Podcast: High-rise help, hikes and horror in the UK

Your intrepid Flat Chat team’s travels take them to London this week but that doesn’t mean they have lost touch with what’s happening in Australia.

For a start a boost to funding for tenants’ supports agencies has been announced by the NSW state government.  

That will no doubt be very useful when the inevitable confusion arises from the raft of changes to tenancy laws, passed by state parliament last week, come into effect in the new year.

That doesn’t just help tenants. As Jimmy says, if landlords or even owners corporations want to know what renters’ rights and responsibilities are, check the websites that offer advice to tenants and you’ll know exactly where they are coming from.

Then we have the latest apartment prices from the last quarter with Queensland outstripping Melbourne.

And finally, a sad story that has a bit of everything: A pregnant mother of five falls from a tenth-storey window, a boyfriend with a criminal history, conspiracy theories on the internet and a miracle of survival.

But seriously, if as Sue says, you find the story disturbing or know someone who does need advice and support, you can always call Lifeline on 131 114 or go online HERE.

Transcript in full

Jimmy (0:00 – 0:21)

So here we are in London, in a very nice hotel with a view of the Tower of London. I say a view of the Tower of London, we’re almost in the Tower of London. But hopefully not in the execution bit.

No, and just keeping an eye, trying to keep an eye of what’s happening in the world. I think we did promise people that we’d be in Paris, but I got my timing wrong. We’re not in Paris till next week.

Sue (0:22 – 0:24)

So will we be doing the podcast from Paris next week?

Jimmy (0:24 – 0:25)

Yes, we will.

Sue (0:25 – 0:26)

Excellent.

Jimmy (0:26 – 0:51)

So what we do try to do while we’re traveling around is pick up on what’s happening in apartment living in other parts of the world, as well as keeping an eye on what’s happening back in Australia. What’s happening back in Australia is the government has just announced $4 million in funding for tenant support agencies, and the new list of house prices or apartment prices.

Sue (0:51 – 0:53)

The apartment prices have just been released by Domain.

Jimmy (0:53 – 1:09)

And we are looking at a sad story from an apartment block here, I think, in London. I’m Jimmy Thomson. I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review, and I edit the flatchat.com.au website.

Sue (1:09 – 1:15)

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

Jimmy (1:15 – 1:38)

And this is the Flat Chat Wrap. So the Minister for Fair Trading has announced an increase in funding for tenancy support agencies.

Sue (1:38 – 1:41)

Oh, that’s really good. I guess they’re always short of funding, aren’t they, really?

Jimmy (1:42 – 1:54)

Yeah, and they’re going to need advice. These are for the groups that support and advocate and advise tenants. And with the new laws that went through Parliament last week, which have not been enacted yet.

Sue (1:54 – 1:55)

In New South Wales.

Jimmy (1:55 – 2:21)

In New South Wales. They’re talking about a network of 21 local not-for-profit organisations to help tenants understand their rights, support them during negotiations, and in resolving disputes, and assist and advocate for them at NCAT. So that’s an extra $1 million a year.

And in 2024-25, funding has increased to $16.2 million.

Sue (2:21 – 2:49)

Oh, okay. Now, it’s interesting because I think when apartment owners hear that tenants are getting new powers or getting more money to help them, some of them do get a bit alarmed. And I know in Victoria, which have had no-for-evictions for a while now, a lot of the investor groups are saying, oh, well, people won’t invest in apartments anymore because tenants have more rights.

And I really disagree with that, because I think if you have a healthy relationship between tenants and owners, that’s the best way to go, really.

Jimmy (2:49 – 3:25)

And this is where the issue exists. What is a healthy relationship between the tenant and the owner? And for years on the FlatChat website, I’ve had landlords writing to us and saying, oh, my tenant wants this, my tenant wants that.

What are my rights here? And usually what I tell them to do is go to the tenants’ union website. And have a look.

