Latest news with #NSWCivilandAdministrativeTribunal
Sky News AU
9 hours ago
- General
- Sky News AU
Aussie tree pruning expert lifts lid on legal dos and don'ts of combating encroaching vegetation over neighbourhood fence
A tree pruning expert has lifted the lid on what Aussies can legally do to combat common neighbourhood disputes over encroaching vegetation. It's the thorny issue that can quickly replace the driveway wave and chit chat with brewing vengeance and a trip to Bunnings for a pair of clippers. Overhanging branches which extend beyond property lines can block sunlight, drop leaves and fruit, and potentially damage property, leaving neighbours frustrated and getting their pennies' worth out of their blower. However, before people take matters into their own hands and start an all-out war with the joint owner of their fence, Warren Yaghmour from True Blue Tree Lopping in Sydney took to TikTok to offer some advice. And the dos and don'ts of hacking into neighbours' rogue trees are clear: follow Australian standards and individual council regulations. As for throwing the branches back over the fence? A hardline don't. "Don't chuck the branches back over is definitely the first rule of thumb. That will just get you in all sorts of a mess," said Warren in a recent video. 'Of course, everything has to go Australian standards and council regulations," he added. 'So we're only allowed 10 per cent, we're not allowed to touch the canopy of the tree, so the top branches you're not allowed to prune. 'It's all the lower stuff as close as we can, and all cuts go to Australian standards, and they're back to the collar." Warren said cutting only half of the branches is a no-go. Elaborating on how best to avoid sitting beside your angry neighbour at the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT), the expert urged people to familiarise themselves with their local council's regulations. 'You've got to find out every single suburb's council, and then go through their list and see what you're allowed to do and what not,' he said. 'Different species of trees require different assessments, and sometimes you're allowed to trim big branches and sometimes not.' Warren said taking the time to know which plants can be trimmed and at what height can be the difference between a hefty fine in the mail or not. People took the comments with their own individual grievances, with one person asking what happens if the vegetation is blocking solar panels. In that case, Warren said the foliage can be trimmed back if it grows over "to your side." Another person questioned what only cutting the lower branches would achieve when it's the top ones that wreak havoc on the gutter or roof. Warren insisted it's putting away the low-hanging vegetation that "minimises the mess and branches rubbing on gutters and the roof". One more person declared it should be the neighbours' responsibility to maintain their trees and clippings. "I always throw the clippings back. Why should I have to bin it! Not to mention the fence is buckled too," the person said. More people were not having a bar of Warren's council spiel, with one person saying: "No council will stop me removing a tree over my roof." "If only the council followed their own regulations," another person said. According to the NSW Trees (Disputes Between Neighbours) Act 2006, a council permit is needed to prune or remove a tree, but the type and condition of the tree may result in an exemption from approval. Compensation for damage to property caused by a tree on a neighbour's land can also be sought through the Land and Environment Court.
