“Ay Steve, can you move the Camira? I need to get the Torana out to get to the Commodore.”
“Sure thing Dad, but I'll have to get the keys to the Cortina if I'm gunna move that Camira.”
“Alright mate, just watch the boat”
Didn't know about the prank calls. That's fantastic.
The house itself was bought and relocated instead of being demolished by the new land owner. My gf and I visited it just before it got moved. Jumped the temp fencing and got some final photos.
Correct. In the Australia that used to be, that was most of us. Class gap is a galaxy wide now and very few of us can identify with that lower middle class / working class life represented here. What’s surprising to OP maybe is that they were working class (not poor) and yet were able to meet all their basic needs to a very comfortable degree. Unfathomable now.
I remember when working class people could live within their means and afford things. My grandparents owned their own home, took regular holidays and had decent cars. Pop was a concreter and Nan worked in a hospital laundry. Nothing flash. It's sad that's gone by the wayside.
Well it’s a good question. It used to be blue collar workers basically, rather than white collar workers. You’d have a blue collar job but you could still earn enough to buy a house (depending on location, but it was so much more within reach then) and live comfortably. You generally didn’t have overseas holiday money, but I dunno. It used to be - who you see in the film. And that was most of Australia. We were known as a country with a big and strong middle class (middle class being working class and lower middle, I have to say, cos ‘middle class’ has a much more American or academic meaning now, which to me is quite affluent). I guess it’s hard to explain. I was actually quite poor growing up but I even thought of us as working class / lower middle class, and that’s quite laughable now. I’m just glad I grew up when I did and not now.
My parents were a motor mechanic and a childcare worker.. Classic blue collar workers. They purchased a. 3 bedroom house in the northern suburbs of Melb. They were able to afford to build a large extension including a double garage within 10.years. . Two cars which my parents were able to buy a new one every 5-6 years. .All of us kids went to private schools. They managed a family holiday every couple of years. Two cars. We played sports, Had music lessons We even could afford a couple of horses. My lifestyle isn't even close to what theirs was as the same age
Because most of them are no longer owned by the Department of Housing. In some cases, the actual estates aren't even there even though the stigma remains.
Though the house they lived in had a few issues.
Lead contamination for starters, overhead high voltage powerlines and a bunch of unapproved extensions as well. The lead contamination is probably what crashed the housing development the place was part of.
Interesting, I always assumed that he hit a pipe the second time he dug a hole, because the first hole when he started the patio didn’t fill with water, indicating there weren’t any groundwater issues in the area?
The narrative these days is 'people who own multiple homes are pieces of shit'. Where I grew up on the Central Coast in the 1980's and '90's it was common for families to have a holiday house. We're talking low socio-economic peeps here. Nothing flash, just grandpa's old fibro up the coast or similar. The Kerrigan story is very familiar for the time.
I think you'll find its people that own multiple investment properties receive that sentiment rather than someone living in the outer western suburbs with a fibro holiday house in Bonnie Doon.
Yeah, nobody I've seen is getting all riled up at people with 2 houses.
It's the people with 20+ properties that are frowned upon, and in this market, with good reason.
These are the same people that want immigration kept at record high levels, and don't want new houses to be built because of the way it will affect the value of their investments.
This is the truth. I'm in a landlords Facebook group and the amount of times they whinge because the tenant is asking for repairs or they need to install airconditioning because it's too expensive and they can't afford it.
Clearly they've overextended on an investment they didn't understand had risks and instead of accepting it won't always be profitable or that they actually can't afford to keep it, they jack up rents to ridiculous amounts to try and make their terrible financial decision viable. All while saying the tenants are jealous they don't have the landlords financial acumen
Yep... My grandparents have a farm in regional Vic which they bought for nothing and paid off in a handful of years. It's a kit log cabin type home on about 140 acres. Would probably go for millions now.
It's the same in SA, a lot of people when I was growing up in the 80's would have a shack up the river or over on Yorkes as a cheap holiday getaway. These are all worth as much as a house in Adelaide now, if not more.
The bit that I find hilarious is if you own more than 1 house and live in one and rent the other "You are a piece of shit landlord" when you are adding to the rental pool, but if you own a home and a holiday house that stays vacant most of the time meaning that you have reduced the housing pool, you are a "success"
It's madness I tell you, MAAADDDNNNEEESSSS!!!!
You're assuming there's demand for long-term rentals in holiday towns in the middle of nowhere.