And they will give you the tenant’s view of what the landlord’s responsibilities are. And why would you go anywhere else? Because that’s exactly what’s going to be brought up at a dispute, if a dispute goes to NCAT.

Sue (3:25 – 3:50)

And most tenants are paying such high rents now, that they kind of deserve to live in a place where there are repairs done regularly, where the place is upgraded regularly, and where there are fair negotiations over any more rent increases, really. And where they’re not going to be evicted just because an owner wants to increase the rent by so much more that they think it could be challenged. And what’s the rules around that, Jimmy?

Jimmy (3:51 – 4:32)

Well, the rules on increasing rents are pretty vague. Basically, there is no percentage. A lot of people say, oh, you’re only allowed to increase them by CPI, or you’re only allowed to increase them by a maximum of 5%.

What really happens is the landlord will come to the tenant and say, OK, if you want a new lease, a renewed lease, the rent is going to go up by however much they think it’s worth. Now, it’s up then to the tenant to either pay that, move out, or challenge it at the tribunal. And the basis on which you challenge it is not a percentage, but whether it’s deemed to be a fair rent in comparison to similar rents in the same area.

Sue (4:32 – 4:35)

Right, OK. So it can’t be too outlandish.

Jimmy (4:35 – 4:41)

It can’t be too much. Now, one of the things that has changed in the new laws is there can only be one rent increase per year.

Sue (4:41 – 4:42)

Oh, OK.

Jimmy (4:42 – 5:08)

So that’s helpful. And it means that tenants can’t, every six months, be getting an eviction order or the option to be charged extra rent. That feeds into the other new law.

There’s a ban on no-grounds evictions, so that if a landlord comes to a tenant and says, we want you to move out, they have to have valid grounds for that, such as we are selling the apartment or…

Sue (5:08 – 5:09)

We’re renovating it.

Jimmy (5:09 – 5:22)

We’re renovating it, or a family member wants to move in. Now, the thing about this is there are penalties if it then turns out that this did not happen and was never going to happen. The landlord can be fined quite a lot of money.

Sue (5:22 – 5:30)

Oh, OK. So if the apartment suddenly appears being advertised for rental for a bit more money, or for a lot more money, really, they could be prosecuted for that.

Jimmy (5:30 – 5:31)

Yeah.

Sue (5:31 – 5:33)

And I actually think that’s fair enough.

Jimmy (5:33 – 5:34)

Oh, yeah.

Sue (5:34 – 5:35)

You know, no-fault evictions.

Jimmy (5:35 – 5:55)

It’s just too easy to… There are some landlords who regard tenants as a commodity rather than people, and just say, oh, I could be earning… The guy next door is renting his apartment for X amount.

I should be getting that. I’m just going to tell my tenants to get out so that I can get somebody in at that rent.

Sue (5:55 – 5:57)

Yeah, and that’s people’s homes.

Jimmy (5:57 – 5:57)

Yeah.

Sue (5:57 – 6:03)

And we depend on renters. We need tenants to keep those investments going. So we need to treat them respectfully.

Jimmy (6:03 – 6:22)

But the law, the tribunal, will set a fair rent. And so, you know, all this stuff about landlords saying, oh, everything’s in favour of the tenants. Well, no, it’s kind of in favour of a fair deal.

And if a fair deal is a problem that you have as a landlord, well, maybe you’re in the wrong business.

Sue (6:23 – 6:24)

Absolutely.

Jimmy (6:24 – 6:49)

But the other things that came through in the law, and we have a story on that on the website, is that it makes it easier to have pets. They have to offer a fee-free way to pay the rent. Now, a lot of landlords have been getting their rent paid through an agency, and the agency takes a commission which the tenants have to pay.

They’re going to stop that. They can still have the agency, but the commission has to be paid by the landlord.

Sue (6:49 – 6:53)

Which is only fair, really. I was amazed that they could actually pass that on.

Jimmy (6:53 – 7:03)

Well, they just do because they get away with it. And they’ve got to ban renters paying for background checks, which I think is incredibly reasonable.

