The Chaser Report - Octo-Perrottet

Episode Date: March 8, 2026

Charles and Dom are amused to learn that former NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet is having an eighth child. Meanwhile, more war!---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. Charles, of course, we should begin by updating our listeners on the war. Let me see what's happening in the war. More. There is more war. That's the broad summary.

US and Israeli forces have expanded their bombardment of Iran. the Iranians hit Dubai airport again, but I think they've been apologising for stuffing it up, and it just sort of keeps rolling on. Iran's not surrendering and more stuff's getting blown up. That seems to be pretty much the summary. As of Sunday afternoon, I think that the US and Israel had bombed a lot of the oil infrastructure in Iran. Yes, that's right. So there was these amazing photos of everything on fire.

Boom. So, but, Dom, look, this raises a question which is, are you finding this war really hard to follow compared to other wars? Absolutely. It's very hard to follow. And there are many reasons for this. I mean, one is that we don't actually know why America's in it. And I mean, John Stewart did a whole half hour long exploration of the idea that the president should actually explain to the United States to his citizens, why they're in the war. That's a big question.

but also just actually getting the facts. It's not ever easy, but it's particularly hard at the moment. So as you know, an airstrike hidden elementary school on February the 28th that killed scores of children. I quote Donald Trump on that. In my opinion, based on what I've seen, that was done by Iran, said the president. They have no accuracy whatsoever. New York Times visual investigation. They say that it was most likely hit by an American airstrike.

So how do we get to the bottom of that? I don't know. I don't even know what to make of that. It's very hard to follow. I think it was the New York or the Atlantic reported that it could well be the case that that terrible school incident was a result of using Anthropics clawed to come up with targets to bomb. Like the, actually, like the rumors are that actually, you know, Anthropics clawed AI was actually involved in that, you know, terrible mistake. Are you saying that because they're being scapegoated as the administration goes to chat. How do we know?

Yeah, exactly. How do we know? No, no, no. Like, I think they'd already said you're not allowed to use Anthropic in any targeting of bombs. So it's a very murky, like, who knows. It's very murky. It's also one of those things where you're just going, well, regardless of which fucking chatbot they were using to work out how to kill school girls, Maybe the point is that's just, that's a whole world that we shouldn't even,

it's quite, it's just not, top in. Look, let's, you know what, it's very hard to make sense of this at the moment. Why don't we just take an ad break? We'll look for some good news. Okay. I don't think we're going to be able to really get to the bottom of the war today. The information is just very confusing. I mean, I don't imagine even anyone in the White House really knows what's going on.

Well, clearly they don't hear. Pete Higgis gets very angry. with anyone who suggests anything other than that it's going brilliantly. And you certainly can't refer to any of the U.S. troops killed by friendly fire or anything like that. You can't. And I think it also shows you how, like, in all previous wars, there's been a strong narrative, like coming from the, access of evil.

Perpetrators, yeah. And it allows you to then, you know, there's a sort of genius in the fact that because there's no strong narrative, like nobody seems to know even why the Yes. This is so true. America is at war because America is at war. And don't you dare ask for any more explanation than that? Yeah.

Anyway, let's get some ads. So we'll cheer up if we can and find a positive story. Okay. All right, Charles. Any luck? Just looking at news.com. At the moment, which is always the place to go. So, Dom, I don't know whether this count says good news or horrific news, but look, I'll run it up the flagpole, which is Dominic Perrote, who,

was the former New South Wales Premier. Do you remember him? He was a sort of like slightly lanky, nerdy man. Yes, he's the guy when Gladys kind of self-imploded over her personal life. Yes, that's right. He was the treasurer who came in. And yeah, he was the kind of Opus Day once pictured in a Hitler uniform, but seemed to laugh that off.

And was kind of a technocratic New South Wales Premier during the kind of extremes of COVID, the second lockdown. That's right. Yes, yes. Now, and this is not something that's going to be inside baseball for New South Wales. This is a human interest story, not a politics story. But Dominic Bereda has just announced that they're expecting their eighth baby. He and his wife, Helen, are expecting their eighth baby now.

They're not. I mean, there's very good news for them, I assume, or is it just horrific news for them? Like, did they not know what causes babies? Like, what's going on? Seven children? Oh my God. There's a photo of them. And you're going back to the eighth.

Yeah, the Herald's reported this. And they can't sit onto a couch. There's a picture of them. Little girls wearing pink, but everyone else is wearing beige. They can't fit onto a couch, Charles. Yeah. And multiple children are sitting on the arms of the couch and on each other's laps. Poor Helen Peritai who has to birth all of these peritais.

Yes. He's basically being squashed by Dominic's arm and several children. And they're going again? And look, you have to say, I know you can't see it, but the thing that I would say is absolutely true about this photo of them and their seven kids, and then presumably, you know, one in the oven, is that the adults, Helen and Dominic have forced smiles. Oh, yeah, Dominique, I reckon Dominic looks, I reckon he looks happy. I don't think they're, I reckon Helen looks tired.

