Podcast: Sins of the commission see Minns quit

This week we say farewell to former Strata (and Property Services) Commissioner John Minns who has decided to quit, despite a months-long inquiry into allegations of conflict of interest finding nothing untoward.

Jimmy had a long chat with him (off air) which he relates in the podcast, covering his frustrations during his tenure and his fears for the future – not least who will take over his role.

The we turn our sights on NCAT – the NSW Tribunal which seems to be doing more to undermine efforts to build confidence in strata than all the dodgy developers and suspect strata managers combined.

Can we trust a body that has untrained Members making decisions about our lives when many of them clearly don’t know or care about strata?

Separate, to the point of almost being in opposition to Fair Trading, the whole Tribunal system is clogged with regurgitated cases that could and should have been dealt with quickly, efficiently and at the first time of asking.

Justice delayed is justice denied – and that applies in strata too. We cite a case where a major strata management company has ignored Tribunal rulings and continues to breach laws, but NCAT has said, “case closed” and if you want more, you have to start the process again.

The Attorney-General’s office, under whose aegis the Tribunal falls, needs to take a long hard look at itself, say Jimmy and Sue.

And finally (at last!) it’s time to inject some pre-festive cheer with a story of owners who would rather share their new apartment block with low-income tenants, than live in an ivory tower.

Transcript in Full

Jimmy

So the John Minns saga has come to an end.

Sue

Oh, he’s the New South Wales Strata Commissioner, isn’t he?

Jimmy

He is, yes, or maybe he isn’t anymore. We’ll be talking about that. We’ll be talking about how the tribunal.

Sue

NCAT.

Jimmy

NCAT is basically undermining everybody’s efforts to make Strata a more attractive proposition.

Sue

That’s interesting. We’ll also be looking at one of the first buildings, if not the first, to include purpose-built mixed tenure building with both private residents and social and affordable housing residents in the same block.

Jimmy

I’m Jimmy Thomson. I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review, and I edit the flatchat.com.au website.

Sue

And I’m Sue Williams. I write about property for the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, the AFR and Domain.

Jimmy

And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.

So I had a chat with John Minns.

Sue

Okay, recap.

Jimmy

John Minns is the Strata Commissioner and was interviewed as part of the ABC’s investigation into allegations of mismanagement and corruption and conflicts of interest all around the Net Strata business, but broader than that. He was interviewed by Linton Besser on the ABC Four Corners and was kind of, I guess you could say he was ambushed because he was asked about allegations that he had promised when he became Strata Commissioner and before that, when he became Property Services Commissioner, that he was going to offload his interests in a real estate company. And it turned out that while he got rid of most of his shares, he hadn’t got rid of all of them.

Sue

Well, some of them were just in a trust fund or something, weren’t they? So it’s kind of arm’s length in lots of ways.

Jimmy

But the qualifying argument in this is the company was based in the ACT, not in New South Wales, but it had a couple of offices in New South Wales. Because if you’re living and working in Canberra, you’re just a mile away from the border. So there was obviously an overlap.

It was an embarrassment rather than a scandal. But he immediately stepped aside while Fair Trading investigated his situation and what he’d committed to and what he’d actually done.

Sue

And that investigation is complete now?

Jimmy

It is complete and no adverse findings have been recorded.

Sue

Okay, so he’s been exonerated.

Jimmy

So he has, but his contract was due to run out early next year anyway. So he’s decided just to pull the plug now.

Sue

Right, so we’re without completely a Strata Commissioner.

Jimmy

We have no Strata Commissioner.

Sue

Right, at a time when the number of apartments is multiplying exponentially, hopefully, to try and help solve the housing crisis.

Jimmy

And when there’s a whole raft of new laws coming in that we discussed last week.

Sue

Yeah, so it’s a really critical juncture really.

Jimmy

Yeah, and I think his view is that whoever is appointed Strata Commissioner needs to have the chance to take a run up at these new changes rather than just walk in the door and say, oh, by the way, here’s a pile of complaints.

Sue

So some lucky person or unlucky person might be spending their Christmas studying all the new laws coming in.

Jimmy

You would hope so.

Sue

Or maybe they’re already an expert on them. Who will be the next Strata Commissioner?

Jimmy

I don’t know. There’s no David Chandler on the horizon going to come charging in and start kicking arse and taking names.

Sue

Absolutely. What’s David doing now? Maybe he could do this.

Jimmy

Semi-retired. I think David feels that he’s done his bit. Pass me that other poison chalice, please.

Sue

So did John Mims have any reflections on his time?