Sue (7:03 – 7:07)

But renters having to pay for their own background checks? My God.

Jimmy (7:08 – 7:27)

Yeah. And apparently, last year, Fair Trading responded to 393,000 rental inquiries. So you can see why they’re pumping money into the advice.

It’s cheaper to have all these sort of semi-voluntary organisations doing the heavy lifting.

Sue (7:27 – 7:34)

And well-informed tenants and well-informed landlords, rather than afterwards sorting out the problems that have been caused by a lack of knowledge.

Jimmy (7:35 – 7:51)

Yes. When we come back, we are going to talk about how much it costs to buy an apartment in Australia these days. That’s after this.

OK, Sue, you got the figures? You got the facts?

Sue (7:51 – 9:02)

Yes, the latest quarterly domain report has just come out on house prices and apartment prices. And it’s really interesting because price growth has really slowed. But apartment price growth is marginally higher than house price growth.

And after COVID, we all thought, well, houses seem to be prices growing much more strongly, and they were for a while. But now apartments have overtaken them. But they’re only rising prices for apartments, only rising slightly, really.

The price growth has really moderated over the last quarter, and that’s the September quarter of this year. So the latest quarter for Sydney apartments, prices rose by 0.9%, which isn’t very much when you consider the incredible price growth we saw in the years after COVID. And the annual price growth has been 3.7%. And Melbourne has been a bit less. The Melbourne apartment market has been quite weak. So the quarterly change has been 0.5%, and the annual change 1.5%. And it’s interesting because Brisbane is a much stronger market at the moment for apartments. Their quarterly rise has been 3.3%, and their annual rise in the price of apartments has been 19.2%, which is quite incredible.

Jimmy (9:02 – 9:08)

Would you buy in Brisbane now, or do you think there’s more rise to come in that market?

Sue (9:08 – 9:33)

I think there are more rises to come. A lot of onlookers believe that the games coming up, the Olympic Games coming up in 2032, will continue to fuel price growth. And there’s a huge spend on infrastructure in Brisbane at the moment, and that’s really kind of helping increase confidence in the city.

And there is a real housing shortage. And so while there will be more apartments built, there is still a huge undersupply of apartments, really.

Jimmy (9:34 – 9:44)

Right. And we found that infrastructure happening when we were up there a month or two ago at a conference. The roads were all dug up, and they’re extending the light rail, I think.

Sue (9:45 – 9:55)

That’s right. And they’ve got their heavy rail as well, going strong. I mean, the median apartment price in Brisbane now is higher than the median apartment price in Melbourne.

Jimmy (9:55 – 9:55)

Wow.

Sue (9:55 – 10:00)

Now it’s $610,321.

Jimmy (10:00 – 10:01)

Right.

Sue (10:01 – 10:12)

Melbourne is $572,491. So it’s kind of $40,000 more to buy in Brisbane than in Melbourne.

Jimmy (10:12 – 10:12)

Right.

Sue (10:12 – 10:22)

And of course, both are dwarfed by Sydney, where the median house price has now hit a new high, really, of $815,258.

Jimmy (10:22 – 10:23)

That for a house or apartment?

Sue (10:23 – 10:24)

That’s an apartment.

Jimmy (10:25 – 10:25)

Wow.

Sue (10:25 – 10:28)

So yeah, I mean, it’s a lot, isn’t it, really?

Jimmy (10:28 – 10:28)

Yeah.

Sue (10:29 – 10:58)

I was looking yesterday, like we’re in London, as Jimmy said, and I went to my hometown, which is not a very nice town, in Essex. And I visited my old house, the house where I was born, and my parents lived there for about 50 years. And I looked in a real estate agent, and the median house price of this place, Basildon in Essex, is now about, for a house, is for a three-bedroom house, is about $580,000.

Jimmy (10:59 – 11:01)

That’s a million dollars. Not $580,000.

Sue (11:01 – 11:04)

No, dollars, dollars. It’s about 300,000 pounds.

