Holli Brunckhorst’s rent is about to go up again.
The 23-year-old nanny believes her budget can probably absorb another rise. Brunckhorst is quite certain, however, that her studio apartment in Windsor, above a six-lane highway that runs like a spine down the seat of Brisbane, is not worth what she will soon be paying for it.
The roar of the road resounds through her apartment block’s communal balcony, which looks south towards the city’s towers, beyond the service station below and past a tangle of toll roads and busways.
Brunckhorst can’t afford a car and wouldn’t have a place to park one if she could. She walks 45 minutes uphill to one of her clients’ homes twice a week as she can’t get there by public transport.
Her compact studio acts as bedroom, living room, wardrobe and kitchen – she pushes aside the books and makeup on her desk to cook in an air fryer or on an electric hotplate she bought from Kmart.
Yet for Brunckhorst, this space is an oasis.
The Greens’ Stephen Bates won Brisbane in 2022, despite polling almost 11,400 fewer primary votes than the Liberal incumbent, Trevor Evans, and 11 fewer than Labor’s Madonna Jarrett.
Three years later, those same three candidates will once again vie for the votes of people such as Brunckhorst.
Tell us about an average week for you
So it’s kind of all over the place. I’m working part-time as a nanny and I’ve recently started doing extremely part-time work as a speech therapy assistant, because one of the families that I nanny for, the mum runs a speech pathology clinic, which is what I want to do. So I’m really excited about it. I do a lot of babysitting on top of that as well.
What does your housing situation look like?
I’m not thrilled with it, especially since they are upping my rent from the end of the month by $50. It was $260 a week when I moved in four years ago and now it will be $400, which is a lot.
But then I’ve looked around and I think I’d need to find a place with two housemates to save on rent. It’s a lot, working with kids, and at the end of the day I need my own time.
But I love working with children. It’s been life changing. It’s all the relationships with the kids and seeing that you make a difference. That’s really nice – I’ve always wanted a job that was meaningful.
Are you working as much as you want?
I’m pretty happy with it at the moment. It’d be nice to have more money. But I’ve got a full day Sunday and a full day Tuesday off.
I was working full-time as an early childhood educator for two-and-a-half years and studying. It was full on. Especially as I was studying at uni at the same time and I had to study a diploma as well. I have a better work-life balance now.
What are the major stressors you face?
Rent. I had it under control but now they are raising it. I should be OK, but then I haven’t started paying it yet and I can’t really save money long term. The groceries is the other one. And it’s also that recently I’ve become a sole contractor and having to navigate taxes and stuff like that, running my own business, I guess. That’s a lot.
Where do you get your information about current events?
Mainly from social media. I don’t really watch the news, sometimes I read a news article online.
TikTok, that’s probably one of the big ones. Although I am really cautious about TikTok and misinformation. But anything I hear or read that seems important I will check out and verify.
Everything, even the mainstream media, you can’t 100% trust all the time. Everyone’s got an agenda.
Did your information sources change during the pandemic?
No, but I feel like I didn’t really interact much with the news before that. But I do think the pandemic made me be a lot more on social media. I have a huge TikTok problem actually! I’m just always on there, scrolling.
What could the federal government do to make your life easier?
I don’t know how, practically, this would work, but bringing down grocery prices. Capping rent. Public transport, getting cars off the road would be a huge benefit, both for the environment and for the practicality of getting people around.
Are you generally optimistic or pessimistic about the future?
It’s hard to say. I’ve always considered myself a bit of an optimist. But I still feel like things have to improve. I would hope that it would be better [for future generations]. The price gouging, the rent hikes … it can’t go on for ever. I feel like at some point something’s got to give. But I don’t know at what point in time that would be.
Who will you vote for and why?
The Greens. I mean, I’m not really too into politics but, generally, they seem to have policies that align with my beliefs and priorities, especially about housing as that’s the big concern for me. The environmental stuff, too, although I don’t know if that’s enough at this point. I mean, with climate change, I don’t know if there is anything that can be done, or if it’s delaying the inevitable … it’s hard to think about.