Sydney Morning Herald
27-06-2025
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
This serial pest called a woman a ‘fat dumb blonde'. He says he was being picked on
Andrew Thaler knew he was wrong to call a fellow Snowy Monaro councillor a fat liar, and for publicly arguing that if a non-binary council employee couldn't work out their gender – 'know whether it's a boy or girl', as he put it – they wouldn't be able to do their job, his barrister, the former Labor MP Adam Searle, told a tribunal this week. Thaler himself was less emphatic about his regret. 'It's hard to express remorse for telling the truth,' he said under cross-examination, arguing his 'robust' language was self-defence. He argued he was not speaking as a councillor, but he was merely quoting himself from a pre-election article in this masthead when he described fellow councillor Tanya Higgins as a 'fat dumb blonde, it's physically obvious'. Thaler also doubled down on his view that the staff member was a DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) hire, invoking a Trumpian term. He also said his use of the pronoun 'it' did not necessarily dehumanise them, but rather highlighted their internal conflict. In fact, Thaler said, he was the one being picked on. He told the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT), as it considered his appeal against a three-month suspension, that some of his fellow councillors had been hostile ever since his election last year, when they tried and failed to uphold a longstanding ban on his presence in council chambers (which arose from the risk council felt his behaviour posed to its staff; his election to the council in September automatically overturned the ban). But he thinks they dislike him 'because I'm a man', he told the tribunal. 'It's because I have five kids. It's because I've been married for 19 years … those are the things that [people are hostile about] at that council.' The drawn-out saga over Thaler's behaviour has gripped the Snowy Monaro region, where he was known as a serial pest before being elected to public office with little more than 100 first preference votes. His behaviour while a councillor has prompted the minister to issue a performance improvement order to the council, that says the drama is interfering with the operations of local government. His comments about the councillor and staffer in March earned him a three-month suspension, the maximum, from the Office of Local Government (OLG). But the Snowy's controversy is the pointy end of a bigger issue. Councillors are behaving badly across the state, yet the NSW system for holding them accountable is broken. This has been openly acknowledged across the sector for at least 10 years, but there has been no reform. A government discussion paper last year laid out the problem. Council debates are 'too often personal slanging matches', it said. Frivolous complaints clog the system, leaving little capacity for it to deal with serious issues. The system for handling misconduct should not be so unwieldy and ineffective that it inhibits 'the operation and function of local democracy'. Councils manage their own complaints (which can lead to politicisation), but can refer them to the OLG if they think it's warranted. In the financial year to June 2024, Bathurst clocked up the most complaints with 38 (none were upheld), followed by Lismore with 24 (none were upheld) and Sutherland with 23 (again, none were upheld). Of a total of 381 complaints, only 45 were found to constitute a breach. They cost almost $1.5 million to investigate. There were also concerns from the sector that penalties for councillor misconduct, when upheld, are too light. The maximum suspension the OLG can hand out is three months, while NCAT can issue a disqualification of up to five years. A 2022 report found the sector was concerned that the sanctions, and the OCG and NCAT's reluctance to invoke strong ones, was an ineffective deterrent to poor conduct. That earlier report, commissioned by the Coalition government, raised myriad problems with the system, ranging from conflicts of interest, partisan behaviour, incompetence, and the lack of appropriate penalties when misconduct was found. 'Key stakeholders in the sector have lost confidence in the current arrangements,' it found, and called for an overhaul. A road map for change went to cabinet in February 2023, just before the election. But when Labor won, the new local government minister, Ron Hoenig, jettisoned that plan and began his own review. Another discussion paper was released in September last year. There's not enough dignity in local government, it said, and proposed letting the OLG issue fines to councillors, suggested a privileges committee of experienced mayors examine allegations of misbehaviour, and said bans should be solely imposed by tribunals such as NCAT (they often end up there on appeal, anyway). It also proposes councillors have to rid themselves of real estate and development business activity and contracts. A spokeswoman for Hoenig said the Labor government felt the Coalition's solution would add more bureaucracy and complexity 'to an already broken system'. A new code of conduct, mechanisms to 'surcharge' councillors for frivolous complaints and a new meeting code would be released 'soon', she said. The behaviour problem is putting people – particularly women – off running for local government. A Victorian survey found 61 per cent of female local councillor respondents had experienced threatening or intimidating behaviour from fellow councillors, while another study found half of women left council after the first term. Women have been among Thaler's most frequent targets; he has called female elected officials dumb, fat, a pig, deliberately childless, a horrendous excuse for a human, and has told a state MP – and, on a separate occasion, this reporter – to go 'suck a dick'. Licia Heath from Women for Election said women were increasingly leaving councils due to bullying and harassment. 