You are correct about the recently added responsibilities and workload for committee members. The Dept of Fair Trading will shortly (“within weeks” according to the NSW Strata Commissioner, Angus Abadee, at a conference on 14 August) be requiring strata committee members to take a 1 hour training course, in order to be on a strata committee.
But as long as some owners are volunteering to be on the committee and the building is well run, and the other owners are content with how it is being managed – and there is a professional strata manager involved, then the system is working.
The obvious response for buildings when this isn’t the case is “Don’t the owners want to sell some day?” If you are an owner in a building which is not operating properly, then you will have big problems selling the Unit! The strata report on a strata building that is not fully compliant with the law will ensure that the Unit is unsellable, or only sellable at a large discount. Even if you sell to a naive purchaser, they will be able to take legal action against the previous owner, if they later find the strata laws were not followed. Who would purchase in a building that has not been holding Annual General Meetings, and approving repairs and maintenance in properly convened strata committee meetings? No-one sensible.