Jimmy

Yeah, he paid a tribute to his team and the people he worked with and some of the ministers that he’d worked with. Because let’s not forget that his tenure straddled two different governments. He was appointed under the Liberal coalition government.

Sue

Of course, yes.

Jimmy

It was, I mean, we have to say that Eleni Petinos immediately tried to get rid of him, which looking like it was going to happen until the then Premier got rid of her. But, you know, he survived. And, you know, look, those changes to the laws, the Strata laws, they’ve got his fingerprints all over them.

Sue

So he’s probably leaving a really good legacy.

Jimmy

Absolutely. And he’s probably, and I think he is quite disappointed that he’s not going to be given the chance to see them through. And I think the question of him pulling the plug, an aspect of that was possibly that he knew his contract would not be renewed.

Sue

Really?

Jimmy

For political reasons.

Sue

Oh, OK. And what did he think of the situation? Did he think he was given enough support?

Jimmy

No, he was quite adamant about that. I mean, the funding and the resourcing of the Strata Commission compared to the Building Commission, the Building Commissioner had about 350 people on his staff.

Sue

Which is good. We’re not denying that at all. But did the Strata Commissioner just have a few less?

Jimmy

They had a hundred times less. They had about four or five people on their staff. Oh, my God.

And when you consider the complexity of what they’re doing, but I think the thing about the Strata is it’s not bricks and mortar. It’s not buildings falling down. It might be that internally in those buildings, there’s a lot of dysfunction and despair and people not getting on as well as they could.

And the buildings themselves starting to deteriorate.

Sue

With nobody doing enough about them.

Jimmy

Yeah. And which is one of the new laws that is being brought in that owners corporations cannot neglect their duties to maintain and repair their building. And any owner in a building can say, we need these repairs done.

And the owners corporation want to save money so that they don’t want to spend money. Or the individuals don’t want to spend money. And so they’re not doing them.

Well, that’s going to be much more difficult in the future. And it’s that kind of thing. But it’s not something that people can go, oh, look at that.

Look at all the people being marched out of Opal Towers. Look at all the people. Look at the cracks in the building at Mascot Towers.

It’s not that obvious. It doesn’t make for great television.

Sue

And it’s much more complex, isn’t it really?

Jimmy

Yeah. There’s so many grey areas and subtleties.

Sue

I mean, I know as a journalist, you know, the best stories really are ones where you’ve got one person or two people, three people standing in front of the camera.

Jimmy

Yeah.

Sue

And the situation is quite easy to encapsulate in a sentence.

Jimmy

Yeah.

Sue

And the reader can read that story and feel sorry for them or happy for them or sad for them or angry. But when they’re really complex strata problems, that can be just a minefield, really.

Jimmy

And journalists aren’t that well educated. I mean, there’s somebody who writes for the Sydney Morning Herald. I won’t name names.

I complained that they had said Strata Community Australia acts on behalf of owners, apartment owners.

Sue

Which is patently untrue, really.

Jimmy

And even more untrue in what’s happened in the past six months. And they said, well, it just depends on your perspective. And my response was, well, if your perspective is SCA, then yeah, you do believe that.

But it’s just not true. And that’s a kind of lazy journalism that allows the facts not to be reported properly. You remember the couple who got into serious debt because of their levies, because the building had put in new windows.

Sue

Oh, yes.

Jimmy

And because theirs was the biggest flat in the building, i.e. the most expensive flat in the building, they had the biggest levies claim. And this idiot lawyer told them, no, just don’t pay it. They can’t make you pay it.

Which is just not true. And then the journalist comes along and he says, oh, the owner’s corporation or the body corporate, as they miscall it, is hounding these poor old people. And it’s terrible and they’re going to lose their homes.

And then you look at it and you go, they just need to get a payment plan. And somebody needs to tell them, you cannot avoid paying this. And somebody needed to tell them right at the beginning, when you buy an apartment, it doesn’t mean that you never pay for repairs again.

Eventually the apartment building will get old and will need fixing. But it was all about, oh, the body corporate and the committee, they’re awful, blah, blah, blah. And you think you really want to get people and shake them and say, just look at the facts.

But it’s what you were saying. And you get two people in front of the camera looking miserable and hounded. That’s a better story than, oh, here is a discussion that happened at the strata committee, which got a little bit heated.

Sue

And also, I mean, somebody who’s having a lot of problems with their strata often doesn’t want to talk about their strata outside to the press because they feel they’re going to then be victimised or it’s going to make the situation much worse. And to be honest, it might. It might lead to a solution, but it might not.

