She escaped Laos as a child, spent three months in a Thai jail and built a $25 million rice paper roll empire from nothing. Now Nahji Chu, better known as Lady Chu, is fed up.

Her family crossed the Mekong at night and arrived in Australia as refugees. She built Miss Chu into a $25 million business and then lost it. Today she's fighting tax, council red tape and even some of her own customers, and she's ready to sit down for a bánh mì with Pauline Hanson.

In this episode:

• Crossing the Mekong at night and three months in a Thai jail

• Life in a refugee camp

• Refugees then and now: "We didn't take the piss"

• From $90,000 in year one to $25 million turnover

• Fines for fake chickens and her war with council

• How Miss Chu went under

• Is she really Sydney's "Soup Nazi"?

Watch and listen on YouTube and all podcast apps.

#LadyChu #MissChu #SmallBusiness

Kieran Cook grows grain near Tara on Queensland’s Western Downs, and he flies out there too, low and fast. The 110-metre wind monitoring towers that have gone up near local airstrips are so thin he says they’ve come up right under him. He calls them widow makers.

Firebombers load up on his strip during fire season, and crop dusters and council choppers all work at tower height. Kieran says the towers went up with no consultation. For months the first one had no light at all, then it got a solar light that cut out overnight. He says it’s still non-compliant today. Vestas, the company behind the towers, says they’re lit and marked to best industry practice.

Karl asks Kieran about his near misses, about the buck passing between CASA, council, the state and the developer, and about what he wants Canberra to do. In his words, out in the bush the only one who listens in the end is the coroner.

Brought to you by Tanda. Rosters, payroll and HR in one system: tanda.com.au

00:00 Can you spot the tower?

00:46 Kieran Cook, flat out harvesting

02:27 What the towers are and why they matter

04:58 The near misses

07:10 What happens if you hit one?

07:23 “They’re widow makers”

08:50 Do they comply?

10:19 Safeguarding guidelines and the solar light

12:45 Buck passing between CASA, council and Vestas

14:58 “The only one that listens is the coroner”

17:17 What Kieran wants Canberra to hear

#KarlStefanovic #Aviation #RuralAustralia #WindFarms #Farming

Interest rates, inflation and house prices in plain English. Three of AMP's economists answer your cost of living questions.

Five rate rises this year. Prices up 4.3%. Thousands of you sent in questions, and I put them to AMP's Dr Shane Oliver, Diana Mousina and My Bui, the economists behind social media account Econosights. Who's to blame, where house prices go next, and what you can do while you wait it out.

Then: a Queensland farmer and pilot on the wind monitoring towers he calls widow makers.

In this episode:

• Why mortgage holders carry the fight against inflation

• Should the government cut spending to share the pain?

• Productivity, explained with a cup of coffee

• Are house prices still falling, and did the tax changes go too far?

• What to ask your bank if you're struggling

This episode is brought to you by Tanda. Rosters, pay and HR in one system: tanda.com.au

Watch and listen on YouTube and all podcast apps.

#InterestRates #CostOfLiving #HousePrices

Kogan.com founder Ruslan Kogan says Australia needs a circuit breaker. He warns David Jones won't be the last big name to fall, and says nobody in business is excited about the future right now. With families tightening their belts, his own business is doing well, and he says he feels bad about it.

His fix: a tax system that rewards people who build and employ, two old rules gone for every new one, and politicians who act like they face an election every day.

He also tells Karl how it all started. His parents arrived in Melbourne from the Soviet Union with $90 and worked three or four jobs while raising their kids. As a kid in a housing commission flat, he built his own computer and sold lost golf balls back to golfers. He quit a safe job at Accenture, made his mum cry, and started Kogan.com with two TVs and no money.

Investors told him to bugger off. So he got customers to pay upfront, flew to China to test every TV himself, and paid a driver to follow the container to the shipping yard. He says Kogan.com now does more sales by quarter past midnight than it did in its entire first year.

He picked a fight with Gerry Harvey on purpose, then nearly lost the business when COVID ended and the stock kept coming. What he built to survive is the business it is today.

