The Chaser Report - This Episode Could Get Us Fined $5,000

Episode Date: March 23, 2026

Due to a new law in New South Wales, Charles predicts he will be fined a lot of money in the future. Listen to find out more!---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/  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, may I say, what a masterful episode yesterday's was looking at the South Australian election as the bellwether for the nation. I mean, if you haven't heard that one yet, I wouldn't even listen to this one. I'd go back and check that out. It's a tour de force, and I think deserves several Australian podcast awards if they still

existed. Yes, if they existed, we'd be in line for them, but they don't. They don't at all. Oh, well. So, Dom, this is going to be another heavy hitting episode. Oh my gosh. Because I want to talk about a new law that is before New South Wales Parliament. The law is, if your house is on fire, you're no longer allowed to complain about it, okay? But we'll get to it more after the ads. I mean, Charles, I don't know the law of which you speak. And as you know, doing any research before we start recording is really not the brand of the show. No, no, no.

Just from first reaction, that doesn't sound good. I must say, I'm going to put it out there. It's a terrible idea. So apparently what's happened is the New South Wales government has a problem, which is just very occasionally people's houses catch on fire, right? And the way they've decided to deal with this terrible problem, which I think we can all admit that your house being on fire is a terrible problem, right? is they've decided, and I think this will solve the problem,

people are no longer allowed to mention the fact that their house is on fire or do anything that publicly lets it be known that your house is on fire. You've just got to suck it up. We're talking across purposes. When I said it was a terrible idea, I meant it was a terrible idea to complain when your house is on fire. That's not what you should be doing. You should be getting out of there and maybe subsequently, you know,

just a few years. down the track, maybe submit a bit of confidential feedback. I certainly wouldn't be complaining. There's no time. Get out of there. No, there's no. Yeah, just get out of there. Move to a different house.

Might cost you a little bit of money, but that's all right. That's on you. Your house caught on fire. That's your fault. Now, oh, so hang on. Sorry, I'm just checking my notes. That's actually not, that's not quite the law. It's exactly the same principle, but it's actually about public schools.

So it's the same thing, which is, if you've got a problem with your public school, It's going to be a $5,000 fine if you complain to the school about it. And clearly what's happened to the school? Hang on. You can't not even complaining in public, complaining to the school about what happens at the school. Yes. That's what you've got to do. You've got to make sure that we crack down on parents complaining about shitty conditions in public.

Oh, Charles, that is the best news I've heard in a very long time. Do you know what this means from my WhatsApp groups? It means they'll go quiet. They're just being full of information like when I forget that it's harmony day and my child needs to wear some particular colour or something. That's a lot of. I don't want complaint. And you can be, you can be on the WhatsApp group, you can be the guy who just, whenever anyone sort of starts mumbles, you know, mumbles of complaint about the school being bad in some way, just posts the legislation reminding people about a $5,000 fine. Yes, as a chilling effect.

Yeah, have a chilling effect. Yeah, yeah. Because I think that that is what this is designed to be. Just bang, 5K. Have you got 5K if you want to say that? Yeah, put your bank details on the... Yeah, there's been a cut number. Pin it to the...

Right. But so, and look, this is just a... This is very close to home and very personal for me. And it's fascinating because Talkback Radio is going off in New South Wales today about what a great idea this is, right? And it's clearly a conversation amongst people who do not have kids at public schools. Because I can tell you from... very raw, very angry-making experience.

The truth about public schools is it's the great in principle and like I support them philosophically and I think we should do everything to support public schools. But they can be unbelievably shit. And I'll give you a specific example which is there is a certain teacher at my kids' school who both of my kids have had and is just the worst teacher you would ever imagine. Like, it's just, like, as bad as, you know, we can name teachers. We both went to the same school, Dom. There were teachers at that school, which are just terrible teachers, right?

I mean, in some cases, I feel like that was later vindicated by, you know, police involvement. Police inquiries and involvement and people, you know, various teachers being in jail, you know, remember. But, of course, it was, in our circumstance, it was the Christian teacher who was particularly wayward in his, you know, sort of, well, well, that's now police matter type thing. Anyway, so the point is, though, Dom, is, and we've met, we've met this guy a couple of times at parent teacher nights, and you just go, oh, right, our kids' assistant is not one of a complaining teenager who thinks that their strict teacher is, sort of thing. This guy is a narcissistic moron, right?

