed? And it was like, so the one criteria for being. eligible for this is that you have to not already own home, right? And it took the wind out of

everyone's sales. It was like, oh, my God, that seems, oh, incredibly fair. You can't negatively gear it? You can't negatively gear it. You can't buy it up and then just sit on it while it appreciates. This is quite like the Singaporean policy in a way, by the way, where I think you've got to sit on the asset for 10 years or something. Then you can sell it. But Charles, I'm going to call this out for what this is by Max Chandler, Matt. I think it's disgraceful. I think it's disgusting. Because as we've said before on this podcast, he is highly likely the only federal MP who does not

own a house. Oh, he's self-dealing. He's going to build himself a house. This is corruption. This is the only way he could get a house was to corruptly solve the housing process. By making it cheap. So he's going to, guess he gets first tips on any one of the 360,000

homes that they want to build. Just like Mao. That's what Mao would do. That's what Mao would have done. That's what Lenin probably did. That's what Vladimir Putin has done, actually. He's got a Very nice ducker. I don't know whether you've seen the aerial photos of his massive compound, but that's what Max Chandler Mather is going to do. Yes, that's that.

Public enemy number one. I'm glad we worked that out because I thought he was doing it out of the goodness of his heart. So this seems like a fairly ambitious approach. Well, yes. And the best part about this policy, I reckon the little talking point that I just saw, that is a bit like poetry, right, is the... So they're building 600,000 houses over 10 years. Hang on, can I just interrupt you there?

When you say they're building, this is obviously not going to happen. Oh, no, it's never going to happen. They are dreaming of building. They want to build. They hope against hope that despite having signed up to the one party that never gets any of its policies up, this will somehow happen. But talk us through the pipe dream. Except, Dom, you say that. But who was calling for the stage three text cuts to go to a broader set of people?

This podcast. This podcast, but also the Greens. Like, actually, they got the line that one. They basically run the government now in Max's mind. So talk us through the plan in more detail. Yeah, so 600,000 homes that they're going to build. They're building them. Hang on, is it 360,000 or 600,000?

600,000 in total. Yeah, over 10 years. And then the point is that the whole policy over 10 years cost the budget $27 billion, right? That's far too much. Which is, yes, it's far too much, which is exactly the same amount of money. as is spent per year on tax breaks for property investors. So if you add up negative gearing and capital gains, tax concessions, on property, that costs $27 billion per year,

and the entire solution to the housing crisis can be done for the same cost, spread it across 10 years. But Charles, I mean, if we spend that money on housing, because we're obviously not going to get rid of the tax breaks, if anything they need them more than ever, given that there will be fewer people renting their investment property. Well, exactly, what will happen is it'll put downward pressure on the prices of homes. Imagine that.

It'll never happen. Everyone in federal parliament owns multiple homes, except for Max. Yeah, I can see. This will cause a split in the greens, weren't it? I think the only way that this can happen is if more money is given to property investors. The only way you can actually spend the money on the housing scheme is if you compensate people, the needy people who own multiple homes for the impact on the prices. You've got to give them a massive payout, I think maybe several hundreds of billions of dollars.

It could be, yeah, it's like a communism compensation package. Yeah, this is the new approach that Albo's taken with the tax cuts. Everyone has to win. You can't have losers, particularly you can't have rich people losing Charles. That's just not acceptable. No, I think that's very good. Do you know what's happened? Do you want the housing crisis to be solved?

Do you think it's like a sort of national imperative? Do you think it's the one thing Labor needs to do to actually win the election is properly give young people, for instance, hope of owning their homes one day? I think that's the wrong way of looking at it, Dom. I think what you're doing is sort of looking at a moral universe. Moral universe doesn't exist, as we'll find out later when we talk about Albao in the International Criminal Court, right? But the thing is, to look at housing and call it a crisis,

you have to think that it's bad that people are being driven out of their homes through the increase in pride. You've got to think that housing is a right in the first place. Which it is in places like Singapore, but in this country, no, it's a privilege. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, one person's crisis is another person's profit, right? Of course. So do we want to solve the massive profitability of owning lots of houses?

Well, to me, I don't, this is not a problem burger. This is, this is in some ways the opposite of a problem burger. Like, do we want to supercharge the housing profitability, not crisis, non-crisis, anti-crisis? Because I think that that's what's going on. But then, but then the other. other thing is that there is a third of people, who I like to call losers, right? And they are the people who rent. So it used to be that it was only like 10 or 15% of people rented.

It's now a third of people, or slightly less than a third of people now rent. And most of them are under 35, and most of them will never ever own a home. Like, there is no possibility of them owning a home, right? As we sit here in my rented property. Yeah, thanks, Charles. Exactly. Well, that's why I like to call them losers on my own. Wonderful.

How kind. Anyway, if anyone listening wants to give me a house, podcast at chaser.com. It doesn't need to be in good condition. Anyone will do, thank you. Yeah, well, Alba's got a few. Maybe you can. But the point is, no, but my point is, electorally, this is a crisis, right?

