The Chaser Report - Please Sir, Can I Have A House?

Episode Date: May 18, 2026

Charles and Dom take a crack at the budget's generational unfairness against trust funds, and the audacious spin being used by young people who have been conned into saying they like it. Plus, what's on Foxtel these days?BUY TICKETS TO CHASER REPORT LIVE: https://events.humanitix.com/the-chaser-report-live-and-arty---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. Now, Dom. Yes. Hello. Do you like listening to this podcast but hate the fact that you can't sit in a room while it's being recorded? Yes. Now you can. On Sunday the 24th of May at 6pm, the Chaser Report is doing.

another live recording of the Chaser Report, Live and Artie. At the soda factory in Surrey Hills in Sydney, tickets are now available at chaser.com.com.com. You slash live. So, see you there. Bye. Now, Dom. Yes, we're back.

We're back on the feed. Look, it's just got too hard to do it on Sunday. I mean, sorry, at 4 a.m. on Monday morning for you. So we're moving to more of a sort of... Well, the thing is, there's so much... important information to share with you. There is. There's a lot of news.

We want to be really considered. Now, Dom, we have a huge problem with today's podcast. What's that? That's that every single piece of news coming from all over the world is incredibly depressing. So I'm wondering whether there's some way, like, I can't think of a single thing that we can talk about. I'm just looking through the things I saved. I've saved a few movies to talk about. Should we talk about the race riots in Britain?

Or should we talk about the fact that there's rumors that. that America is going to launch nuclear war on Iran? I saved an article here from the New York magazine. I really like New York Magazine. Oh, okay, okay. It's about young people today. Oh, great. Let me just, it's called the cursed generation.

Oh. And it says, COVID wrecked high school. AI is coming for their first jobs. Good luck to the new grads. Right. So that's not. I was at a graduation today, actually. But also, that doesn't take into account Anthony Alvonezy,

who's now Team Generation Z. Sounds like you might have found something to talk about. Let's take some ads and then we'll see if it holds up. Okay, so the one thing that I think was underreported in the budget. Oh, right. We're talking about that, are we? No, we can talk about Generation Z, but the one thing that was underreported and is so good

is that they've essentially abolished family trusts. They have abolished family trust. You said that on the night, but I didn't quite realize just how profound it is. Essentially, if you try and use a family trust now, you will be text more than a person. Like, if family trust now gets like 60% effective tax rate. I have a family trust that owns absolutely nothing. It's about it for, I don't know, 15 years.

I've never had enough wealth. How can it own nothing? I mean, it owns effectively nothing. Right. It's a very use. It probably owns you chase a shares. It probably does, yeah. I don't even know what it owns.

It's no use to. Like, this change makes absolutely. no impact on me at all. Well, doesn't it mean... But it was set up as a tax minimisation structure. And the legislators will beat me. So, you know, I'm not...

But then again... Didn't life be it? Yeah, yeah. That presuppers that at some point I have some wealth to stash in it. But having a bunch of politicians got family trusts in the Labour Party? Did they not think this through? Well, no, I think that... No, Don, this is what you're misunderstanding is, sure, their own self-interest might be one thing.

But they're thinking of the younger generation. They're thinking of Generation Z. They're thinking of all. the people who are coming through who are going to be voters. But Charles, my trust's only, what, 15 years old? My trust is a teenager. What about its future? Why are policymakers looking after it?

Is it, and it comes of age, turns 18, starts being able to, you know, tax minimise for me. That is about to be an op-ed in the Australian tomorrow. There's going to be a, what about the intergenerational unfairness of trust? Of trust, yeah, which is separate legal persons. That's the whole point. And I'm happy to, I'm happy to write that because. Trust should get a vote. They should.

One trust, one vote. As I say, I need some money for my trust. So if someone's willing to pay money into my trust, I'll write that op-ed. Why not? Like, does it have any sort of like, you know, charity status? Can we run it as a charity? Or no, or you're just a charity case? Oh, no, because charities involve some sort of at least a sensible positive person.

Oh, you've got to actually. So this was literally for bad reasons. It was like an evil trust. No, it was set up to own. But do you have to sort of have an intention of a trip? Like, because when Pat Rafter set up all his trusts and Pat Cash, you know, all those. But they were set up the Pat Rafter Foundation. And it was all like...