Like, this guy, you know, you can absolutely see all the behaviours that, for thing. Now, this is a problem sort of endemic to every school. Like in every schooling. And in some ways, we say to our kids, look, you just have to sort of suck it up a bit because you have to deal in life. You have to deal with the occasional shitty person who you've got to work with. So, you know, just sort of suck it up. Maybe, you know, try and learn something around that subject this year, but know that you're not going to learn that from the teacher themselves, right? Like, this is an education in dealing with a difficult person, right?

Oh, which is very useful. I mean, that's a really good skill, learning how to deal with. difficult people and kind of just get around them. But clearly this is becoming a problem. The state government today has come out and said, look, it's a terrible problem. Parents are getting really annoyed at our schools. And they've framed it as, oh, parents are so entitled. They just want, you know, everything on a platter, you know, sort of thing like that.

But is it entitled to actually complain about an institution if it's on fire? Because I think that that is actually more accurate about what's going on. The truth is that the public system has become this residual. system where parents are fleeing and the resources are fleeing to private education, the house is on fire and the state government has gone, oh, well, the people who are actually experiencing the house fire, because they're the parents who actually can see it in front of them and are getting increasingly frustrated by it. Let's slap a $5,000 fine on them if they complain too loudly. This is one of those episodes where there's not a lot of laugh to be had, but I will say this, Charles,

How rich are you from Wankanomics? Because you are just mousing off. Is there be at least one $5,000 fine for you? Because I'm not paying it. Wankanomics is paying the $5,000. And I just want to know, I'm just looking up this story. Where is it? Because what I'm hearing is everyone suppressed from commenting about it?

Where's the, like, what's the law? What's going on? Because I haven't heard anything about it. Is everyone too scared to even mention this story? I think what's happening is there's been a chilling effect even on the coverage of it. You know, it's probably actually illegal for us to even mention that schools are in some ways bad. Like, I think that's probably what's going on. I can, I'll send you, if you want me to send you a link to the actual...

I found it's a very long website where you make a complaint about New South Wales public schools on the Education in New South Wales website. There's about 20 sections. I think the main strategy for stopping complaints is this document, which is incredibly long and very unclear. Yeah. The Chaser report. Less news.

Less often. I think the problem might be, just for you, Dom, is that the story is not about Sydney property prices. So there's no coverage of it in New South Wales media. Yeah, that could be it. Because this is sort of unrelated to housing. I know that that sounds weird. It's not really on my radar.

Charles, what I've asked is for Gemini, which is my AI that I've got at the moment, to summarise this entire probably. 5,000 word page into one sentence. Yep. And it's done that. It just says it's a process that starts with local communication at the school level and offers support services to ensure fair and timely resolutions. So what I'm getting is that they've gotten to Gemini as well, Charles.

They've gotten to the AIs. Yeah, and they've said that it's fair. That's, uh, there is a story about it in the Herald, like, uh, of course there is. Saying that the, um, aggressive entitled parents to be banned from school in behavior. you correct. So actually, if you've got to come by, so this means I don't have to go to parent teachers. It sounds like a ban on Charles.

Oh, okay. So, yeah, they can ban parents from school grounds if they engage in unreasonable and harmful behavior. Yeah, that's right. They can't excessively email, call or text school staff. And they can't come within 25 metres of the grounds. And so this is one of those things where you're going, that sounds all reasonable in practice, right?

Like, oh, no, we're actually just talking about the Karen's. They're just wanting to get rid of the really aggressive people, right? But actually, I can tell you from just trying to interact with, like, our school, our high school, one of our kids of high schools, like the sort of now and slightly separate campuses, but they literally have a layer thick of about 18 teachers' assistants who are non-teaching teachers who are employed full time to prevent communication with teachers, right? Like, you can't email a teacher. I mean, that's, I mean, it's, I mean, not even a sort of question, right? But even just trying to communicate with a teacher is, you know, like, it's just not a, it's a non-starter. So the more, you know, the system is sort of defundative resources, it becomes this scler.

Like, how is that going to sort of improve, you know, the customer, you know, the beatings will continue until morale improves. Like, that's what's going on. So you, I think, Charles, what you need is another way of getting your point across. Before you get banned from the school, maybe you should be erecting a billboard opposite or an electronic sign opposite the gate of the school. No, see, that wouldn't work. Could you get a skywriter? It will prevent parents from coming within 25 metres of the school grounds.

I suppose, yeah, a sky rider would work. Could you write a grumpy op-head in the newspaper about it? Or I suppose you could record a podcast. Actually, you know what? If we make this the official podcast of complaining about your kids' school, the numbers will go through the roof. That's true. Yeah. But you know the other thing is, we link the issue to Sydney property prices so that it gets media coverage.