If all, because the other thing is, this massively solves the rental crisis. So a whole lot of these houses that they're building are going to be rented out at a maximum of 25% of your household income. And the criteria is not going to be. like oh you're you're incredibly poor the criteria is oh you work nearby so you need a house that's affordable within your work area right so it's literally pitched at middle class renters i i can't see a single one of those third of renters not voting green in the next election like essentially this is a constitutional change to australia because suddenly you've got

labor and liberal on the side of good you know i property investors and the the The profitability non-crisis. And then you've got these sort of communist people wanting to solve housing, quote unquote, who are going to have suddenly 30% of the vote. Like, this is a fucking, I think we need to have a serious discussion about dismantling democracy. Yeah, I think we need tanks on the street. Exactly. Driven by boomers, driven by the boomers who don't want their houses given up.

And we need to stop giving the missiles away to Israel to bomb hospitals and start using them to bomb Max Chandler Mather committee meetings. That does seem sensible because what I was going to say before you showed me the error of my ways, Charles. I was going to make the point that if Max Chandler Mather wanted this policy to happen, the only way it could happen. The only way that this idea, this idea of doing something big to solve housing could possibly happen is if he'd had a secret meeting with Labor, given them the idea for them to pitch for themselves.

Because the one thing Labor cannot do is, back a Green's idea. It's impossible for them to do that. They'll destroy their vote. They'll destroy their brand. If the one thing Max Chandleramather has absolutely guaranteed is that Labor will never support this policy. There's not a chance.

So what's his real agenda here? But won't... Isn't the Labor Party's thing... Don't they, when they want to do a policy that's electorally popular, but they don't want to call it... They just do exactly the same thing, but call it like...

Instead of a housing policy, it'd be like a bousing policy. Oh, I don't, hang on, hang on, maybe that's what the game is. Maybe Max Chandler mother goes, we're going to do, you know, 60,000 a year. Yeah. And I'm going to go, oh, couldn't possibly do that. Yeah. But we'll do 30.

Yeah. And maybe they're in cahoots. And we're not doing 30,000. They'll do 30, 30 houses. Yeah. Isn't that their policy to do 10,000 a year or something? It'll still cost $27 billion to do because they'll get private enterprise to do it. It'll be Macquarie Bank who makes the margin.

All we need to do is get all the policies that. everyone's put together into one. All we need to do is build nuclear reactors with houses around them. That's the... What the Liberals want to do and what the Greens want to do. And that will massively decrease the prices of houses. The houses will not be expensive.

They won't be expensive. I reckon... If Peter Dutton and Max Channel, I'd either can get in a room, they can wedge labour with the nuclear housing policy. For nuclear families. Nuclear families. All right. After the break, Albo versus the ICC.

And what is Peter Dutton doing going to Perth for one hour? Mm-hmm. The Chaser Report, news a few days after it happens. So let's start with the trip to Perth. Peter Dutton wants to be at the birthday party of his dear friend, and I quote dear friend Gina Reinhart. Yes. But he's going for one hour.

How did that conversation unfold? It was like, well, you've got to turn up for one moment to show fealty. What's the minimum you can do? Is it an hour? But is that the action of a friend, child? Yes, exactly. I think the thing is he's wanting to minimise the optics of going to Gina Reinhardt's party, right? Like, so he goes, this is a real problem for me. I can't be seen, you know,

eating caviar at Gina Reinhardt's party, but I can't also not be seen. So I'll do, I'll do the worst of all world, which is I will turn up, but only for an hour, which means all it reflects badly on him is that he, he's going to stiff his good friend. Like, he's called her a really good friend. No really good friend only turns up to, for an hour of your birthday party. You turned up to my last birthday party for about 45 minutes. You said on the day it's quality, not quantity. We're talking about dear friends. Oh.

Do you, there's so many possibilities here. And also, there wasn't caviar. No, fair enough. And also, I wasn't travelling from Perth. We literally lived next to each other. Yeah, that's true. So, Charles, is it at all possible? And I don't want to be unkind, okay?

Is it all possible that he wasn't invited? Do you think he turned up? Oh. He turned up at Reinhart Manor. Yes. And wasn't on the guest list. And then it was like, Sorry, Peter.

So he hung around for 45 minutes hoping that they'd let him in and then got out of there. That is embarrassing when maybe he was just probably, maybe he didn't even know about the page. It was less than 60 minutes. He was there. It didn't even last the hour. And he went there in Comcars and he needed security detail to get there. Maybe the security detail got him in and then Gina's a screened-jointed. No, I reckon you're right.

I don't reckon he was welcome. It's entirely possible. There's trouble in paradise. So he said that he paid for his own flights to get there, but the security and the Com cars were provided. But then he got her on a red eye back to Melbourne for a Dunkley campaign event on the Friday. So just before the by-election,

maybe this was all a pretext to avoid having to be in Dunkley for longer and affecting the vote more negatively. Yes, that could be true. The other possibility, Dom, is he was just trying to wreck up some frequent flypoints. That's quite possible. Oh, you know what else.

