COMMENT: I’m not sure why NSW Fair Trading doesn’t like Flat Chat although I can think of a number of reasons. I’m pretty sure one of them is our tendency to hold FT’s policies up to the light and point out all the holes.

The latest example is the web page about the proposed compulsory strata committee training which is due to start in October. Now, I have to thank one of our regular Flatchatters from bringing this to my attention, as Fair Trading didn’t bother to tell us about the web page (despite encouraging readers to pass it on to their friends in strata).

Ah, there’s the key word: “friends”. Well, friends or not, I think compulsory strata committee training is a good idea but, as you will see from this article, I reckon there are a few gaps in the plans.

It’s all a bit wishy-washy but I’m guessing that’s because FT didn’t want to scare people. The advice on the Fair Trading web page  recommends this and encourages people to do that, and hey, if you are still voting on a committee even though you should have left when you didn’t undertake the training, that’s okay. The decisions will still stand.

It even says specifically that Fair Trading will not take action against committee members who fail to do the online training (which will apparently only take an hour).

In our opinion, there has to be some sort of stick to go with the pureed carrot of these proposals. Nothing too nasty – just a reminder that someone has to take responsibility or face some sort of consequences.

Our suggestion would be to put just a little pressure on strata committee secretaries who are being “encouraged” to check with committee members that they have completed the training.

Strata committee secretaries are the lynchpin in this whole exercise. So if there are people on a committee who should have done the training but haven’t, and the secretary has ignored this, then they should be bumped off the committee too.

The strata training buck has to stop somewhere. It’s a good idea but there has to be an element of genuine compulsion or the whole thing will just fizzle out, like the short-term letting register, tenant representatives on committees and the strata hub.

Ooops, there I go again, pointing out the holes. By the way, another Flatchatter has posted comprehensive notes in a letter from strata commissioner Angus Abadee here. Flatchatters to the rescue, yet again.

This is based on the editorial that went out with last week’s Newsletter.