Jimmy (11:04 – 11:05)

Wow.

Sue (11:05 – 11:32)

So it’s significantly less than the Sydney apartment price, and probably a bit less than the other apartment prices as well. So, you know, Australia prices are still pretty strong, you know, compared to lots of areas in Britain. I mean, Britain kind of has a huge gulf, as does Australia, between wealthy areas and poor areas.

I mean, you can still buy a croft, I think, in the Scottish Highlands, where we’ve just been up there for 100,000 pounds.

Jimmy (11:32 – 11:32)

You can buy a castle.

Sue (11:33 – 11:33)

Well, yes.

Jimmy (11:33 – 11:34)

You can buy an island.

Sue (11:34 – 12:20)

Yeah. But I mean, my old house was a very modest terrace house, three bedrooms, but the bedrooms were tiny, because I wrote to the people who live there now and said, is there any chance I could come and look at your house, just for old time’s sake? And it’s a Bangladeshi couple who’ve just bought there and just moved in.

And they were really nice. They were incredibly welcoming and saying, yes, come and look. So I went there and they invited me into the home and they showed me everything.

And it was tiny, this house. And I mean, we were a family of five and we grew up there thinking it was a massive castle, really. And it was so pokey and tiny.

And, you know, one bathroom, because that’s what it was in those days for five people. And wow, it was incredible, really.

Jimmy (12:20 – 12:59)

I remember, I mean, that house would have been built in the 1950s when they were building the new town. And I remember when I lived in London, my colleagues in the newspaper were obsessed with Neighbours. Neighbours had just started showing on British television and people just loved it, absolutely.

And they did a survey of why people liked Neighbours. And number one part of the appeal was the sunshine and the sort of free and easy, you know, people walking around in swimsuits and thongs and shorts. But number two appeal was the kitchens.

People in Britain are looking at the kitchens in Australian houses and going, oh my goodness, like you could hold a dance in there.

Sue (13:00 – 13:01)

Oh, because the size of the kitchen.

Jimmy (13:01 – 13:17)

The size of the kitchen, yeah. And all the modern appliances, which of course were designed for television and not necessarily for a standard house. But that became the norm and that became the aspiration.

You know, a big kitchen with a kitchen island and, you know, your fitted cupboards and things.

Sue (13:18 – 13:26)

But it’s interesting. I mean, we’ve been to a few houses in Britain now, like in both Scotland and in England, and I haven’t been in a house yet that has a dishwasher.

Jimmy (13:27 – 13:27)

Yeah.

Sue (13:28 – 13:33)

Whereas in Australia now, I would imagine most houses and most apartments would have a dishwasher.

Jimmy (13:34 – 13:34)

Yeah.

Sue (13:34 – 13:43)

And it’s funny, the other thing that’s very different is that washing machines in Britain are nearly all front loader ones, whereas in Australia…

Jimmy (13:43 – 13:44)

Oh, I think they are in Australia too.

Sue (13:44 – 13:45)

Oh, I don’t know.

Jimmy (13:45 – 13:45)

It’s just us.

Sue (13:45 – 13:51)

I have a top loader. I like that. But lots of people have separate laundries in Australia and they maybe have top loaders.

Jimmy (13:52 – 13:52)

Yeah.

Sue (13:52 – 13:53)

Because they have the room.

Jimmy (13:54 – 13:58)

Yes. Whereas in Britain, you know, it’s built, it’s in the kitchen, if it’s in there at all.

Sue (13:58 – 13:58)

Yeah.

Jimmy (13:58 – 14:00)

Washing machines are in the kitchen.

Sue (14:00 – 14:03)

Yeah, yeah. You don’t have a separate place for the laundry.

Jimmy (14:03 – 14:09)

I remember we lived in a cottage once where we had a shed out the back with a big copper boiler in it.

Sue (14:09 – 14:10)

Oh, God, you’re old.

