We are in a state of shock here at Flat Chat, wondering if, when David Chandler and Victor Dominello both go, and with dodgy developers already circling the bleeding carcass of Fair Trading like vultures, are we going to be back to the bad old days of seriously defective apartment blocks being the norm?We had no idea when we recorded this podcast that Victor Dominello was about to announce his resignation. NSW Fair Trading is obviously spying on us. We reached this conclusion after weeks of recording the podcast only to find out that, as soon as it was in the can, yet another high-profile departure would be announced.But we were pretty sure that this week we had it covered. A trip to Canberra for the writers festival, plus the resumption of my teaching gig, meant we didn’t get this podcast done and dusted until Tuesday morning. No last minute resignations – hurrah!Then, on Wednesday, Sue stepped on a plane for South Africa, rendering her uncontactable and therefore unrecordable for 18 hours. Minutes later, the news dropped that former, and currently caretaker Fair Trading Minister Victor Dominello is pulling the plug on his political career.It’s due to health reasons and very sad; you can read about it here. He was an innovator and hard worker and one of the best Fair Trading ministers this state has ever hadHowever, we still found a lot to discuss about the latest Fair Trading and NSW cabinet schemozzles on this week's podcast and Sue took a punt on who the latest cabinet minister to walk the plank would be. And no, it wasn't Victor. Also, we look at another collapsing (or maybe not) building in Sydney’s inner west and Sue becomes strataguru for a day when I fire your questions from the Forum at her.While you consider that, I’m off to get my office swept for Fair Trading bugs. I’m not really worried – they’ll probably stop working as soon as the warranty runs out. TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy 00:00David Chandler is going, John Minns has gone. Eleni Petinos has gone, Stuart Ayres is gone; who's next?Sue 00:07Yes! Maybe, Dominic Perrottet?Jimmy 00:10Well, we'll see. We'll be talking about that and other much more interesting (and less important things), from the forum, later on. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue 00:22And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy 00:25And this is the Flat Chat Wrap. [MUSIC]JimmySo, you think Dominic Perrottet is in danger of losing his job?Sue 00:45Well, all these things are happening under his reign, aren't they, really? And I mean, obviously, he wasn't... Well, we don't know, but we must assume that he probably wasn't a part of it, because the origins of all these scandals started a long time ago. But, he was obviously a power broker within the party.Jimmy 01:00Well, you know, they say that it's not the crime that gets you, it's the cover-up. I'm not suggesting for a moment, that any crime has occurred.Sue 01:08Of course not. Or, any cover-up!Jimmy 01:13Perrottet sacked Petinos, within a day of coming back from an overseas trip, on the (I was going to say pretext), grounds that she had been bullying (or she had been accused of bullying), in her offic
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Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.