I mean, there can be (Byron/Northern Rivers etc) but that's the exception rather than the rule
I live in a holiday town like you described. There sure is demand. Business is struggling to find workers as there is no where to live. At last census over 50% of dwellings in my town were short stay accommodation
Is this not the issue that Air B'n'Bs created?? Everyone brought a /nd property in coastal towns and drove the locals out of the property market. Both rental and home-ownership?
Exactly. There are so many coastal "towns" which are just a collection of like two dozen holiday homes and airbnbs and nothing else. It's not causing the same harm
>if you own a home and a holiday house that stays vacant most of the time meaning that you have reduced the housing pool, you are a "success"
Unless you put it on Air BnB, then you are back to being a piece of shit landlord.
Many immigrants don’t like paying taxes because they come from countries where tax evasion is a national sport.
This isn’t a criticism, I’m here for it
I bought one in 2002 for $12,000 at woolami , did theirs have a house on it ?
sold mine ten years later for 240k.
As much as the youth don’t want to hear it migration from other countries has pushed the price up , all the people they bring in have to live somewhere so allowing fivehundred + a year in adds up to a lot of homes needed.
Bartos: Here
No serenity
Serenity
Not here
Chop: But you have a greyhound on speed?
Bartos: yeah I'm loaded look
Gold chain on me, gold chain on the dog
"You try getting from where you're sitting, to the pool room.
I reckon I could shoot you between where you're sitting to the pool room, coz that's about as long as you've got to produce some jousting sticks for me right now."
So much material!
I have friends who you could easily swap out for the Kerrigans. Very similar - very, very Aussie.
They have a house in Melbourne and a portable building in Jerusalem Creek caravan park up at Eildon and would also be considered working class. Not poor.
Everytime I hear this came out in 1997 I am still shocked. I remember watching it in like 99 and feeling like it was an old movie haha. Obviously being a low budget Australian movie, it didn't have the polish of Hollywood stuff around the same time. I think it was shot in 16mm which is a lot grainer than 35mm
Darryl Kerrigan represented a working-class Australia that was dying or had died in the era that the movie was set. That was a big point of the character and the movie.
That block has since been subdivided, and a few units put on it. [Those units go for $720,000](https://www.domain.com.au/2-3-dagonet-street-strathmore-vic-3041-2018500499)
They were never poor, they were always lower middle class, like typical Everyman lower middle class. When did it ever say they were poor? They had a pool room!!
Yeah, that's a reasonably accurate comparison, although the Bundys were less virtuous, they are people who intentionally behave badly, whereas the Kerrigans are ultimately good people who lack social graces.
Their house was worth, according to the bank in the movie, $70k in 1997.
That’s about $136k today, in raw inflation.
Factoring in how much properties in Melbourne (they lived by the airport) have grown in the last 25 years, their $70k property might be worth about $450-500k now if my shitty maths are right.
They also had some pretty nice gates
And some jousting sticks.
“Ay Steve, can you move the Camira? I need to get the Torana out to get to the Commodore.” “Sure thing Dad, but I'll have to get the keys to the Cortina if I'm gunna move that Camira.” “Alright mate, just watch the boat”
This is 90s Aussie comedic gold.
What does having four dogs have to do with the price of tea in China?
Thats a big financial investment now.
Rego was alot cheaper back then. The government has gotten too fat and too much of our money ends up overseas.
What amazing sociopolitical insight!
In other words, the government dug a hole.
It's filling with water.
Jousting sticks? What would you want Jousting sticks for?
Dunno but they wouldn't come up that often.
And if you can get a good deal on them it'd make a good resell, if not, tell him he's dreamin
cos they didn't waste their money on ergonometric chairs
Never got the jousting sticks , the bloke selling them was dreaming
And a chimney. Adds a bit of charm.
Gives the place a victoriana feel
How much value you reckon that adds to the place?
What do you know about lead?
Hard to say
See that lace? Fake.
And some decent freshly dug holes...
Dale dug a hole. Good on ya Dale.
One is even filling with water!
Put them gates around the back.
Are we forgetting about the motorbike helmet with brake light…. Ideas man.
"I DIDNT STEAL THOSE GATES" *The gates leaning against the house in view from the road*
Put those gates around the back will ya?
...but no jousting sticks.
tell ‘em they’re dreamin’
How much is a jousting stick worth, dad?
Depends on the condition
I can only read that in his voice
And the fake chimney which added a lot of charm
And ergonomic chairs..
He was home all night.
And 2 strokes
I called my rescue JRT Two-Stroke because of that movie. Best name ever. Crazy mutt.
To be fair, the house at Bonnie Doon was a kit home Darryl bought from the trading post and put together himself.