Oh, no, that's a charity. Wasn't that a charity that? Yeah, and it was to make tennis better or something like that. And then he, you know, I think... I mean, my trust is also very committed to making tennis better. But it doesn't have any assets. Okay. Anyway.

Enough about my problems. No, let's talk about Gen Z. I think that's a great topic. Gen Z, the children are our future. Aren't your kids in Gen Z? Are they in Gen Z? Yeah, they are, actually. No, no, because my niece, who's a bit younger, is in Gen Alpha.

Oh, really? So there's a sort of, there's an intergenerational warfare. Are my little kids in Gen. Are they betas like their tan? Is it sort of the, no, no, your kids would be Gen Alpha. But don't you think that the whole generational thing, while true in some respects, masks the actual underlying sort of conflict, which is between workers and capitalists, Dom. Well, that's what you were most interested in the budget, and this is what Albo wanted people

to focus on, was this notion that workers would get a tax break, trust and other sort of non-working tax structures by non-workers or people who investors or whatever would be punished. Charles, that's been responded to by the... the workers who vote in opinion polls by making Angus Taylor the preferred prime minister. I know. I kind of feel like we've reached that point in Australia's history. Angus Taylor.

It's been very favourable to at least one worker. Yeah. And Angus Taylor. So it is true that because I think that the trusts and the negative gearing thing literally only affects about 1% of people, right? Negative gearing. Yeah. It's like it's actually an incredibly small number of people to do it.

Oh, okay. They designed all the properties. Yeah, and yeah, exactly. Like, it's not a widespread thing. So, you know, possibly one of the mistakes of this budget was that Labor didn't also do some other things, which actually had more relevance. Like, my partner was, you know, out in the regions just during the week. And her thing was that, like, literally the budget meant nothing to anyone out there because there's just irrelevant. It's just actually completely relevant to them.

So they'd sold it a little bit more with like a sprinkling of, I don't know, like, and here's, I don't know, what the ordinary people like. I mean, the other thing is worth noting. Free subscription to Foxhill or something. Is that, you know, is that an answer. Does anyone subscribe to Foxxarly more? Young people, young people rejected the budget in the news poll. That's the really interesting about it.

Despite all the idea that, you know, young people are saying to do something. I reckon that his absolute fucking spin. I'm getting it from the Australian. What are talking about? I reckon that is literally them wishing that that was the case. Yeah, that's the whole line that, oh, if you pull up the tax, you know, like America falls into this trap all the time. Like, oh, if you make it so that rich people are taxed properly, then that'll prevent

young people from aspiring to be rich old people one day. But that's literally, it's the whole line is, well, it's anti-young people because it affects rich old people and one day young people want to become rich old people. Please, sir, can I have a house? No, no, please sir, can I have somebody else's house? Yeah, so look, I mean, it is interesting though, because this is probably the second time, I think it would be fair to say, in the history of the Albanese regime. Yes.

That something quite bold has been attempted. We had the voice and now we have this. And at least on the first poll, which is not particularly telling. No. It's clear that taking a big swing, or at least those two particular swings, not particularly popular. Whereas if Albo had simply done not much, if Jim Chalmers' budget had been less ambitious, would Angus Taylor be the preferred prime minister? I've got a friend who works in politics, right?

Quite high up. Right. And his whole thing is... Is his name Malbo? You've got to... No, but his whole thing is, but he sort of works in that space. Right. And his whole thing is, the way...

a political party looks at a program of policy work or anything really is what is the narrative what's the actual narrative that we want to be right well you often like to talk about this don't you and the whole point is the the narrative for the whole time albo's been there is we're the adults in the room right and and what they realized was by not doing anything you're sort of not being the adult in the room you're being the sort of kind auntie who comes over occasionally and showers people with things. You actually have to be a parent. You've got to be, you've actually got to have to do something

to maintain the status of being the sensible adult in the room. And I'm sure that part of it is they want to be able to, in two years. They're looking at it completely electorally going, we want to be able to say we did that unpopular thing that actually had all these benefits and here's a whole lot of free subscriptions to Foxville or whatever. The Chaser Report, news you know, you can't trust. But this is what you're meant to do in theory in politics.

