Tim Gurner says the quiet part out loud

“My numbers aren’t going up fast enough, and it doesn’t matter how many of you it costs.”

Gurner’s ghoulishness was incredible to behold (Source: Twitter)

It must have been a big night at the Financial Review Property Summit, the “preeminent gathering of [...] commercial property’s most influential leaders and insiders”. And there was indeed preeminence on display, the kind that a feudal lord once wielded in times of old, with the entitlement of his birthright looking with scorn on the audacity of the unwashed. And from this grotesque carnival of multi-millionaire property developers, a clip has emerged of Tim Gurner talking frankly about what he sees as the issues affecting productivity in his industry.

Sitting up on the stage with the shining arrogance of a Pharaoh or a Sun King, Gurner spoke about those building his luxury pyramids: the lazy tradies who don’t work hard enough constructing his empire, and how that must change. He had a few ideas. “They (tradies) have been paid a lot to do not too much in the last few years, and we need to see that change”, he mindfully admitted, confidently scoffing that unemployment needs to rise by 40-50% before laying out his thesis: “we need to see pain in the economy, we need to remind the worker that they work for the employer, not the other way round.”

With pain already being felt across the Australian population, and the homeostasis of the Australian dream in febrile delusion, the clip went understandably viral, with millions of views and counting. People around the world heard him say things like “We’ve got to kill that attitude, and that has to come from hurting the economy”. Gurner spoke with the frankness of a corporate sociopath who has the ear of both sides of the major party-political apparatus, talking of meting out suffering like an empowered sadist who has been allowed to live his most authentic public-facing demeanour by a government who has gone out of its way to make his sector feel as righteously comfortable to do so as possible.

If we want to talk about people being “paid a lot to do not too much”, Tim Gurner is a perfect individual to consider. Beginning his empire with capital from his boss and grandfather, he sits on almost a billion dollar fortune, currently promoting his exclusive anti-ageing products with the hubris of the divine-righted kings and barely-clothed emperors before him. The luxury property developer first came to public attention with his ‘let them eat cake’ statement about avocado toast purchases by entitled prospective first home buyers (many of whom don’t have loans from the boss or grandpa like he did) as the principal issue inhibiting them from achieving their dreams of owning a place to live.

The current political environment has meant that people like Tim Gurner can say what they are really feeling. As the Labor government jostled to power in an election, it did so focusing on the powerful business lobby groups, speaking alongside the Business Council of Australia, reassuring the Minerals Council of Australia, soothing the Pharmacy Guild of Australia and enabling the Property Council of Australia (to which Gurner belongs). These are the real voices to parliament. Gurner’s words are spoken from a position of strength enabled by a neoliberal Labor government who sought to break bread with the likes of him, in preference to standing with the workers who gave the government the mandate it harps on when making excuses for its vapid economic policy platform.

The industry lobby groups with whom ghouls like Gurner belong can call press conferences alongside government ministers. They have the ear of both sides of the major party duopoly, and can talk to the media on request to twist stark realities and enforce morbid status quos. As the feudal lords like Gurner look to impose neo-serfdom on the workers, aided and abetted by enablers like Jim Chalmers, what else do workers have? What channels are actually open to workers in the shadow of such villainy?

The government, led by those like Chalmers, talk starry eyed about jobs and productivity every other day. And we now know what they mean, and with whom they rearrange the economic firmament. The inspirational fallacy of end stage neoliberal productivity is imposed on us by a duplicitous government working closely with the private sector. It works in concert with corporate sociopaths like Gurner who use bowdlerised language like “increasing unemployment” as code for kicking workers into submission, amidst the backdrop of a cost of living crunch and a housing catastrophe, making them beg for a fair shake as the musical chairs gets to the pointy end.

The Albanese government took a small win announcing it had recently cut a deal with the crossbench to deliver its debated and dissected Housing Affordability Future Fund (HAFF), but many of the projects will be coordinated with property magnates just like Gurner, who look to profit off the taxpayer purse from build-to-rent projects, with the attitudes of the demigod overlords that preceded revolutions throughout recorded history. With the electorate in a state of flux like a bunch of tentative Pavlovian dogs, our eyes narrow on the government who promised us that things would be different, but what we see instead is the harrowing inverse.

In the ‘break eggs to make omelettes’ era of corporate expressionism, we have seen the face of those who inhabit seats of power speak of our labour as something they were born to own.  We have heard Jayne Hrdlicka express the will to consider us unnecessarily dying for the sake of global aviation’s bottom line, Scott Morrison suggest children drive forklifts for the industrial machine, a duplicitous Jim Chalmers gaslight us about the direction real wages are going when we all see what’s really going on every time we go to the bowser or the supermarket, and now into the fray steps Gurner, emboldened by the golden ticket he’s been handed.

But we should be thankful for people like Gurner for letting us know what they really think, because Chalmers isn’t saying it like this as he cryptically muses about the transformative benefits for the worker via the demands of the Productivity Commission. But who speaks about productivity? The people that stand to gain the most from it. With Gurner’s statements burning in the ears of normal Australians, and memories of Phillip Lowe’s upstretched finger wagging twelve times in their face, Chalmers and his ilk may find there is no friendly reception waiting at the ballot box from the punters who are expected to gnaw on the rangiest scraps of one side of “productivity”, while their corporate mates feast on the best of it.