Jimmy (14:10 – 14:19)

At some point, we didn’t use it for that, but at some point the residents would set a fire under the boiler, fill it full of water and boil up their clothes.

Sue (14:19 – 14:22)

Gosh, I remember we had a mangle.

Jimmy (14:22 – 14:24)

Oh, we had a mangle, yeah.

Sue (14:25 – 14:28)

With a handle and you put the clothes through to squeeze the water out.

Jimmy (14:29 – 14:39)

A technological advance. When my mum’s little, tiny little Belling washing machine top loader was a built-in mangle, which was electric.

Sue (14:39 – 14:40)

Wow.

Jimmy (14:40 – 14:43)

Yeah, that was space age to us. So…

Sue (14:43 – 14:44)

That would be fantastic.

Jimmy (14:44 – 14:53)

Yeah, so you’ve gone back in time and realised how lucky you are to be living in Australia and living in a modern apartment.

Sue (14:53 – 15:07)

Yes, absolutely, and even more because one of the reasons that we’re in Britain is I’m doing some research on a book and it’s set, it’s a historical fiction, but it’s set in Britain and it starts off in the 1790s.

Jimmy (15:07 – 15:07)

Right.

Sue (15:07 – 15:15)

And a maid is doing the laundry and she is soaking the sheets in pee to get rid of any stains.

Jimmy (15:16 – 15:17)

Which sounds counter-intuitive.

Sue (15:18 – 15:28)

It does, yes, but apparently because pee is acidic, they would keep everybody’s urine from the chamber pots in the big houses and then they would soak the sheets in those to make them white.

Jimmy (15:29 – 15:29)

Wow.

Sue (15:29 – 15:35)

And you can imagine they didn’t have a mangle so they had to physically squeeze them out so it was really hard work being a maid.

Jimmy (15:35 – 15:36)

Are you sure they didn’t have a mangle?

Sue (15:36 – 15:37)

No, nope, they didn’t have a mangle.

Jimmy (15:37 – 15:39)

You’re not sure or you’re sure they didn’t have?

Sue (15:39 – 15:44)

I am sure they didn’t have one. Two maids would take either end of a sheet and then twist them. Yeah, absolutely.

Jimmy (15:45 – 15:50)

Because the good thing about a mangle was you fold up the sheet, put it through and it comes out flat.

Sue (15:50 – 15:53)

That’s true as well, so you don’t have to iron it if you did want to iron.

Jimmy (15:54 – 15:55)

But they’d have to iron it as well, I guess.

Sue (15:56 – 16:03)

Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, with hot coals, yeah. So I feel triply lucky that I live in an apartment in Australia, really.

Jimmy (16:03 – 16:05)

In the 21st century.

Sue (16:05 – 16:08)

Yes. I don’t know how we got onto that subject, sorry.

Jimmy (16:09 – 16:51)

When we come back, we’re going to take a look at a sad story from an apartment here in London, which kind of shows a big difference in the way people live, I think. That’s after this. So I was sitting on the Tube in London, as one does a lot when you’re in this huge city with its fantastic public transport system.

And there I saw the headline on the Metro free newspaper, Fall Mums Tower Safety Riddle. Now what the original story was, which had the headline Tower Block Baby, was that a pregnant woman fell from the 10th floor of the Shakespeare Tower.

Sue (16:51 – 16:52)

To her death?

Jimmy (16:52 – 16:56)

I’m trying to find out where it is. In Leeds. So it wasn’t in London.

Oh, okay.

Sue (16:56 – 16:56)

In Leeds.

Jimmy (16:57 – 17:18)

And the mystery has surrounded the death of Emma Atkinson, 38, with online theories, conspiracy theories, in other words, that she took her own life, countered by friends who said she was thrilled at welcoming her fifth child and she was also due to become a grandmother and had found happiness with her boyfriend.

Sue (17:18 – 17:21)

Wow. Gosh, a mother and a grandmother.

Jimmy (17:21 – 17:26)

At 38. A mother of five and a grandmother at 38.

