The Chaser Report - Random Boat Testing

Episode Date: February 16, 2026

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The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigle 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, full steam ahead. Full steam ahead on Orcus. The Prime Minister over the weekend announced he was committing $3.9 billion in what he called a down payment for an Adelaide facility to eventually build nuclear subs. It's going to cost at least $30 billion. and it's very ambitious. 10,000 jobs, 10, 1,000 apprentices per year.

There's enough steel to make 17 Eiffel towers going into this thing. 710,000 cubic metres of structural concrete and a 420 metre long fabrication hall, a temple of industry and of submarine efficiency in, and a temple in Adelaide. And nothing to do with the upcoming South Australian election. Is there an election in South Australia? Due this year, it's in a few months of time.

I mean, I'm sure it's... Look, I don't even know why I mentioned it because obviously it would have nothing to do with that. This is a long-term plan, Charles. It's so secure our future. I'm so cynical, aren't I? $30 billion to turn... And also, it's not just about South Australia,

it's leaning into orcus. Orcus. Our nuclear-powered, part of... Yes. Part of the trident of hope alongside the UK and the US. And thank God, too, because China, China has just started ramping up its nuclear facilities.

Oh, I don't know whether you've seen this. I haven't seen that. Let's take some ads and I'll catch up on the story. I don't suppose a factory in this child might have been the ramp up of nuclear-powered subs from Orcus by any chance. Oh, I see. Do you think it's a circular thing that China... Maybe they weren't going to do it and now they're going, oh, well, if Adelaide's coming online, we've got to worry. We've got to get the threat from Adelaide.

I mean, the words Adelaide now struck fear into the heart of enemies of freedom, wherever they may be. Yeah, and look, if there is a massive outbreak of peace, at least Adelaide will have enough steel to build a hollad of Eiffel towers. I will. I mean, I honestly think that's a toss up for me. It's a win-win, isn't it? I would go to Adelaide if they had 17 Eiffel Towers. It's like side by side. Now, you've got to realise we did get some complaints at the end of last year.

Oh, really? One long-term subscriber to this podcast actually quit the podcast. Really? Yes, saying he was just sick of the lazy jokes about Adelaide. So I'm only going to say positive things about Adelaide. But these aren't lazy jokes. These are up to the minute. Jokes,

and Adelaide is the home of the I4 Tower. Yes. But Charles, you wouldn't build the Ifoil tower, would you? You'd build wine. No. The giant steel wine bottle, wouldn't you? Yes. 17 giant bottles of pinfold something.

Or a, you know, acid bath. Oh, no. Sorry, no. It's not, we're going to be pro-A-Lade. This is where Charles really tries to go low on the blow and completely muffs the reference. Acid baths were Brom and Bishop and... You're thinking of the barrels.

The barrels. Yeah, a giant bath of acid. Yeah, yeah. But that was Snowtown. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. Anyway, you could have a giant sign saying Snowtown that looked like the Hollywood sign as you land.

And have a little Adelaide, instead of Hollywood, you could have Adelaide Hills, just on the Adelaide Hills. Or Adelwood. It would look good. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it would certainly be more likely to happen than the Orca submarines. And you're so skeptical about this, Charles, but I've just told you it's happening.

The Prime Minister is building a giant shipyard. That's what he says. There is just like one tiny, tiny, tiny little problem with that, Dom. What's that? Which is that the US Congress, it's called the US Congressional Research Service, has just issued a report about Orcas. Oh, yeah. And the thing that sort of it points out is that the $368 billion deal may not deliver any submarines to Australia.

Seriously? This is the congressional library. Yes. It's actually sort of they've done a big investigation into it. And I think it might even be one of those things where they're reassuring Americans that, you know. Oh. Despite doing the deal. You're not going to see any, you know, Australia getting any upside.

So the problem is, so what it says is under US law, this is true, under US law, no submarine can be transferred to Australia if the US Navy believes that vessel, it needs that vessel for its own forces, right? So in the scenario that say, I don't know, China is massively ramping up its nuclear game, which is the front page of the New York Times today. And the fact that the same US congressional report points out that the place where they make submarines in the, they're called Virginia class submarines, they're the ones that are under the or Castile, they're having trouble keeping up with demand for how many that the US needs to be made. Yeah. So they're still, they're not on pace or on schedule for the United States own plans for how many.

So they need three Virginia class submarines by the early 2030s. So they're just saying, you know, on the balance of probabilities, we're probably talking about Australia not getting any submarines. Do you think Albo knows about it? I think he should have been given a heads-up. Maybe. Maybe we should text him this report. You should text in that report, see what he says.

