champagne problem

In the Taylor Swift song Champagne Problems, released at the end of last year, the expression is grounded in the fact that the parents of the boy who is about to propose are already opening the bottle of Dom Pérignon to celebrate, not dreaming for one moment that the girl is about to turn him down.  The phrase gains meaning through the song until it becomes something like the expression first-world problem.  The singer (the girl) is aware that her problem pales into insignificance compared with the problems that others have in the world, problems like homelessness pictured above. She knows that she is living in a world of privilege which cushions her against life’s blows, but feels that, particularly for the boy, this sad event is a real problem nonetheless.

 John Barilaro’s use of the phrase to describe the housing shortages in regional areas is a little bit harder to explain.  He was perhaps trying to say that it meant that there was a resurgence in regional NSW which must be a good thing eventually even if it was a problem now.  This did not offer much comfort to the many people who are suffering the consequences of drought and bushfire and who cannot find a house to live in now that rental prices have shot up beyond their reach in some areas. In some cases this is because of demand from sea-changers and tree-changers moving out of the cities.  Barilaro’s take on this went down almost as well as Keating’s ‘the recession we had to have’.