Helen looks very tired. So how much money would you make from Senderly? Like, what's the baby? Maybe it does it scale up? Yeah, no, no, I think it does. I think after about three or four you get quite a bit. Like, they'd be bringing in a fortune. I mean, probably can sort of buy coal fields.

Well, that's one way. That's one way to make money is in the kind of octom style. In fact, she is becoming an octo mum. Wow. Wow. But she's doing it the worst possible way, which is sequentially. By the way. By the way.

Yeah. She's the sixth of eight children. So it's not just a Peritay thing. For her, eight is normal. For her, they've been falling short of what she's used to up to this point. No, Charles, I know how they're paying for it. Do you want to know? How?

It certainly isn't Centrelink. They're living and working in the US. Oh, right. And Dominic Perrote works at Drumroll, please, BHP. And congratulations to Dominic Perrote, who apparently in December secured vice president status, this CBD says, at BHP. So, New South Wales Premier, that's a pretty big position, but now he's a vice president of BHP.

He's really made it now. So hang on. So I just Googled BHP to find out, you know, how big it is nowadays. And this is an amazing coincidence. It is a $268 billion company, BHP. So, yeah, you're right. He probably can, you know, afford an eighth child. But that's coincidentally, $268 billion is how much in, in child.

Child care support they get as well from the government. Yeah, that's... I don't know, and I know it scales up the harder it gets, but that's... I mean, that's a pretty decent childcare subsidy, isn't it? But also, I remember the Perit's because I was so fascinated by this alternative lifestyle, frankly, in 2026. Helen Perrote gave an interview where she talked about how the more you have, the easier it gets, because the old ones look after the young ones. Oh, I see.

Which, I must say, it had needed to get a lot easier for that to be in any way convincing, convincing But also, that's, like, that's true in theory, but I've never found that to be true in practice. But you've only got two. Because, well, I've been thinking of two, but also, isn't it just a universal truth that the younger one is always more responsible than the older one? Like, it would actually be the reverse. It would be the two-year-old looking after the 15-year-old. We could try this, though. We could actually see if this works, right?

What we should do is set up an experiment and maybe, maybe. We could video it. We could turn into a TV show probably. We could blend my family and your family. That's four. So two boys, two girls. We'd only need four more children to make it make sense. Craig's got, what, three?

Yeah, but they're very old. Oh, yeah, they'd be great at looking after them. We need, yeah, we need listeners to volunteer as to this experiment. If you've got a couple. And maybe not, maybe the way to do it is just lend us your spare. Yeah, that's right. If you've got three. There's always a spanish there.

You know, just lend us your dud one for this experience. And to be clear, we'll give them back at the age of 18. When we say we're combining the families, this isn't some Brady Bunch thing. We just want to know if the older kids can look after the younger kids. Now, I've got probably the youngest kid. I've got a four-year-old. We could go younger. I know that I'm gathering a little bit with my child's life.

For science. Seeing whether the older children will look after her. But I think it'll be all right. I think we're going to go younger than four. We should have a little baby, a little newborn. Well, actually, some of my cousins. I think two of my cousins have just had babies. So maybe we can borrow them.

They'd probably love that. Grab them. Yeah. I think, and look, for scientific accuracy, we only, I reckon we only need a 10-year-long study, don't we? I mean, yeah. Yeah, we can either prove or disprove this. If you don't mind.

20, 36. Could we make it 15 years just until my youngest becomes an adult? Yeah. And I'm not saying, like, to be clear, we're not going to abandon them without cameras in the house. Like, we'll be able to monitor them during feeds. and we'll get AI to see if any of them is actually in danger. I don't want to spend time watching it.

It sounds a bit boring. I kind of feel like you want real Jeff. You think we need to add danger to the mix. You don't want AI. It's not going to rate. That's true. No, because it'll end up bombing them. It'll end up ordering them to be bombed.

Actually, you know, there's an even easier way. Then I reckon, Charles, can't we just get ill on muscle to do this with all of his children? You make it into a chance. Channel 10 show. Yeah. That's how you have the cameras there. And it can be, like, the viewers can SMF to a 1-800 number. Oh, right.

And vote the children out of the house. No, no, but also, like, if something goes wrong. Oh, yeah. That's how, yeah, like, just let the viewers decide. That's a sort of up-lake thing. Yeah. And it could be called Australian Survivor. It could be called Australian Survivor.