And some of these are such delicate negotiations that they’re doing with their stratas. You know, it’s quite hard for them to kind of come up and say, I mean, I get lots and lots of emails from people saying I’ve got this incredible problem with my strata. And I’ll say to them, well, are you happy to talk on record about it?

Because I’m a journalist and it’s about writing stories that hopefully might improve the situation. And most of them say, oh, no, no, no. I don’t want anything in the press.

But, you know, it’s not my role to try and organise to solve the problems.

Jimmy

I mean, that’s your role. That’s my role. But this has been one of the successes of FlatChat has been that we have always said to people, you’re anonymous.

Tell us your problems. Don’t name your building. Don’t name the strata manager or the building manager or the neighbour or whoever you’re having problems with.

Just tell us what your problems are. Yeah.

Sue

And maybe, Jimmy, that’s why you’ve caused all the problems for me, you know?

Jimmy

Yeah, I know.

Sue

People come to me, that’s right, and say, right, I’ve got this problem. I want you to write a story about it in the Sydney Morning Herald or the Age or the AFR. But I want to remain anonymous and I want my building to remain anonymous.

Jimmy

Yeah.

Sue

So it’s you. You’re the one who is causing all these issues.

Jimmy

But my view is if FlatChat hadn’t been exposing these problems.

Sue

Oh, gosh, absolutely.

Jimmy

I mean, I don’t want to big myself up too much, but look at the other states that don’t have that kind of coverage.

Sue

Oh, yes.

Jimmy

I mean, we’ve changed the laws. We’ve directly changed the laws. I remember the case of the people who were being told that they had to hand their proxies over to the developer.

Sue

Yes, yes.

Jimmy

That was the Rose Corp down at Breakfast Point. You bought an apartment there, you had to sign an agreement. You’d hand over the proxies.

And then later on, they absolutely rode roughshod over one of the buildings to try and get a commercial marina in there. That law was changed by Frank Sartor. Remember him?

Sue

Yes, absolutely. And also we had the big change in the law about the…

Jimmy

Sunset Clawbacks, we call it.

Sue

Yes. Where a building took much longer to complete than it was supposed to.

Jimmy

Yeah.

Sue

And then the developers would take the apartments back off the people who’d paid their 10% deposit and would just refund them the 10%.

Jimmy

Yep.

Sue

And suddenly these people have got an amount of money which isn’t worth as much as it was a few years before.

Jimmy

Because this happens in a hot market.

Sue

Yeah, that’s right. And the apartments are being put back onto the market for a lot more money.

Jimmy

Yeah.

Sue

And we managed to get that scrapped as well.

Jimmy

Yep, we did. So we’ve got things changed.

Sue

Absolutely.

Jimmy

That’s good. But anyway, enough of this trumpet blowing. One of the things that John said was that he didn’t blame Lynton Bessett for that report he did.

He said he was just doing his job. But he was disappointed in two respects. One, that there was a lot of other stuff in the interview that was important but just never went to air.

And that’s just a fact of life of television and any reporting. And that there was a lot of evidence gathered by the ABC report, the Four Corners report, which was never submitted to the commission for action, or at least to build the evidence that action was needed. But he was having a laugh.

We were saying that, well, now that Lynton Bessett is going to be on Media Watch, he’ll be hounding other journalists rather than civil servants and strata managers.

Sue

Well, the more hounding, the better, really, in lots of ways.

Jimmy

One of the things that we did agree on in our chat was that NCAT, the tribunal, is not doing enough to support the move to make people more confident about living in strata. And you’ve got a story that we will talk about after this break. But before we go, just to say, I think John Minns was a decent bloke.

Sue

Well, he still is.

Jimmy

And it’s a shame that he’s no longer Strata Commissioner because he was just getting his…

Sue

Teeth into the whole situation. Thanks for your contribution, John. It’s much appreciated.

Jimmy

Right. After this, we’ll talk about something that isn’t appreciated and that’s the NCAT tribunal. So we’re going to have a go at NCAT.

Let’s not mess around. NCAT is the New South Wales Civil Administrative Tribunal and it has a lot of different arms that deal with things like probate and things like that. It is part of the Attorney General’s office.

It’s got nothing to do with fair trading and it is a chocolate wheel of bad decisions. So you could go in there and get somebody who is well-versed and educated and aware and smart about strata as the member who’s hearing a case, in which case you’ll probably get a decent result. Or you could go in there and get some old duffer who’s there on a grace and favour appointment, a retired solicitor or somebody like that who has never lived in strata, thinks that people who live in strata deserve everything they get.

And the lack of logic and the lack of consideration for the people involved is just quite astonishing.

