This week on the Flat Chat website we celebrate the launch of Sue's new book about spray-on skin pioneer, Professor Fiona Wood.What's the link with strata? Well, if there ever was a cladding fire and someone was badly burned and ... em ... OK, Sue's the link. Forgive us for indulging in a little self-promotion.Elsewhere on the pod, we take a closer look at the much-vaunted (by us if no one else) iCIRT star ratings for developers and come away a little disappointed.Basically, if a developer gets more than three stars, they’re on the list. Fewer and they’re not. But there’s no actual star rating on show (unless it’s on their advertising).And what about developers who’ve been late in getting with the program or have decided it’s not for them?Sue has a very pointed message for the backsliders and recalcitrants.Elsewhere on the pod, Jimmy takes a deep dive into some new strata laws and regulations and works out what the strange change in office bearer nominations rules is.Most importantly, he says, why was it so hard to find it out.And finally we talk about a council in Sydney that wants to curb short-term holiday lets by increasing their rates, and a group in Byron Bay that’s battling to prevent holiday lets there being restricted.All that and more on the Flat Chat Wrap.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy 00:00It's a long weekend everywhere else in Australia (I think), but not here, in the Flat Chat Wrap studio.Sue 00:07Yes, we never rest.Jimmy 00:09We never stop, as Ange Postecoglou says of his football team, Celtic. We are a bit annoyed this week; very annoyed, actually... Annoyed and disappointed. We are annoyed about the latest press release from New South Wales Fair Trading, about changes that have been made to the regulation. And we are disappointed about the iCIRT developer ratings thing, that we trumpeted (at great length) last week.Sue 00:36A bit disappointed; we're not completely disappointed...Jimmy 00:38We're not distraught; we are just a little bit, hmm.... We will be talking about that in a minute. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue 00:50And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy 00:53And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]JimmySue, you're back from Perth?Sue 01:11Yes. That's right.Jimmy 01:12What were you doing over there?Sue 01:13I just had the launch of my new book, a biography of Professor Fiona Wood, the burn surgeon; world-leading burns pioneer.Jimmy 01:20Is she the spray-on skin woman?Sue 01:22She is, yes. She became quite famous, because of the Bali bombings; that's when we all started noticing her and then she became Australian of the Year. Amazing woman.Jimmy 01:29And it's the 20th anniversary?Sue 01:31 It is next week, of the Bali bombing.Jimmy 01:33How did the book launch go?Sue 01:34It went fabulously, actually. There were 200 people in the audience and we signed 300 books. It was fun. You know, there was real love in the room for Fiona and maybe, a little bit for me. It was really good!Jimmy 01:34We don't have any link between burns victims and strata, unless you count flammable cladding and we haven't had any burns victims in Australia from that, yet.Sue 01
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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.
