#27819
Sir Humphrey
Strataguru

    @Austman said:


    @JimmyT
    said:
    But for the first time we will have to address a national readership with all the myriad subtle (and not-so-subtle) differences between different states’ strata laws.  My mind is already boggling.

    Great news!

    I realise that NSW is around 30% of the Australian population but there’s still around 70% left!  🙂

    One day (and it won’t be soon) there might even be “harmonised” strata laws.  The state and territory governments have actually done that in several other important areas, so it’s not an absolutely impossible dream.

    But until then we have at least 8 versions of strata law …  

    When I was young, I thought the states were a useless anachronism and we really only needed two levels of government, national and local, not three. [At that time I was entirely unaware of the 4th tier of government, the Owners Corporation.] 

    Now I think the states serve several useful functions. They provide safe-guards. For example, individual states can push on with renewable energy even while we have a federal government doing all it can to discourage investment. 

    A state government can try something without disrupting the entire country. If it works well, the rest can follow. It can be easier for some sorts of grass-roots proposals to get up initially eg. s.23 of the ACT’s Unit Titles (Management) Act is essentially my submission to a review of the Act based on the experience of just one OC. However, it is there now for other states to follow if they care to. I doubt I would have had the same influence on a national strata law. 

    That said, my experience is of the 2nd and 3rd tier of government being collapsed to one (ACT’s legislative assembly is both the local council and state functions). It can neatly bypass some matters that are difficult to handle across tiers of government.