So in a three year term, I mean, I remember you do the unpopular thing after one year. And that worked so well when Joe Hockey was treasurer with Tony Abbott. That really set them up for long time. But the point being, Kevin Rudd's thing was, do you remember, first year, let's have lots of committees and summits and stuff. We won't do anything with the first year. We will just have all these inquiries. Then we'll end up with all these plans and we'll put them.

in towards the end of the second year, and that's exactly when he got turfs out of office. Yes. So if you do it after one year, maybe there's a chance that the voters will be forgetful enough. I mean, as happened in the first term... They say two weeks is a long time in politics. Two years is an eternity. I mean, it would be fair to say that in the last federal election, I don't, I think... You would be very hard to say that anybody went to the ballot box and cast a single vote

related to the voice. Now, admittedly, okay, that was already a referendum, a slightly different situation. But they also, let's not forget, they broke their promise on the stage three tax cuts, fairly similar analogy in that a lot of experts were saying they had to do something on that. No, didn't they? No, they said they wouldn't abolish the stage three tax cuts. And they did. They just made it fair. Yeah, that's right.

And so they did, they did a similar sort of thing. I mean, not as extensive as the budget. Yeah. But they did break a promise not to change the tax regime in a way that most economists recommended. No one cares about promises. No one cares. Well, I think they do now. I mean, look, no one knows what news poll means.

They do now. In two weeks' time when, you know, the chilling realization that Angus Taylor could be their future if this is maintained, you know, they'll, you know, and in two years time, when they're staring down the barrel of Angus Taylor. You think Angus Taylor lasts two years? Oh, yeah. Well, now that he's preferred prime minister, you can't. You can't get rid of him. You can't get rid of it. Maybe it's a strategic ploy.

Maybe this is the way you crash your numbers. So the next election you get to go against. Angus Taylor, brilliant spengali. It's like a free turn. You get a free turn under the election. Well done. Head immediately to go. Do not collect $200 from your family trust because we're taxing it.

Well done, Angus. Yes, indeed. Good job. That's going to be a t-shirt at the next election. It's got to be. But look, this is the interesting thing about where we are. Will people remember or not? And if people care about broken promises,

I mean, it is an interesting one because you kind of not supposed to do that, are you? I mean, every interview, they said they wouldn't do it, and they've gone and done it a year later. Now, they'll say, and they do say, circumstances have changed. Subtext, Donald Trump destroyed the economy, so we had to change what we're doing. But then if, if they get away with this, let's say how many months, maybe two or three months. But remember how many promises John Howard broke, and then he ran on trust. Don't forget the core and non-core promises. And then he ran on trust. Like, you just allowed to, you just allow, like, it's sort of like people, right? Like, you know how,

Like, everyone lies, and you still be friends with them, even though they're liars. Yeah, I mean, I'm still doing this podcast. No, but it's an interesting thing. I mean, the whole thing of do you want your leaders to change what they're doing based on the circumstances? Yes. I mean, at least some of the time, right? Like, you can't. Leaders who dogmatically stick to the plan that they took the election, if that was some sort of binding thing that they couldn't depart from.

Yes. No, I think it would be fair to say nobody during the last federal election thought that Donald Trump would attack Iran and destroy. No, yes. Yes, see, that's the sort of forward-thinking, promise-breaking that you want from your leaders. To go, oh, absolutely destructive. Well, did Donald Trump make a pretty promise not to attack? Yeah, he did.

He basically said he didn't want any wars of, what's it called? Oh, yes. Forever wars, yeah. Charles, well, this is the thing. Okay, I think you've answered your own question, which is that if Albo wants not to pay the political price for breaking the promise. Oh. He needs to be like Donald Trump.

Start a war. He needs to embrace, well, not start a war necessarily, but embrace chaos. Just make it, I mean, no one expects Donald Trump to do anything he said in the past. Yes. No one expects, no one has a clue what the Trump's going to do. Yes, the whole mistake Alba has been making is to be this plodding, boring person who people think that maybe is saying the things that he means or something. Or has any sort of consistency or kind of, yeah, of compass going on.

So he's got to just be. Embrace the chaos. Yeah. Yeah, just go, like, you know, at the next election, promise. To break all of his promises? No, promise Foxdale subscriptions. And they're not doing it. I've done a side deal with Foxxel or something.