Sue

So Jimmy, are you saying that in NCAT there aren’t strata lawyers, like specialised strata lawyers, who deal with the strata matters?

Jimmy

Not as far as I know.

Sue

Okay, so it’s just general kind of lawyers.

Jimmy

Years and years ago, when NCAT was still called the C-T-T-T, I asked the head of the C-T-T-T how many of their members had lived in strata and they refused to tell me on the grounds of privacy, which is the usual bullshit excuse people give for not giving you information.

Sue

Did they tell you how many, probably zero then, were actually expert strata lawyers? Because I mean, it’s a very specialised area.

Jimmy

Absolutely. I mean, I think strata lawyers are too busy making money being strata lawyers to become members. It’s a generational thing.

We haven’t got to the point where enough of them have retired and have taken their little sinecure on the tribunal. So the answer should be that these members, they should have a special division for strata. It’s part of the commercial real estate division.

They should have a special division of the tribunal for strata where the members get themselves educated about what strata means and what goes on in strata and then they can start making informed decisions.

Sue

And then they can see when other people come to them with their problems, they can actually start thinking, well, this company has caused a huge number of problems in the past and is causing problems for this building and this building, this building. And they could actually track trends and see where the issues are rather than coming at each one afresh and thinking, well, this company isn’t behaving very well. So we’ll kind of smack them on the wrist rather than, oh, this company, we’ve got 10 complaints against them.

So therefore we’re going to get them out of the industry or something like that.

Jimmy

When you think about, there was a case that got a lot of coverage about a real estate agent and strata manager who he was operating only for one group of owners who were in the part of the same culture group as he was. And eventually the other owners got him removed by having a statutory appointment of a strata manager made. And at the same time, the tribunal made him the statutory appointment for another building.

He’d been sacked by three buildings.

Sue

Yeah, that’s right.

Jimmy

And eventually they struck him off.

Sue

Yes, but he appealed against that.

Jimmy

So he’s still operating.

Sue

That’s right.

Jimmy

So John Minns…

Sue

There is no date for the appeal.

Jimmy

John Minns is down the road. He’s gone. And this guy who has been found to be acting corruptly, wrongly, illegally is still operating because the tribunal is so bunged up with needless, pointless cases that they can’t step in and go, well, they don’t care.

I mean, they really don’t care.

Sue

They can’t even give us a date for the assault.

Jimmy

And then there’s another one who came up in the same Four Corners report of a strata manager who was… If you remember, there was a video clip of him using security people to prevent people coming in and voting against them being reelected as chair of his building. He’s still out there.

He’s still operating. And again, John Minns is gone, but you’ve got this person who quite clearly is not fulfilling their duties, who’s still allowed to operate. And why?

Because the tribunal is useless. And one of the reasons the tribunal is useless is because it comes under the attorney general’s office and they are untouchable. I’m sure the fair trading minister says to the attorney general occasionally, can you do more about helping us in strata and gets the response, well, why would we?

We’ve got enough to do.

Sue

Yeah. And I mean, I’ve been hearing from somebody who’s in a building with enormous problems with a certain strata management company. And the NCAT, they’ve had hearings at NCAT and NCAT has ruled that that strata management company has contravened previous orders, but they’re still there as the compulsory managing agents.

And now they’ve said the case is closed and these people are saying, but they’ve contravened the orders. So we need to, you know, you need to take action against them. And NCAT said, well, you’ve got to fill out all the forms again and maybe we’ll give you a fresh date after you’ve paid the application fees again.

Yet this case is ongoing. Yet they seem to have to do it all over again. And it’s cost them so much money.

Jimmy

Well, hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Sue

That’s right. And they’re still in the same position that they were in before.

Jimmy

Yeah.

Sue

I mean, how is that justice? And how does that give anybody confidence about NCAT being the last resort? You know, when everything else fails, you go to NCAT and finally you should get result.

Jimmy

Yeah.

Sue

But obviously not.

Jimmy

Well, I mean, maybe they’re subtly trying to create a situation where people just stop taking the cases to them because they know they’re not going to get a result. It is absolutely pathetic. And if anybody from the Justice Department is listening to this, have a good look at yourselves.

If your system isn’t working, what are you doing to make it work? And trust me, your system isn’t working.

Sue

Yep, absolutely.

Jimmy

When we come back, we’re going to talk about some good news about people just getting on together. That’s after this. So Sue, you’ve got a report coming from the South Coast about a new development that’s just opened.

