As the secretary of a strata committee, I attended a mediation session at Fair Trading a number of years ago, in relation to an owner who had not paid their levies for a considerable period. During the mediation the owner made a number of promises and undertaking to pay their levies. But that did not happen, and the owner’s continued not paying their levies.
So I contacted Fair Trading to request copy of the mediation determination; I assumed a transcript of the mediation meeting had been kept, or at least a summary of the outcome. It was shocking to be told that Fair Trading did not keep any record at all of the mediation session, or its outcome. They could not even tell me the mediator involved to get his recollection of the outcome. So what was the purpose? Keeping no records means we had to rely on memory, which has no legal validity. So mediation is actually worthless, or less that worthless, since it wastes everyone’s time and money, and any result evaporates into the ether the moment the session finishes.