CL
I was born and raised in the UK and moved to Perth in 2000 at the age of 36

When you buy land in Australia there is always some kind of 'restrictive covenant'. These are usually set by the person/firm who develops the land in the first place

By that, I mean the person that takes the 'raw dirt' and turns it into 'lots/plots' of land that can be built on

For instance, many years ago I was involved in land development. We bought a 5-acre 'field' and turned it into 25 lots/plots of land ready to be sold to people who wanted to built their own house. We had to put in the basic infrastructure such as roads, street lighting, sewers, water and power etc

We then set 'restrictive covenants' on the whole development which essentially helps us to sell the finished lots/plots

These restrictive covenants may be something to do with the angle/pitch of the roof or the materials that the houses may be built out of. We may insist on brick-and-tile as opposed to metal-frame houses for instance (there are many building styles in Aus)

There is usually no time-limit on when a house should be built after the land is purchased and may people buy land for investment purposes only (better than money sitting in the bank earning interest) Others built a cheap house and rent it out to provide passive income, or build their 'dream house' in order to live there

Un-developed blocks of land have weeds - they grow profusely in Australia - so they essentially become a 'fire-hazard' in summer when they die and dry-out

Therefore it's a local council bylaw that un-developed blocks of land should have the weeds removed to a distance of one metre from the boundary fence in order to create a fire-break

This is usually done by the end of November before the 'official' first day of summer on Dec 1

In my personal case (with the block of land in another town about 100km from Perth) the local bylaw said Nov 15th was the date by which fire-breaks should be installed - but I didn't know

I had it done by the end of November (as is usual) but was essentially fined for being 'late'

The local council didn't have my address and sending a letter to a vacant block of land is pointless - so they just fined me knowing I wouldn't receive the notification, and suspended my driving licence after the standard 28 days 'time-to-pay'

This is the problem in Australia - you can actually get fined for something you know nothing about. You can be fined and not know you have been fined. The fines-enforcement dept don't give a shit - you have a fine registered against you, so just pay it and life will be OK again - all your problems will just go away!

They simply try to frighten you into paying without question

If you argue and put up a bit of a fight, it's amazing how many of those fines just disappear - probably because they were never justified in the first place