'We will shortly have a crisis of representation in local government,' she said. That will affect other levels, as state and federal MPs often cut their teeth in council. 'I'm getting increasingly concerned that there will be a pipeline issue of talented women in our state and federal parliaments, unless relevant ministers insist now on a similar review as the Kate Jenkins Set the Standard to be conducted at the local government level,' Heath said referring to a report by the former sex discrimination commissioner. Thaler is right that there are people in the area who don't like him. Before he was elected, he'd been banned from council chambers because his behaviour was considered a workplace health and safety risk. He'd also been banned from a few businesses. He was the subject of 19 complaints over a two-month period last year, the performance improvement order said; complainants alleged his behaviour left staff and fellow councillors feeling unsafe, anxious and in one case, physically sick (Thaler said he was never given a chance to respond, and those complaints have not been investigated). Loading He told the tribunal that the council had sought legal advice about what to do with him, which said it could not ban him but they could 'discipline me out of council'. In his appeal against his suspension on Tuesday, Thaler's barrister, Searle, argued the decision made by the Planning Department deputy secretary responsible for local government was invalid because he had not conducted a proper investigation first. He also said a three-month suspension was too harsh. 'We would say the applicant would say not much weight should be given to those incidences, they occur in the context of Councillor Thaler raising significant matters of public interest,' he said. Thaler insisted he was telling the truth when he used the word liar, despite not being able to produce evidence, but admitted he should not have referred to the councillor's size. However, the barrister for the Department of Planning, Matthew McAuliffe, said the penalty would be a deterrent to both Thaler and councillors statewide. 'He was barely able to accept that what he had done amounted to misconduct,' McAuliffe said. 'Each time I asked him whether he was remorseful it was heavily qualified, if at all. Any offer to apologise was only forthcoming if there was an order to do so. It's clear that despite the passage of time, he continues to believe that his conduct was justified.' The tribunal is considering its decision.
The Age
27-06-2025
- Politics
- The Age
This serial pest called a woman a ‘fat dumb blonde'. He says he was being picked on
Andrew Thaler knew he was wrong to call a fellow Snowy Monaro councillor a fat liar, and for publicly arguing that if a non-binary council employee couldn't work out their gender – 'know whether it's a boy or girl', as he put it – they wouldn't be able to do their job, his barrister, the former Labor MP Adam Searle, told a tribunal this week. Thaler himself was less emphatic about his regret. 'It's hard to express remorse for telling the truth,' he said under cross-examination, arguing his 'robust' language was self-defence. He argued he was not speaking as a councillor, but he was merely quoting himself from a pre-election article in this masthead when he described fellow councillor Tanya Higgins as a 'fat dumb blonde, it's physically obvious'. Thaler also doubled down on his view that the staff member was a DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) hire, invoking a Trumpian term. He also said his use of the pronoun 'it' did not necessarily dehumanise them, but rather highlighted their internal conflict. In fact, Thaler said, he was the one being picked on. He told the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT), as it considered his appeal against a three-month suspension, that some of his fellow councillors had been hostile ever since his election last year, when they tried and failed to uphold a longstanding ban on his presence in council chambers (which arose from the risk council felt his behaviour posed to its staff; his election to the council in September automatically overturned the ban). But he thinks they dislike him 'because I'm a man', he told the tribunal. 'It's because I have five kids. It's because I've been married for 19 years … those are the things that [people are hostile about] at that council.' The drawn-out saga over Thaler's behaviour has gripped the Snowy Monaro region, where he was known as a serial pest before being elected to public office with little more than 100 first preference votes. His behaviour while a councillor has prompted the minister to issue a performance improvement order to the council, that says the drama is interfering with the operations of local government. His comments about the councillor and staffer in March earned him a three-month suspension, the maximum, from the Office of Local Government (OLG). But the Snowy's controversy is the pointy end of a bigger issue. Councillors are behaving badly across the state, yet the NSW system for holding them accountable is broken. This has been openly acknowledged across the sector for at least 10 years, but there has been no reform. A government discussion paper last year laid out the problem. Council debates are 'too often personal