Consumer advocate Blake highlights case of racist real‑estate agent in WA

The first thing you notice about Trish Blake is her flash of blue hair.

It’s her trademark as the Consumer Protection Commissioner, and a deliberate style choice she makes so people in her office know they can actually talk to her on a normal level.

“I just love it, and it has become a thing now,” she says.

“Even my family, they ask ‘what’s the next colour?’ And I say, no, it’s just the hairdresser and I who discuss it.”

It’s rare in state government agencies to have someone so candid about their work, but Blake doesn’t know any other way.

Growing up south of the river, she recalls having a real “justice” streak. She hated bullies, and was intent on making sure everyone she came across got a fair go.

Even then, she was set on becoming a veterinarian until something clicked in her late high school years.

“I just woke up one day and went, ‘I’m going to be a social worker.’ It was really bizarre because I’d never had any contact with them, but it was just this lightbulb,” she says.

In a surprise to no one, Blake ended up at a local community legal centre where her primary work was helping wharfies on their last legs.

“In Fremantle I was working to help people get Centrelink benefits that they were being denied,” she says.

“It was an area where you had a lot of manual workers, and these were guys that had the most significant life-altering injuries - and you had a great behemoth of a department that would say: ‘but you can work eight hours a week filing papers in a cabinet. Don’t worry that you used to be a welder, and you’ve never worked in an office in your life. If you can work eight hours, you’re not entitled to a disability pension’.”

It was here Blake learnt to navigate the systems in a way that was best for ordinary people.

She’d eventually move to work in Gosnells, back when the suburb recorded the highest rate of domestic violence in the entire state, and when a lot of Centrelink clients began receiving threatening letters advising them of overpayment.

“It’s just social justice - it’s been a driving force. It’s just in my DNA,” she says.

From here she was eventually tapped to join what she used to call “the dark side” - the government - and slowly rose through the ranks to be responsible for protecting West Australian’s consumer rights.

For Blake, this was the ultimate.

“The beauty of governments, we have levers we can pull,” she says.

Blake’s seen it all in her time - dodgy car dealers, real estate agents - but there’s one case that sticks with her.

“The racist real estate agent,” she says.

Bronwyn Pollitt, from Mavin Real Estate, was suspended after claiming in an email to two tenants it was impossible to have a discussion about cleaning due to the difference in living standards of a “white Australian” and the “dirty squaller (sic) of many other countries”.

Consumer Protection disciplined Pollitt for racist conduct, suspending her for eight months.

“That was an absolute pivotal moment for us,” Blake says.

“It was putting a line in the sand for our entire community. That is not acceptable.”

Pollitt has since apologised and undertook training and weekly mentoring during her suspension.

Blake says the situation had an overall positive impact on her agency’s staff - which now boasts the ability to speak 16 different languages for anyone looking for help.

“When you walk through and you hear people on the phone, you’ll often hear different languages - but that means it’s accessible,” she says.

And now, Blake is kicking it up a notch.

“The Commissioner Determinations we are working on now - that is going to be a game changer,” she says.

Commissioner Determinations will allow the department to step in during bond disputes and make decisions, rather than sending a matter off to court.

“If you can’t get everyone to agree, it [used to have to] to go to court. That was your only option,” she says.

“I have no problems with landlords getting the bond because that’s what it’s there for - if they’re entitled to it. But what was concerning to us was the high-level of tenants that just weren’t engaging with that system.”

Blake says people often wouldn’t be able to get to court and could miss the chance to have their case heard.

“We’re going, ‘how is that fair? How is that balanced?’,” she says.

“What’s now happened is, we’ve lifted and shifted all of those disputes out of the courts into us as commissioner determinations, and it’s all decided on the papers.”

It’ll free up the courts, she says, and is just one of the steps Consumer Protection has taken to let people know they’re on their side.

There is also one thing she wants shoppers to know about the agency and their limits.

“Australian consumer law is a law of two halves - you have your consumer guarantees, which says what everyone’s entitled to when you buy a good or a service,” she says.

“And then we have this other half - which is the offences. With offences, we have penalties and we can prosecute.

“However, for guarantees, at the moment, there are no penalties there.

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