The first thing that happens after a new government is elected is that the Prime Minister and the party divvy up the ministries.

The next thing after that is that they look at what they have promised during the election campaign and work out how much of it they can or want to implement.

In this week’s podcast we ask if the new Labor government’s commitment to co-owning homes with first-time property buyers is going to take the heat out of the property market … or just make it worse.

And will the government grasp the nettle of negative gearing and dial down the effect that one economist has described as rewarding people for making bad property investments?

We meet a new strata owner who has, with the best intentions, managed to get most of his colleagues on his committee offside by asking awkward questions.

We also look at a couple of points that came out of last week’s “Lawyer in the Hot Seat” webinar.   

The first was a part of strata law that’s generally overlooked which is that if you win a tribunal case against your owners corp, they have to find a way of making sure you don’t pay any part of their legal expenses - and that means a special levy that excludes you.

The other item that stood out was, if your owners corporation has been making donations to campaigns for or against even strata-related issues, such as pets or short-term letting, they have probably been breaking the law.

All that and more in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.

TRANSCRIPT IN FULL

Jimmy  00:00

Well, there's been an election, and we've got a new government, or we're getting one.

Sue  00:03

Yes, sure thing!

Jimmy  00:04

So we'll be talking a bit about what that means to the housing market. What else have we got on the agenda, Sue?

Sue  00:11

Well, you took part in a webinar the other day, I think, didn't you?

Jimmy  00:13

I did.

Sue  00:14

With the strata lawyer, David Bannerman, and you said that a couple of really interesting things came up there. I think you also had a really interesting query on the Flat Chat forum, from a first-time strata owner?

Jimmy  00:25

Yes, somebody who's got themselves on the committee and immediately started raising the alarm about things that they thought should have been done and hadn't been done. There's a lot to talk about. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I wrote the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.

Sue  00:41

And I'm Sue Williams, and I write about property for Domain.

Jimmy  00:43

And this is the Flat Chat Wrap. So we now have a government with the majority who are Labor Party, but crossbenchers...

Sue  01:07

Playing a big role, as well.

Jimmy  01:08

Yes and I mean, the Greens were talking about building millions of houses, or apartments. I don't remember the teal independents saying much about housing. They were very much focused on the environment and integrity.

Sue  01:26

That's right.

Jimmy  01:27

We're back to what the Labor Party was proposing, which was that they would be co-owners of houses and flats, for first time buyers.

Sue  01:39

And it's interesting, because I think the Liberals staked a lot on their plan about housing affordability; on allowing people to use more of their super and it seemed really, as if that was quite a popular notion, but then maybe, a lot of the negatives about the Liberals, outweighed that positive. But I mean, lots of people were saying, well, you shouldn't be using your super; you should be keeping it for when you're older. And other people were saying, well, it's a great idea, because an investment in super, doesn't pay as much as an investment in property.

Jimmy  02:12

That's true.

Sue  02:12

So in some ways, there were lots of things in favour of that, but maybe it just wasn't quite popular enough.

Jimmy  02:23

You know, it was all politics, really. I don't think the scare campaign about having Jim Chalmers sitting at the end of your kitch...