Being fined rates highly among life’s greatest annoyances. It can also rank right up there with its most financially crippling if you happen to be at the pointy end of a company undertaking unauthorised work - construction, clearing or otherwise - on what the NSW government legally deems waterfront land. 

What constitutes waterfront land? Any land or bed of a waterway 40 metres from the mean high bank. But unfortunately, an increasing number of organisations carrying out “controlled activities” - anything from construction to clearing or depositing rocks, sand or plants - on such parcels without proper approvals has led to NSW imposing some of the strictest penalties in the country.

Since September 2024, fines for proceeding with “controlled activities” without approval have risen over ten-fold for corporations - from $1500 to anywhere between $6000 and $15,400 - and for individuals, from $750 to between $3000 and $7700.

Why the big deal? “Undertaking work on waterfront land can threaten the waterway’s health,” explains Dion Bull, a Forster-based lawyer with Stacks Law Firm Stacks Law Firm | Lawyers NSW QLD ACT - Australia  and member of the NSW Environment and Planning Law Association. “This presents risks to the ecosystems and impacts on other water users up and downstream.” 

Some of the most prominent cases in recent years to highlight the impact of such breaches have occurred near Port Stephens on the NSW North Coast, Clyde River on the NSW South Coast and near Mildura’s irrigation areas in north-west Victoria. 

In the Port Stephens case, a company was fined a total $88,000 by the Natural Resources Access Regulator (NRAR) and ordered to pay a further $20,000 in professional costs after being found guilty of four charges ($22,000 each) in relation to unapproved works on waterfront land. The Raymond Terrace Local Court heard that in 2019 the company removed plants from three sites along a creek in Port Stephens as well as placed rock and turf at another site without approval.

The judgement sent a “clear message to landholders that if they flout NSW water management laws, they risk the full force of the law,” said Grant Barnes, Chief Regulatory Officer of the NRAR. “Unauthorised works can cause instability of stream banks, soil erosion and an increase in sediment as well as destruction of habitat.”

Another local court case, this time on the NSW South Coast, involved an individual being convicted of two offences - clearing vegetation & depositing material, as well as building a boat ramp, on land fronting the Clyde River over a two-year period. The waterfront land in question was also adjacent to a Marine Park and on Crown Land, and the harm involved the clearing of more than 500 square metres of woody native vegetation and potential pollution from excavation and erosion at the site. 

As the defendant showed genuine remorse, and entered a guilty plea as early as possible, the magistrate granted them a 25% discount on the penalty, handing down $7500 per offence (instead of $10,000) and ordering the defendant pay a total $15,000 fine. 

In one of the largest fines, a Mildura wine company was last year slapped with almost $500,000 in fines for illegally siphoning water from an irrigation pipeline over a three-year period. 

Want to avoid a fine? Then seek regulatory approval for a “controlled activity” on waterfront land, activities such as:

  • Construction; erecting a building and similar 
  • Removing material such as rocks, sand, gravel and/or plants
  • Depositing material on waterfront land, from landfill to organic matter including rocks, gravel and boulders
  • Embarking on full-scale construction of infrastructure such as bridges, roads, sea walls, re-aligning channels and/or taking any measures to control erosion.