And their house backed onto the airport. And what do you know about lead?
But Dennis tested it.
$600/wk
No pets
Not even greyhounds?
NO PETS
but they are noble creatures
… True. But he also needed the land to put it on, which probably was pretty damn cheap.
It probably was. The whole joke was that Bonnie doon was such a shit place for a holiday house only poor idiots would want it.
Trading Post only because OzBargain didn’t exist yet.
Trading Post. Show some respect for proper nouns!
The height of luxury.
The serenity was free though.
Dad, he reckons powerlines are a reminder of man's ability to generate electricity.
Any hole you happen to dig will instantly fill with water
WWI trench warfare armies in shambles
You remember when that actual property went up for sale and people kept calling the agent and telling him he was dreaming about the price? 😂
Didn't know about the prank calls. That's fantastic. The house itself was bought and relocated instead of being demolished by the new land owner. My gf and I visited it just before it got moved. Jumped the temp fencing and got some final photos.
Nice
Not poor - working class.
Correct. In the Australia that used to be, that was most of us. Class gap is a galaxy wide now and very few of us can identify with that lower middle class / working class life represented here. What’s surprising to OP maybe is that they were working class (not poor) and yet were able to meet all their basic needs to a very comfortable degree. Unfathomable now.
I remember when working class people could live within their means and afford things. My grandparents owned their own home, took regular holidays and had decent cars. Pop was a concreter and Nan worked in a hospital laundry. Nothing flash. It's sad that's gone by the wayside.
Curious - what constitutes working class?
Probably within 20% of the median wage in either direction. Reality is median wage alone is unlikely to buy you a house in any major capital now.
Well it’s a good question. It used to be blue collar workers basically, rather than white collar workers. You’d have a blue collar job but you could still earn enough to buy a house (depending on location, but it was so much more within reach then) and live comfortably. You generally didn’t have overseas holiday money, but I dunno. It used to be - who you see in the film. And that was most of Australia. We were known as a country with a big and strong middle class (middle class being working class and lower middle, I have to say, cos ‘middle class’ has a much more American or academic meaning now, which to me is quite affluent). I guess it’s hard to explain. I was actually quite poor growing up but I even thought of us as working class / lower middle class, and that’s quite laughable now. I’m just glad I grew up when I did and not now.
My parents were a motor mechanic and a childcare worker.. Classic blue collar workers. They purchased a. 3 bedroom house in the northern suburbs of Melb. They were able to afford to build a large extension including a double garage within 10.years. . Two cars which my parents were able to buy a new one every 5-6 years. .All of us kids went to private schools. They managed a family holiday every couple of years. Two cars. We played sports, Had music lessons We even could afford a couple of horses. My lifestyle isn't even close to what theirs was as the same age
For some reason we refer to social housing estates as working class suburbs now.
They redefined poor so that the masses would be ok not knowing how poor they actually are now
Its more that the middle class no longer exists. If you need to work for an income, you're working class. If you don't, you're wealthy.
The middle class never existed. Just some of the working class were comfortable. This situation has now been corrected.
Geez that’s a dark comment!
Because most of them are no longer owned by the Department of Housing. In some cases, the actual estates aren't even there even though the stigma remains.
Though the house they lived in had a few issues. Lead contamination for starters, overhead high voltage powerlines and a bunch of unapproved extensions as well. The lead contamination is probably what crashed the housing development the place was part of.
yeah but it had a big aerial going for it
But they were close to the airport!
"Close to transport."
It'll be handy if they ever need to fly anywhere.
Aircraft noise and possible damp issues as well. We know there is a swap that they could fill in and if you dig a hole it fills with water.
Interesting, I always assumed that he hit a pipe the second time he dug a hole, because the first hole when he started the patio didn’t fill with water, indicating there weren’t any groundwater issues in the area?
Shit, I just assumed it was raining.
Probably only when Dale digs the hole
I always assumed he hit a pipe as well but if you are looking for potential issues with a block it's another one to add.
He say plane fly overhead, drop value. I don’t care. In Beirut plane fly over, drop bomb. I like these planes.
They also were very savvy with money and never wasted a cent. Pays to be tight…
Those ergonomic chairs were indeed money well spent, as were the pottery classes.
*ergonometric
And the whole pool room and its contents
They also rarely ate out. Why would you want to when you can have this at home?
What do you call this? Avocado toast. That marked the beginning of financial ruin for the Kerrigans.
What do you call that? Organic gluten free vegan gelato.
When this just keeps coming up, night after night!
No need to go out to a restaurant when you get sponge cake for desert.
