Mark Humphries has moved home 5 instances prior to now seven years. First was the place within the Sydney suburb of Turramurra he needed to vacate as a result of it was, “forgive me for saying this – leaking like a large breast from the ceiling”. Subsequent got here a home so damp, mushrooms started rising beneath the carpet; a small flat that was OK apart from being totally freezing, and one other one-bedroom house the place the hire went from $500 to $660 every week, forcing his exit.
It’s of no consolation to the comic and TV presenter that he’s not alone in having discovered it extraordinarily tough to safe an inexpensive and habitable dwelling.
“That is the widespread expertise,” he sighs. “It’s been extraordinary seeing everybody I do know undergo rental will increase [over the past few years] … I really feel like each certainly one of us wants to start out a GoFundMe only for our each day existence.”
Housing affordability is a subject Humphries is offended about. And, maybe paradoxically, that emotion is usually a very useful gizmo for a comic.
“I’ve discovered with lots of my work that it’s simpler for those who’re offended about one thing,” he says – like, say, those political texts we all received in the lead-up to the election, or all things Mark Latham. “Even for those who’re simply doing comedy sketches, in case you are genuinely aggravated by what has occurred, you’ll be able to channel that into one thing amusing.”
Not too long ago, Humphries has channelled his rage “not only for myself, however everybody” over the housing disaster into a new documentary called Sold! Who Broke the Australian Dream? Out on Binge, it’s a one-hour take a look at the issues with Australia’s housing market, and the way we’ve landed in a state of affairs the place, as he places it within the documentary, even a “D-grade movie star like me can’t afford a house”.
We’re discussing all this within the incongruous setting of a quaint cafe specialising in tea and scones – Humphries’ selection of venue. This was meant to be a fast chew earlier than a strolling interview however the second the scones hit the desk, we’ve misplaced all motivation to face up once more. Humphries, he proudly tells me, eats lots of baked items. He even as soon as auditioned to host The Great Australian Bake Off, a job that “would have been heaven”.
That individual gig wasn’t to be, however Humphries has nonetheless carved out a really busy profession on our screens, largely because the tall, blond and affable face of Australian information satire. You’d in all probability recognise him from appearances on applications corresponding to SBS’s The Feed and Channel Ten’s The Venture (the recent cancellation of which is a “nice loss” for Australian comedy, no matter you consider the present itself, he says).
In contrast to most comics, Humphries has by no means been one for standup – he has accomplished it, he can inform me very particularly, solely 12 instances in his life and located every one “immensely aggravating”. The truth is, he’s extra reserved and strait-laced than the standard comic, deflecting consideration by asking me as many questions as I ask him. Somewhat than in search of out the stage, Humphries spent his early years after faculty working at a Blockbuster video retailer after which a warehouse. The video retailer could have been each millennial’s teenage dream job, however it wasn’t all roses.
“I acquired held up at knife-point thrice once I labored in a video retailer,” Humphries recollects. “It was terrible. I needed to depart that job after the third one, as a result of I used to be so affected by it.”
He can nonetheless see the humour in that formative trauma – corresponding to when he went to the police station to do an identakit after one of many robberies and described the knife-wielding assailant as “surprisingly good-looking”. Or the time his unfailing politeness kicked in as he was being held up and he requested his attacker if he’d like a bag for all that money. Or that after he lastly give up and booked a ticket to London to attempt to decompress, as he stepped off the tube from the airport, a fellow holidaying Australian recognised him and exclaimed “Hey, Blockbuster Crows Nest!”
However by way of each odd job, Humphries was quietly nursing goals of breaking into comedy. His profession finally started 13 years in the past when he known as up the satirical present affairs program Hungry Beast and requested for an internship, uncertain of how else to get began within the trade given “there’s no college diploma in comedy”. His flip as a comic book got here to the shock of these closest to him.
“I used to be speaking about how I’d at all times needed to be a comedy author [in a recent interview] and my dad mentioned to me, ‘I spoke to your mom about the way you mentioned you’d at all times need to be a comic. We had been gobsmacked, since you by no means mentioned something humorous to us.’”
