If you want to tell YOUR truth in the age of social media platforms, you better get ready to lose in the court of public opinion. This is a lesson successful property developer Tim Gurner has been taught after giving what he regarded as over-charging tradies and lazy workers a good old Aussie spray.

The problem with a “spray”, as we Aussies call it, is you could be wrong, or you might select the inappropriate words for an essentially debateable topic. When you give someone a spray, you can be in the right or the wrong and the court of public opinion says Tim’s WRONG!

I know the guy and on one level he’s great at business. A few years back he came on my former Sky Business TV show after he reportedly built more apartments in one year than the legendary Harry Triguboff, who founded Meriton Apartments. For the people of Melbourne, they often see the GURNER name for the right reasons on huge building projects, but they’re now seeing his name for the wrong reasons, as the media gives him a bad boy treatment reserved for the likes of Vladimir Putin or Alan Joyce!

Before trying to assess Tim on the good he’s done, let’s look at the ‘bad’ he has said, which now, sensibly, he’s apologising for. This is what Samantha Maiden from news.com.au has reported about what he said:

• Tradies are paid too much to do too little.
• Unemployment needed to rise so workers experienced the pain.
• The Covid pandemic is to blame for a big part of the worker problem and urged Australians to “kill” the work-less-for-more-pay-ethos.
• “We need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around,” he said.

Following the backlash, Tim, who was initially bagged as a billionaire developer has apologised.

This is what he has said: “I want to be clear: I do appreciate that when someone loses their job it has a profound impact on them, and their families and I sincerely regret that my words did not convey empathy for those in that situation.”

History has shown that Tim has a habit of speaking off-the-cuff in media situations and caused a storm in 2017 when on 60 Minutes he told millennials if they want a house to stop buying smashed avocado on toast. That went internationally viral!

This is what The Guardian reported he said back then: “When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn’t buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each,” he said. “We’re at a point now where the expectations of younger people are very, very high.”

The irony of these comments and the backlash that has followed a lot of Aussies, especially older ones and employing ones, could agree with him on tradies over-charging and young people having a different work ethic and spending habits compared to older Australians when they were young, but as an academic I’ve learnt the hazards of generalisations.

Tim Gurner needs to avoid generalisations and controversial views that might be acceptable in a private debate with colleagues or friends, but you only do it the media if you want to aspire to be a human headline like Derryn Hinch or Piers Morgan in the UK.

Another irony is that the Reserve Bank’s Dr Phil Lowe has been actually trying to do what Tim Gurner said, namely cause pain via interest rates, so we’ll stop spending too much so inflation will fall. Also, Dr Phil knew he was going to create unemployment and the related pain, but he was wise enough not to say that it was a lesson that Aussies had to learn. That said, he knew his big rate rises would deliver pain and changed attitudes to work.

The reason for those 62,100 part-time jobs created last month isn’t just because employers aren’t confident enough to offer full-time jobs, it’s also because borrowers with interest repayment pressure have gone looking for part-time work.

Unless Gurner gets caught out by a recession, which can often KO builders and developers, he should be remembered for being a world-class builder of residential apartment blocks and a courageous/successful businessman. However, he could be more remembered for his forays into the media and his ‘not-thought-through’ views of the world.

I once did a boardroom lunch economics presentation for Tim’s staff when house prices were tumbling ahead of the election when Bill Shorten had spooked the real estate sector with changes to negative gearing. I came with a more positive view on the economy ahead and the outlook for house prices.

Tim thought I was too positive on the economy and quoted investment bank mates who were more negative than me. I was proved right, and I learnt that Tim can build and make money, but he and his mates don’t know much about economics!

And that showed when he said unemployment needs to rise by 40% or 50%, to get workers to understand the value of a job but this would take unemployment to around 5.5%! That would be a serious recession and might even put the skids under his own business.

My advice to Tim is to stick to building and get out of the social commentating and economic policy arenas. His website shows what he’s good at and it’s miles media smarter than his commentary. https://www.gurner.com.au