The answer to question 1 is a definite yes.
As for Q2, it’s a lot simpler than outlined above.
Section 232.1 (e) in conjuction with Section 232.2 (below) allows you to apply for orders at NCAT to compel the committee to enforce the strata scheme’s by-laws. None other than then Fair Trading Minister Victor Dominello told me himself that he made this clear in his Second Reading of the Bill.
Just apply for mediation and then pursue the owners corp/strata committee under section 232.
Oh, and tell your strata manager to sharpen up their ideas … sure, they want to keep the committee happy but it shouldn’t be at other owners’ expense. They can issue a Notice To Comply without requiring committee approval when they see a by-law is being breached.
(1) Orders relating to complaints and disputes
The Tribunal may, on application by an interested person, original owner or building manager, make an order to settle a complaint or dispute about any of the following—
(e) an exercise of, or failure to exercise, a function conferred or imposed by or under this Act or the by-laws of a strata scheme,
(f) an exercise of, or failure to exercise, a function conferred or imposed on an owners corporation under any other Act.
(2) Failure to exercise a function
For the purposes of this section, an owners corporation, strata committee or building management committee is taken not to have exercised a function if—
(a) it decides not to exercise the function, or
(b) application is made to it to exercise the function and it fails for 2 months after the making of the application to exercise the function in accordance with the application or to inform the applicant that it has decided not to exercise the function in accordance with the application.