Frontman Scott Cam reveals what really goes down on site during filming of The Block. Photo / Supplied
Much-loved home renovation show, The Block Australia, returns this week for one of its more momentous projects to date – building five brand-new houses from scratch.
Mitchell Hageman chats with host and true-blue Aussie legend Scotty Cam to answer Herald readers’ burning questions – from how much work we see off-camera, to how he keeps control of the on-site chaos and why a “Block jail” might not be a bad idea.
You say this is the best Block ever every time. Is this new series really the best ever? - Darran
I feel like we had a bit of a misstep last year, and we got back to basics this year with good old-fashioned family viewing – still with some ups and downs and some dramas, but nothing like the previous couple of years. We get back to building and designing, and as I said, family viewing that mum, dad and the three kids can sit down and watch together.
It’s the first time all the footprints are exactly the same, so it really comes down to their design skills, their organisation and their budget.
You used to be a carpenter. How’d you end up on TV? - Bridget
I was a carpenter, yes, until I was 50, actually. I did both. I did television and building until I was 50, and I’m 63 now.
About 26 years ago, I was in a pub having a beer, as I did every afternoon. A TV producer was there with his girlfriend. I knew the girlfriend slightly, but I didn’t know him. He said, “I’m screen testing at the moment for a TV show, and I need a carpenter. Would you like to do a screen test for a TV show”? And I said no, because I didn’t know anything about telly. It was completely foreign to me.
Anyway, he rang me up the next day, and he’d gotten my phone number off my ute. And so I did it – and I got the job on a show called Backyard Blitz as a carpenter. That was coming up 27 years ago.
When was the last time you did some reno work at home? - Jonathan
I do reno work all the time. I have a farm. I’m doing a reno on a building on the farm at the moment, a little house. I’m in the thick of it.
I stripped out the whole house inside, gutted it completely back to bare bones, and I’ll start putting it back together in the next couple of weeks. I’m also fixing the roof on my house ... I’ve got a leak, and I’ve got to try and fix it.
I wear my nail bag all the time, mate. At 63, I’m a bit stiffer and sore, and I don’t last as long, but I’m still going.
The Block contestants all used to get on the tools – but maybe not so often now. Does styling a room really prevent them from getting the tool belts on, or is it a full-time job? - Leigh
They’re actually doing more and more. They do all the labouring, of course, and they do all the painting. But they also get the nail bag on in the early stages, and they’ve got to do the demo[lition]. Then they’re the plasterers, they hang and gyprock.
As the series goes on every year, I always get into them and say they’ve got to learn a new skill every week. Learn a new skill, and then you can start doing a bit of labour yourself to save money.
The first skill that you can learn is hanging gyprock sheets, plaster sheets.
Do you think the amount of building work has changed since The Block started? And has this been due to things like health and safety and things being stricter nowadays? - Jude
Well, certainly the jobs have got much bigger. Like the lounge and dining [rooms] of these houses are about the same size as the series one apartments. So, that’s an indication that the job’s bigger.
There is health and safety – it’s a bit different this year because they are living on site in caravans, and they’re not in the houses.
And we also have a curfew this year for health and safety. Gone are the days of working through the night on Thursday, Friday, Saturday. But the curfew does get later as the week goes on and they do work in the night time right through until midnight, so they’re still exhausted.
Would you ever include a jail on The Block Australia for future seasons when contestants break the rules? You know, four walls, steel bars, a seat in the middle to sit and shame? - Madison
It’s not a bad idea, actually, a little jail. But I do think the kids of today are a little bit lacking in resilience. They’d all be very upset if we stuck them in a box.
What we do if they break the rules, we make them sit out the first four hours or three hours of the day – that happens again this year – and so they just can’t work. Their trades can’t work, and that’s almost like an invisible jail.
How much fixing up of bad paintwork is done after we see the final build episode and before the houses go to auction? - Jude
It’s not too bad, you know. We let them come back a couple of weeks after the show finishes and do some touch-ups and tools.
We do tend to touch up certain things that we think will help them sell their house, but not much because they’ve got to do a good job each Sunday night to win and get the 10,000 bucks. And if you do a very bad paint job, you’re never going to win.
How much of the drama that happens between the contestants is organic, and how much is edited? And are you ever surprised when something pops up on screen? - James
Well, we take great offence at suggestions that we edit or manufacture drama with our contestants. We are not that sort of show. We are not those sorts of people. Our producers, and myself, I wouldn’t allow it anyway.
They’re together for 16 hours, 18 hours a day, besides the time they’re sleeping, for three months, seven days a week, and if that doesn’t create organic drama, nothing will.
They’re tired, they’re stressed, they’re lacking budget, they’re under pressure, we’re judging. So, we don’t edit anything to make them look bad.
In fact, we’re on their team. If someone says, like [they have] in the past, that they got a bad edit, that just does not happen. They said it, they did it, and that’s what went to air. That’s not a bad edit. That’s reality.
You seem to be a very good mediator as well. What are your three best tips for cooling tensions on site? - Brett
I think it’s to be reasonable. Hard but fair is what my dad used to say.
Nothing is a stitch-up on The Block. We don’t set you up to fail ever, we set you up to succeed. We set you up to make money at the end. The only stitch-up is you, yourself – you know, you’ve created this, and you’re blaming us.
So, if something like that happens, then I get quite forceful, and I get quite hard, but fair. And I think they’re the conditions to settle things down. And also being calm.
If you weren’t a host, would you have ever considered being a contestant on The Block? - Courtney
I don’t think so. Look, as a tradesman, I know how hard that is with timelines and things like that.
Every contestant who turns up doesn’t realise how hard it is, so maybe I might have been foolish enough to do it.
But with the experience of being a host for 20-odd seasons, I would say now, no, I would not do it.
Which auction result do you think surprised you the most? - Rach
Back in [season 18] at Gisborne, Victoria, we didn’t know who [multi-millionaire Block regular auction bidder] Adrian Portelli was.
All of a sudden, some contestants made A$1.6 million ($1.84m) profit. That was a big surprise.
A long time ago, we did a place called Dux House. It had an indoor swimming pool downstairs, and the team I thought was going to come last by a long way, if not [fail to] sell their house at all, won it and won $750,000.
It’s about the property market. It’s about the buyer on the day. It’s about the emotional connection. It’s about the auctioneer, the real estate agent, the design and the construction. That’s what I tell contestants at the beginning of every series. You have to have all your planets perfectly aligned to be successful on The Block. If you’ve got one piece missing, you won’t be successful. And we’ve seen that in the past – poor auctioneers, poor designs, bad emotional connections. But if you’ve got everything, you’ve got half a chance. It’s the only episode of the show we’ve got absolutely no control over.
And finally, what’s been your biggest home reno disaster?
I’ve never had a home reno disaster, mate. You’re joking. I’ve had a couple of hiccups, of course, but never a disaster. I’ve certainly had my fair share of dramas on the building side over 40-odd years, but never anything that couldn’t be fixed.
New episodes of The Block Australia air Sunday to Wednesday at 7pm on Three, or on-demand at ThreeNow.
Mitchell Hageman joined the Herald’s entertainment and lifestyle team in 2024. He previously worked as a multimedia journalist for Hawke’s Bay Today.