This is an excellent post and reply, to an excellent question. Well done and thanks ‘kaindub’ and ‘azaghul’.
At our Sydney strata, you ask a committee member for something, however important or however simple, they tell you to go to the strata manager.
You go to the strata manager who says he can only do what the committee tells them to do. so nothing gets done. Must be similar to a Catch 22 situation.