Karl sits down with the founder of Kogan.com to talk about:

• David Jones, tax, red tape and why he says nobody in business is excited right now

• Arriving from the Soviet Union with $90, and selling lost golf balls back to golfers

• The TV order that started Kogan.com, and the investors who said no

• Kogan vs Harvey Norman, and the Today Tonight story that started it

• The COVID over-order that nearly put Kogan out of business

CHAPTERS

0:00 AI and the end of brand loyalty

0:49 What sort of country are we building?

4:04 Arriving from the Soviet Union with $90

7:04 Teaching Mum about opportunity cost

9:58 Selling golf balls back to golfers

12:20 Quitting Accenture

14:46 Miami, and the TV that started Kogan.com

16:47 Customers paid upfront for the first container

19:19 What the TV store doesn't tell you

21:17 More sales by 12:15am than in year one

21:36 Kogan vs Harvey Norman

26:19 Is online retail good for Australia?

28:12 Sovereignty and supply chains

30:30 Winning COVID, then over-ordering

31:59 The edge of the cliff

33:43 What the crisis built

37:32 Back to profit, and going public

39:44 The daily share price

40:52 50 million products and Kogan First

45:09 What worries him about Australia

46:41 Tax, red tape and a trainer too scared to post

49:37 Why business people are never the heroes

51:18 Inflation and the blame game

52:47 Advice for small business

53:59 More David Joneses

54:30 An election every day

This episode is brought to you by Tanda. Rostering, payroll and HR for Aussie businesses: tanda.com.au

Watch and listen on YouTube and all podcast apps.

Barclay Nettlefold bought the whole sport in the middle of COVID. He's not a car guy, and he's never driven one. Now he wants to take Supercars to Singapore, Malaysia and the Middle East, the way the NRL took rugby league to Las Vegas.Karl sits down with the owner of Supercars to talk about:Toyota, and the next car maker coming to the gridThe decision to drop Neil Crompton from the commentary boxRacing NASCARKeeping a weekend at the track affordable for regional families in a cost of living crisisWhy he thinks sport is worth more than everChapters0:00 Why buy Supercars?1:11 Media, sport and sailing2:24 Buying the whole sport6:01 How much trouble Supercars was in7:33 The team owners9:13 From billboards to Europe's biggest football leagues13:07 When the car makers left16:36 Tickets, broadcast and the money17:28 Finals, concerts and a bigger show19:06 Free-to-air vs streaming19:44 Neil Crompton21:11 Toyota, a fourth car maker and going global22:28 Supercars vs NASCAR26:01 Dick Johnson and the characters27:14 Rating Australia's other sports bosses28:07 Bathurst31:37 Too scared to drive one34:18 Cost of living36:02 Women, families and camping at Bathurst37:40 Why sport is worth more than ever39:04 Fuel pricesThis episode is brought to you by Tanda. Rostering, payroll and HR for Aussie businesses: tanda.com.au/karlWatch and listen on YouTube and all podcast apps.#Supercars #Bathurst #thekarlstefanovicshow

Cost of living and interest rates: Interest rates are at their highest since 2008. Economist Saul Eslake on who’s carrying the inflation burden — what it even means —  and a fairer way to fight it.

Only about a third of households have a mortgage, but they’re doing most of the heavy lifting on inflation. Saul explains why prices won’t budge, how much government spending is adding to the problem, and the superannuation idea he says would share the load more fairly.

Victorian Elections: Then Melbourne radio legend Neil Mitchell on the Victorian election on November 28. Labor has run the state for 12 years, Neil says voters are furious about crime, hospitals and potholes, and One Nation could hold the balance of power. This is Australia’s equivalent of the US midterms, and Neil says it could be an early predictor for the outcome of the next federal election.

In this episode:

• Why the RBA keeps raising rates, and when Saul thinks they’ll come down

• What’s keeping inflation high

• A fairer alternative to rate rises

• How much government spending is adding to inflation

• Neil on the leaders, One Nation and his call on who wins

Interest rates at an 18-year high, and the cost of living keeps climbing. For a lot of Australians, this one’s hurting.

Families. Small business owners. Farmers. You’re doing it tough, and I see you.

The government isn’t riding to the rescue, and neither is the Reserve Bank. So it’s on us. We’ve come through droughts, floods and fires by looking after each other. We’ll get through this the same way.

