I don’t think the advice given to you by your Strata Manager is correct.  

If you refer to:  https://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/sites/ftw/Tenants_and_home_owners/Strata_schemes/Bylaws_in_your_strata_scheme.page

It states:

Model by-laws 

The Strata Schemes Management Regulation 2016 includes a set of model by-laws which provide ‘sample rules’ to guide the owners corporation in setting their own by-laws. Owners corporations can choose to adopt these or make changes to better suit their circumstances to manage issues in strata like overcrowding, pets, parking, and smoke drift. Schemes are not required to adopt or adapt any of the model by-laws, they are available to assist schemes in reviewing and making by-laws to suit their scheme. Model by-laws cannot be the by-laws for your scheme unless they are first formally adopted by the owners corporation and registered with the Office of the Registrar-General. (emphasis added)

However your strata must review their by-laws by 30 November 2017. Your strata may choose to use the new Model by-laws or keep their old ones.

Our strata recently reviewed our ByLaws and decided to adopt the new model ones (Item 5 on pets we selected option B, item 9 on smoking option A).