I've got, yeah, I've got this now from The Guardian. Ben Doherty's written this piece saying, yes, that they might never do it. And one of the reasons, you know, one of the reasons is Charles? It cites Richard Marles. Richard Miles, the defence minister is saying that Australia would make no promises to support the United States in the event of war with China over Taiwan. So we've put forward a, I think you have to say,

posture at best of any sovereignty over the submarines that are supposedly our submarines and they're being yanked away. So what we were actually agreeing to, it sounds like Charles, was that we would, rather than having submarines, we would be having a base for America to have its submarines, which it controlled, on our territory.

but we will be paying for that. I think that's exactly right. Can I just pause for a seat? Charles is just going to get the Prime Minister's phone number in order to ask him about this. Because I mean, this is a little bit awkward. It's a little bit orcs. I've always said that orca should be pronounced orcs.

And you know the most awkward thing about this report, Charles, actually, looking at the detail of this article. Do you know when it was released? When? The 26th of January. Oh, dear. Australia Day. What a knife in the back.

Or the back or somewhere. So, you know, Greg Combe? Do you remember Greg Combe? He's a huge Navy buff. Is he? Yes, I think he sort of wears Navy paraphernalia and he writes books about the Navy. Does he now? Yes.

He could have been involved in this deal. He'd have had some thoughts. Well, he certainly got thoughts about it. I actually saw him at a party. Did you? Did you? Yes. What kind of parties do you go to with naval buffs?

Exactly. Military historians. And, but I. I took the opportunity knowing that he is into all things Navy to ask him about the August deal. He actually thinks that it's a really good idea. And part of it is he reckons that the one thing as a large island that you need to defend yourself is you need a plausible threat.

So essentially you need submarines down in the bottom off the coast of northern Australia. And they need to be able to stay there for months because then, and if they're completely, Just lurking beneath the surface. Nobody knows where they are. So the plausible threat is that they could be anywhere. So it's a bit like RBT. It's like random breath testing.

Random boat testing. Yeah, it's random boat. Torpedoing. Torpedoing. R&RBT. And so if China wants to attack with any of its, I don't know, 100 million submarines that it's got, the thing is.

It might come across the one team Australia submarine. Better call it off. The Chaser Report, news a few days after it happens. And then I said, so why wouldn't the French version work? And he said, well, there weren't nuclear. And then they said, but no, no, but the French did offer a nuclear version. They did.

But apparently. Or version nuclear. There's two problems with that French nuclear one. First of all, bit noisy, apparently. Oh, that's not so good. Yeah, so I think that there was a sort of croissant chef included as part of the deal. And the croissant chef was very, you know, French. You're going to be saying, the quoscent chef going, uh-la-la-la.

Uh-l-la. Oh, my God. And it just tips China off about where... I was at least going to make a joke that was more based on reality. I was going to say it was the hydraulic suspension like a citron. It was too noisy. Look, I mean, we could have got the European version of the sub, but the repair costs. Have you?

Oh, my God. But we are. We're getting a British one in the long term. I mean... Oh, well, come. But also, Charles, isn't it true that all classic British vehicles are now made in China? Have we checked the British service? It's really just got a, you know, Rover brand or a MG brand or Jaguar or MG.

They might want to check this. All right. So it's not looking huge to optimistic. I'll tell you what, if Rolls-Royce gets involved, then we really truly will have the Rolls-Royce of summary. Very true. But no, no, but the point is that the other thing that I said to Mr. Combe was, What about the fact that actually, under the agreement, they're not really based here.

They're actually based in America and they just, you know, will have a facility over in Perth. Are we basically paying America to like stick a little Ozzy flag detail on the submarines they already have? And they control. And Mr. Combe said, oh, I don't think that's true. That doesn't strike me as true. You know, we're building something.

With his objection, they'll never go to Perth. Are you kidding? Why don't they go to Perth? But he didn't say, he didn't say, no, they actually are, like, they definitely are. He just went, oh, I don't, that doesn't sound right. But the thing is, my DFAT person says, no, that's definitely the case. Like, if you read the fine print.

Why would you want to read the fine print on the Orcas Agreement? It's not only depress you. No, that's why it hasn't been read by anyone. Well, okay, so the nuclear deterrent enormously useful to protect our island from any big ships or, And that means we're basically unattackable. We're completely safe unless someone has an air force or missiles. Dom. Yes.

I think the point is, you're missing the point. Sure. Which is that we are already unattackable. Like all we've got to do, like there's another way forward that doesn't involve manufacturing huge weapons and just, you know, all this sort of aggressive. It's really, frankly, masculineist, like toxic masculinity. community approach to the world's problem. Are you a tigning for suggesting the cancellation of female suffrage in the last podcast?

