MONOGRAPH 40 volume 1

136 Transparent and consistent sentencing in the Land and Environment Court of NSW: orders for costs as an aspect of punishment Judicial Commission of NSW 2.5 Summary of findings on value of monetary punishments Tables 14a and 14b present summary information on the various reported offences, providing a convenient way for comparing average fine amounts, prosecutor’s costs, remediation costs and “total” costs under the current applicable offence and penalty regimes. Key findings from Tables 14a and 14b Note, in Table 14a only single offences are compared; in Table 14b , the statistics were derived for two or more waste offences: 735 • The largest total pecuniary costs were noted for pollute waters offences, where the average “total” pecuniary punishment exceeded $141,000. Pollute waters offences also received the highest average fine ($83,346) and the highest average prosecutor’s costs ($57,677). • Convictions for native vegetation offences also resulted in total pecuniary costs to the offender in excess of $100,000. Both the average fine amount ($58,065) and the average costs order ($44,787) were high for this offence compared to other offences (excluding pollute waters offences where the average fine and average costs order were higher; and waste offences where average prosecutor’s costs were on par). • Contravene licence offences carried the lowest average prosecutor’s costs of any “Top 5” offence. Presumably, this is because criminal proceedings and investigation of this type of environmental offence is made easier because of self-reporting of breaches which is not uncommon for this type of offence as it is a general condition of holding an environmental protection licence. Offenders convicted of contravene licence offences were subject, on average, to the most expensive restorative orders ($95,803), even higher than for pollute waters offences ($74,000). • While offences against TPOs, a subset of s 125 offences (offend against direction or prohibition), received on average the lowest fines ($16,951), the costs orders ($31,348) associated with these criminal matters comprised over 65% of the total pecuniary punishment received. • The full set of s 125 offences were characterised similarly by lower average fine amounts ($17,888) and substantial costs orders ($28,063) that regularly exceeded the amount of the fine ordered. • Waste offences were identified as having the second highest average prosecutor’s costs ($45,826) of all offences. Costs orders for waste offences comprised the highest share of the total pecuniary punishment of any category of offence at just under 70%. 735 All comparisons except for waste offences based on a “single offence, fined, with known prosecutor’s costs”. Two or more waste offences are more the norm in cases before the LEC, although commonly they are recognised as a singular course of conduct or single episode. See general discussion at [2.4.4]. The discrete sub-category used to calculate average fine amounts and costs (etc) for waste offences was “2 or more offences, fined, with known prosecutor’s costs”.