Government to Crack Down on Planning Law Breaches

Pru Goward , Minister for Planning, announced earlier this month that the NSW Government is to introduce new laws that aim to ‘crack down’ on individuals and companies who breach planning rules.

The new penalties to be imposed for breaches of planning law will be the harshest in all of Australia - a maximum penalty of $5 million for companies, and $1 million for individuals.

The new plans by the NSW Government will

• Introduce a new three-tiered system for fines, based on the seriousness of the offence. The tiered system will allow a fine of up to $5 million for companies breaking the rules under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act;
• Increase the seriousness of the offence of providing false or misleading information as part of environmental impact statements;
• Make apparent that it is an offence to not declare political donations made by directors of companies that are related to development applicants, in addition to political donations from the applicant themselves.

Ms. Goward said the new rules allow the powers of the Land and Environment Court to better correlate to community expectations. She said:

“Each of these offences undermine the community’s faith in the way planning decisions are made – these changes send a message that we’re serious about making the system fairer. For example, when developers fail to properly declare political donations or environmental impact statements can’t be relied upon, the system lets the community down. These changes mean political donations can no longer be hidden away in chains of subsidiary companies, and that breaching environmental conditions carries a greater penalty.”

Under the current law, all offences committed under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act are punishable by a maximum penalty of $1.1 million – fines have been at the same level sine 1999.

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