And this is the most awkward thing of all, but possibly the most likely. It was a shit party. Imagine he turns up There's only three people there And two of them are Gina's Daughter's daughters Who are suing her

Yeah, that's right Part of Be Joyce is there Of course But he's not drinking at the moment So he's no fun Oh yeah And Peter Dutton goes there and goes Oh is that the time

Oh and there's a oh I got the Dunkley Go to Dunkley Go to Duncley Gina Wish I could say for longer Such a good party Came a long way

Just to be here You know how it is When you're opposition leader And also your personal vassal It's a tough situation. What would you chat about? Because I presume Gina's main topic of conversation would be something along the lines

of isn't iron ore mining interesting, right? Oh, wow, imagine. Oh, Gina's not talking about iron ore again. Yeah, yeah. Oh, is that the time? Yeah, that's right. You'd send the text to the security guard, wouldn't you? And I imagine if Twiggy was there, that's fine.

They can sort of interact. They've got a common interest. Even if, say, Clive Palmer turns up, it can be like, oh, I'll love. I like digging stuff out of the ground. Oh, yeah, I like digging stuff out of the ground too. Maybe Clive turned up and that killed the party. And he killed the party. Yeah.

Well, I think Peter turned up and they killed the party. Yeah, I mean, but Clive literally killed the United Australia Party. All right, so we've got to thought about that one. Finally, Albo's been reported to the ICC, the international criminal courts. He's the only Western leader to be named in the ICC complaint. There's a claim that the members of the Australian government are complicit in genocide. It says here. Well, that's, I mean.

Isn't that Derriger? It wasn't John Howard also accused it? Penny Wong, Richard Miles, and Peter Dutton are being accused of... But Peter doesn't have any power. Providing explicit political, rhetorical, moral, military and material support for alleged war crimes carried out by Israel in Gaza. Right. Well, my understanding is, because I've just been in Adelaide for the last few weeks,

and everywhere you go, Lockheed Martin, billboards are everywhere. It's quite bizarre, right? Like, you know, in Sydney, when you see a billboard, it's for some latest stand show that you don't want to watch or, you know, an alcohol brand or something like that. In Adelaide, it's all, it's Lockheed Martin going, come and work for us. We're really good. And that's because they've got a good, you know, grift going on manufacturing parts. And my understanding is that's just part of the supply chain for Lockheed Martin. They do all the arms.

Sure. A lot of the missiles that they manufacture end up on. on gars and hospitals, you know, killing civilians. Like, that's just, that's what you do as an arms manufacturer. Some of these things made in Australia, are they? There's a little kangaroo appear on the box? No, see, this is the thing. I don't think that any of them, you know how, you know,

if just part of your arms are made in Australia. It's not enough providence. You don't get this kangaroo. You don't get the kangaroo logo on it. You just, it's like, you know, it's just like the bolts or I don't know. We need more defense manufacturing, don't we? We've got to build up the industry here. But I think that that, like, so I think Australia, I think a lot of Australians, like, we are part of the supply chain.

But that's sort of how supply chains work. Like, would you not buy something from China just because there's a genocide against the Uyghurs going on? And in China, they mix the supply chain. So you get, get all the genocide or slave labor stuff going on. I can't afford not to buy things from China. I've got to buy things from Timo. You can't even buy things from Amazon anymore. No.

No, we go on Timo. Every time I go on Timo, I get a 90 percent. discount, I don't know that works, it's very confusing. Maybe that's, maybe Israel are going on Timu as well, I don't know. But, I mean, like, if you're going to eliminate all genocide from your supply chain, from, you know, like, from what you do. It's so hard to have a cruelty-free. Yeah, exactly.

It's like trying to have a cruelty-free plant-based meal. It's impossible, and then you find itself eating vegetarian food. Look, I'm not a legal expert, Charles. You know I'm not. I just dabbled slightly. But I'm pretty sure that the only people who can refer anybody, to the ICC are states, a nation states. So unless Anthony Albedee's going to refer himself to the ICC,

I think this might be a publicity stunt just quietly. Oh, right. Is it coming from Australia? It's coming from apparently Birchgrove legal have done this. So yes. Oh. A particular law firms getting involved. So there you go.

Probably nothing will happen. Maybe Birchgrove will succeed. Oh, could be. A micronation in the inner west. It's entirely possible. Yeah, I mean, to be fair, I think even if states refer other states to the ICC, nothing happens. So I suspect this will be a nothing burger. But I think, see, I think this is likely to backfire.

Like, I think Alba will wear as a bit of a badge of honour. Sure. He'll go, you know, like, who else has been named as a war criminal in terms of Australian leaders? Well, the last one I can think of is Howard, you know, and you go, he can now stand shoulder to shoulder as being, you know, a problem. Proper Australian leader who sort of sells out their national interests to help out some... And it makes Albo look like less of a bleeding heart lefty, doesn't it? Yeah, exactly. I think we can say fairly on brand at this point.

Named in the same sentence as Peter Dutton. That's all he's ever dreamed of. Imagine if the two of them had to go to the court together in the Hague. That would be quite something. You know what they do? They just bring along Gina Ryan Hart. The court place would be over in less than an hour. Our career is from Roe. We're part of the Aconiclass Network, and we'll see you tomorrow.

There you.