During the week I joined a strata meeting for everyone who owns flats in my new building. The main reason for the meeting was to approve a change to the strata by-laws that excluded the entirety of one flat from the ‘common area’ of the building. The owner had decided to redo the bathroom and kitchen because when she sat on her toilet, she could see right outside to the street. My first thought was to wonder why she would have the bathroom door open when she was using the toilet, but that point was moot. The work had begun and we had to protect ourselves from liability for any damage, made now or in the future, to the common ‘wet walls’. That amendment went through unanimously.
I then questioned the value of a clause stating that no one was allowed to dry clothes or bedding on their balconies, especially when the only other option was to use a dryer which is known for its terrible power consumption and negative impact on the environment. Every balcony that I can see from my flat has a clothes rack on it that’s used regularly and the people above who look down on mine say they’re fine with me drying my clothes there, but no one would agree to remove the clause.
The last item on the agenda was to vote on whether to provide alternate options for strata notices to go out. Right now, notices of meetings, rates and warnings of violations can only be sent by paper mail, which costs in printing and stamps. The change would allow people to choose to continue to receive notices the same way or to opt for email or fax delivery. As I plan to travel and have no fixed address, it makes a lot of sense to me to receive such notices by email. Agreeing to the change would not have an impact on anyone who wanted to continue with snail mail – that option would still be available. Yet 33% of owners chose to vote against the change. It was enough to block it. I would love to know why this particular change was blocked, but the only clue I got was one of the ‘No’ voters saying, ‘too expensive.’ I didn’t get the chance to talk to him afterwards, but next time I’ll be asking what he sees as the additional cost.
Australians don’t like change. Very few referendums that directly give Australians the chance to change law and government policy have succeeded, no matter how reasonable such change should be. The most famous, of course, was when we declined to end the monarchy in favour of becoming a republic. That was a more complicated issue, with the odd form of republic that our then royalist Prime Minister proposed, but I wonder if it would have made any difference. Unless we’re voting to protect what we already have, the vote will almost always be ‘No.’