30 Jan 2026
Words
John Miller Informer
Mad as Hell
… and ARAMA’s CEO isn’t going to take it anymore. Nor should you.
As ARAMA CEO for the last 15 years, Trevor Rawnsley has the benefit of perspective. Over the time he has headed the management rights industry’s peak body, he has noticed a disturbing decline in how apartment owners engage with committees, caretakers, strata managers — and each other. Some of that behaviour crosses the line into bullying and harassment, an issue Rawnsley is trying to do something about.
“It’s a society wide problem, especially since Covid,” he says. “Unfortunately, we’re now living in an unkinder world. There isn’t a hospital or retail store that doesn’t have a display sign about bullying and harassment. Strata is no exception and might even be worse. When people live side by side and on top of one another, it tends to amplify disputes. With houses there’s metres between owners, in strata there’s inches. When people live cheek by jowl, there are simply more disputes. Those disputes can sometimes turn toxic and manifest as bullying and harassment. So ARAMA decided to take a stand. We have a duty of care to protect our workers and there’s legal precedent that establishes that common areas in a strata title community is a workplace covered by work health and safety laws.”
Two years ago, Rawnsley put together a special interest group to attack the issue head on. The group is a collective of stakeholders in the body corporate space: three apartment owners, two body corporate managers and a caretaker (ARAMA National President Guy Elliott). Rawnsley formed the group after hearing countless complaints from caretakers about how they were being treated by lot owners.
He sought the counsel of Queensland’s Body Corporate and Community Management Commissioner, Jane Wilson. Her suggestion was to concentrate on creating psychologically safe communities.
“Commissioner Wilson was really great in focussing our attention on positive outcomes instead of examining bullying and harassment and other negative behaviours,” says Rawnsley.
The special interest group settled on trying to nip unacceptable conduct in the bud at one of strata’s main pain points: committee and general meetings.
“We see most of the bad behaviour at this level,” says Rawnsley. “There’s bullying and harassment that goes on around the grounds and in the caretaker’s office, but it goes to the next level at committee and general meetings where it’s on for young and old. So much so that they have to have security guards in these meetings. Not all the aggression is directed toward caretakers. While caretakers are a visible and easy target, there’s just as much anger directed toward strata managers, committee members and even unit owners by other unit owners.”
“If you want to get psychological about it, it’s Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Shelter is one of our basic human needs. People can get emotionally triggered when they think their home is being threatened. That can often result in bullying and harassment, even retribution. ‘This person has done me wrong, so I will give it back to them with interest.’ All of a sudden you have lawyers at 10 paces. It’s for this reason we made the deliberate decision not to include a lawyer in our special interest group. Because it’s not a legal matter; it’s an interpersonal matter. It’s people being nasty to people.”
To tackle the problem at its source, the special interest group settled on a Statement of Intent (see below). Launched in August 2025, the Statement of Intent is designed to be read aloud by the chairperson before the start of each committee or general meeting.
“It’s meant to set the rules of engagement at body corporate meetings,” says Rawnsley. “Even if those at the meeting don’t agree with each other, they can at least agree to disagree in a respectful way. The Statement of Intent is really a motherhood statement. It shouldn’t be necessary, but it is. If you have a chairperson at the start of every meeting who says, ‘The first item on our agenda is our Statement of Intent. Does everyone agree with this?’ Then it’s the meeting setting its own rules.”
“Something as simple as a Statement of Intent can lead to a more professional, more psychologically safe meeting process. The special interest group felt that if we could get the meeting process sorted, that would go a long way towards repressing bad behaviour.”
A related initiative is ARAMA’s Mental Health Assistance Program (AMAP). Launched during Covid in mid 2020, AMAP is a free service for ARAMA members to receive up to three counselling sessions per year with a professional psychologist to help them to deal with bad behaviour experienced in the course of their strata work.
“It’s for caretakers who come to our office or ring us up and say, ‘I’ve had enough. I’m being bullied and harassed. They’re [lot owners] knocking at my door at night. I can’t cope. I need a lawyer.’ We say, ‘Perhaps it’s not a lawyer you need but a psychologist.’”
“The problem we see all too often and escalating as society becomes meaner are committees harassing caretakers to force them to sell. Caretakers have alerted us to personal threats they’ve received as well as attempts to terminate caretaking agreements and generally make their lives hell, so that a committee can install another manager or give it to a family member or do it themselves.”
As for the Statement of Intent, Rawnsley’s hope is that it will lead to better committees and in turn better strata communities.
“If good, reasonable lot owners see meetings are being conducted in a professional, polite and orderly fashion they might be encouraged to volunteer for committee service themselves,” he says. “When they see the opposite, they’re repulsed by it. It deters them from attending meetings and/or volunteering for committee service.”
“With the Statement of Intent, we’re saying, if you have a problem in your scheme this is a good place to start, particularly at the meeting. That’s the simple message I want to get out there. It’ll take time. But it’s an evolution not a revolution.” END
Statement of Intent
“We, the attendees at this meeting, understand and agree that respect is our common ground. We agree to listen to each other and not engage in personal attacks, even when we don’t agree. We commit to respectful interactions with each other and to leave any disagreements behind in the meeting room.”
