‘Give this bloke a TV show’: Aussies stunned by wild tradie interview

The “rollercoaster” interview took a surprising twist as the man revealed the eye-watering sum he made in one week and how he got revenge after an accident.

A tradie has charmed Australians after a wild interview where he revealed he had made $26,000 in one week and how he got his “revenge” after a childhood accident.

The Queensland man had been stopped on the street to talk about his job. He revealed he was working as a tree lopper earning $35 an hour.

But the interview took a surprising twist.

“I had a bit of a hate for (trees), so I just used to love cutting them down,” he said on the TikTok video produced by jobseeker app Getahead.

“When I was a kid, I bloody fell out of a tree and broke me back in four places.”

A tradie has charmed Australians with his wild interview. Picture: TikTok

He said the accident – which should have left him paralysed – fractured his back in three places, resulting in the compression of his spine. It also had a “wild” knock on effect of making him shorter.

It left his mate stunned when he “waddled out” of bed in hospital and noticed how he had shrunk.

But the man said it was “ironic” he had then gone on to be come a tree lopper.

He said he had a bit of “hate” for trees, adding it felt like he was getting his “revenge” by bringing them down before his attitude changed.

“After a while, you start to love trees, and you respect them a bit more. Yeah, love them. I just reckon they’re cool,” he added.

Yet, he has encountered a few people upset about him just doing his job, recounting one wild story.

“We had this tree hugger, and … he chained himself to this tree, and old mate ended up just knocking him out and dragging him on the street and I was just like ‘I love this trade’,” he said.

The young tradie went on to reveal the job kept him busy and said his boss was “spinning out” one week when he made $26,000 in cash.

“He’s like: ‘I’ve never made this money in my life’,” he said.

His boss was shocked he made $26,000 in cash in one week. Picture: TikTok

Aussies have described the tradie as a “legend” and “hilarious” on TikTok.

“Give this bloke a TV show,” wrote one.

“He was such a good storyteller I listened twice,” another comment.

“I could listen to this man recite the phone book,” one person said.

“This was a rollercoaster ride,” another noted.

Meanwhile, a viral video of tradies revealing their enormous pay packets, some totalling hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, has sparked debate about whether the eye-watering salaries are justified.

The top earners in the video were a diesel fitter specialising in heavy earth-moving equipment on $130 per hour – the equivalent of at least $250,000 annually based on a 38-hour week – and an auto electrician on $120,000 per year.

Tradies have been forced to defend their pay packets. Picture: iStock

But the big figures mask a stark reality that many outside the skilled trades world fail to appreciate, and those taking home those big bucks insist they earn every penny.

Many tradies start off earning just $400 a week, while others talked about once qualified they are working up to 14 hour days in the physically demanding jobs – something they can’t sustain as they get older.

A pair of veteran carpenters also took to breakfast television earlier this year to defend the sky high salaries tradies can rake in.

They were addressing a TikTok of young workers boasting about their fat pay packets after it went viral earlier this year.

Jake McArthur, chief executive of Carpentry Australia, and Nathan Quinn, the industry body’s head of development, appeared on Sunrise to talk about the stark reality behind those salaries.

“There’s a bit of a hoo-ha about this particular TikTok,” Mr McArthur said. “But we need to understand what’s behind those pay packets. It’s things like risk, [a variety] of different roles, of responsibilities, [and] skills.”

The average gross salary for a tradie last year was $90,940 – a 11 per cent increase in 2019 figures. Picture: iStock

Analysis conducted by insurance brokerage Trade Risk found the average gross salary for a tradie last year was $90,940 – a 11 per cent increase in 2019 figures.

That’s the average taxable income reported in 2023 – roughly on par with data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

“We believe it is the best representation of how much Aussie tradies are really earning, as it utilises the taxable incomes provided to us by thousands of self-employed tradies from around Australia,” Trade Risk said in its report.

Coming in at top spot were boilermakers, with an average income of $112,535, followed by electricians on $96,338 and plumbers on $95,507.

– with Shannon Molloy