slanging matches', it said. Frivolous complaints clog the system, leaving little capacity for it to deal with serious issues. The system for handling misconduct should not be so unwieldy and ineffective that it inhibits 'the operation and function of local democracy'. Councils manage their own complaints (which can lead to politicisation), but can refer them to the OLG if they think it's warranted. In the financial year to June 2024, Bathurst clocked up the most complaints with 38 (none were upheld), followed by Lismore with 24 (none were upheld) and Sutherland with 23 (again, none were upheld). Of a total of 381 complaints, only 45 were found to constitute a breach. They cost almost $1.5 million to investigate. There were also concerns from the sector that penalties for councillor misconduct, when upheld, are too light. The maximum suspension the OLG can hand out is three months, while NCAT can issue a disqualification of up to five years. A 2022 report found the sector was concerned that the sanctions, and the OCG and NCAT's reluctance to invoke strong ones, was an ineffective deterrent to poor conduct. That earlier report, commissioned by the Coalition government, raised myriad problems with the system, ranging from conflicts of interest, partisan behaviour, incompetence, and the lack of appropriate penalties when misconduct was found. 'Key stakeholders in the sector have lost confidence in the current arrangements,' it found, and called for an overhaul. A road map for change went to cabinet in February 2023, just before the election. But when Labor won, the new local government minister, Ron Hoenig, jettisoned that plan and began his own review. Another discussion paper was released in September last year. There's not enough dignity in local government, it said, and proposed letting the OLG issue fines to councillors, suggested a privileges committee of experienced mayors examine allegations of misbehaviour, and said bans should be solely imposed by tribunals such as NCAT (they often end up there on appeal, anyway). It also proposes councillors have to rid themselves of real estate and development business activity and contracts. A spokeswoman for Hoenig said the Labor government felt the Coalition's solution would add more bureaucracy and complexity 'to an already broken system'. A new code of conduct, mechanisms to 'surcharge' councillors for frivolous complaints and a new meeting code would be released 'soon', she said. The behaviour problem is putting people – particularly women – off running for local government. A Victorian survey found 61 per cent of female local councillor respondents had experienced threatening or intimidating behaviour from fellow councillors, while another study found half of women left council after the first term. Women have been among Thaler's most frequent targets; he has called female elected officials dumb, fat, a pig, deliberately childless, a horrendous excuse for a human, and has told a state MP – and, on a separate occasion, this reporter – to go 'suck a dick'. Licia Heath from Women for Election said women were increasingly leaving councils due to bullying and harassment. 'We will shortly have a crisis of representation in local government,' she said. That will affect other levels, as state and federal MPs often cut their teeth in council. 'I'm getting increasingly concerned that there will be a pipeline issue of talented women in our state and federal parliaments, unless relevant ministers insist now on a similar review as the Kate Jenkins Set the Standard to be conducted at the local government level,' Heath said referring to a report by the former sex discrimination commissioner. Thaler is right that there are people in the area who don't like him. Before he was elected, he'd been banned from council chambers because his behaviour was considered a workplace health and safety risk. He'd also been banned from a few businesses. He was the subject of 19 complaints over a two-month period last year, the performance improvement order said; complainants alleged his behaviour left staff and fellow councillors feeling unsafe, anxious and in one case, physically sick (Thaler said he was never given a chance to respond, and those complaints have not been investigated). Loading He told the tribunal that the council had sought legal advice about what to do with him, which said it could not ban him but they could 'discipline me out of council'. In his appeal against his suspension on Tuesday, Thaler's barrister, Searle, argued the decision made by the Planning Department deputy secretary responsible for local government was invalid because he had not conducted a proper investigation first. He also said a three-month suspension was too harsh. 'We would say the applicant would say not much weight should be given to those incidences, they occur in the context of Councillor Thaler raising significant matters of public interest,' he said. Thaler insisted he was telling the truth when he used the word liar, despite not being able to produce evidence, but admitted he should not have referred to the councillor's size. However, the barrister for the Department of Planning, Matthew McAuliffe, said the penalty would be a deterrent to both Thaler and councillors statewide. 'He was barely able to accept that what he had done amounted to misconduct,' McAuliffe said. 'Each time I asked him whether he was remorseful it was heavily qualified, if at all. Any offer to apologise was only forthcoming if there was an order to do so. It's clear that despite the passage of time, he continues to believe that his conduct was justified.' The tribunal is considering its decision.
