The revolving door of the Fair Trading office has had another spin with the installation of Virginia Judge as our new minister in charge of dodgy mechanics, dangerous toys, internet scams and, of course, strata.
We should give her the benefit of the doubt, for now, but it’s disturbing that Fair Trading is seen as a training-wheel ministry. Despite the fact that more than a million people in NSW live in some sort of strata development – and there will be an awful lot more as Sydney continues to fill up – strata is not taken seriously in this state.
That’s why, every few years we get another untried minister who has to get her (the previous four have also been female) head around 50 different pieces of legislation in a hurry. If she’s any good, she’ll quickly be moved on to something more “important”. If she’s a dud, we’ll be stuck with her for a while.
Her predecessor Linda Burney, who oversaw some significant changes in strata law in her barely 18 months in the job, has moved to up Community Services, just when we were getting her trained.
What we know about Ms Judge is that she’s a former teacher and has a real estate licence – so she’s smart and she might actually understand what the word “strata” means. On the other hand, she has in the past been one of the Labor Party’s most successful collectors of donations, some of which we can safely assume came from developers.
Right now, her biggest challenge is sorting out Fair Trading’s advice service and the Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal’s complaints procedures so that everyone living in strata has a clear idea of what their rights and responsibilities are.
Advice from the Fair Trading call centres is patchy at best. And you can take a clear-cut case to the CTTT but, depending on the luck of the adjudicator draw, end up facing months of irritation, anguish and costs through endless appeals. Even then, you could still end up having to go to the Supreme Court to get anything resembling a fair result.
So, welcome to strata, Minister. You’ve got a real opportunity to make a significant difference to a lot of people’s lives – even with your training wheels on.