Out here in Murwillumbah, a swap meet is about as threatening as a CWA cake stall. Thirteen families. Some second-hand kitchenware. Kids hoping to pocket a few dollars before Christmas. That was the full extent of the event Peita Gardiman organised on the Murwillumbah Leagues Club oval late last year. The fine that followed was $6,000.
According to 9News, Tweed Shire Council warned Gardiman before the event that hosting a market without development consent could attract a penalty of up to $6,000. Gardiman initially cancelled. She says she later received word from the Murwillumbah Leagues Club that the event had been cleared to proceed, and went ahead in good faith. The club's general manager, Mark Wakefield, told 9News the goal was community connection, not commerce. A few weeks after the December market, both Gardiman and the club received fines.
Council's position is straightforward, if firm. A spokesperson told 9News the fines were issued because the event proceeded after all parties had acknowledged the written caution in November. The spokesperson also pointed out that council has no control over the penalty amount: it is set by the NSW Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979. Development applications in Tweed Shire start at $147, which makes the fine look considerably less proportionate beside the cost of the approval that was never sought.
There is a genuine complication at the heart of this story. In September 2025, the NSW Government introduced changes via its Cultural State Environmental Planning Policy, which removed the need for development consent for community events like street fairs and festivals on public land. The reform was designed to cut red tape and help communities activate local spaces more easily. Wakefield argued the new rules meant the swap meet did not require development consent. The problem is the leagues club oval is private land, and the exemption does not extend there. The law drew a line, and the event sat on the wrong side of it.
That distinction matters for the rule of law, and council is right to say so. A planning framework that can be selectively enforced based on who seems sympathetic is no framework at all. If exemptions are to be extended to private land, that is a decision for the NSW Parliament, not a local council compliance officer on the day.
Still, the scale of the penalty invites legitimate scrutiny. Wakefield told 9News the $6,000 fine represents more than half of what the club earns in a quiet month, threatening its capacity to fund local sports teams. For Gardiman, who runs small community markets across the Tweed region, the fine could end her business. These are not hypothetical impacts. When the financial pain of a regulatory breach falls hardest on a volunteer markets organiser and a regional community club, it is reasonable to ask whether the law is calibrated correctly.
Gardiman is now calling on the NSW Government to extend the Cultural SEPP's consent exemptions to private land events of a similar community character. A Change.org petition seeking a review of the fines had attracted more than 100 signatures as of the time of reporting. Challenges to the fine itself must go through Revenue NSW, council confirmed.
The reasonable middle ground here is not hard to find. Council was legally obliged to act once it had issued a written caution and the event proceeded anyway. But the law that produces a $6,000 penalty for a one-off flea market serving 13 families is a law worth revisiting. The state government's own vibrancy reforms show it understands that planning rules can get in the way of community life. Extending some form of proportionate discretion, or a graduated penalty scale, to small private-land events would serve the spirit of those reforms without gutting the consent framework. What Canberra, and Macquarie Street, sometimes forget is that a law applied without judgment is not justice. It is just paperwork with consequences.