The family of a man who shot dead a NSW environment officer has been slapped with record fines totalling more than $700,000 for two illegal land-clearing offences in northern NSW.
In two decisions handed down on Tuesday by Brian Preston, Chief Judge of the Land and Environment Court, the son and grandson of the late farmer Ian Turnbull were ordered to pay a combined $708,750, plus the legal costs of the Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH).
Glen Turner, the OEH compliance official, was fatally shot by Ian Turnbull on July 2014 as he and a colleague were visiting the Croppa Creek area near Moree to investigate land-clearing by the Turnbulls.
Turnbull, 82, died of a heart attack in Long Bay prison in March this year, after being sentenced in June 2016 to 35 years in jail for Mr Turner's murder.
The fines handed down are in addition to the remedial work on land-clearing that the court last year ordered the son, Grant Turnbull, to conduct for illegal land-clearing on the Colorado property, OEH said. The cost of that work was put at $4.5 million for vegetation destruction in 2013 and 2014.
Grant Turnbull's fine of $315,000 covers unlawful vegetation destruction between June 2012 and January 2013, according to the court's decision.
The Turnbulls bought the 1533-hectare Colorado primarily grazing property in August or September 2011 and may have begun clearing of native vegetation as early as November 2011.
Cory Turnbull, Ian Turnbull's grandson, was fined $393,750 for one charge of unlawfully clearing native vegetation on the nearby property of Strathdoon in 2012. That sum alone was a record fine imposed by the Land and Environment Court, OEH said.
The court decision found the Strathdoon clearing had "caused a high level of actual environmental harm". When the Turnbulls bought the 916-hectare property in January 2012, about one-third of it had already been cleared for cultivation.
While significant, the fines were dwarfed by the increased value of the land after the clearing. The court noted that the Turnbulls had paid about $2 million for Strathdoon and its value had now increased to about $5 million because of higher returns from cropping compared with grazing on still vegetated land.
The fines come at a sensitive time for the government, as new vegetation laws are expected to result in an increase in land-clearing in the state.
Still, Anthony Lean, OEH's chief executive, said the large fines were a reminder that any clearing had to be within the law.
"This was the second phase of clearing on these properties, the first of which occurred in 2011 and was the subject of a successful prosecution of relative Ian Turnbull," Mr Lean said in a statement.
"While these offences occurred under the now repealed Native Vegetation Act, landholders need to ensure that proposed clearing is lawful under the new Local Land Services Act."
Sue Higginson, the outgoing chief executive of the NSW Environmental Defenders Office, said the fines were "a strong reminder that it is a significant crime to clear native vegetation without approval".
"While our Native Vegetation laws have now been changed by Parliament I would strongly advise any landholders wanting to clear native vegetation to get good advice on what is legal and what is not," she said.
