JERRY TAYLOR | Sydney
Yes, yes, get your popcorn and come down to the seaside to watch my house tumble into the Tasman and cheer. It’s been teetering on the edge for hours and where is the man who said he’d save it?
Kogarah. With his feet next to the heater.
Not everyone who builds their house on sand is a fool. I hate to disappoint Matthew the Apostle. I’ve been a resident of my beachside community for over 30 years. I worked hard and succeeded in business and I enjoy the fruits of it. For that, I won’t apologise. This place was not inherited or even bought. I built this house. What you call an utterly tasteless McMansion, complete with chlorinated pool and media room. There used to be a shack here, one or two rooms. I can’t even remember. But what you call a monument to the hubris of cashed up bogan, I call a home.
I raised a family here. My lesbian sister house sat while we went to Falls Creek. God knows what she got up to while we were away. My children took their first steps, learned to ride a bike, punch their first cone. They did that here, in my so-called ‘glass box’. Now I ask you this. Would we dig deep to save some poor retard’s house in Penrith if it were threatened by floodwater? You bet we would. Chris Minns would be down there mopping his driveway! But for the humble beachside mansion resident? I’m an idiot for building my house next to the sea, when it’s been documented for generations that it gets angry sometimes and takes back what the ATO can’t.
I’m calling on the NSW Government to step in and either build a giant seawall, that’s not ugly, or simply buy me out for above-market value.
It’s the bare minimum that we can expect, as a people, right? Oh, but I hear from the back of the room.
‘That fat cunt in the floral shirt is worth $10m!’ I can hear you say. Correct. But I’ve earnt it. I haven’t just fucked around and waited for a big bit of plaque to dislodge from the side my father’s aorta, making me an instant millionaire.
Old Mr Medley has lived on the beach here for 50 years. Would you call him a ‘cunt’ just because he lives in a $10m house? Guess what? He’s not rich. He had to put his home into a trust managed by his children just so he could get the pension. How unAustralian is that.
This isn’t the Australia that I helped build.
About the author:
Jerry Taylor is a freelance writer who studied journalism at the University of Wollongong and hasn’t really worked since marrying into the Mark Foy fortune. Now largely funded by his wife’s eight-figure inheritance (received at the age of 21), Jerry fills his days by arguing with strangers in the comment sections of news websites and railing against “lefties” from the comfort of his beachside mansion. He remains deeply committed to personal freedom, provided it’s underwritten by generational wealth.