Australian Survivor. Get me out of here. Once a wife. Yeah, yeah, yeah. something like, and big brother, of course, I mean, they're all. Do they have to go to the Gold Coast? Because I think that might fuck them up a bit. Being abandoned by their parents wouldn't do them much of good, but having to go to the

Gold Coast, that could be very damaging psychologically. No, that would be horrible. The Chaser Report, less news, more often. All the best to the parisays, I, they do have some practical tips. I'll tell you their great tip for parenting. Okay, this will be great. I love because don't you know smug parents have you come across smug parents who just sort of have it oh yeah well everything was so easy with seven kids we decided to have an eighth kid

yeah just because it's so easy it's just equally easy but they always give tips like oh what you do is you just make your youngest do the mill prep for lunches and then you freeze them all at the beginning of the week and it's really easy and then you just make sure that everyone is rusted to to clean the kitchen or whatever. And you're just going, who the, this is the bloody bullshit. It's all fucking, so what's the bullshit? I love, I actually love this profile of her in Beret. Because she's a lawyer.

Yeah. She was, she was in defense public affairs. She was in the military police. She's an army reservist who knows how to use assault rifles, grenades. She's commanded tank battalions, Charles. You would need that. She's got the skill set. And then she's kind of given it all up to become a mother in the suburbs, which is what

she feared. Oh, maybe she's still working on. I don't want to judge. I feel like that, yeah, exactly. I feel like they're the exact same skills. I think that that's a perfect. Military discipline. Military discipline.

Dealing with unexploded nappies. Yes, unexploded orders. Yes, that's right. That's right. So one, one hack, okay, here are the hacks. Yeah. Only ever buy one sort of sock. So you don't need to do any pairing.

All the socks are the same. I've done that just recently. I wish I'd been told that like 50 years ago, I just bought a huge number of, because all the boys in my house now have the same size feet. Oh, that's great. So we all fight over the same feet. But they're all like different socks.

No, you don't want to do that. And I just went, nah, all black, all, you know, like no sorting of socks. It's fucking incredible. Yeah. No, that's very good. Life-changing. Another hack, we've gotten onto at our place.

Always a bag for presents, for kids' birthday parties. never wrapped them, just put them in one of those nice bags, paper bag with a picture on it. Yes, because you'd be, with eight kids, you'd be on a roster of about 15 birthday parties. Imagine how many there'd be, yeah. So what they do is she bulk fires birthday presents like that. She takes so much further. She buys bulk cards, bulk presents and everything because it's just so much to do. But also the other tip that I would say is what you do is you psychologically abuse your kids

so they become outcasts and don't get invited to birthday parties? That's quite a good way to cut down. Well, I don't want to judge the kids, but Donnie Perrote is a pretty dorky dude. And genetics is a good. Yeah, yeah. But doesn't that mean they just get sympathy invites? What you want is genuinely social behavior. That's true.

That's true. By the way, Dominic, one of 12 children. Is this a strategy for global domination? Is this how the Catholic Church remains? a global power. Yeah, well, yes. Traditionally, yes. I mean, they have their own territory in the Vatican City.

They're the only religion I think that actually owns a country. What about Israel? You could argue that. But, I mean, there are theocratic states. But I think the Pope's the only religious leader that actually gets to own a country, isn't he? I'm not sure. Anyway. What about the Ayatollah?

I suppose the Ayatollah. Well, I mean, not anymore. I shouldn't work out so well. Well, we'd check the news. Check the news. Yeah, still at the time of publishing this, that I think there's another Ayatollah. We'll see. And also, I mean, in the Dalai Lama, doesn't he sort of have a sort of...

It got a little bit of India. Is that a sort of state? Is that a theocratic state or is it just... Not if China has its way, which it frankly has. Sorry, I mean, Tibet being part of China. So, Charles, are we cheered up by Helen Peritay and Donic Peritay expecting another child? Yes. But the reason why we're cheered up is one of Shadenfreude.

Can you imagine the newborn... The late night just going, why are we doing this again? Why are we doing this again? Have you ran a $268 billion company? I think you'd have help. And they're not young. I mean, as an older parent, I mean, you did it when you had energy. But when you're in your 40s and have a newborn, it, it's brutal.

It's really brutal. Yeah. Well, Charles, I'm not cheat up by this. I'm miserable because I also have young children, unlike you. Yeah. And I feel like even with in this interview, even with seven of them which they currently have, they're better at it than I am. I only have two measly kids to juggle. I feel inferior.

So let's get those extra older kids in because, you know, I'm done. Yeah, okay. I failed. We'll do it. Okay, we're going to run an experiment. So just podcast at chaser.com. You lend us your kid just for 10 years. 15.

Yeah. Okay, 15 years and we'll, and then we'll do another podcast about the results. In 15 years. Very good. Yeah, we'll see the kids in 2041, but on channel 10 anytime you want. Yeah. We'll catch up on 10 plus. Okay, we're part of the Iconicless network and we'll catch you tomorrow.

And we're also part of the Catholic Church, which is the sponsor of today's episode. Go forth and procreate. There's no downside whatsoever.