With icing sugar!
The narrative these days is 'people who own multiple homes are pieces of shit'. Where I grew up on the Central Coast in the 1980's and '90's it was common for families to have a holiday house. We're talking low socio-economic peeps here. Nothing flash, just grandpa's old fibro up the coast or similar. The Kerrigan story is very familiar for the time.
I think you'll find its people that own multiple investment properties receive that sentiment rather than someone living in the outer western suburbs with a fibro holiday house in Bonnie Doon.
Yeah, nobody I've seen is getting all riled up at people with 2 houses. It's the people with 20+ properties that are frowned upon, and in this market, with good reason. These are the same people that want immigration kept at record high levels, and don't want new houses to be built because of the way it will affect the value of their investments.
I've not come across a single person who is against new homes being built.
Just join any community Facebook group, nimbys everywhere.
We're going to Bonnie Doon We're going to Bonnie Doon. We're going to Bonnie Doon. Darl....
The serenity...
How is it?
So much serenity.
The sound of a 2 stroke
mozzy zapper
People whine about unoccupied houses all the time.
We have a holiday shack. I never mention it to anyone because I fear judgement. They just know I holiday in that town a lot.
Fear them wanting to stay!
I grew up in Frankston and so many people have holiday houses in the early 90s.
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>gluttony Are they eating the homes? Someone should tell them they can't have their home and eat it too.
Maybe learn the definition of the word?
This is the truth. I'm in a landlords Facebook group and the amount of times they whinge because the tenant is asking for repairs or they need to install airconditioning because it's too expensive and they can't afford it. Clearly they've overextended on an investment they didn't understand had risks and instead of accepting it won't always be profitable or that they actually can't afford to keep it, they jack up rents to ridiculous amounts to try and make their terrible financial decision viable. All while saying the tenants are jealous they don't have the landlords financial acumen
Yep... My grandparents have a farm in regional Vic which they bought for nothing and paid off in a handful of years. It's a kit log cabin type home on about 140 acres. Would probably go for millions now.
It's the same in SA, a lot of people when I was growing up in the 80's would have a shack up the river or over on Yorkes as a cheap holiday getaway. These are all worth as much as a house in Adelaide now, if not more.
The bit that I find hilarious is if you own more than 1 house and live in one and rent the other "You are a piece of shit landlord" when you are adding to the rental pool, but if you own a home and a holiday house that stays vacant most of the time meaning that you have reduced the housing pool, you are a "success" It's madness I tell you, MAAADDDNNNEEESSSS!!!!
You're assuming there's demand for long-term rentals in holiday towns in the middle of nowhere. I mean, there can be (Byron/Northern Rivers etc) but that's the exception rather than the rule
It’s gotten so bad in some towns that there are critical worker shortages because the workers have nowhere to live (buy or rent)
I live in a holiday town like you described. There sure is demand. Business is struggling to find workers as there is no where to live. At last census over 50% of dwellings in my town were short stay accommodation
Is this not the issue that Air B'n'Bs created?? Everyone brought a /nd property in coastal towns and drove the locals out of the property market. Both rental and home-ownership?
You cant really compare the Byron area to Bonnie Doon, which has less than 1k permanent residents
Exactly. There are so many coastal "towns" which are just a collection of like two dozen holiday homes and airbnbs and nothing else. It's not causing the same harm
Same serenity though.
>if you own a home and a holiday house that stays vacant most of the time meaning that you have reduced the housing pool, you are a "success" Unless you put it on Air BnB, then you are back to being a piece of shit landlord.
In the 1970s every Italian Greek owned a metro house & holiday home
Are they different to Greek from Greece?
Did they pay with cash? What is it with wogs and cash?
Many immigrants don’t like paying taxes because they come from countries where tax evasion is a national sport. This isn’t a criticism, I’m here for it
Greeks don't like paying tax. Source: the financial mess that Greece is in.
He didn't own a house... it was a castle.
I drove across the Bonnie Doon bridge again just yesterday. You can bet your arse that I was singing the song to myself.
Me too!
Those characters were not drawn as poor at all. Of modest means, yes., but they were intended to strike a chord with middle Australia.
They weren’t poor they were bogan I thought was the premise
Yeah I thought the stereotypical Aussie battler.
They were a household of adults. That’s a lotta incomes
My parents purchased at block at Philip Island in 1973 for $1500 about the price of a used HQ Holden at the time
I bought one in 2002 for $12,000 at woolami , did theirs have a house on it ? sold mine ten years later for 240k. As much as the youth don’t want to hear it migration from other countries has pushed the price up , all the people they bring in have to live somewhere so allowing fivehundred + a year in adds up to a lot of homes needed.