Is that what fair? This is going from. All we have to do, no, all we have to do, Dom, is make Australia so unappealing to attack that nobody will want to attack it. There's no benefit. And we've already done that by having housing prices so high. Like, people will get here. The Chinese will get here.

And they go, oh, I can't possibly afford a place here. Let's go back to Beijing. You're just discounting one. Very successful argument at the moment. But Charles, there's another way to do it. And it's much cheaper than Orcas. If you want to make sure that nobody ever attacks Australia. And it's good for the environment.

It's a win-win. All you need to do is the exact opposite of what we've been doing is deploy the bravest and cutest dozzies that we have. Coalas. Deploy koalas throughout the whole, every city gets a result. Think of Centrepoint Tower, put a bit of a koala sanctuary up the top. Get them climbing up and down the tower.

Feasting on gum leaves Throughout every city, everywhere, koalas all the time. Coalas, yes. No one's ever going to attack the koalas? You're right. Can you imagine? Yes, imagine like the shame and ignominy they would get. They might have no problems with attacking Australia and killing Australians,

but no one wants to hurt the koalas. And also, what you do is a bit of a disinformation campaign. Oh, yeah. And you'd say to the foreigners, as they were invading, you'd say, watch out for the drop bears. And they'd all be worried about the koala threat. They'd go, oh, look. A strategic defensive squadron of drop bears.

Well, you know, like, maybe we deploy the emus. The undefeated emus. The undefeated emus. Now we're talking about. That is military excellence. Oh, like that. So we just populate Northern Australia with emus. And around our major cities.

Yeah, around a ring of emus. A ring of emus. You'd never get past. That would actually work. Undefeated in battle. Oh, we have to see. And it would be such an Australian approach. And no one, like, no one designs arms against emus, right?

Like, there's no, there's nowhere else in the world. That's true. You know, like, you know how you can apply what's been done in the Ukraine to other battles here? Yeah, not here. Not here, because the Ukrainians aren't up against emus. Why haven't we sent the emus to help the Ukrainians? Well, this is why, I mean, Zelenskyy's on the phone every day. We're not really committed to that conflict.

Yeah, exactly. Send in the Amuse. The sham. So, $4 billion to start building a shipyard for submarines that may not. Just think of it as $4 billion deployed to Peter Melanoscus's re-election campaign. Okay, Charles, but just. It's more of a sort of investment in the future of South Australian Labor, you're saying. Perhaps.

But look, okay, all right. What you've got, what you've. But also, can I just? Say, have you ever been to the shipyards in South Australia? Do they have shipyards? Like now? Well, no. But up until,

the Collins class ones. Up until about 2018, they had them in it, they entered that valley of death where they all got decommissioned. They are unbelievably huge. Your brain, it's a bit like going to the Grand Canyon, right? Really? They're just that big. So they're so big that your brain can't quite perceive,

like the depth of the thing. You sort of walk along and, you know, there's these huge structures, but they don't really move because there's actually so huge and so far away that it sort of leads to this optical illusion. Gosh, it's sort of incredible. That sounds worth visiting. So I must say, like, of all the things, like, if you are going to do something for South Australia, I would have thought that's a pretty cool industry to be involved. Okay, so, but hang on, just to remind ourselves. But it should be civilian. It shouldn't be, it should be making yachts for billionaires.

Yes, that's the, that's the growth industry we want to. of you're part of. Yes. But Charles, look, you convinced me that the near-term phase of August,

the bit where we get an American nuclear submarine for a few decades to keep us safe, that may not happen. But the long-term future of Adelaide building British design nuclear subs

that they haven't finished designing yet. That is locked in. You can't convince me that won't happen because I won't be alive by the time it happens. That's right. Oh, we're fucked,

aren't we? We're just fucked. Well, as long as we get on well with America, we're, yeah, We're fucked. I just love the fact that the most important posture is to pretend that we've got submarines there. Like, you know, like, it's just the plausibility that there are submarines lurking.

That's the cheapest option, isn't it? We get Britain, maybe this is all what it is. It's just a shadow play. It's just a show play. We spend $368 billion, creating the illusion that we've got submarines. And China thinks, well, they could be there. But also they go, well, if they spent $368 billion, surely they have something. something to show for it, but no, no, no.

That's the tricky part. This is like a first year philosophy exercise. You can't prove that the undetectable nuclear submarine that can operate forever with no refueling is not there. Yes. Why are we just saying we've got 100 of these? We've got a thousand. There's a thousand nuclear submarines out there right now.

You know who the perfect people to put into those submarines is? Who? People from Adelaide. Because they're used to having nothing to do. Sorry. That's another subscriber lost. We're part of the iconoclass network. We'll catch you next time.

Yeah.