That's the actual, that's the key. You like, if we try and, you know what, the solution to public education has just been in front of us, which is we should sell the schools in order to, like, Sydney property, like to cash in on the Sydney property price market. Just sell all the schools. And then the education department will be rich. They'll be able to afford to employ better teachers. Well, you know what, Charles. And have more resources.

I'm very glad to see that this process is already underway. Because I don't know whether you've seen public schools in our neighbourhood recently. But all of them, have you noticed this? They're now all billboards for real estate agents. Basically what happens is that real estate agents, apparently this is allowable under the department guidelines. Real estate agents make some sort of donation to the PNC who are desperate for, you know, money for facilities and so on. bro, you know, in the five figures, but then in the case of my kids' school, they get to put two billboards at different end of the school on a very, very busy main road.

On very busy roads. And I'd love to know what that's worth per year. But they all do it. They're trying to do it in a bit of a subtle way where it's, oh, it's a QR code. Contact is you going to find out more. But I mean, compared to putting it a giant billboard on a public facility that the public owns and pays for, something's got this billboard on it. So the link between real estate, we're close already.

I love my Ray White kids education. It's a real LJ hooker of a journey that they've been on these last few Breswick and Whitney years. And I just think couldn't we make it further? I mean, couldn't the entire school just have a giant advertising hoardings on it? You know what they should do? The kids should be required to do cold calling. Yes. That's very good after school.

They could be letterboxing, couldn't they, for the real estate companies? That's after school care could be all about letterboxing and cold calls. And where are the corporate? logos on the school uniforms. I haven't seen a single one. I know. It's just all opportunity to go missing. But the problem is, they're not going to be able to hear feedback from us because we'll get a $5,000 fine if we make these suggestions. Oh, that is a problem. It'll be perceived as criticism. But can't it be, can't everyone win if it's criticism brought to you by Ray White or whoever it might be? Yeah. Or actually,

Lockheed Martin, I think, is going quite well at the moment. Yes. Yes. There really isn't enough involvement for the defense establishment in our kids' schools. Yeah, and they need, they need our kids to be educated. Where is Smith and Wesson in providing, because when we were kids, you know, it was a bit tacky. Maccas used to have all those cordial dispenses. Do you remember all the school's, remember. Everyone had it, the yellow and red cordial dispensers.

I want your sort of Lockheed Martin, Smith and Wesson. I mean, who are they making the bullets? That's what I want to see. Why aren't they? Kids have little hands. Maybe they can help out. Yeah. Okay.

So I think we've fixed that. We fixed that. Yep. And look. More money to schools. More billboards on schools. Yeah. And our students should be used as billboards as well.

It's going to start when they turn out. I mean, they're all wear, they don't want to wear brand clothes. They want to wear white fox or whatever. And that's free advertising. It may as well charge Ray White. It's still white. The Povo, the Povo students have to go with a Pov-O-aligned brand. Howdy?

Like, do you actually, yeah, you have different ranges for different, like, the cool kids get to wear Nike. Oh, right. Or whatever the latest brand. Yeah, and the little kids have to wear like Anco. Yeah, or Harvey Norman or something. Just because we managed to briefly suspend social disadvantage by making all the school kids wear the same uniform.

So we need to change that. We need to get rid of that. You've got to fix that problem. Stad. More problems solved, Charles. I just want to know how many of these fines you intend to accrue in the first year operation. Because you're a very loud person. I would have thought you'd be Bannie number one.

Yeah, well, I do feel personally a tech. to buy these laws. Well, you should be able to invoice them $5,000 for attacking you. Yes. Oh, I like that. I like the idea that we just all start turning on each other. That's a good idea. But the other thing I'd say, Charles, finally, is that I'm just looking at the article

you sent me in the Herald, in the City Morning Herald. I think it's a 25 metre distance. Yeah. They don't know you. Oh, yeah, I can easily speak louder than 25 meters. You're incredibly loud. It needs to be at least 250 meters for your voice not to be extremely audible when you're angry. So, yeah, I think this isn't going to work in your case.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, there's the loophole. Take that, Charles' kids' school. For a small number of incredibly loud men, it's just going to get worse. Okay, we're part of the Ocona Class Network, and we'll get you tomorrow. Powered by whichever real estate agent pays us the most. Yeah. Yeah, okay.

We can do that. Make it happen.