Will Gromadzki is a “water boy” – when he’s not in high-vis working among the trees, the 21-year-old loves to swim, surf and hang out with his dog.
At weekends he might explore the Barossa Valley with his girlfriend, Holly, or go to beaches on the Yorke Peninsula.
That may sound idyllic, but it is hard yakka during the week.
Will grew up on the mid north coast of New South Wales before moving interstate in search of new opportunities – first to Brisbane and thenSouth Australiawith Holly, whom he met in school.
The couple now rent together in Adelaide’s northern suburbs, where he works with arborists in surrounding towns and more remote locations, including Naracoorte, Clare and Ceduna.
He calculates that if either of them had to stop working, they would last roughly a month and be “back to square one”.
“I would consider it living paycheque to paycheque,” he says.
Gromadzki is unimpressed with all sides of politics and sick of the stereotype that Zoomers are lazy. But the cost of living means having children or buying a house are “not on the table” at the moment.
Monday through Friday I wake up at 5.30am. Get my coffee, get ready for the day. I normally prep my meals to last the week. I head to work for a 7am start. We work through the day – it’s pretty hot. Finish at around 4pm and head home. I’m pretty stuffed at the end of it, it’s quite a physically and mentally taxing job.
I’m happy where I work, it gets me by and allows us to have the things we do. I would like a little bit more in terms of hours and pay, but the hourly rate is decent. If I worked additional hours, I’d be getting maybe a few hundred extra dollars per week. But I’d be sacrificing downtime, which is recovery, so I can go back to work the next week.
I like to go to the gym, spend time with the missus and my dog. Go for rides on the bike, explore. I like the Barossa Valley. My car’s not running at the moment, but I normally do drives to the Yorke Peninsula. I’m a bit of a water boy, so I go for surfs and swims.
We’ve been at our current place for just over a year. We used to have a housemate, now it’s just myself and my partner paying the rent. I’d prefer a bigger house, or something more affordable, but beggars can’t be choosers and there’s not a lot of housing going around. We take what we can get.
We have to be careful with spending. I’m not free to buy whatever I want. Sometimes I have to cut down to make the week or month’s budget. We live OK and work well as a team, but there have definitely been several times over the years where we absolutely struggled. Moving houses and getting ourselves started up again once we moved states wasn’t easy.
A goal for myself and my partner is to get in a better position financially. It’s pretty difficult. There’s a lot of people, a lot of demand. I’d like to go out to the mines with qualifications I’ve been working towards this past year, get out there driving or doing whatever I can. It’s a sacrifice to get that extra money, I’ll be away from home more. I think my partner will be going over to the Australian defence force to chase her career and take things to that next level, so we can have a better life, shape our future.
Definitely better.
I am realistic, but we like to think on the bright side, so yeah, optimistic for the future.
I was born in 2003. I think Australia is progressively getting worse in terms of how people cope financially. We’re not slack, we’re not a lazy generation. We cop a little bit of flak from the older generation, but I work my bum off.
My parents had me when they were 30 years old. They also had a house, cars, and were living comfortably. Everybody worked hard, but that same goal for my partner and I is out the window. We don’t do anything different to what was done in the 80s or 90s, but unfortunately cost of living is not in a great place. If I have kids, the way things are going don’t look too promising.
Any time I’m interacting with the media, politics, government, it’s generally over social media. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and word of mouth. If there’s anything important, it’ll stream through our phone. We don’t own a TV, we don’t get newspapers. I’d say as time’s gone on, news has definitely gone digital. I don’t want to get too political, but everything is very biased and a lot of the truth is being hidden, I think.
I think the government’s priorities are all over the place. Improving cost of living – assistance for everyone who is in the working class. Anyone that’s paying their tax, doing good, I think should all have some sort of assistance, whether it be rent, groceries, if people are struggling to pay bills.
I’ve got no idea, sorry. I know it’s compulsory in this country. To be honest, the reason I don’t know which party’s standing up for what, or what their values and ethics are, is because I think it’s all the same. Labor, Liberal, it’s the same people promising the same things, but it never happens. I’m not seeing them out in the streets making change. The people who actually want to do good for this country are silenced, in my opinion.