{"id":928427,"date":"2026-10-15T00:18:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T00:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/928427\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T00:18:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T00:18:18","slug":"david-chaus-long-and-winding-road-to-becoming-abc-finance-presenter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/928427\/","title":{"rendered":"David Chau’s long and winding road to becoming ABC finance presenter"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has been almost a decade since I started covering finance for the ABC.<\/p>\n

That first year was particularly exciting, with Donald Trump waging a tariff war against Australia’s largest trading partner and causing huge market shocks nearly every day with his stream-of-consciousness tweeting.<\/p>\n

In that regard, the situation has not really changed.<\/p>\n

But in other ways, things have become worse, particularly when it comes to our living standards.<\/p>\n

Buying a home is more unaffordable than ever, despite the recent “downturn”, while Australian households are now carrying the second-highest amount of debt in the world after Switzerland.<\/p>\n

\"David<\/p>\n

David Chau filming a TV news report for The Business. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Extremely high-risk and speculative investments have also exploded in popularity, particularly bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies, and now pretty much anything to do with artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

It is no wonder the cost of living has become the most popular discussion topic in our nation, for all the wrong reasons.<\/p>\n

That is why I am excited to be spending more time with you in the years ahead, demystifying finance on the 7pm News, making it more relatable (and even fun) for a wider audience.<\/p>\n

Looking back, one of my favourite pieces of audience feedback over the years was:<\/p>\n

“I find business dreadfully dull, but I didn’t mind your segment. It was actually quite tolerable!”<\/p>\n

If more viewers who were not interested in business news before start paying attention, then it’s mission accomplished.<\/p>\n

A long and winding road<\/p>\n

I must confess I am just as surprised as you that I have landed this gig, taking over from the legendary Alan Kohler<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is definitely one of those “pinch me” moments in life.<\/p>\n

\"David<\/p>\n

One of David Chau’s first roles at the ABC was presenting finance segments on Radio National. (Supplied: David Chau)<\/p>\n

The other “pinch me” moment I had was more than 10 years ago, as I was poring through thousands of pages of evidence at a law firm, doing my best to stay awake.<\/p>\n

Before starting at the ABC, I was a litigation lawyer, but I did not really enjoy suing people. As you can imagine, my career was off to a promising start.<\/p>\n

After five years of sending threatening letters and trying to sound a like a legal tough guy, I decided it was time for a change.<\/p>\n

I chose journalism because I wanted a career that was exciting, where I could meet all sorts of interesting people, and do work that served the public interest.<\/p>\n

And, if we go even further back in time to the 1980s, I was the son of a Vietnam War refugee who did not grow up with much money.<\/p>\n

My dad was a judo instructor and goldsmith before the Fall of Saigon.<\/p>\n

\"Nine-year<\/p>\n

David Chau’s father, Hong, emigrated to Australia from Vietnam. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

When he moved to Sydney, he did not speak English, nor did his qualifications transfer very easily. He was only able to find factory work.<\/p>\n

That is why he regularly drilled into me the importance of education, finding a ‘good job’ and achieving financial security. He did not have most of those things.<\/p>\n

So that is how I got into a regular news-viewing habit and started noticing Alan’s finance reports.<\/p>\n

That time I got GFC’d<\/p>\n

My interest in finance and economics ramped up from 2009, when I found myself unemployed for several months.<\/p>\n

I was sending hundreds of CVs and cover letters for any kind of work related to what I had just been studying at university for five years \u2014 and received a similar number of rejections.<\/p>\n

From watching Alan’s coverage, it did not take me long to realise that my job struggles were caused by some dreadful binge-borrowing overseas that led to this thing called the global financial crisis.<\/p>\n

\"Former<\/p>\n

The global financial crisis unfolded when Kevin Rudd was prime minister. (AAP: Alan Porritt)<\/p>\n

And I also learned firsthand that when Australia’s unemployment rate quickly rises from about 4 per cent to 5.8 per cent, it is a particularly bad time for young job seekers with almost no experience whatsoever. Lucky me.<\/p>\n

So I had to take radical steps to find decent work, such as move to Perth for a couple of years. Thankfully, there was still a mining boom happening there.<\/p>\n

How did I get here?<\/p>\n

A lot of people have asked me over the years: “How did you end up switching careers from law to journalism?”<\/p>\n

Alan Kohler’s last ABC sign-off<\/a><\/p>\n

Alan Kohler will walk out the door of the ABC’s Melbourne studios tonight after presenting his final finance report, ending a 31-year career at the public broadcaster.<\/p>\n

Well, fast forward to 2015. I reached the point where I was so jaded that I decided to quit the legal profession without a backup plan. (Older-and-wiser me would not recommend this unless you have your next job lined up.)<\/p>\n

I did not know exactly what I wanted to do next. So trial and error was the only option for me, and I tried all manner of random jobs. Nothing was beneath me.<\/p>\n

That is how I ended up as that guy who greeted and seated customers at Jamie Oliver’s Italian restaurant, but that was for one night only as I was quite terrible at it.<\/p>\n

I also operated a phone hotline, answering calls from people who wanted to lodge complaints about their lawyers (oh, the irony).<\/p>\n

And I was briefly a costumed superhero at kids’ birthday parties (I had to pay bills somehow).<\/p>\n

One of the more sensible choices I made was to work at a small financial news publication and try my hand at business reporting.<\/p>\n

\"David,<\/p>\n

David Chau on his first day at the ABC in May 2017. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

It turned out I was quite good at it, surprisingly.<\/p>\n

After trying financial journalism for a year, I decided it was time to advance my new career at a larger, more reputable organisation.<\/p>\n

So I went on a relentless cold-calling campaign and somehow managed to get the ABC’s business editor at the time, Ian Verrender, on the phone.<\/p>\n

Sometimes landing an opportunity involves being somewhere at the right place, at the right time, which is exactly what happened to me.<\/p>\n

Ian decided to hire me as the team’s most junior producer and placed me on a three-month contract to see how I performed.<\/p>\n

Lucky for me, I did not do too badly. So those temporary contracts kept getting extended and eventually I was made permanent.<\/p>\n

Nine years later, I’m still here, and have since written hundreds of articles for the ABC and presented hundreds more finance reports across TV and radio.<\/p>\n

The road ahead<\/p>\n

Now back to Alan. I still find it hard to believe that he is retiring<\/a>. He has been in the role for so long that I seriously thought he was going to do it forever.<\/p>\n

I have always been impressed by how easily he can break down the most complex ideas in a way that anybody could understand.<\/p>\n

I recognise that is an important responsibility, and some big shoes to fill.<\/p>\n

Although having lived through some cost-of-living crises myself \u2014 including now, as the dad of a constantly hungry two-year-old boy \u2014 I can definitely relate to the pressures that many Australians are feeling.<\/p>\n

\"David,<\/p>\n

David Chau with his partner Michelle and their son. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

So you can rest assured that I will be delivering finance updates that are relevant to you, hopefully in a way that is more “tolerable” than you expected.<\/p>\n

I hope you come along with me on this journey, perhaps even for the next couple of decades if I am lucky and able to match Alan’s record.<\/p>\n

David Chau is a finance presenter on ABC News, including on the 7PM News \u2014 Monday to Friday, from tonight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It has been almost a decade since I started covering finance for the ABC. That first year was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":928428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2655,6905,10927,64,63,99,495512,271500,186,336929,495513],"class_list":["post-928427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-abc","tag-abc-news","tag-alan-kohler","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-business-journalism","tag-david-chau","tag-finance","tag-finance-report","tag-finance-reporter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=928427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/928428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=928427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=928427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=928427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}