The Tasmanian Government is committed to ensuring that landholders’ rights are protected.
Landholders involved in disputes about plants can expect better results after the Legislative Council today passed the Neighbourhood Disputes About Plants Amendment Bill 2019.
This Bill further strengthens the scheme established in 2017 to provide a cost effective, efficient and accessible means to resolve these disputes.
This legislation provides new enforcement provisions to ensure orders made by the Resource Management and Planning Appeal Tribunal under the Neighbourhood Disputes About Plants Act 2017 are complied with.
The scheme will allow affected landholders to carry out work that has not been completed and to recover reasonable expenses incurred.
The legislation also inserts a specific offence and penalty provision for failing to comply with an order of the Tribunal.
In addition, it will allow the Tribunal to waive, reduce or refund all or part of an application fee for affected landholders.
The scheme encourages informal dispute resolution as a first step. Where disputes are unable to be resolved in this way, an application can be made for the Tribunal to resolve the matter.