Let me know what you’re going without.

#KarlStefanovic #InterestRates #CostOfLiving

Alexander Downer talks inflation, government spending and your mortgage, recorded before the Melbourne Cup Day rate call.The former Liberal leader and Australia’s longest-serving foreign minister has seen it all. The highs and lows. So what does he prescribe for the future based on the past?

Interest rates have gone up four times this year, to 4.60 per cent. Inflation hit 4.3 per cent in the year to September. On Melbourne Cup Day, the Reserve Bank decides whether to go again.

Here’s how it works. When prices rise faster than the Reserve Bank’s 2-3 per cent target, it lifts the cash rate. Borrowing costs more, households and businesses spend less, and price rises slow. The question is what’s pushing prices up in the first place.

He says it’s government spending, state and federal. The Reserve Bank says demand from both government and the private sector is running ahead of what the economy can supply, and higher oil prices from the Middle East conflict are adding to it.

Karl asks Downer what that means for families, whether we just get used to higher rates, and how we get out of it.

• How rate rises are meant to bring prices down
• The interest bill on government debt, and what it could pay for instead
• Why the inflation target is 2-3 per cent, not zero
• What happens when a country can’t borrow cheaply any more
• What families can do right now

The tradie behind Thunder From Down Under, Vegas' longest-running male revue, on Western Sydney, the Gold Coast and going all in with it all off.
Billy Cross grew up in housing commission in Sydney's west and left home at 16 on his L's. He did a bricklaying apprenticeship, got the ticket and never laid a brick. Then a Gold Coast nightclub asked him to take his shirt off. He couldn't dance. He learned.
That show became Manpower Australia, then Australia's Thunder From Down Under. It's been stripping in Las Vegas since 1993, and working the Strip full-time since 2001. But first, he lost his shirt in London's West End. Well, most of his Australian tour money, he says.
Karl and Billy get into:

• Leaving Liverpool at 16, and the bricklaying ticket he never used
• Hens, mums and grandmas: the Gold Coast Monday nights that started it all
• 1,500 seats in London, and 16 turned up, he says
• The VHS tape that got him a full hour on Phil Donahue
• All in or go broke: the first male revue with a permanent home on the Las Vegas Strip

This episode is brought to you by Tanda. Rostering, payroll and HR for Aussie businesses: tanda.com.au

Watch and listen on YouTube and all podcast apps.

#thunderfromdownunder #lasvegas #goldcoast

Immigration is the hottest issue in Australia. But there’s a layer most people never see, and it’s bringing you dinner.

Sydney restaurateur Mario Libertini has spent 46 years in hospitality. He runs two busy restaurants. The customers are there. The staff aren’t. He hasn’t found an apprentice in five years, and he says the only workers he can get come from overseas.

Karl and Mario get into why young Australians are walking away from hospitality, how the new visa rules are turning work into a game show, what it means beyond restaurants for aged care, childcare and the farms, and why, after 46 years, Mario wouldn’t open a restaurant today.

In this episode:

• The big red button ad, and why it went viral

• Why young Aussies stopped wanting hospitality jobs

• The backpacker ballot and new student visa rules, explained

• Apprentices, social media and the “elevator generation”

• How to get young Australians back behind the bar

This episode is brought to you by Tanda. Find out more at tanda.com.au/karl

#immigration #hospitality #australia

Neville and Gladys retired to cattle country near Jandowae, Queensland, for peace, cattle and a view of the Bunya Mountains. Then some of the tallest wind turbines in Australia went up next door.

“I’m not against wind farms,” Neville says. “But you don’t want to be looking at them all the time.”

Karl heads out west to the Wambo Wind Farm to ask who decides where turbines go, and who lives with the decision. For the farmers hosting them, turbines are good money. The town gets a community fund. But for the neighbours who turned down the offer to host, it’s the noise, the shadow flicker, property values, and a community that’s been split.

Karl also hears from neighbour Fiona Duff, and from local member David Littleproud on setbacks, noise limits and who pays to pull them down in 30 years. Wambo was approved in 2020, before Queensland tightened its wind farm rules in 2025.