Is property investing ‘morally wrong’? Inside Mark Humphries’ biggest project yet

Mark Humphries is passionate about his latest project. Sold! Who Broke the Australian Dream?, a new documentary about the housing crisis, begins with the comedian raging with fellow renters about the state of the market and finishes with a direct plea for Australians to change their “morally wrong” mindset when it comes to housing.

But the real marker of his commitment? He tried to get Mark Latham involved.

Mark Humphries presents new documentary Sold: Who Broke The Australian Dream?Credit: Foxtel/Binge

“You could argue in a way – and I’ll hesitate to say this too loudly – but he’s almost the hero of the piece,” Humphries says of the former Labor leader who has previously called him “as funny as a burning orphanage” and a “shitz-his-pantz coward”.

“For the sake of comedy, sometimes you’ve got to make yourself a bit uncomfortable.”

It wasn’t a joke, though. As Humphries explains, speaking with this masthead before domestic violence allegations (which Latham denies) were made in court against the politician this week, the project “represents him in a positive light as someone who had actually essentially foreseen the damage that Australia’s tax changes would lead to [while opposing changes to capital gains tax in 1999]. We thought that would entice him to participate, but no, it fell on deaf ears.” Latham’s contested AVO case will return to court later in the month.

Latham did not respond to repeated requests for an interview, Humphries says. “It’s his loss … but there was a part of me that sighed in relief.”

The documentary does, however, feature the insight of many other subjects – from real estate agents and academics analysing how and why the market spiralled out of control to real people simply trying to get by. That includes plenty of insecure groups, such as renters, public housing residents and squatters utilising vacant properties, while it also concedes a small slice of airtime to a “heartless boomer investor” – Humphries’ former workmate who owns two properties because it makes financial sense to do so.

“I don’t want to get too much into the baby boomer stuff,” Humphries says when asked about the generational tensions at play. “I know they feel like they’re getting slammed all the time. But if your own children can’t afford to live in the city that you’re in, you lose out too – emotionally, through a loss of family time, or financially, when they essentially come to you as a bank.”

Though Humphries is well-known for his pointed political work, previously creating sketches for SBS The Feed and ABC’s 7.30 (as well as most recently hosting 7News’ axed weekly comedy segment The 6.57pm News), this is a rare longer work that allowed him to explore a topic in greater depth and a promising local commission from Binge.

“It’s liberating to go beyond 2½ minutes,” he says.

The documentary – led by director Bill Code (Al Jazeera, The Guardian) and co-written by him, Craig Reucassel (War on Waste), Humphries and long-time collaborator Evan Williams (7.30, The Feed) – is careful to point the finger at the system that created the crisis, rather than the people who benefit from it. But the stories of those suffering the consequences are what Humphries found most affecting.

“We’re all aware of the difficulties that people are going through,” he said. “But it’s a different thing to actually sit down with them. When doing the proof-of-concept for this documentary, I spoke with a nurse who has to live an hour and a half away from the hospital. They would travel that long after doing a 12-hour shift.

“There’s often this mentality of, ‘You should get a better job and work harder’. But how does that work? What is a nurse – an essential worker – supposed to do differently? … If our nurses and teachers can’t live in the city, where they’re supposed to work, then how does society work?”

Other talking heads include rental advocate-turned-Victorian Socialists Senate candidate Jordan van den Lamb, AKA @PurplePingers; former Labor leader Bill Shorten, briefly reflecting on his attempts to change housing tax policy; and ABC finance journalist Alan Kohler, explaining how those tax systems work while drinking champagne in a bath like Margot Robbie in The Big Short. Notably, he is fully clothed.

“I think if he were naked – and I say this with great love and respect for Alan, I’m sure that under that suit, he’s a fine specimen – it would have distracted from the actual issues,” Humphries says. “He was a very good sport.”

ABC finance journalist Alan Kohler doing his best Margot Robbie impersonation in the bath. Credit: Binge

But, as Kohler notes from his bathtub, when it comes for solutions to these issues: “there’s no one silver bullet”.

“The big mindset shift that we’re pushing for in this documentary is just reiterating that a house is for housing people,” Humphries says. “The idea that a house is an investment that should increase in value is not something we should be aspiring to.

“I understand that sort of selfish urge to want your place to go up in value, but I’m not buying into that system. It’s not good for society.”

It’s something the comedian has actually been thinking about a lot, long since filming.

“The great irony of this is that finally, at 39, I literally have this week moved into my first house,” he says, with a laugh. “The timing is obviously not ideal for publicity. But this is something that I hoped I would have been able to do a decade ago.

Mark Humphries (left) and Evan Williams are two of the four co-writers, having worked together on 7.30 and The Feed.Credit: Louise Kennerley

“Of course, now that I’ve crossed that threshold, I’m now one of those people anxiously observing the interest rates and living under a different kind of tyranny ... I’m still just as outraged as I was a week ago.”

Does he think fellow Australian home-owners will follow his lead, rejecting the pursuit of endless profit and putting pressure on politicians to create change?

“I’m hopeful, but not optimistic. I want to have hope!”

Sold! Who Broke The Australian Dream? streams on Binge from July 21.

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