Sue

That’s right. It just opened this week and I’ve written a story about it because it’s a really interesting one. It’s an apartment building and they reckon they’re the first building in Australia to combine private and social and affordable housing with absolutely no segregation of areas, of lifts, of entrances, of lobbies and shared resident facilities.

Because there’ve been other buildings in the past that have included both private and social and affordable housing tenants, but they’ve had sort of separate areas.

Jimmy

Right, what separate entrances?

Sue

Yeah, often like Build to Rent, Sydney Olympic Park, I think that’s got separate facilities. But this one is all different people, all in the same building and the developer is Traders in Purple. I think that’s a great name, don’t you?

And they kind of try, this is kind of a new model for them and for Australia generally. We can’t say it’s absolutely the first because people will come back and say, oh no, there is one somewhere else.

Jimmy

There’s one in Venezuela.

Sue

Yeah, that’s right. But we think it’s certainly among the first and they really wanted to do this and it’s proved really successful. They were really nervous that private people who were buying the 38 apartments that were gonna be on the market would say, no, we’re not gonna buy because we don’t wanna be cheek by jowl with social housing and affordable housing tenants, people who were leasing their units.

But in fact, they’ve been really quite thrilled by being able to be in the same building with such a diverse community. So it’s not all just rich people living together. It’s rich people, well, you know, kind of comfortable, people who are comfortable.

Jimmy

Not poor people.

Sue

Yes, buying apartments and living and being neighbours with people who may be struggling a bit.

Jimmy

Right.

Sue

So it seems a fantastic success story and I was really happy to do this story. It was interesting because I had one woman who was a private buyer who’s bought her apartment, just moved in called Sandra and another woman also called Sandra who was an affordable housing tenant because a number of the 16 of the apartments have been bought by a housing trust so they can allocate them to social tenants or affordable housing tenants. And the second Sandra was really thrilled to get this fabulous new apartment because they are really quite stunning in Wollongong and Sandra, number one, was really, really happy to be living with, you know, a diverse community as well.

Jimmy

That’s great.

Sue

So it’s really fantastic. And the developer, the director is a guy called Charlie Dowd, really hopes this is going to be a template for the future because overseas we often have housing commission tenants living in the same building as private owners. But here it hasn’t really happened.

There’s always been a bit of segregation.

Jimmy

Yeah, I mean, look, I’m thinking of the story from London last year where there’d been a development which was mixed use in terms of housing commission and private ownership. And the developers built a wall to prevent the children from the housing commission playing in the playground.

Sue

Oh, I remember that story. It’s heartbreaking.

Jimmy

Well, it was, but it was actually quite encouraging because the people who lived there decided that they didn’t want this and they knocked the wall down and they had a big party in the playground.

Sue

Great. But it’s interesting. Elsewhere in Sydney alone, the other week there was a story about a community protesting against a planned social and affordable housing block being near their private block and being near a school.

And they were saying, no, no, no, we want it somewhere else, further away.

Jimmy

Not in my backyard.

Sue

Exactly. And that’s so short-sighted. It’s awful.

Jimmy

Yeah. And this is where governments really have to step in. And this is the role of government to push past people’s worst instincts.

Sue

Absolutely.

Jimmy

And force people to kind of do things that they should be doing anyway, but probably don’t.

Sue

And often out of ignorance. I mean, Sandra, number one, the private person, was saying that too many people look at people in social and affordable housing and say, oh, they’re going to be doll bludgers and drug users. And it’s ridiculous.

I mean, they’re often people who are just struggling. I mean, they can be, you know, police officers, they could be nurses, but, you know, they’re not on great salaries. But they can’t afford the huge rents that you often have to pay these days.

And Sandra, number two, I mean, it’s a great case in point. She was a single mum with two sons. One of her sons had mental health issues.

And sadly, he’s no longer with us. And her other son, you know, she was kind of working hard to bring him up on her own. And she moved to Wollongong and she was homeless at first because she just couldn’t afford any rent.

And now she’s got this great new apartment with her son. And he has a disability. And she, you know, she’s looking forward to a fabulous new life.

And that’s great.

Jimmy

That’s fantastic.

Sue

And she’s really excited that she’s not being marginalised out in the boondock somewhere because the private housing people don’t want her anywhere near. Yeah.

Jimmy

All right. We have run over time by a huge amount. But it’s great to get all that stuff out. And there was a lot to talk about today. And I’m sure there will be a lot to talk about next week, too. Thank you, Sue, for bringing your stories. And I look forward to reading that in the Sydney Morning Herald in the next couple of days. Thank you all for listening.

Sue

Bye.

Jimmy

Bye.

 Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.