Sue (17:26 – 17:32)

So say her daughter or her son was 20, so she had them at 18.

Jimmy (17:32 – 17:33)

Yeah, well.

Sue (17:33 – 17:35)

Yeah, yeah, well, hmm.

Jimmy (17:36 – 18:05)

And she’s a mother of five. Now this went on to say that her 33-year-old boyfriend is a convicted burglar who had vowed to step up for the child. So Emma was visiting her father in his 10th floor flat and the theory is that she opened the window, which had a safety latch on it, so it couldn’t be opened too far, but the latch had a catch on it that you could open to open it really wide.

Sue (18:05 – 18:06)

Oh, gosh.

Jimmy (18:06 – 18:07)

And she fell out from there.

Sue (18:08 – 18:11)

Because the catch would be, like if kids and stuff tried to open the window.

Jimmy (18:11 – 18:18)

Yeah, and she leaned too far out, she was having a cigarette. And again, look, I’m not being judgy here, but I think I am.

Sue (18:18 – 18:19)

Yeah.

Jimmy (18:19 – 18:27)

She’s a pregnant woman having a cigarette, leaning out a window. It’s very sad, but the baby survived. That’s an important thing.

Sue (18:27 – 18:29)

That’s incredible. What a tragic story though.

Jimmy (18:29 – 18:30)

It is.

Sue (18:30 – 18:32)

So she fell to her death.

Jimmy (18:32 – 18:32)

Yeah.

Sue (18:32 – 18:34)

And they probably took the baby out.

Jimmy (18:34 – 18:48)

No, so the online, the gossip online is that she took her own life. Her friends are saying, well, no, she was happy. She was looking forward to having the baby with her relatively new burglar boyfriend.

Sue (18:48 – 18:52)

Oh, I think that’s really mean that they’ve called him a burglar, really.

Jimmy (18:52 – 18:54)

I think he’s been convicted and jailed.

Sue (18:54 – 18:58)

Yes, well, absolutely. But you know, what a tragic story. And they have to drag up his past.

Jimmy (18:59 – 19:03)

Well, you’re into people not having their past dragged up these days.

Sue (19:03 – 19:04)

Well, I’ve just been watching.

Jimmy (19:04 – 19:07)

And you’re upset about Kamala Harris’s past being dragged up.

Sue (19:07 – 19:11)

It just seems bizarre that, you know, they can go back years and years and years.

Jimmy (19:11 – 19:12)

What about Trump then?

Sue (19:12 – 19:14)

Well, yeah, that’s perfectly valid.

Jimmy (19:16 – 19:34)

Right. So anyway, I just felt it was a little insight into life in Britain, life in Leeds. That, you know, a pregnant mother of five at 38 leans out a window to have a cigarette and falls to her death.

But, you know, the baby survived.

Sue (19:34 – 19:37)

It’s horrendous, isn’t it? Yeah, horrendous. The whole thing.

Jimmy (19:37 – 19:43)

Would those windows be allowed in Australia? Would they be able to open? Well, sometimes they have to open them up to clean.

Sue (19:43 – 19:55)

To clean them, absolutely. It’s really difficult, isn’t it? Because she may have been opening them up wide.

So, I mean, you know, she obviously really wanted a cigarette. Maybe her other children inside, she didn’t want to have smoke bother them.

Jimmy (19:56 – 19:56)

Yeah, fair enough.

Sue (19:57 – 19:59)

But obviously it was still going to bother her unborn baby.

Jimmy (19:59 – 20:00)

Yeah.

Sue (20:00 – 20:05)

But, you know, some people do their best. And it’s just too hard.

Jimmy (20:05 – 20:16)

It’s too hard. Life is hard. In formerly Tory Britain.

I’m going to say something that’s going to outrage you. This is not the last we’ve heard of this story. There’s going to be another.

Sue (20:16 – 20:24)

You reckon? Well, why? Because of the window being able to be opened and people…

Or because of moral judgment on the woman.