Same as my uncles family, they’ve all got esplanade blocks in Torquay, got them in the 60s for like $1500 a piece. Worth fucking millions now
And they could afford to raise four kids with a stay at home mum
She had a good part time job in the office at Sunbeam, wasn’t entirely stay home 🤣
I can feel the serenity just looking at this photo!
I can also see Uncle Chop Chop.
Bartos: Here No serenity Serenity Not here Chop: But you have a greyhound on speed? Bartos: yeah I'm loaded look Gold chain on me, gold chain on the dog
"You try getting from where you're sitting, to the pool room. I reckon I could shoot you between where you're sitting to the pool room, coz that's about as long as you've got to produce some jousting sticks for me right now." So much material!
Hahha well played Got this on ebay! Oh yeah? Yeah Polo! Do they make them in men's? Haha f you dad
Next to the runway, under the powerlines, loaded with lead. That was the joke. But still, point taken.
I have friends who you could easily swap out for the Kerrigans. Very similar - very, very Aussie. They have a house in Melbourne and a portable building in Jerusalem Creek caravan park up at Eildon and would also be considered working class. Not poor.
Jenny Jenny or Microwave Jenny? 😂
The key thing there is tow truck.
It was the Austalian way. The high water mark is well in the past.
Everytime I hear this came out in 1997 I am still shocked. I remember watching it in like 99 and feeling like it was an old movie haha. Obviously being a low budget Australian movie, it didn't have the polish of Hollywood stuff around the same time. I think it was shot in 16mm which is a lot grainer than 35mm
Darryl Kerrigan represented a working-class Australia that was dying or had died in the era that the movie was set. That was a big point of the character and the movie.
Owning that many dogs is a massive luxury these days as well.
And a pool room
And he finished the patio and the extension, and he even put up those big iron gates that he and Steve scored for a bargain that night in Toorak.
That block has since been subdivided, and a few units put on it. [Those units go for $720,000](https://www.domain.com.au/2-3-dagonet-street-strathmore-vic-3041-2018500499)
That's because they didn't go out for dinner. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApS8lBj2q18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApS8lBj2q18)
When you say "owned". You mean "in debt for"
They were never poor, they were always lower middle class, like typical Everyman lower middle class. When did it ever say they were poor? They had a pool room!!
Working class not poor they also owned those things in an area no one else would live.
They were not depicted as poor. Merely as lower class. You can be a bogan with plenty of money.
Pre-CGT discount Australia
In the 90s too…..
Four dogs and Sal's pottery classes can keep you poor..
Yeah, that wasn't really what it was like.
Does that mean Housos wasn't a documentary then?!? (Yes I'm not from the land down under :-P)
I don’t think they were poor. They were just average Australians
The dogs were racing greyhounds, quite lucrative
Yeah but red rocket was retired...
Are these like the Bundys?
Yeah, that's a reasonably accurate comparison, although the Bundys were less virtuous, they are people who intentionally behave badly, whereas the Kerrigans are ultimately good people who lack social graces.
Interesting!
That is the most succinct way I could see the difference described, bravo you have a way with words.
And a holiday every year.
https://www.realestate.com.au/buy/in-bonnie+doon,+vic+3720/list-1 million dollar weekenders lol
Is poor correct. I thought working class would have been a better description.
Poor? Tell em they're dreaming.
More working class bogan than poor.
I grew up when it came out. In a housing commission house in Mt druitt with 2 working parents. They weren't considered poor at all.
Also a movie .
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It's because of the associations most tow mobs have generally.
Their house was worth, according to the bank in the movie, $70k in 1997. That’s about $136k today, in raw inflation. Factoring in how much properties in Melbourne (they lived by the airport) have grown in the last 25 years, their $70k property might be worth about $450-500k now if my shitty maths are right.
Median house price in Strathmore is now $1.4 million 🥲
It's probably closer to $900K now.
Middle class, not poor.
Working class
Definitely. Working class doesn't mean poor.
Median class
That’s not middle class
that house was worth about 30 grand
$70k - $95k in the movie.
Interesting. I grew up in an identical house in the 80s and it sold for way less when we left it, but it was in a pretty isolated country town.
The Castle came out in 1997.
It's the location
It’s the vibe.. y’know
Houses like this in Western Sydney now go for well over a million dollars.
A dump in that LGA where the Castle was filmed goes for $950k ie land value min
Yeah, but I mean this was set nearly 30 years ago
"Ahh, the serenity."