Humphries’ dad, who truly does very a lot assist his son’s profession, gamely seems within the new documentary – to say no him any monetary help cobbling collectively a home deposit, as a result of, because the elder Humphries places it, “I’m renting too.”
“We’re so obsessive about property on this nation, and it’s develop into worse particularly within the final 25 years, the place the concept of accruing a number of properties has develop into one thing that folks aspire to,” Humphries says. “And it’s a line that I exploit within the doco, however I feel it’s true – when did the Australian dream go from proudly owning your individual dwelling to proudly owning someone else’s?”
What makes the state of affairs more durable to repair, Humphries thinks, is the very fact the vast majority of Australians do truly personal a house.
“Homeowners outnumber renters two to at least one,” he says. “So it’s very onerous to get big change on one thing that almost all of individuals profit from. Home costs going up for those who personal a home is nice, however for everybody else, it’s a nightmare. And so the problem is, how do you get people who find themselves benefiting from the present system to in the end make a sacrifice for the higher good, in order that we don’t find yourself with this two-tier system of the householders and the renters? Which is basically what we’ve got, and it’s solely getting worse.”
At this level the anger Humphries had spoken of is beginning to present, tea and scone uncared for as fires up and rattles off the problems with Australia’s housing market.
Clearly, provide is a part of the housing disaster, Humphries says – so it’s nice that the federal authorities has pledged to build 1.2m new homes by 2030. “However the subject with the provision argument is that it doesn’t bear in mind the opposite a part of that, which is demand. So once more, when you’ve got this technique the place individuals are capable of faucet into these tax incentives and purchase a number of properties, rising provide doesn’t actually resolve that. It finally ends up with an entire bunch of individuals proudly owning much more properties.”
Humphries factors out he doesn’t begrudge traders for making the most of the tax system – “however that system shouldn’t exist”. Couldn’t the federal government, I proffer casually whereas Humphries lastly will get the prospect to take a chew, simply put a cap on the variety of properties individuals can personal?
“Humphries nods furiously as he bites by way of his scone,” he narrates after a pause to chew and swallow. Finally, he says, to repair the housing disaster we have to rid ourselves of the concept property costs ought to perpetually climb larger, and permit the worth of properties to develop into static. “And a few of these adjustments may be launched incrementally. It’s not about crashing the housing market.”
So, I ask, does Humphries ever see dwelling possession in his future?
“Bizarrely, at age 39 I simply purchased a house – I simply moved in yesterday,” he admits with the combo of sheepishness and amusement now typical to any millennial who manages to get a foot on the property ladder. “However I preserve the trend!”
He’s fortunate, Humphries says, to have gotten sufficient work within the final yr to safe a mortgage on a two-bedroom house close to the airport, collectively together with his companion. The irony of getting used the wage from a documentary about not having the ability to afford a house to purchase a house just isn’t misplaced on him. And he insists being a really newly minted house owner hasn’t modified his perspective on the issue at hand.
“Like, I used to work in retail, and I’m nonetheless as aggravated as we speak about rudeness in direction of service staff as I used to be once I was within the video retailer,” he shrugs as we mud off the scone crumbs and wrap up our dialog in order that he can head dwelling to start out unpacking containers for what’s hopefully the final time.
“I’m thrilled, clearly, to get to that subsequent stage of my life,” he provides. “But it surely’s one thing that, rising up, I assumed I might have accomplished 10 years in the past, and it simply felt like the potential for it simply stored transferring additional and additional away. And I don’t go into it with the concept of, now I can’t anticipate this to extend in worth. I haven’t purchased a spot as a result of I need to generate profits. I purchased a spot as a result of I need to reside in a spot.”
Actually, he’s principally simply very grateful to not have to maneuver once more anytime quickly.
“I’m excited to have a little bit of stability,” he says, earlier than pausing to contemplate the implications of this very momentous life change. “And simply to have the ability to stick a nail on the wall.”