Jimmy (20:25 – 20:29)

No, I think there’s another element. Did she jump or was she pushed?

Sue (20:29 – 20:33)

Oh, gosh. Pushed. Oh, no.

Oh, how awful.

Jimmy (20:33 – 20:41)

Yeah, but I could be wrong. So we’ll keep an eye on that if we can. I mean, I can’t keep riding the tube every day and hope I pick up a free newspaper.

Sue (20:42 – 20:52)

Well, there are so few newspapers here. There’s very few free newspapers now. In my hometown where I went yesterday, there used to be three newspapers.

Jimmy (20:53 – 20:53)

Right.

Sue (20:53 – 20:55)

And now there are none.

Jimmy (20:55 – 20:57)

Do we have free newspapers in Australia?

Sue (20:57 – 21:10)

Yes, we do. We went with Courier. All those community newspapers.

I mean, there’s far fewer of them than there used to be. They’re being cut back all the time, really. But here in Britain, they’re doing exactly the same.

Jimmy (21:10 – 21:15)

Remember when Fairfax approached Murdoch and said, let’s get together and produce a free newspaper?

Sue (21:16 – 21:16)

No, I don’t.

Jimmy (21:17 – 21:20)

Yeah, and they said, get stuff. We’ll produce a free newspaper on our own.

Sue (21:21 – 21:21)

Oh, right.

Jimmy (21:21 – 21:28)

And then, I don’t know, it didn’t last very long. I don’t know, the free newspaper thing, never been a big fan.

Sue (21:28 – 21:31)

Oh, well, better than nothing, really.

Jimmy (21:31 – 21:49)

Yeah, and I think the internet has pretty much paid to that. But it was like that newspaper you found the other day, the newspaper cutting that you found the other day in your research for your new book, where the report on the Battle of Waterloo was right at the bottom corner, in the little corner of the page. It was covered with adverts.

Sue (21:50 – 21:50)

Yes.

Jimmy (21:51 – 21:52)

Like it was, the news was…

Sue (21:52 – 21:56)

This was in the Times, the London Times, in 1815.

Jimmy (21:56 – 21:57)

Yeah.

Sue (21:57 – 22:03)

And the news was that the Battle of Waterloo had been won by Britain and its allies against France.

Jimmy (22:03 – 22:03)

Yeah.

Sue (22:03 – 22:08)

And it was a tiny little report. But then inside the paper, there were pages and pages of it.

Jimmy (22:08 – 22:08)

Oh, right.

Sue (22:09 – 22:10)

On the front, it was all just adverts.

Jimmy (22:11 – 22:11)

Yeah.

Sue (22:11 – 22:14)

So, yeah, maybe we’re just going back to the future in lots of ways, really.

Jimmy (22:15 – 22:15)

Yeah.

Sue (22:15 – 22:15)

Yeah.

Jimmy (22:15 – 22:33)

All right. I think we’ve covered everything we’ve got to cover. We’ll put that report about the funding for tenant advisory services online.

And next week, we really will be in Paris, and we’ll talk to you all about the situation in apartments in Paris. Then.

Sue (22:33 – 22:43)

Yep. And if that story about the woman possibly jumping to her death or dying upsets anyone, obviously, you can always call Lifeline.

Jimmy (22:43 – 22:49)

Yes. And we’ll put that number on the show notes as well. Thank you for taking part again, Sue.

Sue (22:50 – 22:50)

My pleasure, Jimmy.

Jimmy (22:51 – 22:52)

And thank you all for listening. Bye.

Sue (22:53 – 22:53)

Bye.

Jimmy (22:54 – 23:31)

Thanks for listening to the Flat Chat Wrap podcast. You’ll find links to the stories and other references on our website, flatchat.com.au. And if you haven’t already done so, you can subscribe to this podcast completely free on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcatcher. Just search for Flat Chat Wrap with a W, click on subscribe, and you’ll get this podcast every week without even trying.

Thanks again. Talk to you again next week. Bye.

 Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.