Maybe they've even subscribing to Foxxel anymore? No, I think it's the perfect analogy. It's like, you know, in previous generations, you'd say, oh, just give him a cup of dirt. Or a dirty sock. I think that that's, same volume is a. Yeah, because I don't know whether you know, but like, there's hardly anything left on Foxtale anymore. I wouldn't have thought there would be, yeah. Because this company that is into sports betting bought the rides.

And all they care about is the sports streaming. And so all the deals are going away. You don't need HBO anymore. HBO Max has all the HBO. Paramount Plus has a lot. Yeah. Okay. So you're saying I shouldn't subscribe to fuck me.

I'm saying. Well, no, I'm saying that. But also if I did subscribe to it, would I even notice? Like, you know, if I turn on the channels, is there actually anything there at all? Yeah, that's true. question. Anyway, so the only problem with my argument that Anthony Albanese should consider embracing the chaos and being more like Trump.

I think I need a few more things about chaos. Like what are we talking here? Like, let's drill down. I think we're talking about completely shooting for the hips. So putting on a tariff, taking off the tariff, putting on a tariff, taking it off again. And we're doing tariffs on Queensland. Yeah, I mean, sure, within the Federation. Sure, let's do that.

And we just, and they bomb Tasmania? Just bomb Tasmania? Yeah, I mean, generally Trump's aggression has been outside of America, but you can go there. Ban light rail. Yes, banning light rail. And that would piece of Melbourneians. Oh, my God, imagine that. Really getting stuck into renewables.

But also. Bring in a lockdown, even though there's no pandemic. The other thing Trump's really been doing recently, and we'll should talk about this in more detail sometime. Yeah. But the monument to himself, quite extraordinary. Monument of Albo. The gold statue, have you seen the gold statue of Trump? It's like, this is not a golden idol, but it is.

He's the thing I love most at the moment, it's the ballroom is obviously extraordinary, the thing that he said he'd pay for privately, but then now they're trying to fund a billion dollars of taxpayers money. So Albao could build himself a ballroom or maybe a model train set. Yeah, I read it. It would be, it would be planes. He's into planes. He's into planes. I thought he's into trains. No, no.

If you go around his office, he's got like hundreds of models of planes. Is that because you can't buy a fast train industry? I heard a rumor that his advisors had to sort of go, actually, maybe he's. you want to reduce the number of aeroplanes. Well, Trump, I mean, don't think it's like, really, it's a whole thing. It's a toy collection. Let's not forget Trump's got the free Qatar Airways plane that's going in the, somehow, is going in the Trump presidential library.

Yeah, he can, Alba can get an Anset plane. And then I think, and then I reckon. Rex, Rex is more timely. Golden statue. I think it's got to be like a statue made of Cabinossi or something. Cabinossi. You know, something like, what about a cheese statue? Something elbow.

Cabinossi and Jets. Is that, is that just, oh. Oh, I thought you were making an Italian slur. Okay, sure. No, no, just sort of like, okay, within Coon cheese and chat. Hey, you're just being racist. Okay, okay. What would be an elbow?

What's elbow? Thing to do. I don't know, it would be. Bang on it. Would you build a... This is the problem? He's got no personality to hang things on. Would you build an equestrian statue, like a top of council flat or something?

Or what is, South Sydney Rabbit is or something. Yes, that's what it would be. A enormous football. A giant rabbit. A giant. Actually, that would kind of fit. Yeah, yeah. A giant bunny.

Yeah, that doesn't work. But the only problem is I was going to say, Charles. On Dover the Harbour Bridge. If you wanted to follow the Trump playbook, yes, you're unpredictable. But have you seen his approval ratings? He's doing worse than elbow. So, yes. Head to head.

Who would win? Trump or Angus Taylor? Head to head. Who's the most preferred? Oh, that's a very good question. I think it's, I think it's Angus Taylor. Because he's new. No one's had time to dislike him yet.

Great work, Angus. Well done. Great work, Angus. And we should also just note just on the way out that Trump Tower on the Gold Coast has been cancelled. Oh, that's the big. See, this is why I didn't want to talk about the news. Yeah, I know, because it's very sad. Every sort of thing is bad.

But there's an opportunity there. Albo Tower. We're part of the iconic Earth. Nicely done.